Friday, November 30 2007
PRIME MINISTER Patrick Manning yesterday said while Government has until March 28, 2008 to convene the Ninth Parliament, it will do so “well before that.”
Addressing the first post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall since the November 5 General Election, Manning said, “At next week’s Cabinet meeting (December 6) we will identify a date at which Parliament will be convened.”
After revealing that the convening of Parliament was discussed at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Manning explained under Section 67 (1) of the Constitution: “There is a six month hiatus maximum that must exist between the sittings of the Parliament by law. But of course, the Government proposes to convene Parliament well before that.” Parliament was dissolved on September 28 when Manning announced November 5 as the General Election date.
Constitutional experts such as former President Sir Ellis Clarke and former Police Service Commission chairman Kenneth Lalla SC said Manning has not erred, constitutionally, by not convening Parliament to date despite criticisms from the Opposition UNC Alliance.
The Prime Minister said the Government did not want to convene Parliament without any business to conduct. “At next week’s Cabinet meeting, we will see what legislation is available, legislation that may have lapsed from the last Parliament. We will identify a series of priorities for consideration in both Houses of Parliament (Senate and the House of Representatives) so that we will start the Parliament with an agenda.”
Sources said it is possible that Parliament may be convened in mid-December and Manning would not wait until January.
Ah will allow the ole fockin silver fox to respond to this one:
Leader of the Opposition
Parliament of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago
Media Statement
People's Parliamentary Agenda…
Mr Manning has prolonged the opening of Parliament for an unacceptable length of time while he went on a holiday in Uganda. He now returns to say that Parliament cannot open yet because there is no Parliamentary Agenda.
Responses:
On what basis did the PNM campaign in the last election? Their Manifesto and platform promises should have been the basis of their agenda as a government? So it is unacceptable that they now claim not to have an agenda.
If Budget 2007-08 is themed "Continuing the Transformation", then whatever was not done in the last term should be continued now.
There are several important pieces of legislation that lapsed because the PNM did not give them priority last time around. There is the Equal Opportunities Bill and the package of Children's Legislation. That is enough to start the Parliament especially when the government has nothing else on its plate.
Further, there are pressing issues such as crime, high food prices, the health care system and education system which need urgent attention. So there is more than enough work for the members of parliament to do.
The problem is that the PNM is on a honeymoon and they are feting for Christmas and they do not care what happens to the people.
The Opposition demands that the Prime Minister waste no more time and summon the Parliament. If they do not have a Parliamentary Agenda, we the Opposition have one and the citizens have one.
Hon Basdeo Panday
Leader of the Opposition, MP Couva North
Friday, November 30, 2007.
Friday, November 30, 2007
PM: Panday should shut up
By Clint Chan Tack Friday, November 30 2007
Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday ought to shut up and stop criticising the Government about the upsurge in crime, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said yesterday.
“He ought to be told to shut up. I think that would help all of us.
The comments I made on the crime situation had nothing to do with the Honourable Leader of the Opposition. It had to do with the levels of security that our people enjoy.”
Manning gave this response to remarks Panday made that the Prime Minister was irresponsible for saying he found the rise in crime since the November 5 General Election “very strange”.
This was Manning’s reaction when questioned by reporters at the post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall on the spate of murders on his return from Uganda, where he attended the Common-wealth Heads of Government summit, on Wednesday night.
“I could easily invoke the comments of the very distinguished King of Spain when he was dealing with the President of Venezuela,” Manning quipped. He was referring to King Juan Carlos I who told Venezuela President Hugo Chavez to shut up at summit of Latin American leaders in Chile on November 10.
The King had chastised Chavez for his interruptions during the summit and the Venezuelan leader retorted by inferring that Spain new of the plot to overthrow him in a previous coup attempt.
Manning hit out at Panday and said his concession speech after the election demonstrated that the UNC leader was in no position to lecture anyone about national responsibility.
Panday had lashed out at the electorate who he said should not complain about murders and kidnappings because it got a government it deserved.
Hours before the press conference, Panday said Manning’s comment about the crime upsurge being “strange” and hinted that it may be political was “most irresponsible.”
Panday said it was another admission of the PNM’s “total failure” to deal with crime. He added that as Prime Minister and chairman of the National Security Council, Manning could not make any inferences about the crime wave without evidence.
Why the fock Manning doh stop pussyfooting and get started on running the fockin country.
First he and all he fockin baboons run up to Salybia to fockin fete after the election and as if that wasnt enough, he gone to some fockin useless Commonwealth shit to spree with the fockin guerilla leaders in Africa.
For God sake, Panday is not the fockin leader of the fockin government and ah doh know when some people will realise that. He not running the fockin country man.
The people have spoken in the election and all yuh get wa d fock all yuh deserve.
Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday ought to shut up and stop criticising the Government about the upsurge in crime, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said yesterday.
