Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has Announced a “Limited State of Emergency” in Crime Hotspots from Midnight
The PM said that this decision was made “after much deliberation with the National Security Council and members of the Cabinet,” and that the current crime spree must end.
The limited state of emergency is part of a plan using the police and army in response to the “spate of murders over the past few days”.
Continue reading PM Declares “Limited State of Emergency”
By Raffique Shah
August 21, 2011
Minister Winston Dookeran confuses me. He insists that the Budget deficit for fiscal 2010-2011 remains at around $8 billion, as he projected last year. Yet, he admits that Government collected $2 billion in unanticipated revenue from delinquent taxpayers who responded to the tax amnesty. He also admits that oil prices have been higher than budgeted, and prices of other downstream commodities (methanol, ammonia) have been buoyant.
Continue reading Confusing ‘Dookonomics’
By Raffique Shah
August 14, 2011
A WEEK sometimes feels like eternity in today’s fast-paced world. When I wrote last week’s column—”Jam Them!”—for which I received lots of jamming, Standard and Poor’s downgrading of America’s credit rating, and the almost instant global fallout, had not yet happened.
How was I to know that parts of London and other cities in England would erupt into mayhem?
Continue reading Slash subsidies, prioritise spending
By Raffique Shah
August 07, 2011
THE trade unions and government have both contributed to messy state of industrial relations that hovers over us all at a time when we should be focussed on climbing out of the economic mess we remain mired in. Gun talk, rather than constructive dialogue, drives the tension to unbearable levels.
Prime Minister Kamla Persad -Bissessar is reported as having told union leaders, when she terminated a meeting with them, “Bring on the national strike!” (or words to that effect). And Ancel Roget, offering little hope of a negotiated settlement, warned the population, “Stock up on candles!”
Continue reading Jam them!
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 26, 2011
On Monday next (Emancipation Day) black folks will come out in full ethnic regalia to commemorate the emancipation of our forefathers and foremothers. They will march from the Brian Lara Promenade to the Savannah and make uplifting speeches (as they should) about our condition. The next 364 days thereafter they shall continue their slide into penury and humiliation as the People’s Partnership (PP) government does everything to ensure that African people eat the bread the devil kneads. In this new dispensation no mercy will be shown and no sympathy offered.
Continue reading The Hidden Agenda
PRESS RELEASE
The Government is pleased to announce that the court action brought by the operators of Airone Limited, trading as REDjet, commercial air services, against the Civil Aviation Authority of Trinidad and Tobago and Mr. Amral Mohammed, in his capacity as Chairman of the Air Transport Licensing Authority of Trinidad and Tobago has been settled on terms which are mutually acceptable to all parties.
Continue reading Government Approves REDjet to Fly
July 14, 2011
Dr. Tim Gopesingh, Minister
Ministry of Education,
Port of Spain
Trinidad
Dear Dr. Gopeesingh:
I am sure that you were pleased as I was to learn that 14 students from one class in the Chaguanas Government School placed among the top one hundred students in the recent SEA Examination. Initially, my instinct was to accept the result and to applaud the exemplary teaching that takes place in that school; that is, until allegations of cheating were brought to my attention. Although I wanted to disregard this unfortunate conclusion, my desire for fairness led me to contact a statistician from William Patterson University in New Jersey, USA, and a mathematician from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, to determine the statistical possibility of such a result occurring.
Continue reading Letter to Minister of Education on SEA Results
By Anika Gumbs-Sandiford
July 10, 2011 – guardian.co.tt
The overwhelming popularity of Works and Transport Minister Jack Warner has a part to play in him being cut down to size in the recent Cabinet reshuffle. A plan, Sunday Guardian understands, was hatched to frustrate Warner out of the Kamla Persad-Bissessar led People’s Partnership (PP) Government, mere weeks after her resigned as vice president of FIFA. There had been rumours circulating more than six months ago that the PM had plans to split Warner’s ministry. Warner however, was unaware of this.
Continue reading Warner gets shaft from PM Cabinet
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 06, 2011
I have had mixed feelings about Jack’s fall from grace. I have not been able to garner the venom that some have displayed toward him nor the delight others have taken in his departure from FIFA. I am yet to see how Jack’s actions have so maligned Trinidad and Tobago that I have to hang my head in shame when I am in the outside world. Few Americans hang their heads in shame in light of Madoff’s shenanigans.
Continue reading For the Love of Jack
By Stephen Kangal – Caroni
July 05, 2011
The PNM with the longest sojourn in the governance of T&T now has no alternative but to review and radically revamp the secrective and undemocratic nature and nurture of its long outdated and corrupted delegate system used to elect and determine its leader and governing National Council.
Continue reading PNM Must Now Trump and Follow Suit