Dangerous Draft Constitution

Newsday Editorial
Tuesday, January 13 2009

PM Patrick ManningTHE Draft Constitution laid by Prime Minister Patrick Manning at last Friday’s re-opening of the House of Representatives not only alters the mechanics of the Constitution but undermines the most universal tenets of constitutional accountability.

This is the third draft presented by Mr Manning, following a first draft laid in the House on Friday August 18, 2006, and a second draft outlined to the PNM Annual Convention on Sunday July 13, 2008.
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Recession opens new opportunities

By Raffique Shah
Sunday, January 11, 2009

Trini PeopleIF ever the world needed an economic recession, this is the time. Maybe there is some superior entity that is both omniscient and omnipotent, that saw the excesses man was capable of, left to his devices. And just maybe, that entity decided to call halt to the madness that gripped mankind, from Iceland to Antarctica. Almost the entire world, except for the one billion living in poverty that we can pretend do not exist, engaged in wanton, wasteful consumerism. It was as if we were re-enacting the lavishness of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, or the Court of the Roman Empire in its halcyon days.
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Remembering Jizelle Salandy (Giselle Salandy)

Jizelle Salandy’s Send-Off

TriniView.com Reporters
Event Date: January 07, 2009
Posted: January 10, 2009

Hundreds of people turned up at the St. Benedict’s Roman Catholic Church in La Romaine to remember and bid farewell to the World Boxing Champion Jizelle Salandy. They came in buses, maxis and cars from all over Trinidad to pay their last respects. Many persons in attendance admitted that they did not know Jizelle personally but her life inspired them in some way.
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Revisiting Cuba at 50

Dr. Kwame Nantambu
January 08, 2009

Fidel CastroOn 1st January 1959, a successful armed revolution took place in the Caribbean. This revolution destroyed Euro-Spanish-American colonial oppression in Cuba. It was led by Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. The Euro-Spanish-American dictatorship regime was led by Fulgencio Batista.

Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and “Che” Guevara held their ground in the Sierra Maestra mountains accompanied by a mere hundred fellow revolutionaries. What is vital, however, is that the “26th of July movement” had the ultimate support of the oppressed Cuban peasants.
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Boxing champion Giselle Salandy is dead

TrinidadandTobagoNews.com Reporters
January 04, 2009

Undefeated Trinidad and Tobago boxing champion, Giselle Salandy, died following a vehicular accident on the Beetham Highway, on the outskirts of Port of Spain, this morning, January 4th 2009. The 21 year old boxing sensation succumbed to her injuries at the Port of Spain General Hospital around 8.29 a.m. Reports state that Salandy was driving west into Port of Spain a little before 7 a.m. when she crashed into a concrete pillar upon reaching the National Petroleum (N.P.) overpass just before the Bhagwansingh turnoff. Miss Salandy and other occupant of the Toyota Yaris, national female footballer Tamar Watson were injured and both were rushed to hospital. Most recent reports indicate that Watson suffered two broken legs and is in a critical condition.
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A new start for Zimbabwe?

Ian Scoones, Challenges the myths about Zimbabwean agriculture and land reform

15 September 2008
lalr.org.za/
(Livelihoods after land reform)

Zimbabwe WatchThe long-awaited political agreement in Zimbabwe is to be welcomed. After years of political impasse and economic instability, there is a potential for a new start. But an informed debate on the future is needed and a focus on land and the agricultural sector must be central to these discussions. The new government will be offered advice from all quarters – consultants from around the world will arrive by the plane load, and the donor community and foreign think-tanks of all persuasions will forward their preferred plans and programmes.
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Israel courting doomsday

By Raffique Shah
January 04, 2009

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Israel killsSOME 40 years or so ago, in the heady days of Black Power and the global fight for basic human and civil rights by non-Whites, I saw all White people as oppressors. I was a young firebrand, who, in the universal spirit of my revolutionary hero Cuban Che Guevara, was ready to fight against injustices wherever they existed. I actually lived out part of my utopian dream by taking up arms against “the establishment”, a feat many of my contemporaries also dreamed of, but never experienced.
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Condoleezza Rice, Gaza and Zimbabwe

By Stephen Gowans
January 2, 2009

Israel has killed 414 Gazans and wounded 1,850 in the last seven daysIn the last seven days, Israeli airstrikes have killed 414 Gazans and wounded 1,850. [1] Israel says it’s defending itself against Palestinian rocket attacks. If that’s so, the response is grossly disproportionate. In the last seven days, only five Israelis have died as a result of these attacks. [2] Average the number of Israeli deaths over the last seven years from rockets launched from Gaza and the figure comes out to less than two per year. In response, Israel has killed 59 Palestinians and wounded 264 per day over the last seven days.
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Politics of the colonized versus colonizer

Dr. Kwame Nantambu
January 02, 2009

ParliamentThe recent call by leaders of both the Congress of the People (COP) and UNC-A for a co-operative accommodation/dialogue with the ruling PNM government to tackle the thorny, intractable crime problem in TnT will always remain a classic exercise in futility.

The fact of the matter is that since the 15th century, the European colonizer has successfully pursued and implemented a Divide & Rule policy towards the colonized. Today, as a result of the inherited/imposed Euro-centric education system, the colonized has now perfected this policy among itself in the era of putative political independence.
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