By John Maxwell
October 31, 2008
The people of Haiti are as poor as human beings can be.
According to the statisticians of the World Bank and others who speculate about how many Anglos can dance on the head of a peon, Haiti may either be the second, third or fourth poorest country in the world.
In Haiti’s case, statistics are irrelevant.
Continue reading ‘Haiti: Racism and Poverty’
By Raffique Shah
Sunday, October 26th 2008
LAST week, when I suggested that the masses of poor and middle-income people across the world may yet have the last laugh in the midst of the global financial crisis, many readers laughed at me. “You can’t be serious?” several of my friends called to ask, exploding into loud guffaws. “Of course I am,” I responded. I proceeded to explain why I thought the super-wealthy would cry more tears than the wretched of the earth.
Continue reading ‘Higher you climb, harder you fall’
By Nalinee Seelal
Friday, October 24 2008
newsday.co.tt
Are you a gangster? Dial 625-4932 or 623-8440 to get out of your life of crime.
That’s the appeal of Acting Commissioner of Police James Philbert who, yesterday, announced that two hotlines have been set up for members of gangs to call if they want to surrender and get help to turn around their lives.
Continue reading ‘Gangsters ‘dial’ out of crime’
Ria Taitt Political Editor
Tuesday, October 21st 2008
Prime Minister Patrick Manning on Saturday told the PNM General Council meeting that Government never had any intention of purchasing 200 luxury vehicles to transport VIPs during the two major international conferences to be held in Port of Spain next year.
Manning told the meeting that he did not know where this notion came from. He noted that this country had hosted conferences before, and the Government never purchased vehicles for this.
Continue reading ‘PM: We never planned to buy 200 luxury cars’
By Raffique Shah
Sunday, October 19th 2008
OUR economists, bankers, stockbrokers, manufacturers, multi-millionaires and politicians will argue and wrestle over the next few months over where Trinidad and Tobago’s economy is heading. As a member of the lower-middle-income group (call us LMIGs), a sizeable portion of our population, I can only look on at what’s happening globally. I see financial fallouts in which individuals and corporations are losing billions of dollars a day. That boggles the minds of those of us who have never seen a million TT dollars in paper, far less billions.
Continue reading ‘Only the poor will survive’
Newsday Editorial
October 16, 2008
Why is a law to make gangs illegal a waste of time? Let us count the ways.
One: the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago in Section 4 (j) guarantees “freedom of association and assembly”. Any law which bans gangs, or makes membership of a gang illegal, is likely to fall foul of this enshrined right. Indeed, in announcing the plan to bring such legislation to Parliament, Junior National Security Minister Donna Cox claimed that gang members ranged in age from 14 to 44, so even middle-aged persons who may have some sort of informal group, such as an all-fours or wapee club, could be arrested under this proposed law.
Continue reading ‘Gang Ways’
By Stephen Kangal
October 16, 2008
PM Manning has been flirting with and has a wild and obsessive uncontrollable penchant for dabbling with political integration schemes involving Caricom countries. They are geared exclusively to promote his electoral security agenda without the requisite political mandate on this question ever being sought from and received from the electorate.
Continue reading ‘Integration Must be Sanctioned by a Referendum’
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 15, 2008
Each week the Academy of at UTT for Arts, Letters, Culture and Public Affairs presents “The Research Fellows’ Series” in which the Fellows of the Academy offer their aspects of their research to the public. These projects are supposed to be path-breaking offerings that lend new insights into aspect of our society and personalities in our society. On Thursday last (October 9), Professor Brinsley Samaroo, a fellow of the Academy, sought to dissuade us from holding onto many of our previous assumptions about Badase asked us to recognize his heroic personality and his contributions to Trinidad and Tobago society.
Continue reading ‘The Turbulent Career of Badase Sagan Maraj’
By Raffique Shah
Sunday, October 12th 2008
I grew to dislike Budget presentations and the debates that followed them during my five short years as a parliamentarian. For most of that period, the then Prime Minister, Dr Eric Williams, was also Minister of Finance. Like most intellectuals who were also heads of governments in that era, Williams reveled in making lengthy presentations. Having a captive audience comprising 35 MPs, a number of senators and other high-ranking public officials who felt it was their duty to be present for the budget, Williams would drone on and on, sometimes for five, six hours.
Continue reading ‘In Trinidad, the piper calls the tune’
By Noam Chomsky
October 2nd 2008; ZNet
This talk was given to the VII Social Summit for Latin American and Caribbean Unit, via video feed.
During the past decade, Latin America has become the most exciting region of the world. The dynamic has very largely flowed from right where you are meeting, in Caracas, with the election of a leftist president dedicated to using Venezuela’s rich resources for the benefit of the population rather than for wealth and privilege at home and abroad, and to promote the regional integration that is so desperately needed as a prerequisite for independence, for democracy, and for meaningful development. The initiatives taken in Venezuela have had a significant impact throughout the subcontinent, what has now come to be called “the pink tide.” The impact is revealed within the individual countries, most recently Paraguay, and in the regional institutions that are in the process of formation. Among these are the Banco del Sur, an initiative that was endorsed here in Caracas a year ago by Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz; and the ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean, which might prove to be a true dawn if its initial promise can be realized.
Continue reading ‘Latin American and Caribbean Unity’
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