By Cecily Asson
February 28, 2011 – newsday.co.tt
Saying that he will never be part of the crowd that gathers each year in Skinner Park, San Fernando for the National Calypso Monarch semi-final, Works and Transport Minister Jack Warner yesterday hailed the bravery of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar who on Saturday received loud boos from patrons when asked by master of ceremonies to acknowledge her presence.
Continue reading Jack: Not me and Skinner Park
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 23, 2011
Jack Warner is the last person I thought would play the race card but then as my mother says, “You never know.” Here is Kamla and the PP getting their licks because they don’t know their ears from their navels but all Jack could say when workers use the democratic tools to protect their interests is they are targeting Kamla because she is an “East Indian woman.” It is strange that Kamla’s East Indianness never came up when she was running for the election nor, for that matter, was her gender seen in a negative light. In fact her being a Hindu woman seemed an asset given the place that women hold in the hierarchical structure of Hinduism.
Continue reading Playing the Race Card
By Cecily Asson and Stacy Moore
February 22 2011 – newsday.co.tt
An emotional Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday described the killer of eight-year-old Daniel Guerra as a “monster” and called for swift justice.
She also announced that the tragic death of Daniel had strengthened her resolve “that we need to use more drastic measures in the fight against the criminals.”
Continue reading Kamla Weeps for Daniel
By Raffique Shah
January 29, 2011
DURING the formative years of the United Labour Front (ULF), circa 1975/76, I learned some harsh lessons in “politics by vaps” courtesy an often-tipsy Basdeo Panday. Those occurrences come to mind as I watch amazing scenes played out on the national stage. Since the lead actress is Panday’s successor, Prime Minister and UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who has publicly stated that Bas is her “political guru”, maybe there is a nexus between what happened so many moons ago and what is happening today.
Continue reading Rumshop Politics
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 27, 2011
One year ago Kamla Persad-Bissessar was elevated to the leadership of her party. In May of last year she was elected prime minister of the country. Since then she has shown herself to be incompetent; of questionable intellectual maturity, and deficient in judgment. As we enter 2011, I wonder how many persons feel she is steering the ship of state in a positive direction.
Continue reading Kamla’s Casual Carelessness
By Raffique Shah
January 23, 2011
WHEN Attorney General Anand Ramlogan made a fool of himself in Parliament by insinuating that ex-prime minister Patrick Manning may have stolen or otherwise disposed of “one grand piano” (as auctioneers would say), many may have missed the irony of Ramlogan’s boorish behaviour. “Wey the piano gorn?” Anand brayed, looking pointedly at “Patos”.
Continue reading A case of poetic injustice
Remove Reshmi
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar must immediately rescind the appointment of Reshmi Usha Ramnarine as Director of the Security Intelligence Agency (SIA), says Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley.
Continue reading Reshmi’s SSA Appointment
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 17, 2011
A few days after Kamla Persad Bissessar became the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago she dropped in at the headquarters of the Maha Sabha and announced blithely that the nation will adopt a multicultural rather than a transcendent cultural policy that served our nation well during its first fifty years of its existence. Such an announcement constituted a repudiation or reversal of Dr. Eric Williams’s vision that was contained in his “Mother Trinidad and Tobago Speech” that emphasized our commonalities rather than our differences. Dr. Williams envisioned a nation in which we should consider ourselves Trinidadians and Tobagonians first, anything after that.
Continue reading Mother Trinidad and Tobago
…at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s
By Anna Ramdass
January 14, 2011 – trinidadexpress.com
The grand piano has been found —in the very place it was alleged to have been missing from. National Security adviser to the Prime Minister, Gary Griffith, told the Express by phone yesterday that the piano was found after checks of the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s.
Continue reading PIANO FOUND!
By Raffique Shah
December 26, 2010
I WAS reluctant writing this column on the eve of Christmas, knowing it will appear in print on Boxing Day, that it would probably upset some people. Then it occurred to me that a significant number of adults would crawl out of their beds or wherever they may have slept last night, feeling like faecal matter of one kind or other. So, if anything, my thoughts would blend nicely with whatever brand of antacid they pour down their hatches in preparation for another day of overindulgence. Mewey Cwismas, people!
Continue reading Mewey Cwismas, Trinis