By The Multimedia Desk
December 04, 2017 – trinidadexpress.com
Outar Maraj of Mc Bean Village, Couva, appeared in the Tunapuna Second Magistrates’ Court today, on two counts of possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking; one count of possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking; possession of four firearms and a quantity of assorted ammunition.
Continue reading Man charged in $24 million drug, weapons bust
By Brad Blankenship
November 22, 2017 – telesurtv.net
Opioids, a class of drugs chemically similar to the painkiller morphine, have been sweeping across North America since the late 1990s into the first two decades of the 2000s. These powerful sedative drugs, which include prescription painkillers like oxycodone and powerful street drugs such as heroin, are extremely deadly because their depressant effects can stop a user from breathing. Because of their widespread and ever-increasing use, drug overdose deaths “are the leading cause of injury death in the United States,” according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).
Continue reading Drugs Don’t Kill People, Neoliberalism Kills People
By Raffique Shah
November 30, 2017
I am not optimistic over the Prime Minister’s promise to citizens that the near-riot that erupted for the umpteenth time last week in the Beetham community will not occur again.
Dr Keith Rowley said he has directed the heads of the Police Service and the Defence Force to ensure that law and order are enforced in Beetham and elsewhere in the country even as people exercise their right to protest. He called for those who used the recent disturbance to engage in criminal acts to be prosecuted, and acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams said he had a team of officers examining video footage of the mayhem to identify and arrest the culprits.
Continue reading A time to kill
Newsday Editorial
Nov ember 27, 2017 – newsday.co.tt
A boy killed at a birthday party. A pundit killed at home after prayers. A priest robbed at a church. A girl raped at school. A doubles vendor killed getting ready for work. Two men shot at a gas station. Thousands of commuters at the mercy of a handful of Beetham residents.
Continue reading Under siege
…found in house hours after ‘public’ meal
By Jensen La Vende, Kevon Felmine
December o1, 2017 – guardian.co.tt
Three days after alleged fraudster Vicky Boodram escaped from the Women’s Prison at Golden Grove, Arouca, she was recaptured in Penal last night.
Officers from the Criminal Gang and Intelligence Unit, acting on intelligence, went to a house at Sunchine Drive off Lachoos Road, just before 7 pm. They later found Boodram, 35, hiding in the house.
Continue reading Vicky Boodram recaptured
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 26, 2017
PART 1 — PART 2 — PART 3 — PART 4 — PART 5
The development of Trinidad and Tobago’s energy sector owes a lot to the dedication and ingenuity of Ken Julien, our energy czar. Wendell Mottley, T&T’s former Finance Minister, suggests that Julien would not have been successful if he had approached his job through “the typical state bureaucracy.” He was successful because Eric Williams, the former PM, “insulated the energy investments from the hassles and delays that might ordinarily be expected in a programme of such size, complexity and duration” (Trevor Boopsingh & Gregory McGuire, From Oil to Gas and Beyond).
Continue reading Forged in the Bowels of Corruption: Pt 3
Shots fired, debris thrown on highway after 2 arrested
By Ryan Hamilton-Davis
November 24, 2017 – newsday.co.tt
After the arrest of two of their own, Beetham residents vented their anger by throwing debris onto the highway and then firing shots when police arrived to clear the rubble and restore order.
What followed was hours of gridlock on the east-bound and west-bound sections of the highway, the Priority Bus Route and the Eastern Main Road.
Head of the Port of Spain Division, Snr Supt Floris Hodge-Griffith told Newsday she and her officers had to duck for cover when they were shot at on arriving at the Beetham. Hodge-Griffith said she was driving in a marked police vehicle on the Beetham Highway at about 10.45 am when she encountered the blockade.
Continue reading BEETHAM BADNESS
By Raffique Shah
November 23, 2017
Until such time as persons in public life who are criminally responsible for stealing from the public purse, or for abusing their powers to enable their friends or associates to unfairly, maybe even illegally, acquire state lands or subsidised housing, are thrown into jail like the common thieves they are, this society will continue to decay, to fall apart, hurtling towards a failed state, a dubious title that we seem hell-bent on attaining, as if it were an achievement we can be proud of.
Continue reading Only in Trinidad
By Gregory Elich
November 21, 2017 – gregoryelich.org
Long-roiling factional conflict within Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF political party exploded last week in a military coup that quickly seized control of the government and state media.
The coup was led by Commander of Zimbabwe Defense Forces Constantino Chiwenga, who is closely aligned with former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Emboldened by President Robert Mugabe’s declining mental sharpness and physical health in recent years, Mnangagwa actively maneuvered to ensure that he would succeed the president. Mnangagwa served as one of Zimbabwe’s two vice presidents. From that position, he and his supporters, known as Team Lacoste, became embroiled in a bitter struggle with younger party members who coalesced around Secretary of Women’s Affairs Grace Mugabe, wife of the president, and whose group was known as Generation 40, or G40.
Continue reading What is Behind the Military Coup in Zimbabwe?
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 20, 2017
PART 1 — PART 2 — PART 3 — PART 4 — PART 5
Things get mighty strange in T&T. Before President Anthony Carmona could wash he foot, he jump into de dance with the chiasmus: “I don’t feel because there is a recession that we need to have a recession in education” (Express, November 11). It sounds noble but it does not amount to a hill of beans.
When there is a recession everything recedes including educational funding for the simple reason that the government or the stakeholder does not have enough money to pay for an expensive enterprise, particularly when monies extended to that enterprise may not have been used with the necessary circumspection. However, the President’s statement sounded Solomonic in the presence of enablers of a seriously disabled system. They included UTT chairman Prof. Ken Julien, deputy chairman Prof. Clement Imbert, UTT president Prof. Sarun Al-Zubadidy, Education Minister Anthony Garcia and Chief Justice Ivor Archie.
Continue reading Forged in the Bowels of Corruption: Pt 2