Monthly Archives: January 2019

CARICOM, China, General T&T, International, Russia, USA, Venezuela

Trump’s Coup in Venezuela: The Full Story

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Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair
Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair

By Eric Draitser
January 30, 2019 – counterpunch.org

The US-sponsored coup in Venezuela, still ongoing as I write, is the latest chapter in the long and bloody history of US imperialism in Latin America. This basic fact, understood by most across the left of the political spectrum – including even the chattering liberal class which acknowledges this truth only with the passage of time and never in the moment – must undergird any analysis of the situation in Venezuela today. That is to say, the country is being targeted by the Yanqui Empire.
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Caribbean, General T&T, International, PNM, Politics, USA, Venezuela

Venezuelans should thank Rowley, not cuss him

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By Raffique Shah
January 30, 2019

Raffique ShahThe Government of Trinidad and Tobago has adopted a correct response to the political crisis in the neighbouring Republic of Venezuela. In conforming with the United Nations charter that member-states will not intervene in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, as Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley explained, T&T has opted instead to join with CARICOM countries to try to persuade the UN to mediate between the warring factions and hopefully diffuse the tension and bring a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
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General T&T, USA, Venezuela

Venezuelan Crisis is Now Regional In Scope

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By Stephen Kangal
January 30, 2019

Stephen KangalIt appears to me that the latest statement issued by Minister Stuart Young deputizing for a missing -in-action Minister of Foreign Affairs on the situation in Venezuela stands on the following three planks:

  1. The UN principle of the Sovereign Equality of States
  2. Non- Interference by T&T in the internal affairs of sovereign state of Venezuela
  3. Non-Intervention militarily but potential mediation in crisis Venezuela
    The first thought that strikes me is that were the international community deterred by the first two above-mentioned pillars in South Africa, the despicable policy of apartheid in South Africa would have been still with us today. Infringements of human, civil and political rights concerns globalize the situation in Venezuela beyond its sovereign/territorial boundaries.

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Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Thinking Dialectically About Slavery

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 30, 2019

“It is impossible completely to understand Marx’s Capital…without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel’s Logic.”

—V. I. Lenin quoted in C. L. R. James, Notes on Dialectics

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn Monday the Sugar and Slavery Gallery of London Museum Docklands invited me to be a panelist in a seminar, “London’s Debt to and Involvement with Slavery.” The other panelist, Dr. Kate Donington, Co-Curator of the Slavery, Culture and Collecting display at the Museum, spoke about George Hibbert, a slave owner in Jamaica and a hugely influential presence in eighteenth-century Jamaica and London.
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Elections, European Union, General T&T, International, USA, Venezuela, Violence

The US Strategy for Regime Change in Venezuela

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The CEPR’s Alex Main and TRNN’s Greg Wilpert discuss the trajectory of US regime change policy in Venezuela through to the present coup in progress backed by the Trump administration.

By Alex Main & Greg Wilpert – The Real News
Jan 25th 2019 at 4.07pm

From economic sanctions to international pressure, how has the US strategy for regime change in Venezuela worked until now? An analysis with CEPR’s Alex Main and TRNN’s Greg Wilpert.
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General T&T, International, Latin America, USA, Venezuela

The U.S. Has Venezuela in Its Crosshairs

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It is plain as day that the United States wants to overthrow the government in Venezuela

US President Donald Trump (L) and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (R) (Wikipedia)
US President Donald Trump (L) and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (R) (Wikipedia)

By Vijay Prashad
January 17, 2019 – venezuelanalysis.com

Last Thursday—on January 10—Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for his second term as president of Venezuela. “I tell the people,” Maduro said, “this presidential sash is yours. The power of this sash is yours. It does not belong to the oligarchy or to imperialism. It belongs to the sovereign people of Venezuela.”

These two terms—oligarchy and imperialism—define the problems faced by Maduro’s new government.
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General T&T, Tobago, Tourism

Sandals saved Rowley

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By Raffique Shah
January 23, 2019

Raffique ShahPrime Minister Dr Keith Rowley should thank the principals of Sandals for saving him from a fate worse than death. When the Butch Stewart-owned luxury resorts chain dispatched its CEO to announce its withdrawal from the three billion dollar (or whatever it would have cost) Tobago project, it provided a clean escape from infamy for the PM.
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General T&T

The Ultimate Philistine

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 22, 2019

“Kojo [or Cudjoe] was the Asante name for a boy born on Monday.”

—Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeTheodore Lewis is angry that Selwyn Cudjoe has written about a racist white slave holder. He is equally as angry that Bridget Brereton, one of our most distinguished historians, who happens to be a white woman, spoke favorably of my efforts. He writes: Professor Brereton “is an unlikely defender of Cudjoe, given her scathing disavowal of him in her published essay ‘All ah we is not one’ in which she disparages what she calls the ‘African narrative’ of local discourse” (Express, January 12).
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Tourism

The Democratic Ethic Stopped A Secret Sandals Deal

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By Stephen Kangal
January 22, 2019

Stephen KangalThe Sandals debacle is a reflection of our growing maturity as a Nation propelled by a strong interactive Westminster democratic ideal and a Civic Society that is vigilant and untrusting. Poor Project Management Skills as well as a very incompetent and arrogant political leadership and unilateralism contributed to the mismanagement of the Project in getting a discerning public to buy into it.

That is the crux driving the abandonment of the Sandals Resort that was to be constructed in Buccoo on very fragile and pollution-sensitive wetlands.
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