Race in our politics

By Raffique Shah
January 13, 2013

Raffique ShahHILTON Sandy’s Calcutta ship gaffe may well sink the stalwart’s personal political pirogue—after the elections, not before. The furore his Freudian slip has triggered would hardly influence the outcome of the THA election. Battle lines were drawn long before polling day was named, and I sense that the “swing votes” in Tobago hardly make a difference. So Sandy’s punishment for a thinly veiled racial innuendo must come from his party since the electorate, at least a significant number of them, are not offended by it.
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District split over Sandy’s Calcutta statement

By Andre Bagoo
January 13, 2013 – newsday.co.tt

Hilton SandyRESIDENTS of the polling district of Belle Garden East/Roxborough/ Delaford, which PNM candidate Hilton Sandy hopes to win in the Tobago House of Assembly elections come January 21, appear to be split right down the middle over the question of whether his chances in the election have been hurt because of his controversial “Calcutta ship” remarks.
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Expert qualification doesn’t depend on registration

By Dana Seetahal
January 11, 2013 – trinidadexpress.com

Dana SeetahalLast weekend’s headlines screamed “Fuad: Autopsy doctors not qualified” a reference to statements attributed to the Minister of Health in the wake of what were said to be conflicting autopsy findings on the cause of death of soldier Curtis Marshall. The minister was quoted as saying that neither Prof Daisley nor Dr McDonald-Burris were qualified as forensic pathologists as far as the Medical Board was concerned. He claimed that only Dr Alexandrov was so registered.
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Choosing a president

Newsday Editorial
January 6 2013 – newsday.co.tt

President Professor George Maxwell RichardsThere will be much speculation until next month as to the identity of the government’s nominee for the next president of Trinidad and Tobago. With a nomination deadline of February 5, a new president will be elected on February 15 ahead of the March 17 end of the five-year term of President George Maxwell Richards.
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Make poverty history

By Raffique Shah
December 23, 2012

Raffique ShahIF there were tabloids at the time, two thousand and however many years ago, their editors would have delighted in the heart-rending story that would sell their newspapers, headlines screaming, “No room at the Inn!”. The drop-head, “…woman gives birth in manger”. The text might read, “A very pregnant Mary of Galilee, accompanied by her husband, Joseph, rode into Bethlehem last night on the family’s ass and immediately sought accommodation because there were signs that Mary had gone into labour.
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Real Truth about Jesus’ Birth: Afri-centric Analysis – Updated

By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
December 20, 2012

Dr. Kwame NantambuAs Trinbagonians gear up to celebrate the Christian religious event of Christmas, it is apropos to disseminate the real, historical truth about the birth of Jesus.

Indeed, if one looks at the first three hundred years of Christianity, it is in many aspects, a derived Afrikan religion.

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No peace and goodwill here

By Raffique Shah
December 16, 2012

Raffique ShahTHERE was a time, maybe I should write “once upon a time” since this may sound so much like a fairy-tale, when nations at war suspended hostilities on Christmas Day, such was the pervasiveness of peace and goodwill associated with the birth of the Christ child.

The most memorable such occasion was on the night of Christmas Eve 1914, during the First World War, along the Western Front.
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Ethnic Stocking

By Winford James
December 13, 2012 – trinidadexpress.com

ParliamentUntil I heard the term from a WinTV reporter, I had never heard “ethnic stocking” before. The reporter called to find out what I thought about the Jamaica Observer’s observation in its editorial of December 11, that ethnic stocking was a very serious issue in Trinidad and Tobago and that, worse, it was a “centripetal” force “tearing the increasingly fragile political coalition that constitutes the Government of Trinidad and Tobago” and “(o)ne of the egregious aspects of corruption”.
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MACHEL GUILTY

By Alexander Bruzual
December 11, 2012 – newsday.co.tt

MACHEL GUILTY on the front page of NewsdayREIGNING Soca Monarch and Road March King Machel Montano was yesterday found guilty by a Port-of-Spain magistrate of five criminal charges of assault and using obscene language during a fracas near the Zen nightclub in Port-of-Spain five years ago.

Montano gasped in the Seventh Court when he was told, he was guilty as charged by Magistrate Maureen Baboolal-Gafoor. He stood next to performing artistes Kernel Roberts, son of deceased Calypso icon Aldwyn ‘Lord Kitchener’ Roberts, 2011 Young Kings Calypso Monarch Rodney “Benjai” LeBlanc and Joel “Zan” Feveck.
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BABY’S FLESH BITTEN OFF

By Nalinee Seelal
December 10, 2012 – newsday.co.tt

BABY’S FLESH BITTEN OFF on the front page of NewsdayENRAGED that there was no food in the house for him to eat, a 24-year-old man violently turned on his own five-day-old baby daughter, grabbing her tiny body and biting off the tender flesh from her left cheek before biting off a chunk of flesh from her right leg at their East Dry River, Port-of-Spain, home yesterday morning.

And while her father remains in police custody, the little baby girl who was given the name Jinayah only two days ago, is warded in a critical condition at the Paediatric Ward of the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) in Mt Hope.
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