Former Attorney General Anand Ramlogan was a no-show while UNC Senators Wayne Sturge and Gerald Ramdeen refused to defend their own requisition, as a no confidence motion in Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago (LATT) president Reginald Armour SC and vice-president Gerry Brooks came to a crushing defeat at a special …
Read More »TedX Port of Spain’s challenge: Is free speech an illusion in Trinidad and Tobago?
It is not uncommon for people to hear statements like “but it is a free country,” “I can do what I want” or “I have a right to my opinion.” But, in Trinidad and Tobago, we have a myth of free speech. If we think we can speak truth to …
Read More »Law Association showdown: Anand-led group aims to oust Armour and Brooks
Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago (LATT) president Reginald Armour SC and vice-president Gerry Brooks will need the support of their membership to keep their respective positions, as they attempt to stave off a vote of no confidence instigated by a faction that includes former Attorney General Anand Ramlogan SC …
Read More »“Dem tun fool”: Daly on Caribbean relations and crossroads at the Law Association
Currently, as has happened in the past, race talk has surfaced in the aftermath of a change of Government. Part of the problem is the widespread use and abuse of statutory corporations and so-called state enterprises as the vessels through which illegitimate or corrupt activity flows. When an election is …
Read More »Not every salaam speaks for Islam: A Muslim’s response to Kevin Baldeosingh
Alana Abdool takes a closer, sympathetic look at Kelvin Baldeosingh’s controversial Trinidad Guardian column in our Letters to the Editor page: Dear brothers and sisters in Islam, I have a confession to make. And a warning to sound. Truth be told, Kevin Baldeosingh said atheists and white people are offended …
Read More »Workers welcomed Caroni’s closure; Shah debunks Sat’s “racist lie”
The only thing necessary for myths and mischief to be recorded as historical facts is for informed persons to say nothing. I liberally paraphrase Irish philosopher Edmund Burke’s injunction to responsible persons to speak out or act when tyranny threatens, to respond to one lie Sat Maharaj peddled when he …
Read More »Lament for Laventille: David Nakhid blows whistle on government neglect and hypocrisy
“David,” Mama stands in the doorway and calls down the hill to me, “bring yuh skinny red self and get something to eat.” ‘Mama’ is my late mother’s mother and she lives not in middle class Champs Fleurs which was my base in my growing-up years but on the Hill. …
Read More »The Real Patos in the Fake Pathos: BC Pires remembers Patrick Manning
Rather than join the hordes jockeying for advanced position in Trinity Cathedral at his state funeral by rewriting the late Patrick Manning as the Stepfather of the Nation, and not the man who built a palace for himself with taxpayers’ money – and started work on a church likewise – …
Read More »Mixing God with Mammon: The problem with Gov’t funding for religious festivals
The bickering among Islamic organisations over the allocation and distribution of Government funding for the recent Eid celebrations underscores a point I’ve made ever since this nonsense started a few years ago: Government ought never to dispense public funds for religious festivals. A few weeks before Eid, in the midst …
Read More »An accidental leader: Raffique Shah considers the legacy of late ex-PM Patrick Manning
The end, when it came, brought relief from some five years of suffering, and pre-empted additional torture from treatment for cancer, which many have described as being worse than the disease itself. Patrick Manning’s sister, Petronella, who is a medical doctor, said as much in her grief-stricken state. And his …
Read More »The high price of our silence: Nakhid explains why corruption survives in T&T
Former national footballer and would-be FIFA president David Nakhid reflects on the current state of the political ballgame: “Why do you have to speak for these African players?” Patrick Edwards, a career diplomat attached to the Trinidad and Tobago High Commission in London, asked me when he came to Lebanon …
Read More »Referendum rooted in fear; why Brexit won’t solve British working class problems
The referendum was never about Britain getting a raw deal in the European Union and wanting out so that it can prosper on its own. It wasn’t even about voting to stop the hordes of barbarian refugees at the gates of the castle, given its natural moats, the Channel, the …
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