Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
THE EDITOR: When VS Naipaul states “we pretended to be real, to be learning, we mimic men of the third world’s third world” in reference to our post-colonial middle class elites he surely hit the nail on the head. Let’s look at the latest fiasco.
Jack Warner with much fanfare brings Bernard Kerik to T&T. The “international crime consultant” flies in from Guyana where he is a consultant to Bharat Jagdeo’s government. He meets with the Minister of National Security to discuss anti-crime measures. What is really going on? Who is this Bernard Kerik who is described in the New York Post of Wednesday January 3rd 2006 as: “…disgraced former [New York] police commissioner Bernard Kerik.”
Continue reading Escapades of U.S. Crime Consultant Bernard Kerik
A woman who was earlier spotted talking to officers attached to the Anti-Kidnapping Squad (AKS), who were enquiring about a person believed to be linked to the kidnapping of Xtra Foods Supermarket CEO, Vindra Naipaul-Coolman, was later gunned down in front of her house. The woman’s killing was one of two murders recorded yesterday — the second day in the new year. Both victims were gunned down.
During the heyday of European colonialism when the colonized were denied adult suffrage, the European colonizer arrogantly and automatically assumed that he knew what was best for the colonized. The European colonizer also assumed that it was his Divine Right to assign all policy decisions of governance unto himself. This represented the parental and condescending nature of Euro-colonialism.
Every Afrikan society has beliefs, ideas and teachings that emphasise the existence of a Supreme Being. These beliefs, ideas and teachings are found to be original with the Afrikan way of life. But, beliefs, ideas, teachings and even practices may differ from society to society and from shrine to shrine.
Forget those never-fulfilled New Year resolutions as the not-so-magical midnight hour approaches tonight. Let’s be realistic: we hardly ever adhere to our wishes because we simply do not have the will, the discipline to break bad habits or to adopt new, supposedly good ones. I can visualise it even as I write on Friday. Sloshed-to-bollocks, as the Brits would say, wealthy men and women with those gaudy, comical (and conical) hats, whistles and champagne glasses competing for space in their mouths, shouting in drunken stupor: Happy New Year!
As the year 2006 draws to a close, some people have made a lot of money in Trinidad and Tobago, and some have become distinctly poorer as the cost of living soars to the sky. Money is flowing in the land, it seems, but it is not circulating. The flow is in one direction, from the pockets of wage earners to the pockets and bank accounts of “businessmen”. Many businessmen seem to give nothing back.
THE EDITOR: During the recent Heads of Mission meeting held in POS Prime Minister Manning indicated that in the face of increasing purchases of security equipment from the State of Israel T&T will have to review its foreign policy in the Middle East. In my view, it is clear that PM Manning did not realise that there was a hidden quid pro quo for being granted access to Israeli spying technology. He is now being forced to forge a pro-Israeli foreign policy in the Middle East that will in fact constitute a radical departure from our traditional Middle East Pro-Arab-Palestinian, Group of 77 policy.
Government has decided to immediately discontinue all plans to establish an Alcoa aluminium smelter on the Cap-de-Ville estate, Prime Minister Patrick Manning signalled yesterday. 
Why try to deny the legitimacy of the Steelpan being our national instrument?