Agriculture, Food, General T&T

Eat smart, beat inflation

2 Comments

By Raffique Shah
February 14, 2022

Raffique ShahMy final focus on food production for now, on cutting back on imports which stand at approximately US$1 billion per year, adds nothing new, nothing that I, and others more qualified than I, have not said before.

In fact, there is hardly anything I can add to this component of the economy since the challenges remain the same they were decades ago, and governments’ responses, likewise, are like a stuck wax record in a digital player—jarring, unintelligible noises that are offensive to the trained ear.
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General T&T, International, Politics, Venezuela

Probe Coast Guard shooting

9 Comments

Probe Coast Guard shooting Express Editorial
The shooting incident involving the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard which resulted in the killing of a baby and injury to his mother demands a full and independent enquiry.

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Comment from Kian

I am deeply disturbed by the reporting of the Coast Guard actions against the Venezuelan boat that caused the death of an infant.

As a nation, we need to understand our constitution, institutions and the purpose of their existence and operations. The constitution allows a government (run by politicians), the Judiciary (run by qualified judges, magistrates etc), armed services (army, coast guard, police, air & sea support). The armed services are NOT civilian controlled. In the case of the Army and Coast Guard, they represent our line of defense against armed insurrection, enemy invasion and border patrol.
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General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

When extraordinary isn’t good enough

4 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 08, 2022

“[In the United States] Black people have had to perform at a much higher standard simply to receive the rewards of being ordinary. For Black people, being ordinary is an extraordinary achievement.”

—Lewis R Gordon on Du Bois’s Political Thought

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeDuring his lowest ebb in his political career at the Democratic primaries in 2020, Joe Biden promised he would select a black woman to be a US Supreme Court justice if he were elected. About a week ago, Justice Stephen Breyer resigned from the court, allowing Biden the opportunity to fulfil his promise.
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Agriculture, Food, General T&T

‘Foods’ that kill us not so softly

2 Comments

By Raffique Shah
February 07, 2022

Raffique ShahEternal optimist that I am, I see opportunities in crisis—and believe me when I tell you I’ve seen crises in my life that most men cannot even imagine. Many do not wish to even go that far, fearing that nightmarish images would materialise into reality and they would remain trapped in a Dante-like inferno forever and ever… don’t ever mention the “amen”. That could render a grim present into an ominous future.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Protest

Playing games with people’s lives

8 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 31, 2022

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt is with regret that I return to PNM’s neglect of its people. It seems that nothing one says or does can make its ministers recognise their tone-deaf responses to the cries of their people. It is, as my mother used to say, “like stick break in dey ears”.

I couldn’t help but feel this way when I read Minister Marvin Gonzales’s response to reporters after he and Port of Spain South MP Keith Scotland visited John John and Sea Lots, with a view to repairing the sewage issues that have plagued the people of the latter area for several years.
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corruption, Crime in T&T, General T&T, Media, Police, Politics

FULs no solution to crime problem

5 Comments

By Raffique Shah
January 31, 2022

Raffique ShahIf there was anything shocking about the non-appointment of a new Commissioner of Police, the simultaneous publication of the retired Justice Stanley John’s report and the stench that emanated from the innards of the records room when its files were opened, it was the surprise expressed by citizens over the scandalous state of affairs in the Police Service.
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General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

Voting Rights in America

3 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 24, 2022

“Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the right to vote.”

—Frederick Douglass (1865).

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeA few days ago, in the United States Senate, the Democrats fought vigorously against the suppression of the rights of black people to vote that were passed by 19 Republican-controlled states of the union.

In spite of their best efforts, the Democrats failed to achieve their objective, which led Carl Hulse to opine: “It was a disheartening moment for congressional Democrats, who put the full force of their majority behind the issue, despite the long odds of success” (Boston Globe, January 26).
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corruption, COVID-19, Finance, Food, General T&T, Health, International, Recession

Talk to me about patriotism

4 Comments

By Raffique Shah
January 24, 2022

Raffique ShahIt didn’t take Nobel Prize-winning economists such as St Lucia’s Sir Arthur Lewis, or the USA’s Milton Friedman or Paul Krugman, to project that as the world economy emerged from an unprecedented virtual lockdown that lasted three, four, who knows how many years during the Covid pandemic, commodity prices, especially those of goods and services that are critical to the recovery of countries across the world, would rise rapidly, putting them beyond the reach of the poorest nations and the poor in every nation.
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General T&T, PDP, PNM, Politics, THA, Tobago

COLONIAL TRAPPINGS

13 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 17, 2022

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn June 2001, the Japanese Black Studies Association invited me to deliver an address, “Identity and Caribbean Literature”, at Nara Women’s College, Nara, Japan (see trinicenter.com, June 24, 2001). Before I delivered my address, my host asked me to meet the president of her college, to which I agreed. I had stopped wearing ties because I considered it a useless trapping (literally) of colonialism. However, my host politely reminded me I had to wear a tie if I was going to see her president.
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health

Army of the vaccinated

3 Comments

By Raffique Shah
January 17, 2022

Raffique ShahI am writing this column on Saturday morning, so I have no idea what the PM would have announced at his media briefing in the afternoon.

But with the drums of political war growing ominously louder by the day, and increasing in volume and tempo, and those who are looking to unseat his Government long before the due date for fresh elections, buoyed as they are by Watson Duke’s sound licking on the PNM in the recent Tobago House of Assembly election, they are doing everything to frustrate him, to goad the PM into calling snap elections, which they believe they can win, whoever “they” may be, whatever their agendas.
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