Category Archives: International

Reject EPA as is

By George Alleyne
Wednesday, August 27 2008
newsday.co.tt

TreatyThe Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) which is heavily slanted in favour of its drafters, the European Union (EU), and which the EU insists that the Caribbean agree to and sign by September 2, should be rejected and a completely new EPA drafted, which, genuinely, takes into account the social and economic interests of Caribbean nations.
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Usain Bolt wins the 100m and 200m Finals

August 16, 2008: Usain Bolt wins the 100m Final in Beijing and sets a new 9.69 world record

Lightning-fast Bolt wins Olympic 100m
Usain BoltBEIJING – Track and field needs a new hero. It got one Saturday night who can fly. In the most outrageous display of speed to ever burn across the Olympic Games, Usain Bolt of Jamaica rocketed to gold in winning the men’s 100m dash in 9.69 seconds — not only a new world record but the first time in the history of human beings a man has run the distance under 9.7 seconds without a significant tailwind.
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Who is or was the greatest Olympian ever?

By Raffique Shah
Sunday, August 17th 2008

Beijing Olympics 2008By the time this column is published on Sunday, American swimmer Michael Phelps would more than likely have achieved his goal of winning a record eight gold medals. Mark Spitz, the sole swimmer among an elite club of Olympians who won multiple medals in his career, would also have been in Beijing to see this swimming phenomenon set a new benchmark in the pool.
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Magic of the Olympics

By Raffique Shah
Sunday, August 10th 2008

Beijing Olympics 2008How I look forward to the next three weeks as the magic of the Olympic Games impacts on most people across the world. There’s something about the Games that holds human beings spellbound. It gives us some respite from wars, a lull in crime, relief from politicians, makes us forget our daily woes. What makes the Olympics more appealing than football World Cup is that every country, small and big, can participate in it, if only with one athlete-and six officials! In Beijing this year, a record 205 countries are participating.
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Foreign Policy Challenges Confronting Minister Gopee-Scoon

By Stephen Kangal
August 06, 2008

Paula Gopee-ScoonThere are two major foreign policy challenges that are confronting our relatively new and untested Foreign Minister Gopee-Scoon during the next six months the eventual outcome of which can either boost or bust her hitherto short internship at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

She must take judicious note of the wisdom inherent in the following Latin proverb and act accordingly on recent British undertakings given to her in London. Visa requirements were preceded by negative travel advisories issued by the British.
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Western Lies and Hypocrisy: How Zimbabwe Exposes Mainstream Media

By Ras Tyehimba
July 20, 2008

Zimbabwe WatchThe recent Zimbabwe elections saw an escalation of attempts by external forces to intervene in the sovereign and independent nation. Given the complex circumstances surrounding Zimbabwe, for the millions of people in the Caribbean and around the world, it has been difficult to get balanced views of what is going on; ever since the Zimbabwe government, under President Robert Mugabe, started to reclaim land that was stolen during British Colonial rule. Since the start of this land reclamation exercise to now, the events in Zimbabwe have exposed, firstly, how complicit international media are in the imperial agenda of the United States and Britain and secondly, how irresponsible and lazy the local mainstream media are. Local media seem quite content to jump on the anti-Mugabe bandwagon as they casually parrot news from international media sources such as BBC, CNN, Reuters and Associated Press.
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Robert Mugabe: Victim or Villain?

By Amengeo Amengeo
July 03, 2008
The African Executive

Zimbabwe WatchWhen sharks smell blood, they go into a feeding frenzy and attack relentlessly. There is feeding frenzy about Zimbabwe that preceded the June 27 run-off elections.

Thwarted in their bid to install their man Morgan Tsvangirai in power, the forces of Western neo-colonialism continue to ratchet up media pressure. Some African leaders seem to have bought into this propaganda campaign.
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Zimbabwe at War

By Stephen Gowans
June 25, 2008

Zimbabwe WatchThis is a war between revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries; between nationalists and quislings; between Zimbabwean patriots and the US and Britain.

Should an election be carried out when a country is under sanctions and it has been made clear to the electorate that the sanctions will be lifted only if the opposition party is elected? Should a political party which is the creation of, and is funded by, hostile foreign forces, and whose program is to unlatch the door from within to provide free entry to foreign powers to establish a neo-colonial rule, be allowed to freely operate? Should the leaders of an opposition movement that takes money from hostile foreign powers and who have made plain their intention to unseat the government by any means available, be charged with treason? These are the questions that now face (have long faced) the embattled government of Zimbabwe, and which it has answered in its own way, and which other governments, at other times, have answered in theirs.
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Boost for civil liberties

By Raffique Shah
Sunday, June 15th 2008

David DavisPREOCCUPIED as we are with wanton and random bloodletting, rampant crime, spiralling food prices and football politics, major national issues in this crowded barracoon, interesting developments in the wider world could steal past us hardly eliciting a glance. Last week, David Davis, a very senior member of Britain’s Conservative Party, shocked his colleagues and England by resigning his parliamentary seat over renewal of the “42-days detention” law. And in Washington the US Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision: detainees at the controversial Guantanamo detention camp are entitled to the privilege of habeas corpus.
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