By Stephen Kangal
December 09, 2006
I have never ceased to agonise in mental pain at the continuing undue pressures being exerted on our Indian community to exercise constant and eternal vigilance geared to curb and correct the natural predilection of some public decision-makers in Trinidad and Tobago to exclude its presence from public symbols that claim by depicting selectively to represent the cultural diversity of our multicultural landscape. The absence of Indian names of public buildings and notably roadways are relevant in this regard.
Continue reading Order of the Republic Exclusionary
British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, can best demonstrate that he is serious with respect to his recent statement on slavery by having legislation drafted and introduced in the United Kingdom Parliament for the provision of reparations to former British colonies in Africa and the Caribbean, which were victims of slavery, the slave trade and/or de-industrialisation.
The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a Jamaican-inspired resolution to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. 
YASIN ABU BAKR, the leader of the Jamaat Al Muslimeen, was yesterday afternoon freed of the charge of conspiracy to murder two expelled members of his organisation.
Today, the people of Venezuela go to the polls to elect a president. The election is of significance to Trinidad and Tobago because Venezuela happens to be the country closest to us. More than mere geopolitics, under President Hugo Chavez, that country has taken a leading role in hemispheric affairs as well as being a more-than-minor player in global politics. As the fifth biggest oil producing country in the world, Venezuela is also strategically poised to influence the Caribbean, as it did with the Petrocaribe initiative and several bilateral trade and aid agreements with member states of Caricom.
The Lady Hochoy Centres presented their Christmas Concert 2006 entitled “Our Gifts to Share” on Thursday 30th November, 2006, at the St. James Amphitheatre.
Women are at the highest risk for contraction of the HIV virus. Current statistics for Trinidad and Tobago state that the number of female HIV positive cases in the age group of 15–29, make up 65% of the total cases for the same age group. These statistics lead us to many questions and inevitably should draw greater attention to issues of gender discrimination, racism and poverty. With millions of dollars being pumped into HIV research internationally and great media exposure in Trinidad and Tobago, it is equally important to examine the values that exist and fuel the spread of the disease in its most vulnerable group, African women.
The screaming headlines of a woman beheaded by “A close family member”- always a husband, were stunning, even for Trinidad’s papers. I found myself again asking why? What can people do to prevent this? The island is really so small that a woman cannot get away from a man who wants to hunt her down. Of course he drank poison. How often in the last five years has this scenario been repeated in Central? I said to myself that I wasn’t going to write any more columns on women being killed by dotish men whom they should have left long ago. Then Ras Tyehimba wrote a piece that gave some hope. A man was talking to men about the serious issue of how they treat women. His piece did not generate half as much comment as did the pieces I wrote first on the issue of land reform in Zimbabwe, and then on the issue of “Indians” pleading for ‘rescue from discrimination’ to the Indian Vice- President. This latter piece resulted in twenty nine comments. There are thirty-two listed, but three are clarification and additional documentation from my own keyboard.