Shortly before 8:00 PM tonight, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, announced the highly anticipated reshuffle of her administration. Two Ministers were fired and several others either received promotions or less significant portfolios.
Most significantly, Jack Warner, has been given the National Security Ministry, replacing Brigadier John Sandy.
Continue reading PM Announces Cabinet Resuffle
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 19, 2012
There was a time I would be hurt whenever V. S. Naipaul called us mimic men and a false society. I used go after him mercilessly saying how wrong he was and why we were a young society, trying to get things together. When, at the end of From Columbus to Castro, Dr. Williams endorsed Naipaul’s view of our world, I was crushed. I felt betrayed.
Continue reading Fake Society
By Stephen Kangal
June 19, 2012
I wish to congratulate the Hindu Prachar Kendra for using their Indian Arrival Day function to remember and re-kindle the outstanding and unparalleled legacy bequeathed to posterity in T&T by the late Bhadase Sagan Maraj — trade unionist, religious leader, parliamentarian, land-owner and philanthropist par excellence.
Continue reading Rekindling the Bhadase Maraj Legacy
MSJ Out Partnership
By Cecily Asson
Monday, June 18 2012
In a highly anticipated move, political leader of the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) David Abdulah yesterday announced his party’s withdrawal from the coalition People’s Partnership (PP) and his resignation as a Government Senator.
Continue reading MSJ Withdraws from People’s Partnership
By Raffique Shah
June 16, 2012
I SUPPOSE most people digested the news that a US judge jailed conman Allen Stanford for 110 years, yawned, burped and moved on to the next item. Except for victims of the Texan’s multi-billion-dollar swindle, among them a few thousand from the Caribbean who lost their savings chasing a crooked shadow, Stanford’s life sentence for a crime that is commonplace is of little more than academic interest.
Continue reading Conman of the Caribbean
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 13, 2012
There can be no doubt that a teacher’s job is fraught with great anxiety and the competing demands of their professional responsibilities and the rapidly changing social climate. However any observant reader must be alarmed by the concerns of Tim Gopeesingh, Minister of Education, when he says that errant teachers must be disciplined. If teaching is merely a job to them, then any other job would do since the ultimate purpose of a job is to take care of one’s basic needs (eating, drinking and surviving) whereas a vocation or a profession has to do with fulfilling of one’s life calling. I am aware that a young person today may change jobs as many as six or seven times in his lifetime. I have a feeling that things are a bit different in the professions.
Continue reading Ridding Our Schools of Errant Teachers
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 10, 2012
While I thank Ralph Maraj for his advice, I am not inclined to accept many of his formulations about the People’s National Movement (See Express, April 14 & June 5, 2012). Although he may be generous in offering his suggestions, the party should say thanks but no thanks to what comes over as a disingenuous plug for the People’s Partnership. Keeping in mind Maraj’s political history—his grasshopping tendency to jump from one party to another—dedicated members of the PNM should think twice before they accept what he has to say.
Continue reading Thanks, But No Thanks
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
June 07, 2012
The long-accepted notion that “it’s the economy stupid” is the yardstick in any successful presidential re-election bid, needs to be seriously looked at again.
The salient truism is that a weak national economy juxtaposed against the backdrop of a strong foreign policy position seems to have been the formula for a successful US presidential re-election bid.
Continue reading Foreign policy does matter in presidential re-election
By Stephen Kangal
June 07, 2012
Ralph Maraj’s advice to the PNM is simplistic, cosmetic and fundamentally off the radar. He deludes himself into believing that the deeply embedded and fossilized, original, organizationally-driven culture of ethno-nationalism and secrecy can be easily changed when in fact the electorate has grown fed up and disenchanted of PNM’s several public relations reincarnations. The demographics have changed but the PNM remains insensitive to this political reality. It will not re-brand itself to pander to the new cosmopolitanism.
Continue reading The PNM Leopard Cannot Change Its Stripes
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 06, 2012
A few days ago, the People’s Partnership (PP) celebrated its second year of office amidst a lot of hype and propaganda. Their esteemed leader even tried to mamaguy Orville London by calling him “a bully and cry-baby” because, in his capacity as the Secretary of the THA, he sought a meeting with Kamla Persad Bissessar, in her capacity as the Prime Minister, to talk about the affairs of his country. Under normal circumstances, London would not necessarily have wanted to meet Persad Bissessar because there is nothing intellectually attractive or physically compelling about her. But such is the dynamics of power that the Prime Minister and her cohorts could say a lot of nonsense and get away with it because they control the political purse and constitutional discourses about the nation.
Continue reading PP: Taking Loud and Saying Nothing