Tag Archives: Raffique Shah

Agriculture, COVID-19, Finance, Food, General T&T, Health, Recession

Foods for your table

By Raffique Shah
June 07, 2021

Raffique ShahWarnings of food crises post-Covid-19 are dire. According to one study on global food security by the Centre for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), dated March 15, 2021, one year into the pandemic, ‘…at least four countries are facing…famine, …with 13 close behind…’ The study noted that one year ago, the UN World Food Programme executive director David Beasely, warned the UN Security Council of ‘famines of biblical proportions’ and of possibly 270 million ‘people experiencing crisis levels of hunger’.
Continue reading Foods for your table →

COVID-19, General T&T, Health, Politics

Departing on arrival day

34 Comments

By Raffique Shah
May 31, 2021

Raffique ShahIn the event that you may have just awakened from a Rip shocking it might seem to you, it’s not just T&T; the world is at war…has been for almost one and a half years.

Just so you get right, we have already lost more than 400 lives in the war against Covid-19, with many more wounded, tens of thousands dislocated. Globally, some 3.5 million souls have returned to God, or wherever such poor buggers go, and mankind’s forces have suffered an estimated 170 million light-to-moderate casualties.
Continue reading Departing on arrival day →

General T&T, Health, International, Israel, Palestine, USA

Respect conventions of war

13 Comments

By Raffique Shah
May 24, 2021

Raffique ShahAn amazing contradiction that is embedded in the dissemination of information via technology that seems to evolve at a dizzying pace is how easy it is to fool massive numbers of people into believing glaring lies. Disinformation, a craft that is as old as civilisation itself, which has been used in warfare and in politics from ancient times to today, remains a weapon of mass confusion in the armories of sovereign states as much as parties that could, and have, catapulted many of them into power against immense odds.
Continue reading Respect conventions of war →

COVID-19, General T&T, Health, PNM, UNC

Politicians lying, people dying

10 Comments

By Raffique Shah
May 17, 2021

Raffique ShahAs the spike in Covid-related infections and deaths rocketed almost exponentially over the past three weeks or so leaving many citizens stunned, people who sought guidance and leadership from politicians were assaulted with a cacophony of discordant notes that sounded like the braying of a pack of ancient jackasses.

What else could we expect from what passes for politics in this country? Imagine if you will a nation in Covid-induced-crisis that descended upon us after some powerfully stupid people believed their mystically motivated leaders who told them first that Covid was a hoax, then said it could be cured by sunshine, and later switched to acquiring vaccines for immunizing the population against what, less than one year ago was a hoax. Only in Trinidad.
Continue reading Politicians lying, people dying →

COVID-19, General T&T, Health

Too little poetic justice

9 Comments

By Raffique Shah
May 10, 2021

Raffique ShahThere are times when I feel ashamed of being Trinidadian. On such occasions, I feel almost like a traitor, having to admit that some of my countrymen are bringing shame and disgrace to our otherwise proud nation.

As the Covid-19 numbers exploded last week from single-digit in­creases to 300-plus daily confirmed cases, hospital beds were occupied at dizzying rates while deaths rose from modest to uncomfortable levels, I felt personally defeated.
Continue reading Too little poetic justice →

General T&T, India, International, Pakistan

Vortex of violence

4 Comments

By Raffique Shah
May 03, 2021

Raffique ShahBy a curious twist of fate, I was browsing through some books on Amazon when I saw a digital copy of one of the finest historical novels I’ve read, Freedom at Midnight, co-authored by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins. I couldn’t resist buying it. I would find the time to reread their excellent record of India’s (and Pakistan’s) independence in 1947.
Continue reading Vortex of violence →

Africa, COVID-19, Finance, General T&T, Health, International, Politics, Recession

Of dollars and sense

5 Comments

By Raffique Shah
April 26, 2021

Raffique ShahI round off my intervention on the many possibilities we might find in a new post-­Covid economy by reminding readers the pandemic has hammered economies across the world, irrespective of their sizes, in ways never before seen.

Oil was rocked to unimaginably low prices. Stock markets swayed as if in stupor, major commodity prices collapsed to uneconomic levels, and the virus disrupted world production of essential industries, goods and services, leaving governments confused, powerless, defeated.
Continue reading Of dollars and sense →

COVID-19, Finance, General T&T, Health, Politics, Recession

Out with the old, in with the new

1 Comment

By Raffique Shah
April 19, 2021

Raffique ShahThere comes a time in the affairs of a nation—and such occurrences are rare, maybe once in a century—when events shaped by the actions of citizens or unleashed by the forces of nature create the conditions for change, sometimes radical change that otherwise would hardly be considered, far less adopted, but which, when measured by the degree of dislocation the nation faces if its leaders fail to act, may offer opportunities that guide us along a path we didn’t think existed.
Continue reading Out with the old, in with the new →

COVID-19, Finance, General T&T, Health, PNM, Politics, Recession

Pass the teacup

2 Comments

By Raffique Shah
April 12, 2021

Raffique ShahThere must be an ultra-secret super-Lotto somewhere in the universe, where only the super-wealthy and governments-by-vaps play for super-stakes—you know, jackpots paid in gazillions, in currencies-of-choice, and in cash, s’il vous plait. Really, there must be. Why else would Finance Minister Colm Imbert and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley strut around a country that looks like an abandoned steam locomotive whose era has gone, they looking cooler than the proverbial cucumber, seemingly without care or worry, while lesser mortals like your humble scribe worry to no end over the near-evaporation of foreign exchange, the unavailability of any good or service that we can sell in large enough volumes that will yield the billions of US dollars we require for our sustenance?
Continue reading Pass the teacup →

Caribbean, COVID-19, General T&T, Health

Now’s not the time to misbehave

3 Comments

By Raffique Shah
April 05, 2021

Raffique ShahI suppose it had to come to this—an explosion of Covid-19 cases just when we thought we could see a ray of sunshine at the end of a year-long dark tunnel we’ve cautiously navigated, when the first tranche of vaccines had arrived, launching Trinidad and Tobago into the immunisation phase of the war against this deadly virus.

It’s not as if the surge in confirmed cases ambushed us. We were warned by the medical team that has thus far efficiently conducted the war against Covid-19, that should we continue to breach the simple safety practices that have worked for us, hence expose ourselves to regression, we would encounter a nasty backlash. But there are some among us who are plain “harden”, who must misbehave to look macho.
Continue reading Now’s not the time to misbehave →