Tag Archives: T&T Govt

General T&T, Politics, UNC

No mess, this is madness

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By Raffique Shah
February 07, 2026

Raffique ShahThe first dire warning I issued on this threat to the stability of the nation was so far back that I hardly recall the date and circumstances on which I had spoken.

It was definitely before the 2025 general election. Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had triggered the alarm system in my head which raised serious concerns of something close to a race war about to erupt. Sticking with her violent solutions to the runaway crime problem, not for the first time, she simulated a pistol being fired by her hand, with a mischievous look on her face; she squeezed the trigger a few times, shouting empty the clip.
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General T&T, USA, Venezuela

The dogs of war are barking

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By Raffique Shah
January 10, 2026

Raffique ShahOver the past few months, the world has edged closer to war than it ever did since Vietnam. As someone with a keen interest in history, I have watched this dance of death, staged by one man, the President of the United States of America, as he orchestrated the deadliest of games, seemingly without a care in the world. Human lives will be lost-of that we are certain.

Trump personally directed the capture of the elected president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro-as dramatic a scene as one would encounter. I try to imagine the soldiers involved in the kidnapping of the president of a sovereign state, which-however simple it was, given America’s enormous military capability-will have had hundreds, if not thousands, of personnel “on edge” as the operation unfolded.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, USA, Venezuela

Sleeping with the enemy

By Raffique Shah
August 30, 2025

Raffique ShahPrime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar can never be as uninformed as she portrays herself to be in matters of foreign affairs, to wit: regional and hemispheric alliances. It took previous governments, starting with the PNM in the 1960s, to cultivate good relations with our Spanish-speaking neighbours in Venezuela.

We often forgot then, as many states now learn, that there is the vast expanse of Portuguese-speaking Brazil a step away from Venezuela.
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General T&T, Law, UNC, USA, Venezuela

US has no right off Venezuelan coast

By Stephen Kangal, Caroni
August 26, 2025

Stephen KangalTHE right of the United States to deploy its naval vessels in international and territorial waters located across the globe is exercising the freedom of navigation/right of innocent/transit passage in the territorial seas/international straits of other nations.

It is not an aspect/expression/enactment of its sovereignty the exercise of which is limited to, inter alia, its land space, air space above and its territorial sea, Minister Sobers.
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Agriculture, General T&T

I Commend PM Kamla

By Raffique Shah
August 16, 2025

Raffique ShahI hope I am mistaken, that I have purged myself of the spirit of the sugar industry that came with the first colonisers and all but strangled Trinidad and Tobago’s economy for many years. I am not ungrateful, mark you, for what sugar has given us by way of revenues and opportunities and “solid, liquid cash”, according to Mastana Bahar’s hosts. But its contribution to the wealth of the nation may well have been close to zilch when one considers the number of times it lost money, wrecked people’s savings, and left the country in a state of disaster.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

The Rottweiler’s Revenge

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 19, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOne wonders if Penny Beckles, her happy band of warriors, and Marvin Gonzales, her re-engineered rottweiler, understand the essence of democracy and the implications of an anticipated redistribution of our country’s population numbers in 2030. They promise to wage a gallant battle on behalf of the CEPEP workers, but all I see is “hate, bitterness, acrimony, animosity,…[people] out of control …[and] acting as raging bulls”. (Express, October 21, 2009).
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General T&T, UNC

Singing for one’s supper

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 12, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeSOONER OR LATER “de chupid” talk was bound to happen. “Cudjoe singing for his supper” and he’s “being paid off with a board appointment”. A PNM sycophant sent me a note: “Singing for your supper. You are no longer a [sic] advocate for poor black people director Cudjoe….Sing, boy, sing. It was never about true [sic] to power but to secure opportunities for yourself. Cudjoe my shame. Africans for sale.”
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General T&T

An indisciplined nation

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 21, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn his Youth Rally address on August 30, 1962, one day before Independence Day, Eric Williams declared: “I have given to the nation as its watchwords, Discipline, Production, Tolerance.”

These words were delivered to the youths but they applied equally to every citizen of the nation. It would have been better if citizens had devised their own watchwords.
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General T&T, UNC, Venezuela

PM playing with fire

By Raffique Shah
June 07, 2025

Raffique ShahI hope and expect those in authority who have the powers, to act, if the need arises, to remove a sitting prime minister and government by whatever means it takes to save our country from what appears to be a spark of madness which is threatening to engulf us even as I write (Friday night). Because after I listened to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar a few nights ago, when I heard what she said, I scrutinised her image on television to see if I could discern any signs of insanity or dementia. I leave that for the experts to work on.
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General T&T, Politics, UNC

Kamla’s second coming: a blessing

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 31, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeSOMETHING extraordinary happened two Fridays ago. Kamla Persad-Bissessar—the Mother of our Nation, as I call her—went to Woodford Square to thank her supporters. Her supporters from Tobago chanted: “Thank you, Kamla, the Mother of our Nation. We love you, Mother.”

Such adulation signalled that Trinidad and Tobago is evolving to another stage of social development. It reminds me of “The Chambered Nautilus”, a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Snr, that explores themes of growth and change. The last stanza reads: “Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul /As the swift seasons roll! / Leave thy low-vaulted past! / Let each new temple, nobler than the last, / Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, / Till thou at length art free, / Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!”
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