Category Archives: General T&T

UNC Support for the Property Tax In the Manday Accord?

By Stephen Kangal
December 05, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Patrick Manning and Basdeo PandayPolitical observers are duty bound to pose the question, in the face of recent bizarre public posturing of the UNC towards the property tax (PT) whether non-opposition or neutrality towards the PT would appear to be a condition of the Manday Accord. In the post- budget debate the UNC, except for the MP for St. Augustine, has been lukewarm in its limited opposition to the PT even though its current and potential political support base stands to bear the brunt of the expected $7bn punitive revenue windfall.
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Police executed my friends, Morvant man says

‘I played dead to stay alive’

By Francis Joseph
December 03, 2009 – guardian.co.tt

Codi AlvesCodi Alves is living a second life today after he miraculously escaped death when police killed his three friends in Morvant on the night of October 1.

Alves, 30, said he had to “play dead to stay alive,” otherwise he would have been killed by the police. He “played dead” from Morvant to Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he awoke in the mortuary, much to the surprise of the lone policeman and hospital staff. But his three friends—Joel Romain, 19, a former national junior sprinter, Kerwin “Lall” Joseph, 24, and Akee Caballero, 32, were not so lucky.
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The 2012 movie and Trinidad

By Derren Joseph
November 30, 2009

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

The 2012 movie and TrinidadI went, recently, to see the movie called 2012. Given its performance at the US and UK box offices, the movie studio should be confident in its ability to recoup the US$200 to $300 million investment. For those who have not heard of it, it is a typical big-budget Hollywood disaster movie, but it is based on an “end-of-the-world” scenario expected in the year 2012. To be completely honest, I am a 2012 researcher myself. For some time now, I have been following the work of Terrence McKenna and Time Wave Zero, interpretations of the Mayan Long Count Calendar, Hopi Prophecies, galactic wave theories, such as Velikovsky’s Planet X Nibiru theories, planetary ascension theories, and so on. Naturally, we should only expect fascination with 2012 to heighten as we approach that fateful year.
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Ahead Has No Crown

By Amilcar Sanatan – UWI Student
November 29, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II heads CHOGM
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II heads CHOGM

The Commonwealth is a voluntary intergovernmental organisation that covers fifty-three independent states. The collection of nations that belong to the organisation and the two billion people they represent justify its existence. The Commonwealth organisation has established itself throughout the former colonies of the British Empire and the world.
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An ‘old boys club’ headed by an old lady

By Raffique Shah
November 29, 2009

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Commonwealth 2009 Heads of State
Commonwealth 2009 Heads of State

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2009Friday morning. Big day for Prime Minister Patrick Manning. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II heads a list of dignitaries attending the CHOGM. Over the next three days Trinidad and Tobago, this small country, will showcase its wonderful Chinese architecture to our envious Commonwealth brethren. Look at me! Watch my costume (including my brand-name ‘darkers’ that I don’t take off, not even to look Her Majesty in the eye, as royal etiquette demands). Don’t mash my Performing Arts cape! I’m on the world stage!
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UWI students: Remove Queen as Commonwealth head

By Yvonne Baboolal
November 22, 2009 – guardian.co.tt

Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II
Remove Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11 as symbolic Head of the Commonwealth at the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Port-of-Spain. This is the call coming from some students attached to the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies. Students from U We Speak, a student advocacy group, made the call during a powerful rendition of poetry and song last Wednesday night, one week before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Port-of-Spain. A student crowd assembled at the Humanities Undercroft from 8 pm to support performances centered around the call for the removal of the Queen as Commonwealth Head.
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Queen kicks off CHOGM today

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Queen Elizabeth II at Piarco International Airport
Queen Elizabeth II at Piarco International Airport

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2009Green Queen
HER Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is here.
Her British Airways Boeing 777 jet airliner touched down yesterday at Piarco International Airport at exactly 2.44 pm, after a four-hour flight from Bermuda. After a 15-minute wait at the end of the runway, in which time local dignitaries including President George Maxwell Richards and Prime Minister Patrick Manning took their positions on the tarmac, the plane taxied up to the red carpet. British High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, Eric Jenkinson, and local Chief of Protocol, Reitha Toussaint, ascended the stairs and entered the craft. A senior British military officer descended to join the waiting party at the foot of the stairs.
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Educate, don’t just legislate

By Raffique Shah
November 22, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

The President, Prime Minister Patrick Manning, Hazel Manning and their son toast the official opening of the National Academy for the Performing ArtsON many occasions during my 40 years of driving on the nation’s roads, I’ve witnessed drunk drivers endangering the lives of other motorists. Mostly late nights, although I’m sure it happens during daytime as well, I’ve seen vehicles wobble much the way drunken persons do when they try to walk after consuming litres of alcohol. On occasion, I’ve had to make the risky decision either to overtake the drifting jackasses, or stay far behind them for my safety.
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T&T borrowing $13 billion

Peter D Neptune
November 20, 2009 – guardian.co.tt

Karen Nunez-Tesheira
Karen Nunez-Tesheira
From January 2007 to the end of the current fiscal year, Government intends to borrow more than $13.6 billion to finance the budget deficit, pay for several large government projects and to fund the government’s money supply management strategy for the economy. Responding to a question by the Opposition during private members day in the Senate earlier this week, Finance Minister Karen Nunez Tesheira said the government has already borrowed more than $8.8 billion since January 2007, and plans are already being made to raise another $4.77 billion to continue its strategy into the new fiscal year. The funding needs for the next fiscal year include $2 billion from the domestic market, $2.2 billion from foreign capital markets and another $572.3 million in project related loans. She added that the Finance Ministry was in the process of developing a plan for Trinidad and Tobago’s borrowing requirements for the medium term – that is for the next three to five years beyond the current fiscal period.
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