Category Archives: International

General T&T, Guyana, Oil and Gas, Politics, USA, Venezuela

Thanks, USA – for nothing

By Raffique Shah
January 30, 2023

Raffique ShahI suppose Trinidad and Tobago, being a small-island-state, very literally, has to be thankful for small mercies dished out by the super-powers of the world. In this case, big, bad USA, has finally agreed to issue a waiver on the sanctions it has imposed on Venezuela that will allow TT and Caracas to monetise an estimated 4.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from the Dragon field, which lies close to the international boundary between the two countries, but which belongs to Venezuela.
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Caribbean, General T&T, International, Spain

To be or not to be a national hero

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By Dr Kwame Nantambu
December 22, 2022

Dr. Kwame NantambuAs a new year approaches, it is indeed a sine qua non to delve deeper into history in order to ascertain what it really takes to be a real national hero of T&T. At the outset, a review of the literature indicates that one of the most fundamental, basic inherent qualities/criteria of any nation’s hero is that person’s overt ability to be a dynamic, forceful agent for radical, structural, even violent change in an imposed oppressive system.
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Africa, Egypt, England, General T&T

African presence in early England

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By Dr Kwame Nantambu
December 10, 2022

Dr. Kwame NantambuNow that England has ushered in its first modern-day, non-European Prime Minister in Rishi Sunak of Asian-Indian descent and the country’s first Hindu to hold that top office, indeed, it is a sine qua non to reveal and recount the role and presence of Africans in England’s early history.

In his treatise History of the Africans in Europe (1971), Dr. G.K. Osei postulates that “when Saint Patrick went to Ireland to convert the people he took one (African) with him. The (African) used to sing at the various meetings. Ireland had an African Bishop called Diman. He died in Ulster in 658 A.D. and is now a Saint.”
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General T&T, International, Sports

Enjoying the World Cup

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By Raffique Shah
November 28, 2022

Raffique ShahAs the football World Cup tournament kicked off last week, igniting a global epidemic of “football fever” which strikes once every four years, your humble scribe duly fell in line with the billion-plus people viewing via their local television networks.

Now, I must declare that I am no “football peong”, a fanatic who cannot miss a crucial game in any of the many league matches, especially those played in Europe, where giants of the sport, from owners of clubs who eat, drink and sleep football, to star players who are traded like commodities, many of them valued at millions of dollars, which tells me that this “beautiful sport” is more about money than sport, which I bear in mind as I watch the games.
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Caribbean, General T&T, Guyana, Oil and Gas, Venezuela

Venezuela Clinging at Legal Straws to Delay the ICJ Arbitration with Guyana

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By Stephen Kangal
November 21, 2022

Stephen KangalGuyana, by the internationally accepted law and principle of state succession today and as an independent state member of the UN/OAS has total authority, sovereignty and exclusive jurisdiction and control above (air space), beyond (maritime) and below (subsoil) the current state of Guyana formerly British Guiana by an Independence Agreement concluded by GB/UK and British Guiana effective from the date of the latter’s independence in 1966.
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England, General T&T, India, International, Sports

The British Re-Conquest of India

By Stephen Kangal
November 11, 2022

Stephen KangalThe Indian performance last night at the Adelaide Oval was a monumental anti-climax breaking the hearts of more than a billion devotees and 45m in the diaspora by their lack-luster approach to batting and hanging their bats to dry outside the off stump and unable to attack the English quite ordinary bowling.

Honestly from the very first over I thought India would have been a walk over for the Brits on a pitch that held no horrors for the pulverising pair of Hales and Butler who scored freely and indeed majestically as if they were playing against an English County pick up side.
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Africa, Britain, England, General T&T, Violence

Deluded Children of Empire

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 19, 2022

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn a sunny day in February of 1952 I was an eight-year-old schoolboy made to attend a memorial service for King George VI, the father of the late Elizabeth II. On that day I remembered the “Taps” played by the Police Band or the Tacarigua Orphan Home Band, as the bugles rattled through the bamboos on the banks of the Tacarigua River that flowed on the western side of the church.
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England, General T&T, Passed on, UK

The Queen and I

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By Raffique Shah
September 12, 2022

Raffique ShahIt’s incomprehensible that I, whose generation had every reason to dislike the British monarchy and wish for its early demise and for it to be replaced by something more modern, early in my life, became indifferent to the Windsors’ lingering presence as a symbol of Britain’s once inordinate prowess, and more than that, one woman’s mesmerising presence that defied all odds for almost 100 years.
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General T&T, International, NATO, Russia, Ukraine

Analyzing Putin’s military aggression

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By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
September 03, 2022

Dr. Kwame NantambuIn 2008, President Vladimirr Putin of Russia invaded Georgia. In 2014, he repeated military history by invading Crimea. Hence, it need occasion no great surprise that on 24 February 2022, the Russian President Putin repeated military history one more time by his unprovoked, illegal invasion of Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin has consistantly argued that it was “an act of self-defense” and “a special military operation” aimed at the “demilitarization ” and “denazification” of Ukraine.
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