Another Central toddler murdered

Three-year-old Roshni RamdialPolice were on a manhunt in Central Trinidad last night, after another toddler was murdered.

Three-year-old Roshni Ramdial, was pronounced dead on arrival at Chaguanas Health Centre. The child was beaten.

Roshni’s death followed the deaths of several other children who were attacked and killed during the past few months.

It was only last Wednesday, in Mayaro, that nine-month-old Rakeem Ricardo Clarke was clobbered to death with a dabla—thick wooden paddle used to flip roti.

A man and a woman were, up to late yesterday, assisting police in that investigation, pending an autopsy today.
Continue reading Another Central toddler murdered

A mess of its own making

by Raffique Shah
Sunday, July 6th 2008

ParliamentLAST Friday, the House of Representatives debated a motion to confirm or strike down the Police Service Commission’s (PSC) nominee for the position of Commissioner of Police, Senior Superintendent Stephen Williams. Speculation was rife beforehand that the Government would reject Williams on the premise that he was too young for the top job, that the selection process was flawed.
Continue reading A mess of its own making

Robert Mugabe: Victim or Villain?

By Amengeo Amengeo
July 03, 2008
The African Executive

Zimbabwe WatchWhen sharks smell blood, they go into a feeding frenzy and attack relentlessly. There is feeding frenzy about Zimbabwe that preceded the June 27 run-off elections.

Thwarted in their bid to install their man Morgan Tsvangirai in power, the forces of Western neo-colonialism continue to ratchet up media pressure. Some African leaders seem to have bought into this propaganda campaign.
Continue reading Robert Mugabe: Victim or Villain?

Ghost Scholars

Newsday’s Editorial
Thursday, July 3 2008

Marlene Mc DonaldWhere do the neophyte Ministers of the PNM regime get the idea that taxpayers’ money is not taxpayers’ business? Was this what they were taught at their retreat last year, which was also at taxpayers’ expense, to learn about their responsibilities? Or are they merely falling into the easy contempt with which politicians too often treat the citizens of this country?
Continue reading Ghost Scholars

Church and Sexuality

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 26, 2008

CrossWhen I was growing up in Tacarigua, Gilbert Jessop, the priest of the St. Mary’s Anglican Church, employed David, a homosexual servant, who was cook, maid, chief bottle washer and the master of his house. Rev. Jessop, the son of the famous English cricketer of the same name, was a bachelor and so David directed the daily routine of his house. Most of the young men in the district liked the arrangement because it gave us free reins to the pastorate which Rev. Jessop turned it into a mini–club house. Rev. Jessop was a master at table tennis–no one ever beat him in a game–and an efficient cricketer. He was the first person I ever saw play the game golf which he did on the Orange Grove savannah.
Continue reading Church and Sexuality

Champagne taste, mauby pockets

By Raffique Shah
June 29, 2008

Elite DiningWith NFM announcing last week that the price of wheat flour is set to rise another 29 per cent, there was the usual groaning and moaning from consumers, blaming “de govament” for rising food prices. Really, you’d think these people have just landed from Mars, that they are unaware of the global food crisis, of inflation eating into people’s pockets just about everywhere in the world. You’d think, too, that by now everyone would have adjusted their spending habits to meet escalating costs through focussing on “needs” as opposed to “wants”.
Continue reading Champagne taste, mauby pockets

Zimbabwe at War

By Stephen Gowans
June 25, 2008

Zimbabwe WatchThis is a war between revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries; between nationalists and quislings; between Zimbabwean patriots and the US and Britain.

Should an election be carried out when a country is under sanctions and it has been made clear to the electorate that the sanctions will be lifted only if the opposition party is elected? Should a political party which is the creation of, and is funded by, hostile foreign forces, and whose program is to unlatch the door from within to provide free entry to foreign powers to establish a neo-colonial rule, be allowed to freely operate? Should the leaders of an opposition movement that takes money from hostile foreign powers and who have made plain their intention to unseat the government by any means available, be charged with treason? These are the questions that now face (have long faced) the embattled government of Zimbabwe, and which it has answered in its own way, and which other governments, at other times, have answered in theirs.
Continue reading Zimbabwe at War

Richplain lockdown illegal

By Sean Douglas and Andre Bagoo
Wednesday, June 25 2008

ArmyTHE Law Association yesterday questioned the legality of the “lock down” of Richplain by the Defence Force who set up camp in the Diego Martin community after the Father’s Day murder of Corporal Ancil Wallace and his best friend Noel Charles.

Soldiers pitched a camp at a savannah at Angies Field Road in Richplain, two days after Cpl Wallace and Charles were killed during the christening party for Wallace’s son Jaydon on June 15. There have since been reports by residents of beatings by the soldiers and the detention of several persons in the absence of the police.
Continue reading Richplain lockdown illegal

Teachers on corporal punishment

Ria Taitt Political Editor
Sunday, June 22nd 2008

School ChildrenTeachers feel “disempowered” and “abandoned” on the issue of corporal punishment and classroom control as students mock them saying “Government say yuh cyar do me nothing”.

Eighty three per cent of teachers agree that corporal punishment should be allowed in secondary schools. And, according to 62 per cent of teachers, sexual deviance-pornography, sexual intercourse, sexual fondling and kissing- on the school premises are “big problems”.
Continue reading Teachers on corporal punishment