By Raffique Shah
Sunday, April 26th 2009
PRIME Minister Patrick Manning seems surprised that so many people are angry over this country hosting the Fifth Summit of the Americas. I wrote a few weeks ago that having committed the country to the summit when he did, he no doubt thought that we could afford that $500 million or whatever the real cost was.
He must have felt, too, that just having all hemispheric Heads of Government here would boost his image as a the premier Caribbean leader. I do not dispute his reasoning that the country would benefit from world recognition, only because it was billed as the battleground between Presidents Obama and Chavez.
Continue reading Caring too much about image
BY the time this column appears in print the Summit will be almost over. The 34 heads of governments will have had their say, hopefully in a civil manner. Hugo Chavez has indicated he would insist on the US trade blockade of Cuba be addressed in the document. Canada, too, is not happy with it, albeit for other reasons. What I found distasteful about the media pre-Summit hype was the focus on Chavez and US President Barack Obama at the expense of other leaders.
If the pastor’s daughter plans a career as an exotic dancer or a “dutty winer”, I applaud the 15 year-old. How many children at that age would make career decisions? Most are looking at their school curriculum, trying to determine what subjects suit them; what they would want to succeed in order to move on to A-Levels (now CAPE). They may even be thinking university education or skills training, but few would have carved career paths that would take them through life.