“He ought to be told to shut up. I think that would help all of us.
The comments I made on the crime situation had nothing to do with the Honourable Leader of the Opposition. It had to do with the levels of security that our people enjoy.”
Manning gave this response to remarks Panday made that the Prime Minister was irresponsible for saying he found the rise in crime since the November 5 General Election “very strange”.
This was Manning’s reaction when questioned by reporters at the post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall on the spate of murders on his return from Uganda, where he attended the Common-wealth Heads of Government summit, on Wednesday night.
“I could easily invoke the comments of the very distinguished King of Spain when he was dealing with the President of Venezuela,” Manning quipped. He was referring to King Juan Carlos I who told Venezuela President Hugo Chavez to shut up at summit of Latin American leaders in Chile on November 10.
The King had chastised Chavez for his interruptions during the summit and the Venezuelan leader retorted by inferring that Spain new of the plot to overthrow him in a previous coup attempt.
Manning hit out at Panday and said his concession speech after the election demonstrated that the UNC leader was in no position to lecture anyone about national responsibility.
Panday had lashed out at the electorate who he said should not complain about murders and kidnappings because it got a government it deserved.
Hours before the press conference, Panday said Manning’s comment about the crime upsurge being “strange” and hinted that it may be political was “most irresponsible.”
Panday said it was another admission of the PNM’s “total failure” to deal with crime. He added that as Prime Minister and chairman of the National Security Council, Manning could not make any inferences about the crime wave without evidence.
Why the fock Manning doh stop pussyfooting and get started on running the fockin country.
First he and all he fockin baboons run up to Salybia to fockin fete after the election and as if that wasnt enough, he gone to some fockin useless Commonwealth shit to spree with the fockin guerilla leaders in Africa.
For God sake, Panday is not the fockin leader of the fockin government and ah doh know when some people will realise that. He not running the fockin country man.
The people have spoken in the election and all yuh get wa d fock all yuh deserve.
Friday, November 23, 2007
New minister ducks questions
BY SEAN NERONEWLY-appointed Education Minister Esther Le Gendre stormed past reporters at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Port-of-Spain, yesterday, in an effort to evade answering how 103 pupils at Cap-de-Ville Government Primary School were hospitalised for food poisoning on Wednesday.
Le Gendre, a communications professional, refused to field questions from the media attending the People’s National Movement’s (PNM) Women’s League breakfast meeting at the Wrightson Road hotel.
Rather than apply her oratory skills to indicate likely measures her ministry would effect to prevent a recurrence, Le Gendre showed the benefits of her early morning walks last week at Salybia—where the Patrick Manning-led Cabinet held a retreat.
She bowed her head, crashed through a line of reporters on the first floor of the hotel, trotted down the staircase and hustled her way into the lobby, without even uttering “no comment.”
She was on her way to a Cabinet meeting.
However, her dress code for yesterday’s early morning sprint, to avoid the media, was nothing compared to the sports gear in which media photographers captured her at Salybia.
At yesterday’s PNM Women’s League function, she was elegant in a cream designer suit with matching stocking and shoes, which did not impede her athletic ability.
Dietary Services doing tests
A teacher and 103 pupils at Cap-de-Ville Government Primary School fell ill on Wednesday, after consuming boxed lunches prepared by a caterer for the school feeding programme.
The food was said to be infested with worms. The children were rushed to hospital after they began vomiting, experienced dizziness and stomach cramps. Some were treated at Point Fortin Area Hospital.
Joycelyn Bodden, chairman of the National Schools Dietary Services, sought to assure the public that action would be taken after tests were completed.
She said: “My understanding is we went down to the school, checked the kids and they were discharged. All is well with the kids. We are doing investigations.
“The Ministry of Health went down to the school and took samples of the water. All the checks were made.”
typi fockin cal PNMite.
Dey carry dem fockers down Salybia to teach dem how to lie and make the press lie for you. But she so duncee that she forget how. So she couldnt answer the press.
Fockin nigga know how to dolls off good though, dandy up wid all the brands and make big fockin impression, but the fockin head empty.
Ah feel Dookeran was lecturing to them up dey in Salybia.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Central will survive sugar industry, says Prof Julien
Head of the University of the Trinidad and Tobago (UTT), Prof Ken Julien, has expressed confidence that Central Trinidad will survive the death of the sugar industry.
Julien made the remark to a strong slice of the Central business sector on Friday night, while delivering the feature address at the Greater Chaguanas Chamber of Industry and Commerce (GCCIC) annual Christmas Dinner and Awards Function, held at the Crowne Plaza, Port of Spain.
Among the guests were Deputy Police Commissioner, Glen Roach, and former chairman of the Unit Trust Corporation, Clarry Benn, who received an award for his contribution to culture through his work with the Central-based Tropical Angel Harps Steel Orchestra.
