“[…] If we agree with [US president Donald] Trump that the shipment of cocaine to the US is terrorism—as Opposition leaders implicitly do—then why did a transhipment area like Venezuela become a huge target, requiring the deployment of naval, air, and ground forces to nearby seas. “The consensus among scholars …
Read More »MSJ: ‘Backward and opportunistic!’ Kamla’s UNC is acting like T&T’s ‘fifth column’
“[…] It is the view of the MSJ that the UNC’s position makes them unfit for being the government of Trinidad and Tobago since they will turn us into a semi-client state of the US. We need not state the obvious—we pass the stage when we had a governor, long …
Read More »Media musings: I tweet, therefore I am? Facts, truth and reader education
Lloyd Best used to say that Trinidad and Tobago is a country where people walk about with their heads empty. That may explain why, for so many of us Trinis, facts are sacred things. “Facts are facts,” India’s Jawaharlal Nehru once declared, “and they will not disappear on account of …
Read More »Message to the media; musings on premature loss of a Laker as great as great Kobe
Basketball legends never die, a friend joked to me on WhatsApp last Sunday, they just keep hitting fadeaways. And confessing that he had felt physically sick when he first heard the news of Kobe Bryant’s untimely death in a helicopter crash earlier in the day, he explained that, for him, …
Read More »Media Monitor: On T&T English, the US Senate’s brown tongues and crossing Trump
In the Senate impeachment trial of Donald J Trump, Adam Schiff spoke good, very good. (I could have wrote ‘was very good’ but that wouldn’t be American in any way, shape or form.) A classy, clearly highly educated advocate, Schiff doubtless impressed all with his eloquence and general delivery. He …
Read More »Media Monitor: Trump’s Senators tie themselves in impeachment (k)nots
Licks like peas. With a bullpistle. Were I a judge in their case, that is the sentence I would pass on the 50-odd Elsies in the Senate who last week voted against hearing witnesses in the continuing impeachment trial of Donald J Trump. Did Trump ask Ukraine for a quid …
Read More »Cockroaches must stay out fowl business! T&T Shia Muslims condemn Trump but pledge peaceful approach
“Based on our faith and understanding of Islam, we are sworn to the protection of the realm of Trinidad and Tobago and to peaceful coexistence with persons of all faiths… “The AIATT—nor any Shia Muslim organisation or person of Trinidad and Tobago as far as we can tell—[is not] a …
Read More »Gilkes: From Truman to Trump; how religion oppresses the post-colonial world
Shooting wars begin as culture wars and culture wars are initiated by ideas. So let’s for a minute set aside Uncle Sam’s amoral adventures in Venezuela; or not—because this issue is partly about what led to it in the first place. A few years ago Professor Merle Hodge wrote an …
Read More »Dear Editor: The trouble with the neighbours; why we should be concerned about Venezuela
“This sudden outpouring of concern in our neighbours’ well-being is nothing to do with a desire to defend democracy, socialism or any other political theory. It is about the age old practice of colonialism, in whatever acceptable form it takes in the 21st century. “But because of that controlling desire …
Read More »‘[Trump] can say whatever he wants!’ Live Wire buckles up as Young backs Maduro in Venezuela crisis
“[US president Donald Trump] can say whatever he wants,” said National Security Minister Stuart Young yesterday. “At the end of the day, as far as I am aware, Venezuela is a sovereign country. “[…] I certainly would not wish for any country to have a coup. We stand ready to assist …
Read More »Dear Editor: More analysis needed on US/Russia war-games in neighbouring Venezuela
As curious as I am about what’s happening in Venezuela, I’m even more curious about how said developments are analysed by my local media so as to raise the public’s level of awareness about this country’s position in global affairs. Venezuela president Nicolás Maduro never really impressed me, he’s no …
Read More »Gilkes: Message to the Barbergreen; the continuing struggle for emancipation
Despite my shameless semi-appropriation of Malcolm X’s “Message to the Grassroots,” this in no way suggests that I place myself close to the same league of this giant ancestor. This is just my paltry message to those in my country, particularly those who live where there isn’t much grass, far …
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