President Barack Obama: Change…What Change?

By Leslie
January 20, 2009
africaspeaks.com

Barack ObamaToday, Tuesday 20th January, 2009, Barack Obama officially becomes the President of the United States of America. While there is much elation about this occasion, especially as the Bush era was marked by atrocities and war crimes, Obama has not mapped out a clear path for the change that he constantly spoke about on the campaign trail. However, Obama did express some views on several key issues recently and we can gauge those to see if he is really about meaningful change.
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Geo-political aspects of Obama’s presidency

By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
January 20, 2009
Updated: January 21, 2009

Barack ObamaFor the past five hundred years, the world has been under the sway of what Dr. Ivan Van Sertima has called the “five hundred year curtain.”

This European foreign policy curtain has manifested itself in the 1655 Britain’s global master-plan/code-word under the rubric of the “Great Western Design” as enunciated by Oliver Cromwell.
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Rally, rally ’round T&T

By Raffique Shah
January 18, 2009

Trini PeopleTHERE was a time when the moment things turned sour in this country, those who could afford it would simply flee to the USA, Canada or Europe. That happened mainly among professionals who were educated here at taxpayers’ expense, entrepreneurs who rose from running one-door shops to the multi-million-dollar enterprises. The one aberration to this pattern occurred in the late 1980s, when thousands of ordinary people, mainly Indians, fled to Canada as refugees, claiming they were oppressed by an African-dominated state machinery.
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Kelvin ‘Mighty Duke’ Pope Passes Away

The Mighty Duke’s Send-Off – January 22, 2009

TrinidadandTobagoNews.com Reporters
January 14, 2009
Updated: January 15, 2009

One of Calypso’s greatest icons Kelvin ‘Mighty Duke’ Pope passed away earlier today. Mighty Duke, who was diagnosed with myelofibrosis – a serious bone marrow disorder that disrupts the body’s normal production of blood cells – has succumbed to this illness ending a battle of over four years. His wife Rebecca, one of his sons, Wendell, and Hollis ‘Chalkdust’ Liverpool were at his side when he passed.
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Dangerous Draft Constitution

Newsday Editorial
Tuesday, January 13 2009

PM Patrick ManningTHE Draft Constitution laid by Prime Minister Patrick Manning at last Friday’s re-opening of the House of Representatives not only alters the mechanics of the Constitution but undermines the most universal tenets of constitutional accountability.

This is the third draft presented by Mr Manning, following a first draft laid in the House on Friday August 18, 2006, and a second draft outlined to the PNM Annual Convention on Sunday July 13, 2008.
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Recession opens new opportunities

By Raffique Shah
Sunday, January 11, 2009

Trini PeopleIF ever the world needed an economic recession, this is the time. Maybe there is some superior entity that is both omniscient and omnipotent, that saw the excesses man was capable of, left to his devices. And just maybe, that entity decided to call halt to the madness that gripped mankind, from Iceland to Antarctica. Almost the entire world, except for the one billion living in poverty that we can pretend do not exist, engaged in wanton, wasteful consumerism. It was as if we were re-enacting the lavishness of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, or the Court of the Roman Empire in its halcyon days.
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Remembering Jizelle Salandy (Giselle Salandy)

Jizelle Salandy’s Send-Off

TriniView.com Reporters
Event Date: January 07, 2009
Posted: January 10, 2009

Hundreds of people turned up at the St. Benedict’s Roman Catholic Church in La Romaine to remember and bid farewell to the World Boxing Champion Jizelle Salandy. They came in buses, maxis and cars from all over Trinidad to pay their last respects. Many persons in attendance admitted that they did not know Jizelle personally but her life inspired them in some way.
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Revisiting Cuba at 50

Dr. Kwame Nantambu
January 08, 2009

Fidel CastroOn 1st January 1959, a successful armed revolution took place in the Caribbean. This revolution destroyed Euro-Spanish-American colonial oppression in Cuba. It was led by Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. The Euro-Spanish-American dictatorship regime was led by Fulgencio Batista.

Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and “Che” Guevara held their ground in the Sierra Maestra mountains accompanied by a mere hundred fellow revolutionaries. What is vital, however, is that the “26th of July movement” had the ultimate support of the oppressed Cuban peasants.
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Boxing champion Giselle Salandy is dead

TrinidadandTobagoNews.com Reporters
January 04, 2009

Undefeated Trinidad and Tobago boxing champion, Giselle Salandy, died following a vehicular accident on the Beetham Highway, on the outskirts of Port of Spain, this morning, January 4th 2009. The 21 year old boxing sensation succumbed to her injuries at the Port of Spain General Hospital around 8.29 a.m. Reports state that Salandy was driving west into Port of Spain a little before 7 a.m. when she crashed into a concrete pillar upon reaching the National Petroleum (N.P.) overpass just before the Bhagwansingh turnoff. Miss Salandy and other occupant of the Toyota Yaris, national female footballer Tamar Watson were injured and both were rushed to hospital. Most recent reports indicate that Watson suffered two broken legs and is in a critical condition.
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A new start for Zimbabwe?

Ian Scoones, Challenges the myths about Zimbabwean agriculture and land reform

15 September 2008
lalr.org.za/
(Livelihoods after land reform)

Zimbabwe WatchThe long-awaited political agreement in Zimbabwe is to be welcomed. After years of political impasse and economic instability, there is a potential for a new start. But an informed debate on the future is needed and a focus on land and the agricultural sector must be central to these discussions. The new government will be offered advice from all quarters – consultants from around the world will arrive by the plane load, and the donor community and foreign think-tanks of all persuasions will forward their preferred plans and programmes.
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