While admitting that he has not had many direct dealings with Chaguanas, Julien said he felt the community was a strong one, that is about to take off.
Would some tell this cont that Chaguanas take off a long time ago and if Chaguanas was equitably treated by the fockin state. It would have soaring.
"Notwithstanding the death of sugar, the community thrives," Julien said.
He added that Central's future appears to be secure, due mainly to the financial acumen and risk-taking of the business sector. This, he said, will likely prevent Chaguanas from suffering a similar fate to La Brea, which fell on hard times and is yet to rise again, following the exodus of heavy industry from that community years ago.
Now this is where the fockin racism does come in. It also highlights that niggas are totally useless humans.
Asshole, is Indians that controlling Chaguanas, it is Indian businessmen that have Chaguanas where it is. And Chaguanas continues to rise.
Now note the niggas who are dependant on the state and everybody else for their survival, fock up La Brea.
Try goin to visit the fockin Pitch Lake wid yuh family nah. The fockers will kill yuh ass and stick yuh in the fockin Pitch for a few dollars. Take ah drive, yuh will see dem like fockin vultures lookin to pounce on prey.
"I do not sense the same decline in Chaguanas, following the death of sugar," Julien said.
Julien said he was impressed with Central's development goals, but urged the business community to take care that plans are not diluted along the way. He urged them to prioritise and focus on getting a few most important things done.
In his address, chamber president, Gavin Seemungal, said the moving of this year's function to the capital was reflective of the chamber's current and intended growth.
Well all Chaguanas businessmen like to lick bottom, typical Indians. Yuh think Aboud and the POC Chamber will come to Chaguanas for a function...Tame fockin Lick bottom Indians.
Congratulating Prime Minister Patrick Manning on his election victory two weeks ago, Seemungal said it was time to move on with the future of the country.
"We will now work with our political friends and foes to get on with the future," he said, going on to remind Government ministers of their oath to serve.
Seemungal said the chamber intends to lobby the Government for more investment and infrastructure in the pursuit of attaining city status.
The night's other awardees were Davanand Ramlal, of Chan Ramlal Limited for business; Farisha and Towfiq Ali, the principals of Eniath's Montessori School for education; and for Sport, chief executive officer of the Sports Company of Trinidad and Tobago (SPORTT), Carol Charles-Austin.
Julien made the remark to a strong slice of the Central business sector on Friday night, while delivering the feature address at the Greater Chaguanas Chamber of Industry and Commerce (GCCIC) annual Christmas Dinner and Awards Function, held at the Crowne Plaza, Port of Spain.
Among the guests were Deputy Police Commissioner, Glen Roach, and former chairman of the Unit Trust Corporation, Clarry Benn, who received an award for his contribution to culture through his work with the Central-based Tropical Angel Harps Steel Orchestra.
While admitting that he has not had many direct dealings with Chaguanas, Julien said he felt the community was a strong one, that is about to take off.
Would some tell this cont that Chaguanas take off a long time ago and if Chaguanas was equitably treated by the fockin state. It would have soaring.
"Notwithstanding the death of sugar, the community thrives," Julien said.
He added that Central's future appears to be secure, due mainly to the financial acumen and risk-taking of the business sector. This, he said, will likely prevent Chaguanas from suffering a similar fate to La Brea, which fell on hard times and is yet to rise again, following the exodus of heavy industry from that community years ago.
Now this is where the fockin racism does come in. It also highlights that niggas are totally useless humans.
Asshole, is Indians that controlling Chaguanas, it is Indian businessmen that have Chaguanas where it is. And Chaguanas continues to rise.
Now note the niggas who are dependant on the state and everybody else for their survival, fock up La Brea.
Try goin to visit the fockin Pitch Lake wid yuh family nah. The fockers will kill yuh ass and stick yuh in the fockin Pitch for a few dollars. Take ah drive, yuh will see dem like fockin vultures lookin to pounce on prey.
"I do not sense the same decline in Chaguanas, following the death of sugar," Julien said.
Julien said he was impressed with Central's development goals, but urged the business community to take care that plans are not diluted along the way. He urged them to prioritise and focus on getting a few most important things done.
In his address, chamber president, Gavin Seemungal, said the moving of this year's function to the capital was reflective of the chamber's current and intended growth.
Well all Chaguanas businessmen like to lick bottom, typical Indians. Yuh think Aboud and the POC Chamber will come to Chaguanas for a function...Tame fockin Lick bottom Indians.
Congratulating Prime Minister Patrick Manning on his election victory two weeks ago, Seemungal said it was time to move on with the future of the country.
"We will now work with our political friends and foes to get on with the future," he said, going on to remind Government ministers of their oath to serve.
Seemungal said the chamber intends to lobby the Government for more investment and infrastructure in the pursuit of attaining city status.
