By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 12, 2021
I don’t know how the acidic squabble between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition will end, but I know that verbal violence can have as much devastating consequences as physical violence.
Two of our most prominent leaders cannot be at each other’s throats every day, with their hate-filled language poisoning the national blood stream.
Continue reading The danger of verbal violence
By Raffique Shah
July 12, 2021
In this racially-fractured society, in which we can agree on nothing of substance, nothing that might help the nation move forward, or, to stretch this from the ridiculous to the sublime, we are a people so deeply divided that we shall never find ourselves on the same side of a battle-line should some army of the insane decide to conquer Trinidad and Tobago by force, readers might justifiably ask who in their “right mind” would want to own, rule or otherwise lay claim to the cussed country?
Continue reading Race rules in this wasteland
IN engaging in counter-accusations and whataboutisms, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley is missing the point of the public’s annoyance over ministerial tax exemptions.
On the principle that two wrongs don’t make a right, his Government does not get a free pass from public criticism just because former ministers in the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration are accused of various acts of corruption. The two are separate and one does not justify the other.
Continue reading Perks of unequal sacrifice
By Raffique Shah
July 05, 2021
One night recently, the latter part of the television news still being broadcast, I had half-an-ear tuned in to it as I multi-tasked, maybe checking out something on my tablet or the hard drive in my head. Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar was on-screen, more than likely addressing her supporters, and I half-listened to what she was saying. ‘…and then there is the NIB…that is insolvent…’ I muttered audibly, ‘That’s a lie!’ ‘Why do you say that?’ my wife Rosina asked. I switched my focus to her, and explained in detail why I said Kamla was lying.
Continue reading Black lies matter most
By Darren Bahaw
July 04, 2021 – newsday.co.tt
Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar used vile language and personal pot shots to criticise the Prime Minister for failing to restart the economy during the covid19 crisis which has in effect shut down the majority of businesses since April 29.
In a statement, Persad-Bissessar described Dr Rowley as a “vaccine vagrant” whose promise to deliver vaccines keeps shifting.
Continue reading Opposition Leader knocks PM over shifting vaccine delivery
By Stephen Kangal
July 01, 2021
The work and deliberations of the Committee of the Whole on the two Tobago Self Government Bills have been adjourned sine die.
The PMTT has indicated that they may not come back to the House before September and may even lapse by December. This is the low measure of seriousness attributed to Tobago’s autonomy after the obscene “gallerying” of Monday, Tuesday and today Wednesday by Rowley and his gang of copy-cat neophytes.
Continue reading Time to heal, reconcile and conciliate
By Raffique Shah
June 21, 2021
With this country’s history largely unwritten, and in many instances unrecorded, I shan’t be surprised if my column today reads like Greek hieroglyphics to most people.
Many of us have an interest in knowing where we came from, this potpourri of races that confuses us more than foreigners. Our only identification mark, I cite Meer and Fuchs, examining our language from a phonetic perspective, is the sing-song prosody linguists insist we expose when we speak.
Continue reading A Labour Day story
By Shane Superville
June 18, 2021 – newsday.co.tt
Remarks made by the Prime Minister during a media conference last Saturday led to a heated exchange between officials from the Guyanese government and business community and Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Foreign and Caricom Affairs on Friday.
During his presentation, Dr Rowley referred to a table highlighting the number of vaccines received by all 14 Caricom countries and their associates as of Saturday.
Continue reading Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana officials in vaccine-use crosstalk
By Dr Selwyn R, Cudjoe
June 15, 2021
A few days ago the Attorney General asked the Parliament to approve a supplementary vote of $118.9 million for his ministry. Barataria/San Juan MP Saddam Hosein asked (perhaps pleaded is a better word) how much money the lawyers (120 local and nine foreign) were being paid and the matters for which they were retained.
From the AG’s angle of vision, such a question was preposterous. He responded: “I would like to place on record that the request for the supplementation is driven by the fact that we are still in the course of settling $141.3 million in arrears from the period 2010 to 2015, during which $444.4 million was expended and arrears of $141.3 million left.”
Continue reading Digging Out We Eye in Broad Daylight
By Raffique Shah
June 14, 2021
I shall not dwell on the many options we have to produce some of the foods we consume and to reduce our heavy dependence on foreign foods for our survival. Far too many reports have been compiled by committees on this issue.
The fact that we have done very little to alter the food production equation in favour of local content or substitutes is a damning indictment against us all—from consumers who insist on foreign brands to farmers who cultivate or do not cultivate, depending on subsidies from government; from cooks who will not soil their hands preparing ground provisions for meals for adults who will die if they cannot get hold of foreign “fast foods” that are devoid of nutrition but laden with unhealthy ingredients and harmful additives that are addictive.
Continue reading Small exports add up