Category Archives: Caribbean

Caribbean, CARICOM, General T&T, Jamaica, Politics, Security

T&T-Jamaica Agreement is a Toxic Cock-Tail

6 Comments

By Stephen Kangal
December 06, 2013

Stephen KangalThis latest brewed in Jamaica cock-tail agreement linking, mixing, confusing and commingling the quite separate and unrelated T&T-Jamaica trade imbalance with its immigration concerns has deceptive potions of toxicity. It must be rejected as being artificial, very synthetic and an imposition of Kingston on POS. It is aimed at refashioning, re-allocating and distorting the beneficial effects of the geography and sociology of T&T generously conferred by history and Mother Earth on us Trinbagonians. After all God is a Trini.
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Caribbean, CARICOM, Complaints, General T&T, Jamaica, Law, Politics

Why is Winston Being Handcuffed to Kingston?

28 Comments

By Stephen Kangal
November 29, 2013

Stephen KangalThe problem relating to the legitimate refusal of 13 Jamaicans entry into T&T by our Immigration officials took place at Piarco. The documentation/personnel/ and Minister Griffith responsible for the interviewing process are here. Foreign Affairs is a ceremonial conduit in this matter. Why then is Minister Dookeran being summoned and voluntarily escorted/handcuffed to Kingston by the resident Jamaican High Commissioner with his tail between his legs and the blessings of his Prime Minister? They must appreciate the bigger underpinnings and enormity of this unregulated influx of Jamaicans into T&T. It presents wider and deeper challenges to T&T for national security concerns, crime reduction, the illicit drug scourge, education and social services? Our Parliament had no say on this matter.
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Africa, Caribbean, CARICOM, General T&T, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

National Committee on Reparations for TT

Sunday, November 24 2013

EmancipationA National Committee on Reparations is being established in Trinidad and Tobago, the Communications Unit of the Office of the Prime Minister said yesterday.

In a media release, the Communications Unit said persons responsible for setting up the Committee met with Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar SC at the Parliament Building on Friday.
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General T&T, Guyana, India, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, UNC

Buffoonery reigns

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By Raffique Shah
July 28, 2013

Raffique ShahThe tragedy of tomorrow’s by-election in Chaguanas West is that all of us—politicians, commentators, journalists, publicists and people—treated the exercise, more so the campaign, as a big joke, a comedy festival of sorts. In other words, we have all helped to perpetuate the unholy mess that passes for politics in a country where buffoonery triumphs over rationale, in a land where crapaud is king – or queen.
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Africa, Caribbean, General T&T, Hindu, India, International, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Indian Indentureship: Afri-centric Analysis

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By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
May 29, 2013

Dr. Kwame NantambuThe purpose of this article is to conduct an Afri-centric, linkage analysis of the Indian Indentureship system.

In his magnum opus titled Capitalism & Slavery (1944), Dr. Eric Williams postulates that: “The immediate successor of the Amerindians was not the African but ‘poor whites’. They were regarded as ‘indentured servants’ because before leaving England, they had to sign a contract binding them to service for a stipulated period for their passage. Others were criminals/convicts who were sent by the British government to serve for a specific time on plantations in the Caribbean.” (p.9).
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Business, Caribbean, Finance, General T&T, Media, People's Partnership, Politics

Cut CAL to the bone

4 Comments

By Raffique Shah
May 18, 2013

Raffique ShahIF ANYONE can produce proof that there was a time when this country’s state-owned national airline, in whatever incarnation, made a real profit over a sustained period, meaning at least one year, I would surrender my sanity and vote in the next election. I feel safely insulated from having to do something so unpalatable because I know that in the post-Independence history of BWIA, now CAL, taxpayers who may have never travelled on an aircraft have paid dearly to keep the airline afloat. In the process, they have funded generations of joy riders who are stricken with a stratospheric strain of “gas brains”, and affliction I call “plane brains”.
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CARICOM, General T&T, International, Latin America, Politics, Venezuela

Chavez – Catalyst for Change

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By Raffique Shah
March 09, 2013

Raffique ShahHUGO Chavez cast a giant shadow over the Western Hemisphere during his relatively short life. Few world leaders can claim to have influenced the course of history and geopolitics the way he did. For more than half-a-century, visionaries formulated and articulated ideas for the creation of a new power centre that resided outside of North America and Europe. Chavez transformed those dreams into reality, however limited, and upon his untimely death he left behind the legacy of a new world order that seems set to redefine Latin America and influence global affairs in the 21st Century.
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Caribbean, General T&T, International, Latin America, Politics, Venezuela

The Life and Legacy of Hugo Chávez

By Gregory Wilpert
March 7th 2013 – The Real News

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, or Comandante Chávez, as he was affectionately known by his supporters and followers, passed away on March 5, at 4:25 p.m. local time, following a 21-month battle against cancer.

When he died, at 58 years of age, he had become one of Venezuela’s and perhaps even the world’s most important contemporary leaders, having launched what he and his movement called the “Bolivarian Revolution,” named after Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century independence hero who had liberated Venezuela and four other countries from Spanish colonial rule. Chávez was a devotee of Simón Bolívar, and his vice president, Nicolás Maduro, recently referred to Chávez as “the new liberator of the 21st century.” Whether this is a fair assessment only history will tell, but what is certain is that Chávez changed the face of Venezuela during his 14 years as president.
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Africa, Caribbean, England, France, General T&T, Haiti, Race and Identity, Racism Watch, Religion, USA, Violence

Apology for Slavery and Reparations: Updated

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By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
February 15, 2013

Dr. Kwame NantambuAt the outset, it must be stated quite equivocally that the order for the global apology for the European enslavement of Afrikans is as follows: The Roman Catholic Pope of Rome, first; second, the governments of Spain and Portugal; in third place are the governments of Britain, France and the Netherlands; in fourth place is the government of the United States.
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Africa, Caribbean, General T&T, Passed on, Race and Identity, Racism Watch, Religion, USA

In Appreciation of Tony Martin

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
Submitted: February 06, 2013
Posted: February 13, 2013

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeTony Martin, an inspiration to his students and many of his colleagues, was a foundation member of the Africana Studies Department at Wellesley College. He believed in the integrity of the discipline and the principle of departmental autonomy. A meticulous scholar, his work on Marcus Garvey, particularly Race First, changed the depiction of Garvey in Caribbean and American historiography. A staunch nationalist and Pan Africanist, he took pride in his race and the principle of self-reliance that were embodied in Africana scholars such as Garvey, Malcolm X, Walter Rodney and C.L.J. James.
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