The night's other awardees were Davanand Ramlal, of Chan Ramlal Limited for business; Farisha and Towfiq Ali, the principals of Eniath's Montessori School for education; and for Sport, chief executive officer of the Sports Company of Trinidad and Tobago (SPORTT), Carol Charles-Austin.
Wasa: No water in North, South tomorrow
There will be an interruption in the water supply in several areas of North and South Trinidad tomorrow from 9 am to 2 pm.
The Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) has stated that the following areas will be affected:
n Mount Hope to Port-of-Spain, including St James and Woodbrook; and Chaguanas to La Brea.
The areas that will be affected are those served by the Caroni Water Treatment Plant, a release stated.
WASA said the interruption was because of a planned power outage by the T&T Electricity Commission to facilitate maintenance work.
What the fock is the use of this notice.
It ha people all over this fockin place in this year 2007 who doh have no water at all.
Then again the legacy of the PNM. Im sure they had water in Salybia.
The Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) has stated that the following areas will be affected:
n Mount Hope to Port-of-Spain, including St James and Woodbrook; and Chaguanas to La Brea.
The areas that will be affected are those served by the Caroni Water Treatment Plant, a release stated.
WASA said the interruption was because of a planned power outage by the T&T Electricity Commission to facilitate maintenance work.
What the fock is the use of this notice.
It ha people all over this fockin place in this year 2007 who doh have no water at all.
Then again the legacy of the PNM. Im sure they had water in Salybia.
The scourge of the PNM
Top banker’s stepson murdered
IN WHAT police described as ghastly acts of murder, the bodies of two men, their hands and necks tied with cloth, were discovered in the trunk of a car outside a beach house in Manzanilla yesterday morning. The bodies bore several marks of violence
It could happen at Port-of-Spain too
DR PETRONELLA MANNING-ALLEYNE, neonatologist and head of the Neonatal Unit at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital (PoSGH), said the kidnapping of Nekeisha Noel’s newborn son from the Mt Hope Women’s Hospital has “interfered with the bonding” between mother and child.
Armed bandits terrorise Mayaro
A WEEKEND of fun at a beach house in Mayaro was short lived by 19 friends when two armed bandits stormed into the house and robbed some of them of cash, totalling $700, jewelry and cellphones during the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Man shot at home of common-law wife
Monday, November 19 2007
SHOT in the stomach by a man, Conrad Rodney managed to escape several more bullets outside the home of his common-law wife in Ste Madeleine on Friday last.
According to a police report, Rodney, 24, was with his common-law wife, Natasha Emmanuel, at her home when the couple was approached by a man at about 11.30 am. Police said that the man fired at Rodney who was hit in the stomach on the porch.
Lange Park residents in fear of crime
Call for patrols, police post
Elizabeth W Allard Tobago Bureau
Monday, November 19th 2007
Recent calls by residents of Las Lomas for a police post to be set up in their area, due to rising crime, are not new to some parts of the country not properly equipped with properly manned police stations. Just last year, residents of Lange Park made yet another of such calls after the kidnapping of resident Vindra Naipaul-Coolman. She was subsequently murdered.
Last week, as Las Lomas residents were lobbying for more security for their area, Lange Park residents were still living in fear.
Not bad for yesterday. Specially dedicated to all those who voted for the COP and PNM!
IN WHAT police described as ghastly acts of murder, the bodies of two men, their hands and necks tied with cloth, were discovered in the trunk of a car outside a beach house in Manzanilla yesterday morning. The bodies bore several marks of violence
It could happen at Port-of-Spain too
DR PETRONELLA MANNING-ALLEYNE, neonatologist and head of the Neonatal Unit at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital (PoSGH), said the kidnapping of Nekeisha Noel’s newborn son from the Mt Hope Women’s Hospital has “interfered with the bonding” between mother and child.
Armed bandits terrorise Mayaro
A WEEKEND of fun at a beach house in Mayaro was short lived by 19 friends when two armed bandits stormed into the house and robbed some of them of cash, totalling $700, jewelry and cellphones during the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Man shot at home of common-law wife
Monday, November 19 2007
SHOT in the stomach by a man, Conrad Rodney managed to escape several more bullets outside the home of his common-law wife in Ste Madeleine on Friday last.
According to a police report, Rodney, 24, was with his common-law wife, Natasha Emmanuel, at her home when the couple was approached by a man at about 11.30 am. Police said that the man fired at Rodney who was hit in the stomach on the porch.
Lange Park residents in fear of crime
Call for patrols, police post
Elizabeth W Allard Tobago Bureau
Monday, November 19th 2007
Recent calls by residents of Las Lomas for a police post to be set up in their area, due to rising crime, are not new to some parts of the country not properly equipped with properly manned police stations. Just last year, residents of Lange Park made yet another of such calls after the kidnapping of resident Vindra Naipaul-Coolman. She was subsequently murdered.
