Magistrate: Minister to set bar hours

By Anna-Lisa Paul
December 17, 2010 – newsday.co.tt

BarDespite assertions by Port-of-Spain Mayor Louis Lee Sing that bars in his mayoral district will stop selling liquor at midnight, a senior magistrate yesterday said the court’s hands were tied as it pertains to the law governing the granting of liquor licences.

Chairman of the Licensing Committee for the St George and environs district, Senior Magistrate Lucina Cardenas-Ragoonanan said only the respective minister can give effect to restrict hours for the sale of alcohol. The Ministry of Legal Affairs is the ministry under whose purview the granting of bar and liquor licences fall.
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Zimbabwe’s Road to Vindication

By Netfa Freeman
December 15, 2010

ZimbabweWhen Zimbabwe initiated fast track land redistribution in 2000 it was big news for corporate media to echo several patented denunciations, characterizing the process as rife with corruption, violence, and inefficiency and doomed to fail.

More than eager to join the fray was the liberal left whose pseudo analysis reiterated the same line accompanied by an imprudent aversion to anything that seemed even remotely favorable to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party.
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Criminalizing the Society

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 15, 2010

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI always believe that the demise of the Grenada Revolution occurred because of the hotheadedness of forty-year olds who had little knowledge of the world and people. They knew theory aplenty but were not seasoned by common sense and wisdom that only comes with age. One is seeing a similar tendency in the UNC-led coalition called the People’s Partnership.
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On the death of Ramcharitar “Bull” Lalchan – OWTU stalwart

Ramcharitar LalchanLife can be strange sometimes. Last Sunday, while searching through a memory stick, I bounced-up upon some photos of Bull. I had taken them during an interview done with him in 2008. His eyes were as clear and as bright as ever. Everybody talks about his trademark beard, but his eyes were bright. Monday evening, I am driving down the highway and Comrade Gerry calls. As we say in Trinidad in our understated way, he told me “Bull gone through…”

We all know Bull the fighter. But I want to share a reminisce starting with my knowledge of him as a little boy right through to knowing him as a fighter for workers in Trinidad and Tobago. As little children he was part of the community of elders, in the sense of adults. Pointe-a-Pierre residential consisted of Hill, the two lanes, Poui and Railway avenue and later on Plaisance Park. Beaumont Hill was 10 minutes walk from Plaisance Park. You had to pass the lanes/avenues to get there and Auckington was the main playing ground.
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Warner a one-man wrecking machine

By Raffique Shah
December 11, 2010

Raffique ShahTHE closest I ever got to a football World Cup finals was in London in 1966. No, I was not in Wembley Stadium where England beat West Germany 4-2 in a match that was mired in controversy. My friend, the late Joey Baksh, and I, watched the match on television from a flat near Brixton. That was so close to Wembley, yet beyond the reach of students who could not afford tickets.
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Cudjoe’s Indian Time Ah Come

Cudjoe’s Indian Time Ah Come Part 1

By Sat Maharaj – December 02, 2010

Secretary General of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, Satnarayan MaharajWhen my friend Prof Selwyn Cudjoe invited me to deliver the feature address at the launch of his latest publication, Indian Time Ah Come In Trinidad and Tobago, my first response was that this was a set-up. Was Selwyn attempting to portray Sat Maharaj and Indians in general as a group glorifying in the political success of the People’s Partnership in a boastful way?
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Who Is In Charge Here?

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 09, 2010

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt is one thing to win an election. It is quite another thing to govern a country. It’s good to rule by consensus but disastrous when no one is in charge and the leadership functions by vaps. It is exciting when a leader is guided by a sense of good will. It is frightening when such a leader is not guided by any core principles and the ship of state is adrift and rudderless.
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Split in the PNM?

PNM Walkout

Newsday Editorial
December 08 2010 – newsday.co.tt

PNMOpposition Chief Whip Marlene Mc Donald may shut her eyes to reality, play word games and deny her parliamentary bench is split, but Friday’s partial walkout of the Chamber can leave few in doubt of the power struggle that is confusing the PNM side. Friday’s division of the bench showed TT what it has for six months suspected: since losing office, there has existed a tug of war in the Parliament between MPs loyal to new Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley and representatives sympathetic to their former chief, Patrick Manning. Friday was a physical manifestation of the current PNM political reality.
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An act of gross betrayal

By Trevor Sudama
December 07, 2010 – newsday.co.tt

Basdeo PandayI was astounded by Panday’s lack of concern for the future of the sugar workers when he was the leader of the Government.

I myself was involved in the struggles of sugar workers in the sixties and early seventies. I was a candidate of the United Labour Front in the 1981 General Election in a sugar growing constituency.
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Big Sister is watching you

By Raffique Shah
December 05, 2010

“Virtually all countries of the world…have secret CIA tracking stations.”
—Intelligence expert and author Alexander Kolpakidi (Daily Mail, November 15, 2010).

Raffique ShahTHE scandal—allegations that US agents spied in (and on) sovereign states, allies like Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Iceland—broke around the same time the SIA mess hit the fan here in Trinidad and Tobago. American agents conducted surveillance activities against “suspected terrorists” on foreign soil. They did not inform the host countries of what they were doing, which included monitoring, photographing and filming people around their embassies and others taking part in protest rallies.
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