General T&T, International, Latin America, Passed on, Venezuela

Venezuela: Adiós Presidente

1 Comment

By Clifton Ross
March 8th 2013 – Upside Down World

Mourners pay their respects to Hugo Chávez (Efrain Gonzalez / Prensa Miraflores)
Mourners pay their respects to Hugo Chávez (Efrain Gonzalez / Prensa Miraflores)
It may be difficult for North Americans to grasp the loss Venezuelans are feeling over the death of President Hugo Chávez since we have no comparable experience in our entire history. I called a friend in Venezuela today to check in with her and find out how she was doing the day after Chávez’s death. She was obviously shaken. “It’s a blow (golpe) and you feel it everywhere. After all, Chávez is a man we’ve lived with for the past fourteen years.”

Chávez, whatever one may think of him or how his legacy will be judged, was a warm, charismatic, down-to-earth, entertaining, larger-than-life figure, part politician, part entertainer. He was from the llano, the land of the cowboys and that was so much of his appeal. When he looked into the camera on his weekly, Alo Presidente, there was a sense of physical contact with him among viewers. I know my friend Juan seemed to feel Chávez was there with us on those Sunday mornings as he laughed with him and even hummed along when Chávez sang.
Continue reading Venezuela: Adiós Presidente →

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.
Continue reading The Life and Legacy of Hugo Chávez →

General T&T, International, Latin America, Media, Passed on, Venezuela

What kind of monster has priorities like this? Placing healthcare, education and nutrition before skyscrapers!

5 Comments

Hugo Chavez at The Fifth Summit of the Americas 2009 held in Trinidad and Tobago

Below is the actual view of Pamela Sampson, writer for the Associated Press:
Little Reaction In Oil Market To Chavez Death (March 05, 2013)
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=173521347

Chavez invested Venezuela’s oil wealth into social programs including state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programs. But those gains were meager compared with the spectacular construction projects that oil riches spurred in glittering Middle Eastern cities, including the world’s tallest building in Dubai and plans for branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi.

Continue reading What kind of monster has priorities like this? Placing healthcare, education and nutrition before skyscrapers! →

General T&T, International, Latin America, Passed on, People's Partnership, Politics, Venezuela

PM extends condolences on the passing of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez

7 Comments
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar signs the Condolence book at the Venezuelan Embassy
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar signs the Condolence book at the Venezuelan Embassy

From the Office of the Prime Minister
March 06, 2013

On behalf of the Government and people of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, it is with great sadness that I extend deepest condolences to the Government and people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and to his family on the passing of Comandante Hugo Chávez Frías, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Our prayers accompany them in their time of grief.
Continue reading PM extends condolences on the passing of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez →

General T&T, International, Latin America, Politics, USA, Venezuela

Chavismo Lives!

1 Comment

Hundreds of thousands have gathered in Caracas to pay homage to Hugo Chavez (AVN)
Hundreds of thousands have gathered in Caracas to pay homage to Hugo Chavez (AVN)

By Stephen Lendman
March 06, 2013

Hugo Chavez (1954 — 2013) at The 5th Summit of the Americas[/caption]Venezuelans mourn. Chavismo lives! Bolivarianism is institutionalized.

Venezuelans expect no less. They want no part of their ugly past. They’ll put their bodies on the line to prevent it. They did before. They’ll do it again.
Continue reading Chavismo Lives! →

5th Summit, General T&T, International, Latin America, Passed on, Venezuela

Hugo Chavez dies after battle with cancer

7 Comments

Hugo Chavez at The Fifth Summit of the Americas 2009 held in Trinidad and Tobago
Hugo Chavez during The Fifth Summit of the Americas 2009 held in T&T

Trinicenter Reporters
March 05, 2013

Vice President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro announced on Venezuela’s television that Hugo Chavez passed away on Tuesday afternoon at around 4:25 p.m. after a two year battle with cancer. He was 58.

Since coming into power 14 years ago, Chavez embarked on a socialistic revolution that saw sweeping changes across Venezuela.
Continue reading Hugo Chavez dies after battle with cancer →

Education, Entertainment, Gender, General T&T, Media, Music, Race and Identity

The “Pontificat”: Akilah Holder’s ‘Carnival’ Article

By Corey Gilkes
March 04, 2013 – trinicenter.com

CarnivalI had planned to make my first contribution for 2013 to be on the series of important film documentaries on Trinidad Carnival put on by the TT Film Festival, not least of which were the two on Minshall and the presentation given by Ray Funk. Some were poorly attended but they were all priceless in the way each of them opened a little more of that portal on ourselves more of us need to see. Minsh used the streets as his canvass to express his philosophy in the traditions of Bailey, Saldenah and the legions of largely (tragically) nameless persons who used the Midnight Robber, the Minstrel, the Baby Doll, the Dame Lorraine, the Burrokeet, the Jab Molassie to hold up the mirror of society and all its hypocrisy and excesses to show us what many of us really are. That aspect of our Mas, the use of the open space as a gigantic participatory (before the advent of security, ropes and the word “exclusive”) political and social theatre, is perhaps the most important message that needs to be kept firmly in the minds of those who wish to take over the Mas – specifically those who have reduced it to empty, expressionless displays of bikinis, bras and feathers as if here is Las Vegas.
Continue reading The “Pontificat”: Akilah Holder’s ‘Carnival’ Article →

General T&T, People's Partnership, PNM, Police, Politics, Religion, UDeCOTT

Manning Went to Guanapo Church

1 Comment
Lighthouse of the Lord Jesus Christ Church
Construction site of Pena's church at the Heights of Guanapo

By Andre Bagoo
March 04, 2013 – newsday.co.tt

THE WOMAN known as Juliana Pena, who has been described as former Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s spiritual adviser, was granted access to the construction site of the Prime Minister’s Residence and Diplomatic Centre, La Fantasie, St Ann’s in order to pray on it before it opened its doors in 2007.
Continue reading Manning Went to Guanapo Church →