Category Archives: General T&T
Contradictions & Counterfactuals – Pt 3
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 20, 2018
“…a state could never have been born without surplus.” —Yanis Varoufakis
Reading Ralph Maraj and Kamal Persad’s contributions, one would think that Eric Williams and the PNM were the worst things that ever happened to Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). They seem to suggest that if only Badase Sagan Maraj and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had won the 1956 general election T&T would have been a paradise.
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“Christmas” killed, residents protest
By Ryan Hamilton-Davis
February 20, 2018 – newsday.co.tt
“Christmas” is dead, and Port of Spain residents are not happy about it.
Police allegedly shot a man with that alias during the hours of last night, and in response, residents have taken to the streets in fiery protest, burning debris and blocking major roads which lead to the capital.
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FBI tip on terror threat
By Nalinee Seelal
February 17, 2018 – newsday.co.tt
US law-enforcement officers, including the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), tipped off TT’s Special Branch and the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) in December last year on plans by a certain group of local Muslims to bomb the US Embassy in Port of Spain between Carnival Monday and Tuesday.
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Chalkdust, calypso must change or die
By Raffique Shah
February 16, 2018
Dear Chalkie,
I rarely respond to critics of views I express in my column, unless, like you, I hold them in high regard. Just as I enjoy the freedom to criticise public figures within the bounds of decency, I respect others’ right to respond to my opinions when we disagree, or even when they distort facts and resort to abuse.
Continue reading Chalkdust, calypso must change or die
Desecrating the Idyllic Nursery of Life
By Stephen Kangal
February 15, 2018
The news of the proposed surreptitious plan hatched by the HDC to further desecrate and destroy the peaceful ambience, luxuriant foliage and agricultural input of the St Augustine Nursery to establish another voter-padding housing settlement in the St Joseph constituency must be resisted by all environmentalists and the residents of Curepe-St Joseph with full civic society force.
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Contradictions & Counterfactuals – Pt 2
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 13, 2018
“…a state could never have been born without surplus.” —Yanis Varoufakis
PART 1 — PART 2
In the nineteenth century Trinidad saw the first massive giveaway of lands and bonuses to the Indians in lieu of their passages to India. Those options were never available to Africans. This was the first step in the systematic dispossession of Africans in the land to which they had been brought. Few of us seem to remember it.
Fast-forward to one hundred and thirty years (around the year 2003) when a PNM government engineered another massive giveaway of lands, which is taking place in front of our eyes under the faulty premise that Indians had the first preference because they farmed the lands. This was/is strange logic since these lands belong to all nationals.
Continue reading Contradictions & Counterfactuals – Pt 2
Mad, mad Trinidad
By Raffique Shah
February 13, 2018
When opposition and government parliamentarians jointly pursue any issue that seems to be of national importance, I become very suspicious. Recently, when they did in the instances of the passing of former President Max Richards and election of Justice Paula Mae Weekes to the presidency, I expressed my fears in this space. Now that they have unanimously appointed a special select committee of six MPs them to probe the fiasco that the appointment of a Commissioner of Police is turning out to be, I smell a rotting rat whose putrid stench permeates both political parties, some commissions and commissioners, and possibly holders of high office who are aiming to go higher and higher.
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Contradictions and Counterfactuals
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 08, 2018
“…a state could never have been born without surplus.” —Yanis Varoufakis
PART 1
V. I. Lenin, revolutionary and philosopher, believed that contradictions are inherent in everything we do. He argued: “Dialectics in the proper sense is the study of contradictions in the very essence of objects.”
Consider this: At the same time a PNM government (read black government) gives out 14,492 acres of land to ex-Caroni Ltd., workers (mostly Indo-Trinidadians) at a cost of $5 billion (Guardian, January 27), Kamal Persad claims that over the last 48 years PNM’s policies and programs “were directed towards the advancement of the black supporters of the PNM. [Eric] Williams’s intention was to create a local black professional middle and upper class to effectively replace the whites” (Express, January 24).
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$$ FOR FB POSTS
By Jada Loutoo
February 06, 2018 – newsday.co.tt
Social media users beware. You may have to pay if your posts are found to be defamatory. The warning came from Justice Frank Seepersad who yesterday ordered a woman who posted defamatory statements on Facebook, to compensate an entire family. She was sued after a series of post appeared on her page in 2016.
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