By Raffique Shah
April 18, 2018
Understandably, the nation celebrated the two gold and one silver medals Trinidad & Tobago won at the Commonwealth Games staged in The Gold Coast, Australia, over the past two weeks. With “bad news” dominating the headlines daily, from crime to corruption, political wrangling and bungling to institutional paralyses, only the sourpuss among us would dismiss achievements in sports as being irrelevant to national pride.
Continue reading Gold…at what price?
TAXMAN COMETH
IN rolling out a series of money-making measures in the 2016/2017 National Budget, both the rich and poor were touched by yesterday’s Budget presentation.
Continue reading Budget Presentation for Fiscal Year 2017 – Friday September 30, 2016
By Raffique Shah
Submitted: August 16, 2016
Posted: August 28, 2016
By the time I was ready to turn in on Sunday night, my pulse rate was back to normal, and like the Buddha you encounter at the entrances to many Thai restaurants, I wore a silly grin, like a man whose appetite was sated.
No, I did not overeat: I was overfed with athletics performances—and it was only Day 3 of nine days of track and field events at the Rio Olympics. Usain Bolt, who has stamped his authority as the greatest sprinter ever, almost gave me a heart attack by trailing druggist Justin Gatlin up to the half-way mark in the 100 metres final. Then he delivered, in style—but I was nervously massaging my chest!
Continue reading Saluting speed, strength and stamina
THE EDITOR: As the United States and the rest of the world said farewell to “The Greatest,” Muhammad Ali, I kept wondering how many libraries and schools across the country bothered to put up displays to educate our very young people who was this giant of a personality.
Continue reading On ‘THE GREATEST’ as a model
By Raffique Shah
June 11, 2016
In death, as in life, he straddled the world like a colossus. All the major international news networks suspended regular programming to pay homage to Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer ever, the supreme sporting figure of the 20th Century, the defiant one who sacrificed a successful career on the altar of principle.
Just four years older than me, Ali symbolised the rebelliousness of so many of my generation, it was almost as if we knew him, grew up with him, that when he spoke out, confronted what we had dubbed “the establishment” in those heady days, his was our voice.
Continue reading Peerless and fearless: simply The Greatest
Match highlights, Eng v WI, World Twenty20 Final
Final Australia vs West Indies Womens Match Highlights
Continue reading Highlights: Eng v WI, Aus vs WI, World Twenty20 Finals
By Raffique Shah
June 21, 2015
Jack Warner is not a mad man—or delusional, as the Prime Minister euphemistically puts it.
If he was, then the PM, who chose him to act in the highest office in the land on several occasions, and assigned him to the national security portfolio three years ago, must be madder than him.
And members of Cabinet and the People’s Partnership hierarchy who clung to him as if he were a latter-day Jesus or Rama or Muhammad, are the maddest people ever to have governed a country.
Continue reading Jack’s revenge
By Raffique Shah
June 07, 2015
Corpus Christi morning, I come awake, latish, closer to seven o’clock. I tune in to BBC television to see what’s happening in the world, since, Thursday being a Christian holiday, the local electronic media stations will have no real news.
I do a double-take, re-check the channel number when, big and bold at the bottom of the screen I see “…Trinidad and Tobago…breaking news…”
Continue reading Shame and scandal, indeed
Sepp Blatter to resign as Fifa president after 17 years in role
By Owen Gibson
June 02, 2015 – theguardian.com
Sepp Blatter has dramatically quit as Fifa president just days after he was defiant in re-election for a fifth term, sparking a flurry of speculation over the future of world football and the fate of the next two World Cups in Russia and Qatar.
Under intense pressure from ongoing investigations by the FBI and Swiss prosecutors that have already led to 18 senior football executives being charged in the US on charges of money laundering, tax evasion and racketeering, Blatter said he had decided to step down.
Continue reading Sepp Blatter to resign as Fifa president
By Raffique Shah
May 31, 2015
If, in what may be described as normal countries, a week in politics is a long time, in abnormal Trinidad and Tobago, a week can be likened to a lifetime. Last week, most scribes and commentators in the media engaged in heated exchanges over the latest bacchanal in the Integrity Commission.
Today, few remember what that furore was about or who the protagonists were.
Continue reading Karma, boy, karma