Category Archives: International

The U.S. Has Venezuela in Its Crosshairs

It is plain as day that the United States wants to overthrow the government in Venezuela

US President Donald Trump (L) and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (R) (Wikipedia)
US President Donald Trump (L) and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (R) (Wikipedia)

By Vijay Prashad
January 17, 2019 – venezuelanalysis.com

Last Thursday—on January 10—Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for his second term as president of Venezuela. “I tell the people,” Maduro said, “this presidential sash is yours. The power of this sash is yours. It does not belong to the oligarchy or to imperialism. It belongs to the sovereign people of Venezuela.”

These two terms—oligarchy and imperialism—define the problems faced by Maduro’s new government.
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The Museum of African American History

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 08, 2019

“The past is all that makes the present coherent.”

— James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt was a rainy afternoon in Washington D.C., the Friday after Christmas, when I paid a chance visit to the National Museum of African American History & Culture. I had heard so much about this fantastic museum and the attention it has drawn throughout the U.S. (United States) that I did not expect to get a ticket to explore its wonders. I took my chances and was lucky to enter its gates. I didn’t regret it. It was one of the most impressive museums I have ever seen.
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Evaluating Trump, Trini-Style

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 17, 2018

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeBrian Moore is one of my best friends. He is Trini-to-de bone when it comes to discoursing about national and international matters. He is a contrarian and has dogmatic views about issues. He was not unduly worried when Donald Trump was elected to the presidency of the United States. When many of us were desolate about the prospects of the U.S., Brian declared defiantly: “America got what she deserved. Trump is not a U.S. aberration. He is the quintessential expression of who and what the U.S. is.”
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Andrew Haswell Green

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 26, 2018

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI am always astonished when I realize how unaware we are about certain aspects of our history. I had completed my book on William Hardin Burnley, the biggest slave owner in Trinidad, when I received a fascinating note from a reader.

“My name is Henry Albert. I am a retired accountant and working on a project with the goal of becoming a docent for Preservation Worcester, a local Worcester, MA nonprofit.

“The topic includes Andrew Haswell Green, a local man who became well known in 19th century New York City. Supposedly, Green’s family knew William Burnley of Trinidad.”
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Refugees aggravate T&T woes

By Raffique Shah
November 21, 2018

Raffique ShahTrinidad and Tobago has found itself in an unenviable, as well as untenable, position of having to deal with hundreds of mostly Venezuelan and Cuban nationals who have entered this country, legally and illegally, then announcing themselves as refugees or seeking political asylum.

This situation is unenviable because we are the only English-speaking Caribbean island-state that faces an influx of Spanish-speaking refugees, in addition to Jamaicans and Nigerians who have overstayed their Immigration-approved time, and some Chinese, Syrians and Lebanese. Except for the fairly-prosperous Dominican Republic that shares the large island of Hispaniola with poverty-stricken Haiti, where nationals of the latter invade the former on foot, whence they face rigid deportation procedures, T&T is a unique magnet for illegal immigrants.
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The Incredible Dream – Pt 3

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 19, 2018

PART 3

“The further you look into the past, the further you can see into the future.”

— Sir Winston Churchill

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOver the past month, I visited London, England, Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland where I delivered several lectures and participated in the launch of David Featherstone, ed., Marxism, Colonialism, and Cricket: C. L. R. James’s Beyond a Boundary in which I contributed a chapter on James’s intellectual origins and his knowledge of early Trinidad’s history.
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Remembering the savagery of war

By Raffique Shah
November 14, 2018

Raffique ShahI awoke last Sunday morning to see and hear French President Emmanuel Macron deliver an address before scores of world leaders gathered in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. His was a good speech, an appeal for the world to not just to pay homage to the eight million-plus servicemen and women who lost their lives in the mistaken belief that they were fighting “the war to end all wars”, but also to note that if we did not learn from history, we were doomed to repeat the mistakes our forebears made.
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America’s Angry White Men

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 08, 2018

“An increasingly diverse society no longer accepts the God-given right of white males from the right families to run things, and a society with many empowered, educated women is finally rejecting the droit de seigneur once granted to powerful men.”

—Paul Krugman, New York Times

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeYesterday the U.S. Senate elected Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court by the narrowest of margins despite the objections of 2,400+ law professors and Justice John Paul Stevens, former justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Stevens noted: “He’s a fine federal judge, and he should have been confirmed when he was nominated. But I think that his performance during the hearings caused me to change my mind” (New York Times, October 5).
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Independence Child/Pan Africanist Vision

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 24, 2018

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeSeveral years ago Glenda Morean, Trinidad and Tobago’s High Commissioner in London, invited me to attend an intimate luncheon with Ulric Cross and four other people. It was the first time I met Cross, this distinguished man. Although I knew Cross’s reputation as a combat bomber navigator during World War II, my most indelible image of him was that of an ageless being playing a good game of tennis in his eighties.
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US sanctions 2 Trinis over ISIS terrorism

By Carla Bridglal and Jensen La Vende
September 20, 2018 – newsday.co.tt

Trini ISIS fightersTWO Trinidadian men were yesterday sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for suspicion of financing ISIS. This now triggers local authorities to initiate civil proceedings that can see the assets of both men seized.

Emraan Ali, 51, a Syria-based TT-US dual citizen and Eddie Aleong, 34, also known as Ishmael Mohammed, Ishmail Muhammed and Ismail’il Ali, were sanctioned under Executive Order (EO) 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism.
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