Last week, as Las Lomas residents were lobbying for more security for their area, Lange Park residents were still living in fear.
Not bad for yesterday. Specially dedicated to all those who voted for the COP and PNM!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Wha de fuck is this???
LURKING in the corridor of the maternity ward, the woman who stole Nekesha Noel's ten-hour-old baby boy stalked mother and child for almost two hours.
In a pre-planned and well thought out ambush, the baby thief pounced on Noel just after visiting hours on Friday, while baby and mom were recovering at the Mt Hope Women's Hospital.
Pretending to be a nurse, the woman sent Noel to go to the bathroom to check if she was still bleeding and then stole the hapless infant.
"I hardly hold him. I hardly hear his voice," Noel's voice cracked.
"I have to pray and make sure my child reach back safe ... come back to me safe. I forgive she. I just want back my child."
She moaned: "Please have pity on me and bring back my child."
A medical source said newborns are very prone to infections and can become very ill if they are not fed on time or if their navel strings are not cleaned properly.
Serous infections can be fatal and newborns must be kept warm.
Noel gave birth at 8.08 a.m. on Friday and, as is mandatory, mother and child were being kept for at least 24-hours to ensure they were healthy before being discharged.
Noel has not even decided on a name for the baby boy as she had thought all along that she was having a girl.
Around 5 p.m.. her boyfriend, Sheldon Henry, and other relatives arrived to visit mom and infant, Henry was seeing his son for the first time.
They saw the woman pacing the corridor but thought nothing of it.
The woman of East Indian origin, is said to be in her 20s, stockily built and has shoulder-length black hair which she wore "tied up in one".
She had on a pair of blue jeans and a yellow coloured shirt.
Anyone with information about the woman or where the infant is being kept is asked to call 555, 800-8744 or the nearest police station.
Hospital sources said from a security standpoint a hospital is designed for "free movement and from that perspective you cannot police a hospital".
It is not the first time a newborn has been stolen from a public hospital.
"I weak. Is piece of me they gone with ... part of me. When you see the child you see me," Henry said.
Noel said moments after the nurses at the ward rang the bell to end the visiting period, the woman hurriedly came up to her and told that she was a nurse.
The woman said that she did not have time to change before she made her rounds and asked Noel if the baby was healthy and if she had seen a doctor.
Noel told the woman that she had not seen a doctor and the woman instructed her to go to the bathroom to check to see if she was still bleeding.
"When I went to the bathroom and came back the child was gone."
Noel said she went into the corridor and asked who took her baby.
After getting no reply, she said she went back into the ward and looked through the window to see if her boyfriend had taken the infant for walk.
She did not see father or son and went back to the bed.
A woman next to her told her that the nurse had taken the child and left.
When Noel asked the nurses if they had taken her baby, she then realised what had happened.
"I am feeling so hurt. I blame myself. I should have known this woman was not a nurse," Noel said.
"I just want him back. I want back my child. If she does not want to come back then drop him off somewhere safe, put him on somebody's step. Leave him anywhere safe."
Okay ... I will admit that this is real shit eh. Poor security at the facility coupled with an unsuspecting mother. Then the poor fucking excuse from the authorities. I honestly hope the whereabouts of the child is found out as soon as possible.
But wait and see, the child-snatcher will bring him back as soon as she realize how expensive it is to feed, clothe and mind a nigger. When he start to chew out the fucking sponge from the couch, the spring from the mattress and the fibre glass from the stove.... When he start to pawn the lady gold teeth to get money for a FUBU jersey... when he wring out the knobs on the stereo set and start to shit in the living room.... when she get a massive phone bill... she dropping him right back, and might even ask for compensation.
Doh worry Neekisha girl, after all that.. the chile better of with the indian woman.
And to the indian lady: Yuh iz a cunt???? How de fuck yuh cud tief a chile? Wha happen yuh man have a low sperm count? Yuh cyar spawn? Oh fuck man!!! You need some good bullpistle.
New look Hazel
Cutting a picture of eye-catching elegance recently was Hazel Manning, on the occasion when she accompanied her husband, Prime Minister Patrick Manning, to his swearing-in ceremony at Woodford Square, Port-of-Spain on November 7.
Wearing a glossy chocolate-coloured knee-length dress, matching embroidered jacket and open-toed pumps, the new Local Government Minister stunned photographers and onlookers with her new svelte figure and glowing skin.
A source at the Prime Minister’s residence revealed that Manning, mother of two adult sons, has been following a stringent exercise routine for the past three years, complete with personal trainers, who have also influenced a general lifestyle change for the PM’s wife.
Sunday Newsday contacted fashion designer/consultant Peter Elias, for his comments on Mrs Manning’s new look, since he was at one time, her fashion advisor.
Elias immediately stated that he wanted to offer his support and congratulations to Mrs Manning on her elegant, fashionable image she is now displaying.
