By Raffique Shah
Sunday, March 22nd 2009
I understand and can excuse the average citizen’s call for Government to cancel hosting the Fifth Summit of the Americas (SOA), and later this year, the Commonwealth Heads’ (CHOGM) meeting. After all, most ordinary people will have noted these conferences mere months ago, when Government alluded to them, to their costs, and what the country hoped to gain by hosting half of the world’s heads of governments (when both meetings are combined). The man-in-the-street would think Prime Minister Patrick Manning awoke one morning last year, and while still in a daze, took the billion-dollar decision up St Ann’s way.
Continue reading Food pact from Summit
In light of the devastating effect that AIDS is having on the continent of Africa, it is unconscionable that Pope Benedict XVI should condemn the use of condoms as a way to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS. In a recent visit to the continent where 22 million people are living with the disease, Pope Benedict XVI stated that, “condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse”. This begs the question, “How many more of Africa’s sons and daughters must suffer and die before this hood wearing demon places human life ahead of religious dogma?” Indeed, contraception is not the panacea that would put an end to this scourge, but it will do much to curb the alarming rate of infection.
For 27 years, Churaman Ramsaroop showed no signs of being a violent person. But on Monday afternoon, Ramsaroop chopped 14-year-old Zoreen Ansara Mohammed to death, after tying her up with shoe laces, slicing her with a knife and bludgeoning her with a blunt object on the head.
The Picton Folk Performing Company is one of the most recognized cultural groups in Trinidad and Tobago. Coming out of Picton, Laventille, (or as some of the residents prefer to call the area ‘Love-Until’) this group consists of about twenty-three members, most of whom are young people.
AFTER you overcome the initial shock you feel angry, very angry. Then a feeling of sadness overwhelms you, followed by stark reality that the sports you so enjoy, the sportsmen and women who give you such pleasure, who are seen as symbols of sanity amidst a sea of madness, are being destroyed before your eyes. Those are but a few of the emotions that ran through my mind as I watched the carnage that erupted in Lahore last week.
During the RIC hearings that subsequently resulted in the current electricity rate hike I made it abundantly clear that the net effect of the proposed unit rate increase from 15 cents to 35 cents per unit would result in a 45% hike in electricity bills. T&TEC and the RIC under Professor Dennis Pantin used every statistical trick in the book to deny and discredit this percentage increase.
This article seeks to clear the air as to my obdurate professional assertion that there is a direct correlation between soca lyrics and moral decadence, public pornography cum simulation of sexual intercourse and sexual promiscuity in T&T.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) defines child labour as work that exceeds a minimum number of hours, depending on the age of a child and on the type of work. Such work is considered harmful to the child and should therefore be eliminated. There remains no official statistics on the magnitude of child labour in T&T. However, rapid assessment studies conducted by the International Labour Organisation, (ILO), in 2002, uncovered some alarming facts.