By Raffique Shah
March 23, 2014
If we think that the top-to-bottom lawlessness and overpowering crime that besiege the country today are portents of hopelessness in tomorrow, think again. It will be much worse. Those who will live here for the next 50 or 80 years (I will be long gone, thankfully) should be afraid…very afraid.
Continue reading Hurtling to self-destruction
By Raffique Shah
March 16, 2014
I suppose I should not have been surprised at the number of people who telephoned the Central Bank, or turned up at its offices, to claim the “winnings” they had been alerted to via the now ubiquitous cellphone text messages.
Still, I could not believe there were so many gullible people in a country that boasts of a 90-plus per cent literacy rate, of universal free secondary education and easily accessible tertiary education. Maybe I am a fool for equating education with common sense, for believing that the average person can easily spot a scam and not fall victim to the boundless wiles of cartels of conmen who trawl the shrunken world of electronic communications searching for and fleecing fools.
Continue reading Greed and Stupidity
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
February 12, 2014
One of the apparently unknown realities of crime in T&T is the fact that neither the current People’s Partnership (PP) government, a People’s National Movement (PNM) government nor an Independent Liberal Party (ILP) government can solve/prevent certain crimes in this
country.
For example, if as occurred quite recently, an aggrieved ex-husband decides to kill his ex-wife, then, there is absolutely nothing any of the afore-mentioned or the Commissioner of Police can do to prevent/stop this familial crime.
Continue reading Decoding Crime in T&T
By Andre Bagoo
February 05, 2014 – newsday.co.tt
THERE ARE an estimated 2,500 teenage pregnancies per year, including several cases at the primary school level, Minister of Education Dr Tim Gopeesingh said yesterday as he called for the enforcement of laws against statutory rape in order to address what he said was a “huge”, “frightening” and worsening problem.
The minister linked the problem to social conditions, saying half the population now live in single-parent homes.
Continue reading ARREST THOSE MEN
By Raffique Shah
February 02, 2014
Within days of the announcement by US authorities that they had intercepted 700-odd pounds of cocaine shipped from Trinidad to Norfolk, Virginia, and the well-publicised arrival here of a number of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents, I sensed that something had gone awfully wrong.
Continue reading De ‘bust’ buss
By Alexander Bruzual
January 23, 2014 – newsday.co.tt
A mother of a six-week-old girl. An aspiring interior designer. An avid lover of steelpan.
All these things, and so much more, described 15-year-old Aleah Cain who was brutally gunned down on Tuesday night along Belmont Circular Road, Belmont mere moments after she left her home at Farrell Lane to get something to eat, despite protests from her mother.
“Aleah was sitting with me at home helping me comb my hair, when she suddenly tell me she was hungry, and she wanted food. I tell her we had bread and butter, and small stuff at home, but she said no, she wanted something different, so she going to the shop. I tell her, ‘Aleah, look at the time, it’s after 10!’ But she said she didn’t want the food at home, and she would go out and get something,” Aleah’s mother Lauren recalled yesterday.
Continue reading Mom, 15, shot dead
“An Eye-Opener and Essential Reading…”
By Edward S. Herman
January 21, 2014 – Global Research
Robin Philpot’s important new book Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa is an eye-opener and essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the recent history of Rwanda, ongoing U.S. and Western policy in Africa, and how efficiently the Western propaganda system works.
As in the case of the wars dismantling Yugoslavia, there is a “standard model” of what happened in Rwanda both in 1994 and in the preceding and later years, a model that puts the victorious Tutsi expatriate and Ugandan official Paul Kagame, his Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), and his Western supporters in a favorable light and the government of Rwanda, led by the Hutu Juvenal Habyarimana, in a negative light. Philpot challenges this model in all of its aspects and shows convincingly that, in a virtual miracle of systematic distortion, this version of history stands the truth on its head.
Continue reading Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa
By Nalinee Seelal
January 18 2014 – newsday.co.tt
THE biggest ever drug bust in the history of the Norfolk Port in Virginia, United States was made on December 20 when US Customs Border Protection officers seized 332 kilos of cocaine which originated from Trinidad and Tobago and which carries an estimated street value of US$100M or TT$640M.
The cocaine was stored inside tins of Trinidad Juice Company juices which were part of a consignment of goods that arrived at the Norfolk Port after being shipped from Trinidad. The cocaine, believed to have originated from South America, was hidden inside 700 juice tins bearing the markings of the Cooperative Citrus Growers Association (CCGA) which is located off the Eastern Main Road in Laventille.
Continue reading $640M COCAINE IN JUICE TINS
By Kim Boodram
January 15, 2014 – trinidadexpress.com
Satnarayan Maharaj, secretary general of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS), yesterday blamed the death of Pennywise stores heiress, Dian Paladee, at the hands of her former husband, on an “anger” that has settled on the country.
Continue reading Sat blames Dian’s death on ‘anger’ in T&T
By Raffique Shah
January 12, 2014
A tragic consequence of spikes in violent crimes such as we experienced in the first week of 2014, is the baying of the hounds, the blood-curdling cries for revenge that are as transient as the surges are cyclical. As soon as the murder rate settles back to what is normal for us, meaning one-a-day, the society will shift into the muted mode. People will hardly note the killing, and the police and government will enjoy a respite from outrage…until the next surge.
Continue reading Edge of the abyss