He said, “I like her new look. Having worked with her in the past though, I can’t honestly take credit for someone else’s work. She has obviously lost some weight and I think that’s a good thing.
“She has managed to combine her demanding career with a fitness routine. She has adopted a healthy lifestyle and eating habits. I think it’s good for anyone to include exercise in their lifestyle.”
He added that Manning has proven herself to be a role model for all women, young and otherwise.
“She is an inspiration for future leaders and career persons. She has attained a look of modern and classy without being overdone and ostentatious.”
Elias stated that one of the things about Mrs Manning with which he is always impressed is her “absolute sense of humility. She has always been a lady. She is not greedy or excessive. My observation is that she is simply decent and dignified and I have always admired her for this.”
Echoing Elias’ comments about Mrs Manning was image consultant, Catherine Gordon, who told Sunday Newsday that the “results are showing” for Manning’s hard work in improving her lifestyle and appearance.
“I think she looks terrific. Both professionally and socially. I feel she has always managed to maintain a fashionably appropriate appearance, in keeping with the equally healthy outlook of her husband. I give them both top marks for setting an example of positive lifestyle for the country.”
The new look has also not been lost on members of the public. Veena Rattan, 42, who works as a secretary in a government department said she and her colleagues were very impressed with Mrs Manning’s new look.
“We were wondering if she had any professional work done, because we can actually see some contours here and there. She looks really good for her age.” Keva Phillips, a 27-year-old employee of a retail clothing store commented that Manning’s outfit to a recent function looked very expensive, but “because I work with fashion, I know it is not as pricey as most people might believe.
But she looks so good in it, you might think it is from some top designer.”
As for Manning’s apparent lifestyle make-over, Phillips stated that “the Prime Minister’s wife is showing the rest of the country how we should be living, especially in these times of diseases caused by poor lifestyles.”
So much fockery happening all over this mudder cont country and the best thing these fockers could do is pay glowing terms to this blimp.
Why the fock nobody doh say nutten about how she collecting ah big fat fockin salary just for being the Prime Minister wife ?
Why the fock dey doh talk about how she collecting ah travelling allowance, but rides in the PM's car ?
Why d fock these cyats doh talk about how she collecting ah housing allowance, but living with she husband at the PM's residence?
This is raw fockin nepotism!
And not one fock saying anything about this.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Manning ends Salybia retreat
Juhel Browne jbrowne@trinidadexpress.com
Saturday, November 17th 2007
Prime Minister Patrick Manning and several of his Cabinet members and Parliament backbenchers ended their five-day retreat at the Salybia Resort and Spa, Salybia, yesterday, but many of them will not leave the resort until sometime this morning.
The orientation sessions, which had been the main focus of the retreat, ended yesterday just after 5 p.m., as the new Cabinet is set to hold its first meeting on Monday from 9 a.m. at Whitehall, Port of Spain.
The Express understands that there was an informal event scheduled for those who stayed overnight and Manning and his wife, Local Government Minister Hazel Manning, were scheduled to leave the resort sometime this morning.
The only Government members the Express observed leaving the resort before 7 p.m. were Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Dr Lenny Saith. Trade and Industry Minister Dr Keith Rowley left the resort on Thursday night, in order to be on time for a hearing of his legal matter against the Integrity Commission. (See Pages 4 and 7)
Several Cabinet members emerged from the main building at the resort just after 5 p.m. yesterday, signalling the end of their five-day orientation exercise, but walked in the car-park to another building where their rooms were apparently located.
They included Agriculture Minister Arnold Piggott, Social Development Minister Amery Browne, Legal Affairs Minister Peter Taylor, Information Minister Neil Parsenlal and Minister in the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs Donna Cox.
None of those who emerged after the end of the orientation sessions spoke to the media.
The media waited for several hours to see whether Prime Minister Manning would come out and offer any comments on the retreat, but as of 7 p.m., this did not happen.
For many in the new Cabinet, such as Attorney General Bridget Annisette-George, Taylor, Browne and Minister of Public Administration Kennedy Swaratsingh, Monday will mark their first official day of work in the respective positions.
How fockin sweet life is for the PNM eh!
They take ah retreat from all the fockin bandit that terrorising poor citizens all over this fockin country.
Eating knife and fork whilst the rest of the fockin place only deteriorating into a fockin cesspit.
Now that the fockin waste of taxpayers ting done.
Is more headaches for citizens, especially when dat cont Fartin Dotish come back as Minister of National Security.
Saturday, November 17th 2007
Prime Minister Patrick Manning and several of his Cabinet members and Parliament backbenchers ended their five-day retreat at the Salybia Resort and Spa, Salybia, yesterday, but many of them will not leave the resort until sometime this morning.
The orientation sessions, which had been the main focus of the retreat, ended yesterday just after 5 p.m., as the new Cabinet is set to hold its first meeting on Monday from 9 a.m. at Whitehall, Port of Spain.
