Category Archives: USA

General T&T, International, USA, Venezuela

Aunty Kams, the bad-Jane

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By Raffique Shah
September 06, 2025

Raffique ShahI have remained fascinated for 50 years and more by how the story (or stories) of my exploits, whenever I’ve had cause to recall details, might help people who were born long after the Mutiny at Teteron Barracks to understand what it looked like.

I had that experience again last week when I was putting together some notes; memoirs to prepare my manuscript for publication. People who listen to the story of how two 24-year-young lieutenants trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst joined with their soldiers, leading the latter as we seized control of the barracks.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, USA, Venezuela

Sleeping with the enemy

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By Raffique Shah
August 30, 2025

Raffique ShahPrime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar can never be as uninformed as she portrays herself to be in matters of foreign affairs, to wit: regional and hemispheric alliances. It took previous governments, starting with the PNM in the 1960s, to cultivate good relations with our Spanish-speaking neighbours in Venezuela.

We often forgot then, as many states now learn, that there is the vast expanse of Portuguese-speaking Brazil a step away from Venezuela.
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General T&T, Law, UNC, USA, Venezuela

US has no right off Venezuelan coast

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By Stephen Kangal, Caroni
August 26, 2025

Stephen KangalTHE right of the United States to deploy its naval vessels in international and territorial waters located across the globe is exercising the freedom of navigation/right of innocent/transit passage in the territorial seas/international straits of other nations.

It is not an aspect/expression/enactment of its sovereignty the exercise of which is limited to, inter alia, its land space, air space above and its territorial sea, Minister Sobers.
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General T&T, Israel, Palestine, USA

The New Age Hitler

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By Raffique Shah
August 09, 2025

Raffique ShahBy the time US President Donald Trump is finished with us, and here I mean the world as we know it now, our world will have changed likely to a backward civilisation, if there is anything civil about reversing progress.

I make this pronouncement boldly as a projection, not prediction, since I don’t believe in hocus-pocus. But he is deep into it and so are many of his “Jim Jones-like cultist followers”.
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General T&T, USA

Demonising Mamdani

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 28, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI arrived in New York on Thursday. The cooling breeze was welcomed. It was not as hot as Tuesday when New York City’s JFK airport reached 102 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest temperature recorded since 2013, while Central Park “broke a record set all the way back in 1888”. (June 23, New York Daily News.)

However, the weather on Tuesday did not prepare New Yorkers for the political tsunami that disrupted the city that day. Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a Muslim of Uganda heritage, defeated Andrew Cuomo, former governor of New York State and a scion of a prominent New York political family, in the Democratic primary for mayor.
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General T&T, International, USA

Defending black excellence against Trump’s academic assault

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 17, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeLast Thursday morning, I left Boston to attend the graduation of my second grandson from Morehouse College, “the storied Atlanta school” (The New York Times, May 13). This was a change in the institutions of higher education my immediate family attended.

I attended Fordham University, received my doctorate from Cornell University, and taught at Harvard University. My first daughter did her undergraduate work at Stanford University and got her law degree from Harvard; my second daughter attended Hampton College, received a Master’s from Yale University and a doctorate in theology from Duke University. Tomorrow she will deliver remarks on behalf of the Yale Divinity School Alumni Board, of which she is the president. My son-in-law received his undergraduate degree from Columbia and law degree from Harvard Law School.
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General T&T, USA

America, the beautiful?

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 21, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeAfter I arrived in the United States of America in August 1964, I continued to follow the election battle between of Lyndon B Johnson, a Democrat, and Senator Barry Goldwater whom he defeated in the sixth most lopsided US election: Johnson won 44 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia; 486 electoral votes and 61.1% of the popular vote. Goldwater captured 52 electoral votes and 38% of the popular vote.
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General T&T, USA

Dumb Trump

By Raffique Shah
November 12, 2024

Raffique ShahThe world is what it is today, what it was yesterday, and what it always will be. It will never change because the vast majority of people do not want change. Mediocrity reigns supreme, vandalism rises to the top and so it will be forever and ever, Amen.

I awoke to the not-surprising news that 73 million Americans had voted Donald Trump in as the 47th President of the United States for the next four years.
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General T&T, USA

The Darkest Hour

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 10, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe“And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea” (Matthew 14:25)

On Friday September 27, I flew to Charlotte, North Carolina (NC), to spend the weekend with friends and family. I was also interested in the gubernatorial and presidential races that were taking place there since it is the home of Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, one of the most notorious politicians in the US. NC is also a pivotal state in the next presidential election.
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