Category Archives: UNC

General T&T, PNM, Politics, UDeCOTT, UNC

Leave this ‘House of Clowns’, Mr Speaker

3 Comments

By Raffique Shah
October 25, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com

ParliamentWITH the greatest deference to House Speaker Barry Sinanan, I think he should realise by now that he presides over a House of Clowns. If he values his integrity, he should run like hell, but not before he inflicts some choice words on the 41 jokers who sit in Parliament. In case the Speaker is short on gems from the “mooma-lexicon”, he can feel free to summon my help, since I co-authored the Obscene Dictionary.
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General T&T, Letters, Politics, UNC

Political maturity in opposition in T&T

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October 22, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

UNCThe recent dropping of charges against UNC’s “dissident MPs” and the meeting between UNC and COP representatives speak volumes as to the road to political maturity on the part of opposition parties in T&T.

In this era of democratically-elected dictatorship in T&T, both the UNC and COP must clearly realize and understand that their only enemy is the PNM. They must cease and desist from creating enemies within their own ranks if they are to remove the PNM government from office.
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Finance, General T&T, Law, PNM, Politics, UNC

PM’s legal debts

Newsday Editorial
September 30 2009 – newsday.co.tt

PM Patrick ManningATTORNEY GENERAL (AG) John Jeremie did not exactly admit it on Monday in the Senate, but in our view he seemed to be trying to make a case for debt-forgiveness for the half-million dollars owed by Prime Minister Patrick Manning as unpaid legal costs to the State. Mr Jeremie said Mr Manning has so far paid $555,000 out of a $1.15 million debt incurred in 2002 when he lost his High Court bid to stop the defection of the then-Opposition MPs Dr Rupert Griffith and Dr Vincent Lasse to join the former UNC government.
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General T&T, Law, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Religion, UNC

Discourse and diatribe

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By Raffique Shah
September 27, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Raffique ShahIt is depressing, to say the least, watching men and women who hold high offices, eschew discourse in favour of diatribe as they engage each other in matters of national interest. The latest salvo fired by Attorney General John Jeremie as he responded to statements by the Law Association, is a case in point. Clearly, the AG believes he and his colleagues in government are being targeted by political opponents, which is why he must descend into the gutter to snipe at the “enemy”.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

Executive President, yes…elected by the people

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By Raffique Shah
August 23, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com

Raffique ShahListening to well-informed people, some of them respected intellectuals, argue against a system of government that allows for an executive president, intrigues me. They invariably pursue their arguments using fancy-words-work, but essentially they are little different to the barely-informed masses, who, on the eve of Trinidad and Tobago adopting a republican constitution in 1976, cried “bloody murder” over that minor change in our system of governance.
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Caribbean, PNM, Politics, UNC

Rudi wanted to lead PNM

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By George Alleyne
August 19, 2009 – newsday.co.tt
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com

Basdeo PandayThe scarcely concealed leadership battle in the United National Congress (UNC) between the Party’s Political Leader, Basdeo Panday, and one of its Deputy Political Leaders, Jack Warner, as to which of them will command the UNC in the immediate days ahead is not uncommon to Caribbean politics.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC, USA, Violence

PM Tells of a Plot to Assassinate Him

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www.trinidadandtobagonews.com

A PLOT TO KILL ME
PM tells of shocking event before coup anniversary last year
By Anna Ramdass – Published: 28 Jul 2009
PM Patrick ManningPrime Minister Patrick Manning claimed last night that there was a plot to assassinate him last year. Speaking at the PNM’s meeting in Arima, Manning reminded the crowd of an incident that took place in July last year, when a marked police vehicle attempted to “peel off” one his security detail vehicles as he and his wife, Local Government Minister Hazel Manning, were on the way to the gym.
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General T&T, Health, PNM, UNC

‘Ethnic cleansing’ of Whom in T&T?

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By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
July 19, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com

DoctorsThe recent accusation by UNC’s Dr. Tim Gopeesingh of “ethnic cleansing” of Indian-Trinbagonian, not Indo-Trinbagonian, doctors at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital at the supposed hands of the PNM-Manning administration, smacks of an innocuous similarity of “reverse discrimination” by Euro-White Americans whenever African-Americans seem to make some modicum of socioeconomic progress.
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General T&T, Politics, UNC

Super-rich parties, dirt-poor supporters

By Raffique Shah
July 19, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com

Basdeo PandayWHEN political allies fall out, the mess that hits the fan could be worse than what would occur should a sewage-filled tanker explode in the midst of a $1,000-per-person, all-exclusive fete.

Highfalutin men and women would have faecal matter splattered all over their ultra-expensive party clothes, on their faces and their lobster salads. Those were my first thoughts when I heard Basdeo Panday accuse Jack Warner of failing to account for $30 million in donations to the UNC he (Jack) allegedly received during the 2007 general elections campaign.
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