Tag Archives: Keith Rowley

General T&T, Politics, Schools, Violence

Prime Minister on school violence

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We can’t beat our way out of it

By Jensen La Vende
April 21, 2022 – newsday.co.tt

PM Dr Keith RowleyCORPORAL PUNISHMENT will not be the solution for school violence the Prime Minister said on Thursday as he responded to number of videos of school children fighting.

Speaking with the media at the Piarco International Airport on Thursday, Dr Rowley said a better approach must be used.

“There is no intention to beat our way out of this,” Rowley said when asked if the re-introduction of corporal punishment would be used to curb school violence.
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Agriculture, General T&T, PNM, Politics

I am the State!

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 11, 2022

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOne is always flabbergasted by how democracy functions (or malfunctions) in Trinidad and Tobago. Recently there was a Cabinet reshuffle in the Government. Clarence Rambharat, the Minister of Agriculture, resigned. He expressed his desire to return to Canada to be closer to his family and yet one week later he was named or, as the Express describes it, “rocked back” into power. (Express, April 3.)
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General T&T, PNM, Politics

The Political Leader as a Man of Culture

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 04, 2022

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeA few weeks ago, Express journalist Ria Taitt asked PNM political leader and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley whether he would be presenting himself as a candidate for the leadership of the party. He responded: “I was elected in a general election for the term 2020 to 2025. I have a responsibility to complete the mandate that the electorate gave me, but I can only do so by being the PNM leader. My term of office as PNM leader ends this year so there will be an internal election, and to serve out my mandate as Prime Minister I am obligated to seek an extension of my term as political leader of the PNM.”
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health

Army of the vaccinated

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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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Elections, General T&T, PDP, PNM, Politics, THA, Tobago

Move Satan move

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 04, 2022

“You may know the man by the conversation he keeps.”

—Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOur Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley, is reputed to have said to US President Joe Biden that the salient factor in our democracy is his capacity to listen to the opinions of his people. I hope he meant that he listened not only to what they say loudly and directly, but also to what isn’t said aloud but is equally as pertinent.

This is important: the Prime Minister’s success in office over the next four years depends upon his listening not only to what is said directly, but also to what is communicated silently.
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China, COVID-19, General T&T, Health

PM, PAHO, Chinese Embassy condemn news report on Sinopharm

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By Rishard Khan
December 20, 2021 – guardian.co.tt

Sinopharm vaccineThe Chinese Embassy, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the St Augustine Medical Laboratory (STAML), have all condemned an Express newspaper article [Putting vaccines to the test] that challenged the efficacy of the Sinopharm vaccine.

The article, published in the newspaper’s Sunday edition, implied the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine is ineffective at generating immunity against the disease.
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General T&T, PDP, People's Partnership, PNM, THA, Tobago

We happy and we sad

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 13, 2021

“God don’t sleep! We want change. The ghetto youth, the old, the young, everybody come out because we want change and if Farley and the PDP do stupidness, we voting them out, too.”

—Lisa Mulcare, Express

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn August 2, 2020, prior to the general election in T&T, in a column entitled “Why I support UNC this time around”, I wrote: “Although PNM began as a movement that was cognisant of the needs of the under-class Indians and Africans alike—over the years it has come to take the support of black people for granted. One only has to look at the conditions under which many black people in depressed communities live to recognise that they have not been the recipients of PNM’s loving and tender care.”
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Elections, PDP, PNM, Politics, THA, Tobago

One-half apology to Farley

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By Raffique Shah
December 13, 2021

Raffique ShahOkay, I am prepared to give the new governor of Tobago one-half an apology for writing last week that he is a fool. “Be nice to the young man, nah… he trying to put together an energetic team to first salvage, then turn around the island’s economy…”

I gather as much, I responded, listening to him speak… But you and I know talk is cheap and promises even cheaper… until we see hard evidence of his performance, I shall stick with the half-apology.
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PNM, THA, Tobago

Grounds for the Resignation of PM Rowley

By Stephen Kangal, Caroni
December 12, 2021

Stephen KangalThe landslide vote of 15,000 plus in the 14-1 melt-down that the PDP amassed in Monday’s historic THA Elections is an unmistakably overriding vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Rowley.

He was the chief protagonist in the Tobago campaign as well as the architect of the aborted Autonomy Bills that incited the wrath of Tobagonians by non-passage. These Bills were woefully short in details on what Tobago demanded as autonomy for their island Government.
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Elections, General T&T, PDP, PNM, Politics, THA, Tobago

The Farley factor

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By Paolo Kernahan
December 09, 2021 – newsday.co.tt

Farley AugustineTHE PNM’S rout at the hands of the fledgling People’s Democratic Patriots (PDP) in Monday’s THA elections came as quite a shock to many. The incumbent went from a six-six tie in the January poll to a 14-one annihilation.

On paper, this shouldn’t have happened. The THA was under the thrall of the PNM for more than two decades. The party prosecuted a blitzkrieg advertising campaign affording it near-ubiquity across the media. The Prime Minister is Tobagonian and freely lent his incandescent fear and fervour to the campaign.
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