By Raffique Shah
July 22, 2007
I need to get in touch with the person who coined the adage, “Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.” I think he or she should add “or clowns” at the end of it. How else does one explain Basdeo Panday’s puerile behaviour, his donning of a beret that would otherwise look chic on fashionable women or neat on a soldier’s head, but more like a clown cap on his? Can anyone in the UNC explain this eccentric side of a man who was once prime minister of this country, and whom some political analysts insist remains the “only genuine politician in the country”? I think Bas, his platform colleagues, and those pseudo-analysts need to have their heads examined.
Continue reading Those whom the gods wish to destroy…
The grand alliance of Opposition parties has hit a snag. Basdeo Panday, the acknowledged leader of the majority group within the alliance, the UNC, has been found to be unacceptable as leader by at least one party, YesTT, which is led by Stephen Cadiz. 
After overcoming the initial shock of television networks across the world featuring this country in an alleged plot to “blow up the JFK airport” in New York, I could not help but break into peals of laughter. The first giggle came when the US networks featured the sorry picture of the alleged mastermind, Russell De Freitas. This “Sad Sack”, as The New York Times dubbed him, looked incapable of blowing hot air with any force, far less deal the US a “blow more devastating than 9/11”, as a State Department spokeswoman insisted.
PRIME Minister Patrick Manning got advice at least five times from a woman who has been described as his “prophetess.”
Fifteen-year-old Danah Alleyne’s brother Ian was among those screened by the PNM for the Chaguanas East constituency, party sources confirmed yesterday.
Former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday’s conviction and sentence have been squashed. The Court of Appeal this afternoon ordered a new trial at the Magistrate’s Court before a different Magistrate. Mr. Panday was sentenced to two years in jail and fined by Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls after being found guilty of not declaring a Million Dollar London bank account to the Integrity Commission.
One cannot help but look on with disbelief at the meanderings in the matter involving the State and Chief Justice Sat Sharma. Last Monday, this messy affair that has staggered like the proverbial drunk, from Sharma’s home to the Magistrates’ Courts, from midnight hearings in a judge’s chambers to the hallowed halls of the Privy Council, finally collapsed in the drain of the magistracy. And the person who helped take it there, however plausible his explanations may be, was Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls.
First let me offer on behalf of all patriotic cricket lovers congratulations to Darren Ganga and his Soca Chutney Cricketers for once again running away with the Carib Regional and KFC One day Championships. The Team presents the PNM Government with another opportunity to allow it to compensate and make it up to this team for the shabby treatment that meted it to them for an outstanding similar achievement in 2006. Government awarded the pittance of $1million to sixteen cricketers and technical officials while doling out over $35m alone in prize money to the Soca Warriors losers.
In a stunning development just after 1pm, the prosecution has dropped charges against Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma, who was charged with attempting to pervert the course of public justice.