By Raffique Shah
October 26, 2014
President Anthony Thomas Aquinas Carmona, to give the man his full handle as Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar never tires of doing, is convinced that my fellow columnists and I are “bulldogs in a ring”, uncouth, devoid of intellect, stuck in the “same ole, same ole” mode, and engaged in self-aggrandisement and worse.
Continue reading No, Tom, No
By Suzanne Mills
October 10 2014 – newsday.co.tt
What I’m about to say will likely be deemed harsh, but it is my view that MPs serving in hotspot communities should not ask for or receive armed security and should definitely not be more protected than the residents who live in their constituencies and face the same threat from criminals as they do. It can also be argued that an MP who is guarded is less likely to do his or her best to bring crime under control and that until politicians stand the bounce for their misguided policies, they should not be spared from having to look over their shoulders.
Continue reading Truth be told
ADDRESS DELIVERED BY PROFESSOR SIR HILARY BECKLES
CHAIRMAN OF THE CARICOM REPARATIONS COMMISSION
to the
HOUSE OF COMMONS,
PARLIAMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN
COMMITTEE ROOM 14
JULY 16, 2014
Continue reading CARICOM Reparations Presentation to UK House of Commons
By Corey Connelly
July 27, 2014 – newsday.co.tt
Retired head of the public service Reginald Dumas says Sports Minister Anil Roberts should have resigned forthwith following the tabling of the controversial report on the Life Sport programme in the Parliament on Friday.
Continue reading Dumas: Anil must take responsibility
By Raffique Shah
July 26, 2014
When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled, says the African proverb. To paraphrase this, when two generals, one captain-turned-minister, and the acting Commissioner of Police lock horns over the contentious issue of soldiers patrolling the streets, a lowly ex-lieutenant should stay far from the heavyweight battle.
Continue reading Conduct Unbecoming
By Jensen La Vende
Friday, July 18, 2014 – guardian.co.tt
Police are investigating again a video circulating on Facebook where a child is being physically abused by a guardian.
The video was posted by Caribbean Youth Entertainment around 1 pm yesterday. Contacted yesterday public information officer of the Police Service, Insp Wayne Mystar, said the police were aware of the video and the Cyber Crime Unit were attempting to trace its origin in order to bring the culprit to justice.
Continue reading Now shovel beating of child on Facebook
By Raffique Shah
June 29, 2014
At the risk of being branded a snarling sewer rat by Senator Camille Robinson-Regis, I return to the issue of pensions for parliamentarians. Following expressions of outrage from a broad cross section of the population, across partisan lines, over the pensions approved unanimously by members of the House of Representatives, the Prime Minister made a mild retreat.
Continue reading Sewer rat snarls
By Rhoda Bharath
June 24, 2014
Sometimes the beauty of a goal is in its build up, not the scoring.
Last week, on June 14th to be precise, Express journalist Ria Taitt revealed that the Lower House (MPs) had just approved amendments to two bills giving themselves fat new pensions. The story took about 48 hours to really generate interest because it’s the middle of the first round of World Cup 2014 in Brasil. And soccer-mad TnT, caught up with the beautiful game, barely have time for Anil, weed stashes, prostitutes in hotel rooms, or Government programs that are funding criminals, far less to pay attention to debates in their Parliament. Oh, and we had a long holiday weekend. And Laventille and the Police/Army were at war.
Continue reading Own Goals and Penalties
By Raffique Shah
June 15, 2014
I am writing this column knowing that it will not be read by the target audience—young, black and ‘er…unschooled men.
Few if any in this group read anything, least of all newspapers. If they pick up an Express, it would be to watch a photograph of some dead “bredren”, felled by bullets from police or criminal, same difference, and to wonder if they, upon meeting a similar fate, would make a pretty corpse.
Continue reading Architects of our own demise
By Rachael Espinet and Clint Chan Tack
May 21, 2014 – newsday.co.tt
IN a surprising turn of events yesterday former Justice Minister Herbert Volney apologised to Attorney General (AG) Anand Ramlogan for alleging that he was responsible, in any way, for the early proclamation of Section 34 of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act 2011
In offering this apology to his former Cabinet colleague, Volney accepted full responsibility for what has become known as the Section 34 fiasco.
Volney made these statements at a joint news conference with Ramlogan, at the Ministry of the Attorney General, Cabildo Chambers, Port-of-Spain.
Continue reading Volney on Section 34: I Was Wrong