Jamaica-led slavery resolution adopted by UN

WOLFE, jamaica-gleaner.com

SlaveryThe United Nations General Assembly has adopted a Jamaican-inspired resolution to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Some 160 countries, including former colonial powers the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as all countries on the African continent, supported the resolution last Tuesday.
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Bakr Walks Free

By Francis Joseph, newsday.co.tt
Tuesday, December 5 2006

YASIN ABU BAKRYASIN ABU BAKR, the leader of the Jamaat Al Muslimeen, was yesterday afternoon freed of the charge of conspiracy to murder two expelled members of his organisation.

Justice Mustapha Ibrahim stopped the trial at the close of the prosecution’s case. He agreed with lead defence attorney Pamela Elder SC that the prosecution’s case was weak, that the witnesses were unreliable and to convict Bakr on such evidence would lead to a miscarriage of justice.
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Let’s not be used as a pawn against Chavez

By Raffique Shah
December 03, 2006

President Hugo ChavezToday, the people of Venezuela go to the polls to elect a president. The election is of significance to Trinidad and Tobago because Venezuela happens to be the country closest to us. More than mere geopolitics, under President Hugo Chavez, that country has taken a leading role in hemispheric affairs as well as being a more-than-minor player in global politics. As the fifth biggest oil producing country in the world, Venezuela is also strategically poised to influence the Caribbean, as it did with the Petrocaribe initiative and several bilateral trade and aid agreements with member states of Caricom.
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Narace Pathetic Display of Spin

By Stephen Kangal
Devember 02, 2006

IndiansThe PNM’s damage control machinery went into overdrive to mitigate the adverse political fall out arising from the instantly minted, state-sponsored “mixed communities” philosophy and policy as divulged at Waterloo High by PM Manning. In all my 66 years in T&T since the advent of the PNM in 1956 I have never heard nor read of the “mixed communities” policy. That is another ploy for creating a vote bank in Central. The nearest they came to this policy is their policy of ethno-nationalism that is based on a process of cultural assimilation and the sharing of rewards exclusively amongst its followers.
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Lady Hochoy Centres 2006 Christmas Concert

TriniView.com Staff Article
December 02, 2006

Lady Hochoy Centres Christmas ConcertThe Lady Hochoy Centres presented their Christmas Concert 2006 entitled “Our Gifts to Share” on Thursday 30th November, 2006, at the St. James Amphitheatre.

The venue was filled with parents, friends and relatives of the children who have varying levels of mental, learning and sometimes physical disabilities.
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Black Women and HIV/AIDS

By Ayanna Gillian

HIV VirusWomen are at the highest risk for contraction of the HIV virus. Current statistics for Trinidad and Tobago state that the number of female HIV positive cases in the age group of 15–29, make up 65% of the total cases for the same age group. These statistics lead us to many questions and inevitably should draw greater attention to issues of gender discrimination, racism and poverty. With millions of dollars being pumped into HIV research internationally and great media exposure in Trinidad and Tobago, it is equally important to examine the values that exist and fuel the spread of the disease in its most vulnerable group, African women.
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Mr. Blair’s Regrets

By Linda E. Edwards

Tony BlairSo Mr. Blair regrets that Britain participated in the Atlantic Slave Trade. How gracious of him. I wonder, though, why his regrets, as if he is declining an invitation, was not addressed simultaneously in The Times, The Guardian, and The Independent. These are the papers created and sustained by profits from slavery. Why address it to a paper in the Black community?
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Two Visions of Trinidad and Tobago

By Linda E. Edwards

Domestic ViolenceThe screaming headlines of a woman beheaded by “A close family member”- always a husband, were stunning, even for Trinidad’s papers. I found myself again asking why? What can people do to prevent this? The island is really so small that a woman cannot get away from a man who wants to hunt her down. Of course he drank poison. How often in the last five years has this scenario been repeated in Central? I said to myself that I wasn’t going to write any more columns on women being killed by dotish men whom they should have left long ago. Then Ras Tyehimba wrote a piece that gave some hope. A man was talking to men about the serious issue of how they treat women. His piece did not generate half as much comment as did the pieces I wrote first on the issue of land reform in Zimbabwe, and then on the issue of “Indians” pleading for ‘rescue from discrimination’ to the Indian Vice- President. This latter piece resulted in twenty nine comments. There are thirty-two listed, but three are clarification and additional documentation from my own keyboard.
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$250.000 Bail for Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma

TrinidadAndTobagoNews.com Reporters
November 30, 2006

Chief Justice Satnarine SharmaChief Justice Satnarine Sharma has been charged and is now on $250.000 bail. The Chief Justice surrendered to the police to face charges following losing his appeal at the Privy Council. He maintains he did no wrong.

The media stood outside the home of the Chief Justice in Fairways, Maraval, awaiting the next move. At 12:45pm a car came up the driveway of the CJ’s residence and a few moments later it sped away with both the Chief Justice and his wife inside.
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The Chief Justice loses at the Privy Council

TrinidadAndTobagoNews.com Reporters
November 30, 2006

Chief Justice Satnarine SharmaThis morning Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma lost his appeal in the highest appellate court, the Privy Council, in London. Mr. Sharma’s appeal was tried before five Law Lords arguing that the attempt to remove him from office was politically motivated by the Prime Minister, the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Chief Magistrate.

The Privy Council ruled that there was no evidence to prove that there was collusion involving the Prime Minister, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Attorney General and the Chief Magistrate. They were not convinced that the Chief Justice’s complaint could not be fairly resolved within the criminal courts.
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