General T&T, Health, International, PNM, Politics

Black Betrayal (In the Age of the Coronavirus)

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 13, 2020

“They say the sun will shine for all/But in some people’s world, it doesn’t shine at all./ So much been said, so little been done./ They still killing the people/ And they having their fun”

—Bob Marley, “Crisis”

PART 3

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI have been writing about the plight of black people in Trinidad and Tobago for a while. Like Marvin Gaye, sometimes it “make me wanna holler/The way they do my life” (“Inner City Blues”). I have argued that we will never solve black impoverishment unless we see it as a national problem that demands the same resolve that we brought to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
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General T&T, Health, International

Neither surgical nor cotton masks effectively filter SARS COV-2: Study

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April 6, 2020 – outbreaknewstoday.com

MaskBoth surgical and cotton masks were found to be ineffective for preventing the dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 from the coughs of patients with COVID-19. A study conducted at two hospitals in Seoul, South Korea, found that when COVID-19 patients coughed into either type of mask, droplets of virus were released to the environment and external mask surface. A brief research report is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
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Finance, Food, General T&T, International, Oil and Gas, Politics, Recession

After crisis food rationing?

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By Raffique Shah
April 06, 2020

Raffique ShahWhen we will have overcome the COVID-19 multi-pronged attack on Trinidad and Tobago, we will face associated problems ranging from the economy under severe stress such as it has never been before, with unemployment at a crisis level, disruption of the education system leaving all stakeholders confused, and possible shortage of foods. Just when the population thought it was safe to exhale, having survived the deadliest pandemic in modern history, the bugle will sound summoning couch-and television-weary troops to do battle again, and likely yet again, for love of country.
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Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity, Religion

My Spiritual Inheritance

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 06, 2020

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeDuring the late 1940s and early 1950s, early on Sunday mornings, we would hear the bells ringing out loudly in the street as a band of women, dressed immaculately in white with varied colored head ties proceeded to the Tacarigua River to conduct their religious rituals. At the tender age of six or seven I did not know what such celebrations (I saw it as a celebration) were about. All I knew was that my Tantie Lenora was among that band of women. Somehow, I felt embarrassed or even ashamed.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Racism Watch

Black Betrayal, Or God Don’t Like Ugly

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 31, 2020

PART 2

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn response to my column of three weeks ago, “Black Betrayal,” a critic attacked me in a slanderous manner. Mercifully, the Express deleted the more vitriolic aspects of his original letter. He claimed I invented Aaron St. John to carry on my nefarious agenda.

St. John responded:

“My name is Aaron Kerwin St. John, son of Gemma St. John, and grandson of Ester St. John. I am very real although certain persons would choose not to see the truth…They would rather we, the ordinary people, just shut up and be sad, unhappy, and poor, and continue, no matter what, to support this wickedness called governance by the PNM.
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Barbados, General T&T, Health, International, Politics

Inhumane Treatment of Our Elderly In Barbados

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By Stephen Kangal
March 30, 2020

Stephen KangalThe PNM Government in categorically refusing to arrange entry/arrival home of 35 of our elderly nationals and having forced Barbados to quarantine them somewhere at their own expense when they arrived at Grantley Adams Airport from South Africa via the UK is in flagrant violation of customary law on the treatment of nationals, consular duty and indeed plain humanitarianism.
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General T&T, Health, International, Politics

Best of times, worst of times

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By Raffique Shah
March 29, 2020

Raffique ShahIn time to come, when future generations write about us, about our behaviour during the great war against COVID-19, they may well resort to the Charles Dickens’ classic, A Tale of Two Cities, which was set in a tumultuous period in European and world history, 1775-1792. Dickens opened his tale thus: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…in short…some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only…”
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China, General T&T, Health, International

China Must Pay Covid-19 Compensation and Reparations

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By Stephen Kangal
March 23, 2020

Stephen KangalWe must take into judicious account today that The People’s Republic of China (PRC) with whom T&T enjoys cordial and mutually – beneficial fruitful diplomatic and trade relations is afloat and awash with a huge windfall of trillions of hard currency US dollars silos derived from unending trade surpluses realised especially with the USA and increasingly with the rest of the World.
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