All posts by News

The High Cost of Living: A Sufferer’s Perspective

HouseTHE EDITOR: I’d like you to allow me a small space on your website to address one of the many elephants that occupy this large room that we call Trinidad and Tobago. With all the recent talk about the high cost of living I think that this would be a most appropriate time to do so.

I recently read a short article in the Trinidad Express about the high cost of house and apartment rentals in Trinidad and Tobago today. In the article, a number of landlords defended their exorbitant prices saying that the costs of building materials have gone up and therefore to cover these costs, they have upped their prices. Fair enough, right?
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Caribbean Airlines ‘gouging’ taxpayers

By Raffique Shah
Sunday, March 16th 2008

Manning And The JetAS I listened to billionaire-businessman Arthur Lok Jack reel out the numbers surrounding Caribbean Airlines (CAL) decision to purchase a Bombardier Global Express SRX, I was puzzled. If anyone knows anything about basic “counting”, it should be a billionaire. If anyone knows about price-gouging, it’s invariably the very wealthy. After all, that’s how most among the super-rich become wealthy. At his media conference last week, Lok Jack reeled out some numbers that stunned me.
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DNA Test clears rape accused

By Andre Bagoo
March 13, 2008

ViolenceA MAN who was charged with rape and who spent four years in prison after being identified by two women at a police identification parade, was yesterday set free and exonerated by DNA evidence which proved his innocence. It is the first time DNA has set an accused person free in a court of law in this country.

The man, who was arrested on November 19, 2003, had been charged with one count of rape, two counts of grevious sexual assault and two counts of robbery with aggravation in relation to an incident with two women on November 18, 2003 at a trail in Bon Air, just off the Priority Bus Route.
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The Sheriff of Wall Street

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 12, 2008

Eliot SpitzerIt’s kind of sad. A brilliant governor with an exciting future brought low because he couldn’t keep his penis in his pants. From all reports, he seemed to be happily married with an adorning wife and three devoted children. Yet, he could not resist the lure of high-class prostitutes on his occasional visits to Washington, D.C.

He needed the exhilaration that comes from living on the edge; the excitement that transgressive behavior generates. Here is a man who knew the dangers of getting involved in a prostitution ring trying to hide the payments he made and sources from which these payments came. He had prosecuted such rings before. Yet, the unfolding drama called for a playwright of Euripides’s stature (he was a Greek playwright), to capture the tragic nature of Governor Eliot Spitzer’s fall from grace.
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Youths, Violence and Values in TnT

‘Chickens come home to roost’

By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
March 12, 2008

PeopleThe recent stabbing death of teenager Shaquille Roberts at the Success Laventille Composite School speaks volumes as to the overt breakdown and rapid, exponential decline and failure of all aspects of young life here in TnT.

The fact of the matter is that the 18th-19th century inherited/ imposed/ accepted Euro-centric British education system has not only totally failed the youths in TnT but, most viciously, it has also successfully imbued in them a sense of worthlessness, nothingness and unpreparedness.
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Against public opinion

By Raffique Shah
March 09, 2008

Manning And The JetWhen the furore over government owning an executive jet first erupted last year, I was among the very few persons who saw nothing wrong with it, and I wrote as much. I argued then that the Prime Minister could be likened to the CEO of an oil rich country, except that his responsibilities were far greater, and that right here in Trinidad and Tobago there were several conglomerates that owned such aircraft. Indeed, across the world, most governments own, or have assigned to them, aircraft ranging from small executive jets to huge jumbo-jets.
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Travel expert blasts Manning’s jet purchase

By Vernon Khelawan
Saturday 9th March, 2008
www.guardian.co.tt

Manning And The JetAn air travel expert, involved in the Caribbean air transport business for many years, has questioned the absence of a feasibility study preceding the decision to enter the jet leasing industry.

To date the question remains unanswered, although Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert in a post-Cabinet briefing tried in vain to deflect the question.

The minister had spoken two days before about a feasibility study relative to the inauguration of a fast ferry service in the southern Caribbean.
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Gingerbread Houses

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 06, 2008

Gingerbread HouseIn 1980 when Peter Minshall was about to bring out Danse Macabre, David Picou, a good friend of Ken Morris, took Morris a sketch from Minshall and asked him to see what he could do with it. That suggestion led to the production a section in Minshall’s band that reflected Morris’s artistry as a copper worker. These sections which never exceeded sixteen pieces became a significant part of Minshall’s carnival productions during the 1980s including Danse Macabre (1980), Jungle Fever (1981); River (1983); River Gods (1984) and Golden Calalbash (1985).
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Royal Visit to UWI Highlights Lingering Colonialism

By Leslie
March 06, 2008

The Prince of Wales, Charles Philip Arthur George and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of CornwallThe Prince of Wales, Charles Philip Arthur George and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, paid a visit to the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus, on Wednesday 5th March, 2008, as part of their tour of Trinidad and Tobago to promote environmentalism and to reinforce British ties with former colonies. The couple made their way to the JFK Quadrangle to view the UWI 60th Anniversary Exhibition, to look at and to play the G Pan and to observe a skit put on by the Centre for Creative and Festival Arts.
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Manning And The Jet

By Heru
March 04, 2008

Manning And The JetUnder different conditions I could have supported the idea of the Prime Minister having a private jet at his disposal but not in this climate of increase crime, widespread traffic jams, double digit inflation and increases in the cost of essential services.

Patrick Manning denied that his government was interested in purchasing a private jet from Bombardier in 2006 after he and several of his ministers went for a test ride in one to Antigua. I am of the view that Patrick Manning only put his desire for a private jet on hold because the move was unpopular so close to an election, especially after the story broke that Bombardier was also bidding for the $20 billion rapid rail project. The conflict of interest together with the general unpopularity of using taxpayers’ funds to purchase a private jet for his use could have cost him dearly. Now that he has secured another five years in office, he intends to pursue his desire for a private jet to accompany the new Prime Minister’s mansion.
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