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Too many exams, too little creativity

By Zophia Edwards
August 21, 2007

School ChildrenComment: Kids say the darnest things!

Answer: Not in my classroom!

This sentiment is largely responsible for the repression of ideas in our education system and has largely remained unchanged since our independence in 1962. Our primary schools, secondary schools and tertiary institutions have maintained a rigid fixation on examinations. Standardized tests are beneficial in that they are useful for comparing students nationwide since they are all required to study the same curriculum for the same exam. What are our standardized tests comparing? Memory.
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Caroni Was Never a Drain on the Treasury

By Stephen Kangal
August 20, 2007

CaroniThe Sugar Cane Industry is now proving to be economically viable. But Government will not help the farmers (The Sugar Cane Co-operative) in their current proposals/ collaboration with a French Company because it will show PNM’s foolishness, lack of foresight and politically motivated spite.

The PNM Government finds itself between a rock and a hard place on the revival of the Sugar Cane Industry because they are torn between the imperatives of economics and politics and the latter always takes precedence.
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Winston Dookeran’s New Politics

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 19, 2007

Congress of the PeopleOne expected something new and refreshing when Winston Dookeran entered the political area and announced that “new politics” were the order of the day. In his attempt to offer an alternative to the PNM and UNC one felt that there would have been a stricter adherence to decency and truth and that he would have tried to lift the political discourse to a “higher” level. But, as the French says, the more things change, the more they remain the same; the newer the politics, the more repulsive is its contents.
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India at 60-a fascinating story

By Raffique Shah
August 19, 2007

IndiansLast week, India and Pakistan marked their 60th anniversary of independence from Britain. Here in Trinidad and Tobago, where more than half the population has roots in the sub-continent that is now divided into three countries (Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, is often forgotten), the occasion went almost unnoticed. India’s High Commissioner held his usual reception, but nobody else seemed interested in this landmark occasion. Curiously, I found myself intrigued by it-not only because of India’s emergence as a potential global power centre, but more so by its history, by what happened during those tumultuous days preceding and following India’s independence.
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Hurricane Dean News Update

UPDATE: August 20, 2007 – 8:35 AM

Hurricane Dean

Hurricane Dean lashes Jamaica
KINGSTON, JAMAICA: Hurricane Dean pummelled Jamaica with gusting winds and torrential rains yesterday after the prime minister made a last minute plea for residents to abandon their homes and head for shelter. Many residents ignored the call, however, while tourists holed up in resorts with hurricane-proof walls.

Hurricane Dean Heads to Yucatan After Hitting Jamaica
The Cayman Islands may be spared Hurricane Dean’s 150 mile-per-hour winds as the storm heads toward Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula after battering Jamaica.

Jamaica devastated by Hurricane Dean
Residents in Jamaica were today faced with the devastation caused by Hurricane Dean.

Dean batters Jamaica but worst ‘still to come
Jamaica received a severe battering from the first hurricane of the Atlantic season but appeared to have escaped the worst after Hurricane Dean whipped past the island’s southern coast overnight.
The storm hit Kingston, the Jamaican capital, with winds of up to 150mph, downing power lines, ripping off roofs and blocking roads with debris before spiralling off into the Caribbean in the early hours.
But the only casualty appeared to be a man reported missing after falling trees crushed his house and there were no reports of any injury to the thousands of foreign holidaymakers on the island.

Caymans brace as Hurricane Dean nears

Hurricane Dean plows into Jamaica
Hurricane DEAN pummelled Jamaica with gusting winds and torrential rains yesterday, after Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller made a last-minute plea for residents to abandon their homes and head for shelter…

Trinidad and Tobago Govt pledges to help
As Hurricane Dean crashed into Jamaica yesterday, Trinidadians living in that country were bracing for the worst while Government assured that a helping hand would be extended to the Caribbean neighbour.
Continue reading Hurricane Dean News Update

Gas equivalent of OPEC Needed

By George Allyene
www.newsday.co.tt
August 15, 2007

Natural GasWith the spectre of a relatively early end to Trinidad and Tobago’s natural gas reserves haunting the country following on the publication of a report which declared that gas reserves in TT would last for a mere 12 years, Government should lobby for the forming of a natural gas equivalent of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with the immediate accent on an optimum price or system of taxation for the fast depleting asset.
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It’s About Time to Develop Laventille

By Michael De Gale
August 15, 2007

LaventilleThe government’s intention to develop Laventille though politically tactical is also vitally necessary if the social ills of this area are to be alleviated. Not only does this make economic sense but strategic investments in troubled communities are a sure way to address the social evils which has historically plagued communities where poverty rules supreme. Progressive social thinkers supported by statistics, shows that crime thrives where hope is stifled. Survival has always been the law of the jungle whether literally or metaphorically speaking.
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No bail for woman accused of raping teen

Trevor Burnett
trinidadexpress.com
August 14th 2007

A Tacarigua woman charged with rape was yesterday refused bail and remanded in custody at the St Ann’s Hospital for observation by an Arima Magistrate.

She was unrepresented when the indictable charge was read to her by Senior Magistrate Debra Quintyne.

It is alleged that the 24-year-old woman, who is the neighbour of a 15-year-old schoolboy, invited him over to her home on August 7 to watch a DVD movie.
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Murti-mutilators and religion

By Raffique Shah
August 12, 2007

HinduSo much has been said and written about the vandalism that took place at the Sewdass Sadhu temple last weekend, I wondered whether the incident warranted further comment. Really, it was bedlam as just about every organisation and individual jostled to condemn the “heinous” act of whoever entered the heritage site, destroyed the murtis and generally desecrated the building.
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T&T’s ‘Steel King’ dies

Millionaire businessman dies

By Laurel V Williams
Friday, August 10 2007

Millionaire businessman Jack Ramoutarsingh….MULTI-MILLIONAIRE entrepreneur Jack Ramoutarsingh, 62, died of a heart attack yesterday at Surgi-Med Clinic in San Fernando — two days after he was admitted at the clinic after suffering chest problems.

Grieving relatives and close family friends consoled each other outside the Penitence Street clinic on hearing news of the death of Ramoutarsingh, former owner of Dansteel in La Romaine. Newsday learnt that his wife Beatrice Ramoutarsingh and other close relatives were at his bedside when he died at about 3 pm.
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