The Express understands that there was an informal event scheduled for those who stayed overnight and Manning and his wife, Local Government Minister Hazel Manning, were scheduled to leave the resort sometime this morning.
The only Government members the Express observed leaving the resort before 7 p.m. were Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Dr Lenny Saith. Trade and Industry Minister Dr Keith Rowley left the resort on Thursday night, in order to be on time for a hearing of his legal matter against the Integrity Commission. (See Pages 4 and 7)
Several Cabinet members emerged from the main building at the resort just after 5 p.m. yesterday, signalling the end of their five-day orientation exercise, but walked in the car-park to another building where their rooms were apparently located.
They included Agriculture Minister Arnold Piggott, Social Development Minister Amery Browne, Legal Affairs Minister Peter Taylor, Information Minister Neil Parsenlal and Minister in the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs Donna Cox.
None of those who emerged after the end of the orientation sessions spoke to the media.
The media waited for several hours to see whether Prime Minister Manning would come out and offer any comments on the retreat, but as of 7 p.m., this did not happen.
For many in the new Cabinet, such as Attorney General Bridget Annisette-George, Taylor, Browne and Minister of Public Administration Kennedy Swaratsingh, Monday will mark their first official day of work in the respective positions.
How fockin sweet life is for the PNM eh!
They take ah retreat from all the fockin bandit that terrorising poor citizens all over this fockin country.
Eating knife and fork whilst the rest of the fockin place only deteriorating into a fockin cesspit.
Now that the fockin waste of taxpayers ting done.
Is more headaches for citizens, especially when dat cont Fartin Dotish come back as Minister of National Security.
Augustus: Let's move on
Anna Ramdass aramdass@trinidadexpress.com
Saturday, November 17th 2007
Congress of the People (COP) chairman Roy Augustus and United National Congress Alliance (UNC-A) co-leader Jack Warner have both said that the recent verbal fight between them is something they want to forget.
However, even as both men disclosed to the Express that the entire controversy was something they want to put behind them, they added it does not mean all is well. In fact, they say it only means they will go their separate ways, bringing an end to over 25 years of friendship and four years of working together professionally.
"It is a phase of my life that I have put behind me," Augustus said in a brief telephone interview with the Express yesterday.
Pressed for further comment on the spat which led to his dismissal from his post as deputy CEO at Concacaf, Augustus said, "I have nothing to say now or ever on this matter."
Asked what he would do next in life, Augustus said that was his personal business and he did not wish to divulge any information with regard to his future.
Warner, who is also the president of Concacaf and a FIFA vice-president, meanwhile said he wanted to forget Augustus and the entire verbal spat.
"It is a phase I have put behind me... I have no intention of reliving that," Warner said.
On Thursday, Warner said he had sacked Augustus because he was verbally abusive to him and was putting his political interest before his job and lied to him.
Yesterday, Warner said Augustus was no longer a concern of his, and that he was now more focused on helping the people of this country as a Member of Parliament for Chaguanas West.
He added that he had over 400 employees and Augustus was just another one who "got fired".
When asked if he had already started looking for a new employee to fill Augustus's former position, Warner said, "Don't you not know that when one door closes, another one opens?"
It fockin good. Why the fock yuh take so long Jack.
The man bring all yuh business on the platform. He working for yuh and taking ah setta time off to campaign for dat fockin 3/4 dead COrPse. And want to turn around and cuss yuh.
Ah tell yuh, these fockin COP cyats real boldface eh know.
Right, is time to lick up Baldy and Ken Emrith now. Doh fockin wait.
Saturday, November 17th 2007
Congress of the People (COP) chairman Roy Augustus and United National Congress Alliance (UNC-A) co-leader Jack Warner have both said that the recent verbal fight between them is something they want to forget.
However, even as both men disclosed to the Express that the entire controversy was something they want to put behind them, they added it does not mean all is well. In fact, they say it only means they will go their separate ways, bringing an end to over 25 years of friendship and four years of working together professionally.
"It is a phase of my life that I have put behind me," Augustus said in a brief telephone interview with the Express yesterday.
Pressed for further comment on the spat which led to his dismissal from his post as deputy CEO at Concacaf, Augustus said, "I have nothing to say now or ever on this matter."
Asked what he would do next in life, Augustus said that was his personal business and he did not wish to divulge any information with regard to his future.
Warner, who is also the president of Concacaf and a FIFA vice-president, meanwhile said he wanted to forget Augustus and the entire verbal spat.
"It is a phase I have put behind me... I have no intention of reliving that," Warner said.
On Thursday, Warner said he had sacked Augustus because he was verbally abusive to him and was putting his political interest before his job and lied to him.
Yesterday, Warner said Augustus was no longer a concern of his, and that he was now more focused on helping the people of this country as a Member of Parliament for Chaguanas West.
