By George Alleyne
October 21, 2009 – newsday.co.tt
We should move away from the old thinking that if a Member of the House of Representatives should cast his vote not in accordance with the dictates of his Party, read Political Leader, on even a routine matter that he is a traitor and a renegade.
Continue reading A leader can be challenged
Newsday Editorial
September 30 2009 – newsday.co.tt
ATTORNEY GENERAL (AG) John Jeremie did not exactly admit it on Monday in the Senate, but in our view he seemed to be trying to make a case for debt-forgiveness for the half-million dollars owed by Prime Minister Patrick Manning as unpaid legal costs to the State. Mr Jeremie said Mr Manning has so far paid $555,000 out of a $1.15 million debt incurred in 2002 when he lost his High Court bid to stop the defection of the then-Opposition MPs Dr Rupert Griffith and Dr Vincent Lasse to join the former UNC government.
Continue reading PM’s legal debts
By Raffique Shah
September 27, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
It is depressing, to say the least, watching men and women who hold high offices, eschew discourse in favour of diatribe as they engage each other in matters of national interest. The latest salvo fired by Attorney General John Jeremie as he responded to statements by the Law Association, is a case in point. Clearly, the AG believes he and his colleagues in government are being targeted by political opponents, which is why he must descend into the gutter to snipe at the “enemy”.
Continue reading Discourse and diatribe
By Raffique Shah
August 23, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
Listening to well-informed people, some of them respected intellectuals, argue against a system of government that allows for an executive president, intrigues me. They invariably pursue their arguments using fancy-words-work, but essentially they are little different to the barely-informed masses, who, on the eve of Trinidad and Tobago adopting a republican constitution in 1976, cried “bloody murder” over that minor change in our system of governance.
Continue reading Executive President, yes…elected by the people
By George Alleyne
August 19, 2009 – newsday.co.tt
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
The scarcely concealed leadership battle in the United National Congress (UNC) between the Party’s Political Leader, Basdeo Panday, and one of its Deputy Political Leaders, Jack Warner, as to which of them will command the UNC in the immediate days ahead is not uncommon to Caribbean politics.
Continue reading Rudi wanted to lead PNM
A PLOT TO KILL ME
PM tells of shocking event before coup anniversary last year
By Anna Ramdass – Published: 28 Jul 2009
Prime Minister Patrick Manning claimed last night that there was a plot to assassinate him last year. Speaking at the PNM’s meeting in Arima, Manning reminded the crowd of an incident that took place in July last year, when a marked police vehicle attempted to “peel off” one his security detail vehicles as he and his wife, Local Government Minister Hazel Manning, were on the way to the gym.
Continue reading PM Tells of a Plot to Assassinate Him
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
July 19, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
The recent accusation by UNC’s Dr. Tim Gopeesingh of “ethnic cleansing” of Indian-Trinbagonian, not Indo-Trinbagonian, doctors at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital at the supposed hands of the PNM-Manning administration, smacks of an innocuous similarity of “reverse discrimination” by Euro-White Americans whenever African-Americans seem to make some modicum of socioeconomic progress.
Continue reading ‘Ethnic cleansing’ of Whom in T&T?
By Raffique Shah
July 19, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
WHEN political allies fall out, the mess that hits the fan could be worse than what would occur should a sewage-filled tanker explode in the midst of a $1,000-per-person, all-exclusive fete.
Highfalutin men and women would have faecal matter splattered all over their ultra-expensive party clothes, on their faces and their lobster salads. Those were my first thoughts when I heard Basdeo Panday accuse Jack Warner of failing to account for $30 million in donations to the UNC he (Jack) allegedly received during the 2007 general elections campaign.
Continue reading Super-rich parties, dirt-poor supporters
By Sean Douglas
July 18, 2009 – newsday.co.tt
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
CARONI East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh alleged an “ethnic cleansing” of Indo-Trinidadian doctors at Port-of-Spain General Hospital (PoSGH), but Leader of Government Business, Colm Imbert, dismissed these charges as “scandalous, false and outrageous.”
The heated exchange shook up a dull debate on the Emergency Ambulance Services and Emergency Medical Personnel Bill 2009 as amended by the Senate.
Continue reading ‘PoS General, an African hospital’
By George Alleyne
July 15, 2009 – newsday.co.tt
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
Issues of personal conscience with respect to policy positions held by two of the nation’s legislators — Independent Senator Gail Merhair and Opposition United National Congress Chaguanas West Member of Parliament, Austin “Jack” Warner — have dominated national public issues thinking within recent days. Senator Merhair, with respect not only to her support of the controversial Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, but the comments she made immediately prior to her casting of her vote, and Mr Warner’s voting in favour of Government’s Securities Bill 2009.
Continue reading A conscience vote