COP, Elections, General T&T, Parliament, People's Partnership, Politics, UNC

Big win, bigger expectations

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Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, Minister of Works & Transport Jack Warner, Minister of Energy and Energy Affairs Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan, Minister of Public Utilities Emmanuel George and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar at the People's Partnership's Victory Celebration - June, 18, 2010
Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, Minister of Works & Transport Jack Warner, Minister of Energy and Energy Affairs Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan, Minister of Public Utilities Emmanuel George and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar at the People's Partnership's Victory Celebration - June, 18, 2010
By Raffique Shah
August 01, 2010

THE People’s Partnership has stamped its authority to govern the country over the next five years by convincingly winning two elections in as many months. Now, its leadership must be sensitive to the high expectations among a polls-drunk populace that was summoned to vote in six elections in ten years. The new Government faces the onerous task of governing a nation that can at times be overly demanding, somewhat fickle, and quick to condemn.
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Africa, Culture, General T&T, Media, Race and Identity

President’s Emancipation Day 2010 Address

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President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago Professor George Maxwell Richards
President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
Professor George Maxwell Richards
Message from His Excellency Professor George Maxwell Richards TC, CMT, Ph. D, President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago on the Occasion of Emancipation Day 2010.

On the occasion of Emancipation Day 2010, I send greetings to all citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, as we consider what this day means to us.
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Culture, General T&T, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity

Prime Minister’s Emancipation Day 2010 Address

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Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar
Message to the nation from the Hon. Kamla Persad-Bissessar on the occasion of the celebration of Emancipation Day 2010

Fellow citizens. Today our nation commemorates the 172nd Anniversary of Emancipation in Trinidad and Tobago. That historic act on August 1, 1838, destroyed the moral and legal basis of a system, which allowed human beings to be classified as chattel and denied the most basic human rights.
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Elections, General T&T, PNM, Politics

Rising from Rock Bottom

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By Dr. Selwyn R Cudjoe
July 30, 2010

PNMForgive me if I do not feel as jaded about the PNM as so many commentators do.

The PNM is down but it is not out. However, the infighting that we are beginning to see certainly does not help. While it is true that the PNM has reached its nadir, in time it would begin to assert itself and continue to be an important national presence. It would not necessarily do so as it did before and with the same force but whatever happens it will remain relevant to our society’s political aspirations. In times such as these we are quick to draw conclusions about the fate of political parties and social groupings without understanding that history must be viewed as a process rather than a static phenomenon. We draw the wrong conclusion if we look only at the results of the last general and local government elections and conclude that the PNM is done. In fact, the recent performance of the PNM should not allow one to conclude that it has no future in this society nor that the People’s Partnership remains an implacable force of nature.
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Africa, General T&T, India, Letters, Race and Identity

Emancipation 2010: ‘Ganges and the Nile’?

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EmancipationTHE EDITOR: Possible points of confluence, and of departure between the ‘Ganges and the Nile’?

As Emancipation, T&T ’10 approaches, and considering possible choices for ongoing nationhood, three prescient thinkers, one in each of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, are worth citing. One is William Faulkner, the Nobel prize-winning American author; the other, George Santayana, the 19th century Spanish philosopher; and T&T’s David Rudder.
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Crime in T&T, Death Penalty, General T&T, Letters, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, Security, Violence

Trinidad and Tobago Death Penalty Laws

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HangingTHE EDITOR: We all know that after the most famous hangings in Trinidad and Tobago, which involved Nankissoon Boodram (Dole Chadee) and his 8 henchmen, the hanging of Anthony Briggs was the last the country has seen. Why? The main reason is a plethora of Human Rights Laws.
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COP, Elections, General T&T, Media, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, UNC

PP Trumps PNM in Local Govt Poll

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PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Jack Warner
PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Jack Warner
July 28, 2010

Chamber congratulates PM Kamla and Partnership

Kamla: T&T must not go back to old days
T&T must never go back to the days of the “old corrupt, arrogant, self-serving politics of the past,” says Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Absent PNM MPs affected Diego results
Significantly two of the three MPs, Diego Martin North East MP and former Works Minister Colm Imbert who was also an aspirant to the PNM political leadership and Amery Browne were absent from the local government election campaign.
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COP, Crime in T&T, Finance, General T&T, Law, People's Partnership, Politics, Security, Violence

1990 Enquiry: Exercise in Futility

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Abu BakrI DO not know how Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her Cabinet arrived at a decision to appoint a Commission of Enquiry into the attempted coup of 1990. I suspect the hype that always surrounds the anniversary date of the Muslimeen assault on the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) government may have prompted the PM and her colleagues to attempt to “put this matter to rest for once and for all”. It certainly was not part of the People’s Partnership manifesto or 120-day action plan.
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General T&T, Health, International

Dengue Outbreak

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Aedes aegypti mosquito
Aedes aegypti mosquito
Dengue outbreak
A dengue outbreak has been declared in T&T. The confirmed deaths of three people due to the virus, unconfirmed deaths of two others and more than 600 reported cases of dengue prompted chief medical officer Dr Anton Cumberbatch to make the declaration yesterday.

3 Dengue Deaths
After two years, Trinidad and Tobago (TT) is again grappling with a dengue outbreak. The Health Ministry has received reports of five deaths out of which three have been confirmed as due to dengue haemorrhagic fever. There are approximately 600 clinical cases reported. Dengue fever is caused by an infected female Aedes aegypti mosquito.
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Books, Culture, General T&T, Race and Identity

Besson’s Cruel Accusations

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 23, 2010

Part I

Abu BakrGerard Besson’s The Cult of the Will seeks to challenge the historical orthodoxy that undergirds Dr. Eric Williams’s analysis of the causes of the abolition of slavery and the slave trade and the cruelty he perpetuated against the entire society although whites seems to come out worse in the bargain. According to Besson, Williams sought “to facilitate the stigmatization of Caribbean people of European descent, or those who appear so, through the projection of negative concepts of ‘slave master’ or ‘colonial master,’ to modern-day individuals for political and ideological purposes.”
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