By Andre Bagoo and Nalinee Seelal
www.newsday.co.tt
Thursday, June 28 2007
The Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) is drafting two disciplinary charges of misconduct to be served on Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls no less than 12 days from now.
The charges are expected to be served on Mc Nicolls shortly after he delivers a ruling in the five-year-long Piarco I preliminary inquiry due on July 9. The disciplinary charges will allege Mc Nicolls brought the administration of justice into disrepute. When the Commission completes the drafting exercise, Mc Nicolls will be notified and given an opportunity to respond.
Continue reading JLSC to move against Mc Nicolls
The alleged rape is reported to have taken place sometime between April and October 2006. Last week, doctors delivered the baby by Caesarean section because of the teenage mother’s age, health and the size of the baby. 
Contrary to Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s public identification, “the most intractable problem facing Trinidad and Tobago at this time is (not) race relations” but ethnic relations.
Like the runaway crime situation, the carnage on the streets of T&T makes me wonder if anyone is in charge. Is there a ministry responsible for transportation or a police department responsible for road safety? If so, why are people being mangled daily and lives being lost unnecessarily, when tried and proven measures can be enforced to stop vehicular terrorism? How difficult is it to clamp down heavily on speedsters, inebriated and otherwise reckless drivers, street racers and all the madness that passes for driving in T&T? With the death toll in excess of 115 so far, these are no longer accidents; this is murder and should be prosecuted as such.
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.
We hear about people dying in Africa because of civil wars, or because they didn’t have a few dollars for medicine or malaria nets. We regret that their corrupt governments cause these problems and make our aid ineffective. On the surface this is indeed the reason for their problems. But if we look more deeply at the effects of our need for oil and minerals, we arrive at a different conclusion. We find the existence of ‘rentier’ states such as the Republic of Congo, Chad, and Nigeria, where once-healthy and self-sustaining agricultural countries have effectively rented themselves out to a demanding western world by focusing on the sale of one valuable commodity that doesn’t offer any benefits to the masses.