Tag Archives: T&T Govt

T&T-Jamaica Agreement is a Toxic Cock-Tail

By Stephen Kangal
December 06, 2013

Stephen KangalThis latest brewed in Jamaica cock-tail agreement linking, mixing, confusing and commingling the quite separate and unrelated T&T-Jamaica trade imbalance with its immigration concerns has deceptive potions of toxicity. It must be rejected as being artificial, very synthetic and an imposition of Kingston on POS. It is aimed at refashioning, re-allocating and distorting the beneficial effects of the geography and sociology of T&T generously conferred by history and Mother Earth on us Trinbagonians. After all God is a Trini.
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Why is Winston Being Handcuffed to Kingston?

By Stephen Kangal
November 29, 2013

Stephen KangalThe problem relating to the legitimate refusal of 13 Jamaicans entry into T&T by our Immigration officials took place at Piarco. The documentation/personnel/ and Minister Griffith responsible for the interviewing process are here. Foreign Affairs is a ceremonial conduit in this matter. Why then is Minister Dookeran being summoned and voluntarily escorted/handcuffed to Kingston by the resident Jamaican High Commissioner with his tail between his legs and the blessings of his Prime Minister? They must appreciate the bigger underpinnings and enormity of this unregulated influx of Jamaicans into T&T. It presents wider and deeper challenges to T&T for national security concerns, crime reduction, the illicit drug scourge, education and social services? Our Parliament had no say on this matter.
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Prisoners of Birth

By Raffique Shah
November 23, 2013

Raffique ShahAvid readers of fiction, more so Jeffrey Archer fans, will immediately note that I stole this headline from one of the writer’s successful novels, A Prisoner of Birth. I did this deliberately, for several reasons.

For the uninitiated, Lord Archer is a Conservative peer whose best-selling novels have topped 150 million copies. He also served a four-year jail sentence for perjury, so he knows about prisons and imprisonment inside out, in a manner of speaking. In fact, he spent some of his jail time in the high-security Belmarsh Prison located in London.
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National Committee on Reparations for TT

Sunday, November 24 2013

EmancipationA National Committee on Reparations is being established in Trinidad and Tobago, the Communications Unit of the Office of the Prime Minister said yesterday.

In a media release, the Communications Unit said persons responsible for setting up the Committee met with Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar SC at the Parliament Building on Friday.
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‘Democracy-Strengthening’ PR An Abject Disaster

By Stephen Kangal
November 19, 2013

Stephen KangalIt is now patently clear that the mathematically-challenged eleventh hour imposition of the hapless PR formula based on the infamous 25% threshold without undertaking the requisite public consultations by the PPG has crystallized into a pure, unmitigated electoral disaster that back-fired big time. It consigned thousands of burgesses/ electoral districts to be without representation in their respective local government councils.
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Prove me wrong, PNM

By Raffique Shah
November 17, 2013

Raffique ShahMuch to the dismay of its detractors, the People’s National Movement (PNM) bounces back like the proverbial bad penny almost ritually every five years since it first lost an election in 1986. In the current political scenario, unless the 57-year-old party shoots itself in the head, the incumbents discover some magical elixir, or a mass uprising, a kind of “Trinidad spring”, occurs and spawns something new and exciting, the PNM will return to power in 2015.
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St Joseph Embodied the National Electoral Psyche

By Stephen Kangal
November 11, 2013

Stephen KangalBeing a classic marginal seat, Monday’s St. Joseph Constituency (SJC) bye-election results have encapsulated and mirrored the psycho-political underpinnings of the changing electoral dynamics as well as of the traditional ethnic moorings impacting on and progressively shaping the national political/electoral psyche- a microcosm of the macrocosm.
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Facing Elections Nightmare

By Raffique Shah
November 10, 2013

Raffique ShahMany readers scoffed at my suggestion in last week’s column that a rapprochement between UNC/COP and the ILP was a strong possibility in the run-up to the next general elections, due no later than August 2015. I imagine diehard supporters on both sides of the divide feel deeply wounded by the abuse their leaders hurled at each other during the three campaigns conducted since Jack Warner broke with the United National Congress (UNC) and formed the Independent Liberal Party (ILP).
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PNM WINS AGAIN

By Andre Bagoo and Clint Chan Tack
November 05, 2013 – newsday.co.tt

PNM WINS AGAINTHE PEOPLE’s National Movement (PNM) candidate Terrence Deyalsingh was last night declared the winner of the St Joseph bye-election, but only after the country was taken to a nail- biting finish for what was expected to be the last election in a historic year.

Deyalsingh’s nearest rival was the United National Congress (UNC)’s Ian Alleyne who, at some points in the night, appeared in the lead. The Independent Liberal Party (ILP)’s Om Lalla managed the third largest share of votes but was not really in the contest.
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Bye-Elections Up-Staged and Politicised Divali

By Stephen Kangal
November 04, 2013

Stephen KangalIt is very disturbing that the St. Joseph bye-election was fixed for November 4 by a Government whose real base is the Divali aficionados. The requisite consideration for the simple and well-known fact that the intensity of the pre-election campaigning would coincide with, distract from and up-stage the well-known calendar of pre-divali centralized festivities and regional/village observances was carelessly not factored into the decision-making scenario.
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