Tag Archives: Politics

Firestorm is a-coming

By Raffique Shah
January 03, 2010
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

ProtestShould political turmoil erupt in 2010, it wouldn’t be because of the Property Tax or government’s now toned-down spending spree. The opposition, united or divided, cannot trigger mass action, the kind we experienced in 1970. If anything, it’s the extreme insensitivity of uncaring ministers-Peter Taylor’s ‘living off the fat of the land’, Gaynor Dick-Forde’s ‘only 12 people against the tax’, Neil Parsanlal’s Goebbels-like, weekly media-bashing-that would send angry masses streaming onto the streets.
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Tyranny of the minority in T&T

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

HouseTHE EDITOR: The public, unscientific and unfounded notion/assertion by Finance Minister Karen Nunez Tesheira that “the majority of Trinbagonians support the Property Tax Bill’ flies in the face of the slightest scintilla of common sense and intellectual rationality.
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UDeCOTT Improper

By Andre Bagoo
December 29, 2009 – newsday.co.tt

PM Patrick Manning and Calder HartCHAIRMAN of the Commission of Inquiry into Udecott Professor John Uff QC has hit back at the State-owned enterprise for making what he described as “improper” allegations against him in a High Court lawsuit the Calder Hart-chaired company has brought to challenge the proceedings.
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Imbert’s Nonsensical Fire and Brimstone

By Stephen Kangal
December 27, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Colm ImbertHere was Minister Colm Imbert at his arrogant worse spewing loud and rapid dragon-fire and non-supportable and baseless brimstone in the House as he wallowed in half-lies, untruths and innuendoes in his PT speech on Monday. As I sat in the public gallery and was inflicted with this spectacle, I agonized loudly: How could Mr. Speaker allow his House to be brought into such disdainful odium and total disrepute in the eyes of citizenry by sanctioning Imbert’s loud shouting, his comic antics, his peacock arrogance and his demeaning undiplomatic remarks directed at the Opposition members? His behaviour was nothing short of “waganry” at its sordid and obscene worst.
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PM pledges better life for citizens

December 25, 2009
guardian.co.tt

PM Patrick ManningBetter roads, health, security, water electricity supply is Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s gift to the nation for the coming year. In his Christmas message to the nation, Manning said the Government understood the needs of citizens but patience was required to accomplish some of its goals. He said despite international turbulence, T&T had been able to make progress and remained a further fortified democracy. “We have weathered the most severe international economic crisis since the 1930s, one whose effects continue to persist in most countries,” Manning said. He said in the midst of the effects of the economic crisis still being faced by most countries and despite T&T’s significant loss of revenue, this country had been able make a “turbulent crossing with greater steadiness than most.”
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Riot Squad Provoked The Picketing Fracas

By Stephen Kangal
December 20, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

ProtestAs a participant in the peaceful, legal and orderly picket conducted on the northern precincts of Parliament on Friday 18 during the debate on the controversial property tax bills I can say categorically that these armed to the teeth riot squad policemen acted on pre-meditated decisions and intentions to arrest Comrade David Abdullah. They in fact indulged in an act of unnecessary provocation while the picket was proceeding smoothly and being conducted in a most orderly, peaceful and legal manner to create a basis to arrest him.
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Lancaster House revisited

By Phyllis Johnson
December 21, 2009

ZimbabweTHIS is the first in a series of eight articles on the events of late 1979 and early 1980.

Thirty years ago, on December 21 1979, an agreement was signed in London that set in motion a series of events that put Zimbabwe on the course to where it is today.

The signatures appended reluctantly to that agreement beneath the chandeliers and subterfuge of Lancaster House ended the war in a place that some called Rhodesia and signalled a different route to independence for a country that the majority called Zimbabwe.
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Backing Bas …or Ramesh

Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj
Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar & Ramesh Maharaj

By Raffique Shah
December 20, 2009
trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

As a Christmas gift to my colleague of many, many moons ago, I am backing Basdeo Panday for leadership of the UNC in the upcoming party elections. I have taken this decision, not after long and hard examination of the issues at stake, or any analysis of the future of UNC, but purely because Bas is a man. And this country of warped minds where people are whimsical in their outlooks, man must back man.
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Rowley hits property tax

By Sean Douglas
December 20 2009 – newsday.co.tt

Dr. Keith RowleyDIEGO Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley believes that people from all walks of life are angry at the Government’s property tax which they blame on squandermania. Rowley was speaking on Friday in the Lower House on two bills to bring the new tax, the Property Tax Bill 2009 and the Valuation of Land (Amendment) Bill 2009.
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Making the right choice for party and country

Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj
Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar & Ramesh Maharaj

By Tony Fraser
December 16, 2009

Ramesh Maharaj is correct in saying that the outcome of the January internal elections of the United National Congress (UNC) will determine the future political prospects of the party. Indeed, to take that projection further along the road of rep-resentative politics, the out come will also determine the short-term political landscape of T&T. It is clear that if the UNC membership returns Basdeo Panday as its political leader, the party will be doomed to opposition. Moreover the UNC, as now configured, is sure to receive an ever-declining share of the number of votes and seats in the local and general elections up ahead.
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