By Clint Chan Tack
Thursday, April 3 2008
www.newsday.co.tt
PRIME MINISTER Patrick Manning last night announced that two of the country’s 14 local government bodies will be axed.
In a televised address to the nation, the Prime Minister disclosed talks have begun with the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) to “identify new boundaries for local government” ahead of the local government election which will be held “later this year” .
Continue reading PM hints he needs Jet
Newsday Editorial
Wednesday, April 2 2008
We are unconvinced of the need for Government to purchase the Tobago Hilton. What is involved here is not only the cost of the purchase, more than $200 million, but that additionally Government has had to approve the allocation of $45 million for immediate repairs although the hotel was constructed less than a decade ago. Was there not normal ongoing repair work over the years?
Continue reading Why Tobago Hilton?
By Raffique Shah
Sunday, March 30th 2008
ONE can easily learn to love Norway only for its majestic fjords that are almost unique to that country. But its beauty extends far beyond the landscape and seascape. Here’s a country that discovered oil off its coast at the same time Britain, Holland and others did in the North Sea. That was some 70 years after the first productive oil well was drilled in Trinidad. True, the quantities differed vastly: ours never exceeded 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), while Norway ranks 10th among oil producers at 3.2 million bpd. Its reserves are also far bigger than ours, both in oil and gas.
Continue reading Norway: good governance, better discipline
By Anthony Milne
Saturday 29th March, 2008
Pandemonium broke out in the Lower House yesterday as Speaker Barendra Sinanan suspended Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday for using his laptop without permission.
The Speaker relied on Standing Order 43 (12) to suspend Panday and the sitting ended at 2.15 pm, 45 minutes after it started.
Following the order paper, government ministers answered questions and then it was time for debate on a private motion on rising food prices brought by Naparima MP Nizam Baksh.
Continue reading Basdeo Panday suspended over laptop
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 27, 2007
When I grew up in Tacarigua in the nineteen forties and fifties my mother made sure I attended Tacarigua E.C. School while my grandparents immersed themselves in their Yoruba religion. Each year, we celebrated the Christian holidays (Christmas, Easter, etc.,) but on those glorious nights of October when the Shango drums rang out through the village we all went to Mother Gerald’s Shango tent. Cousin Lily’s thanksgivings; Tantie Lenora’s devotion to the Shouter Baptists; and the respect we paid to our ancestors on All Saints Night were parts of that corpus of ritual belief that gave village life a sense of purpose and wholeness.
Continue reading Creating Community
Newsday Editorial
Thursday, March 27 2008
At long last, the Government through National Security Minister Martin Joseph had admitted to a link between the high murder rate and the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP). The question is, what is going to be done about it?
It has taken the PNM administration a long time to reach even this partial admission. Indeed, at the start of the year, even as he acknowledged that the Government’s crime-fighting initiatives had failed, Mr Joseph denied the link between murder and URP — and mere days later denied that he had even said that the Government had failed. And it was only a few weeks ago that, after High Court judge Anthony Carmona spoke publicly about the URP link to crime, Mr Joseph declared stoutly that he had “no evidence of that”. Now, at a press briefing last Tuesday, he says that such a link is “very possible.”
Continue reading URP and Crime
By Rhondor Dowlat
Tuesday, March 25 2008
A POPULAR Bar-B-Que vendor, 48, of Cunupia who accused his wife of being unfaithful, gave his four-year-old son a poisonous liquid to drink and then took a dose himself sometime between Easter Sunday night and yesterday morning.
Their bodies were discovered by the child’s distraught mother, Jairagee Deolal, 42, lying side by side on a mattress of their newly bought Caroni home.
Continue reading Dad kills son, commits suicide
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
March 25, 2008
As quiet as it is kept, Trinbagonians seem to be in long-term denial that there is a direct correlation between Soca music and moral decadence in TnT. As of this writing, the evidence is very clear and convincing that immorality and public sexual vulgarity have surpassed the nadir of their bottomless pit.
Indeed, there was a time “back-in-the-day” when “smut” in Calypso was respectful of and to women; this genre of popular music not only contained a serious, message-oriented story-line but any sexual behavior/activity was also implicit and left to the imagination.
Continue reading Soca Music and Moral Decadence
By Stephen Kangal
March 23, 2008
Thank you for the opportunity to provide first hand evidence of the positive success side of the mission of the flag-ship Mount Hope Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) to provide, inter alia, caring and timely health services to the nation. I write this letter in the face of potential allegations of medical negligence being currently attributed to the institution. Mount Hope was built by Sodeteg, a French Company under a Government-to-Government arrangement in the 1980’s. It was named in memory our first Prime Minister against his express wishes.
Continue reading Mount Hope Also A Story of Success and Care
By Raffique Shah
Sunday, March 23rd 2008
THERE’S never a dull moment in Trinidad and Tobago. The Government ensures that every week new, controversial issues erupt to spark debate, cussing, outrage. If not allegations of corruption, there’s always the arrogance of ministers who believe they are anointed by God, not elected by people. If government pauses for a moment, the gangsters and murderers and bandits fill the vacuum with mayhem and massacre to let us know the masses are Good Friday ‘bobolees’. And if both stay aloof, then rest assured politicians out of office would fill the breach with manure that could suffocate us all.
Continue reading No ‘Dutch Disease’ for Norway