Category Archives: General T&T

COP, Elections, General T&T, Media, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, UNC

PP Trumps PNM in Local Govt Poll

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PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Jack Warner
PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Jack Warner
July 28, 2010

Chamber congratulates PM Kamla and Partnership

Kamla: T&T must not go back to old days
T&T must never go back to the days of the “old corrupt, arrogant, self-serving politics of the past,” says Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Absent PNM MPs affected Diego results
Significantly two of the three MPs, Diego Martin North East MP and former Works Minister Colm Imbert who was also an aspirant to the PNM political leadership and Amery Browne were absent from the local government election campaign.
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COP, Crime in T&T, Finance, General T&T, Law, People's Partnership, Politics, Security, Violence

1990 Enquiry: Exercise in Futility

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Abu BakrI DO not know how Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her Cabinet arrived at a decision to appoint a Commission of Enquiry into the attempted coup of 1990. I suspect the hype that always surrounds the anniversary date of the Muslimeen assault on the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) government may have prompted the PM and her colleagues to attempt to “put this matter to rest for once and for all”. It certainly was not part of the People’s Partnership manifesto or 120-day action plan.
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General T&T, Health, International

Dengue Outbreak

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Aedes aegypti mosquito
Aedes aegypti mosquito
Dengue outbreak
A dengue outbreak has been declared in T&T. The confirmed deaths of three people due to the virus, unconfirmed deaths of two others and more than 600 reported cases of dengue prompted chief medical officer Dr Anton Cumberbatch to make the declaration yesterday.

3 Dengue Deaths
After two years, Trinidad and Tobago (TT) is again grappling with a dengue outbreak. The Health Ministry has received reports of five deaths out of which three have been confirmed as due to dengue haemorrhagic fever. There are approximately 600 clinical cases reported. Dengue fever is caused by an infected female Aedes aegypti mosquito.
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Books, Culture, General T&T, Race and Identity

Besson’s Cruel Accusations

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 23, 2010

Part I

Abu BakrGerard Besson’s The Cult of the Will seeks to challenge the historical orthodoxy that undergirds Dr. Eric Williams’s analysis of the causes of the abolition of slavery and the slave trade and the cruelty he perpetuated against the entire society although whites seems to come out worse in the bargain. According to Besson, Williams sought “to facilitate the stigmatization of Caribbean people of European descent, or those who appear so, through the projection of negative concepts of ‘slave master’ or ‘colonial master,’ to modern-day individuals for political and ideological purposes.”
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Features, General T&T, Law, People's Partnership, Politics, Religion, Security

Probe into 1990 Attempted Coup

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Abu BakrProbe into 1990 Coup
Twenty years later, there is going to be a Commission of Enquiry into the July 27, 1990 attempted coup which was led by Imam Yasin Abu Bakr and members of the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen. The announcement was made by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday during at the post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister, St Clair.

PM: Why did it happen?
Cabinet has decided a Commission of Inquiry into the circumstances of the July 27, 1990 attempted coup will take place to find out “what went wrong” and to “bring closure” and relief to citizens traumatised by the event.
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Africa, Culture, Race and Identity, Religion

Identifying with Ancestral Home

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Emancipation Celebration
Emancipation Celebration
July 22, 2010 – guardian.co.tt

Emancipation celebrations this year, I suppose, will have added significance for those of the African diaspora who consider that their spiritual navel strings are buried on the continent of Africa, especially as the World Cup venture was a spectacular international success. Incidentally, the football extravaganza was conceivably Mandela’s parting gift to Africa as well as Africa’s final tribute to him.
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Culture, Entertainment, Features, General T&T, Photos

False Rumours about Death of Sparrow

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NAPA Fest: Celebrating our Calypso Monarchs 1939 - 1980
NAPA Fest: Celebrating our Calypso Monarchs 1939 - 1980, presented by the Ministry of Arts and Multiculturalism
NAPA Fest in pictures

July 29, 2010

Sparrow doing well after surgery
Renowned calypso icon Slinger Francisco, popularly known as Sparrow, is resting comfortably at a private hospital in Maryland, United States, after undergoing emergency surgery.

…Sparrow well after surgery
Slinger Francisco (The Mighty Sparrow) was yesterday in good spirits and recuperating well following emergency surgery on Sunday to treat an incarcerated right inguinal hernia.
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Finance, General T&T, PNM, Politics

State of the Economy

By Derren Joseph
July 20, 2010

Financial ComplexGenerally speaking, I often raise an eye brow when commentators use broad brush strokes to describe the somewhat intricate picture that is our economy. A picture made all the more interesting by the challenges facing the global economy in general. For my part, I try hard to appreciate the views of both sides of the fence—those who speak positively of the economy and those who do not. On one hand, it is hard to dispute that compared to many so called developed nations, and many of our neighbours in the region, we are doing relatively well. Looking at the charts available online, our public debt as a percentage of GDP is less than our Caribbean neighbours, our friends in North America (US and Canada) and even much of Western Europe. Our import cover is about 12 months when the international benchmark is 3 months.
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Court, Crime in T&T, General T&T, International, Law, Politics

The ‘Forum Conveniens’

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By Dana Seetahal
July 18, 2010 – guardian.co.tt

Ishwar Galbaransingh and Steve FergusonIn an Advice apparently solicited by attorneys for Steve Ferguson and Ishwar Galbaransingh, former president Ellis Clarke, an eminent attorney-at-law, proferred the opinion that the case for T&T being the “forum conveniens” to try the accused men is lucid and “compelling.” This is not the first time that it has been argued in respect of an extradition matter that local trial for people accused of similar offences in both the US and T&T should be preferred. The point was taken in extradition proceedings in relation to some of the men locally accused of killing Balram Maharaj, a US citizen, and in respect of whom the US had sought extradition for offences involving hostage taking. The accused were eventually extradited.
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Culture, Finance, General T&T, Politics

Poverty Facts and Fiction

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By Raffique Shah
July 18, 2010

PovertyEVERY time I hear someone parrot poverty numbers in my Trinidad and Tobago, I wince. Politicians, and many ordinary citizens, often accept as the “gospel truth” the amount of people in this country said to be living “below the absolute poverty line”, defined as US$1 a day. The estimated numbers range from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of the population, which suggests there are between 130,000 and 260,000 desperately poor people in our midst living on less than TT$6.37 a day. That’s around $190 a month.
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