He added that he had over 400 employees and Augustus was just another one who "got fired".
When asked if he had already started looking for a new employee to fill Augustus's former position, Warner said, "Don't you not know that when one door closes, another one opens?"
It fockin good. Why the fock yuh take so long Jack.
The man bring all yuh business on the platform. He working for yuh and taking ah setta time off to campaign for dat fockin 3/4 dead COrPse. And want to turn around and cuss yuh.
Ah tell yuh, these fockin COP cyats real boldface eh know.
Right, is time to lick up Baldy and Ken Emrith now. Doh fockin wait.
COP drops dual-citizenship case
By SEAN DOUGLAS
Saturday, November 17 2007
ATTORNEY Anand Ramlogan who unsuccessfully competed for the Tabaquite seat in the November 5 General Election on a Congress of the People (COP) ticket, said the Congress has given up on taking legal action against UNC A St Augustine MP Vasant Bharath and Oropouche West MP Mickela Panday, over the issue of alleged dual-citizenship.
Mickela was born in Trinidad and has denied ever acquiring a UK passport, while Bharath holds dual citizenship through having been born in the UK.
Ramlogan had argued the Representation of the People Act’s ban on dual-citizenship should include not only acquired foreign-nationality, but also any TT national who was born abroad and later swears allegiance to that foreign country by applying for a passport.
However the COP has ditched its efforts to test the Act. Ramlogan called for Bharath to nevertheless renounce his UK citizenship. When contacted by Newsday, Bharath retorted, “There is no need for me to do so at this time. If the law changes, then I will do so.”
He reiterated that he was a Trinidadian first and foremost who had just happened to be born in the UK when his father had been doing post graduate studies. Bharath queried the residency/nationality status of several named top-members of the COP and PNM.
He said a top PNM politician was known to have been born outside of TT, while a top COP official should clarify his residency status regarding Canada.
Look at these chupid conts eh...
For a big time lawyer Anand eh play he move like ah real caksy hole nah.
The fockin ass froth up he mouth all over the place for the last election. The cont an dem take out ah setta fockin whole page ads to tell people doh vote for dem. Spend ah setta money like cont then to drop the whole matter.
It just shows that COP was workin for the PNM.
Dem mudders cont should really cry fockin shame.
Saturday, November 17 2007
ATTORNEY Anand Ramlogan who unsuccessfully competed for the Tabaquite seat in the November 5 General Election on a Congress of the People (COP) ticket, said the Congress has given up on taking legal action against UNC A St Augustine MP Vasant Bharath and Oropouche West MP Mickela Panday, over the issue of alleged dual-citizenship.
Mickela was born in Trinidad and has denied ever acquiring a UK passport, while Bharath holds dual citizenship through having been born in the UK.
Ramlogan had argued the Representation of the People Act’s ban on dual-citizenship should include not only acquired foreign-nationality, but also any TT national who was born abroad and later swears allegiance to that foreign country by applying for a passport.
However the COP has ditched its efforts to test the Act. Ramlogan called for Bharath to nevertheless renounce his UK citizenship. When contacted by Newsday, Bharath retorted, “There is no need for me to do so at this time. If the law changes, then I will do so.”
He reiterated that he was a Trinidadian first and foremost who had just happened to be born in the UK when his father had been doing post graduate studies. Bharath queried the residency/nationality status of several named top-members of the COP and PNM.
He said a top PNM politician was known to have been born outside of TT, while a top COP official should clarify his residency status regarding Canada.
Look at these chupid conts eh...
For a big time lawyer Anand eh play he move like ah real caksy hole nah.
The fockin ass froth up he mouth all over the place for the last election. The cont an dem take out ah setta fockin whole page ads to tell people doh vote for dem. Spend ah setta money like cont then to drop the whole matter.
It just shows that COP was workin for the PNM.
Dem mudders cont should really cry fockin shame.
Girl, 3, watches as mom murdered
A SCREAMING Tineka Constantine, aged three, watched in horror as her mother was being chopped to death by a close male relative on Thursday in front of her Paramin Village, Maraval, home.
Policeman beaten up
A POLICEMAN who was returning to station after conducting enquiries was badly beaten when he intervened in a fight where two men were beating up a woman at the side of a road in Buen Intento, Princes Town on Tuesday morning.
Man rapes relative
SOUTHERN DIVISION police are searching for a 26-year-old man who allegedly raped a 23- year-old female relative during a family lime at the victim’s home.
Gunman shot, another held
A MAN has been hospitalised while another is in police custody and a third person is on the run following an early morning shootout between police and suspects at Sisters Road in Hardbargain, South Trinidad yesterday.
Bandits attack brothers
POLICE ARE searching for two bandits, one of whom shot and robbed a salesman while he and his brother were conducting sales in the Barrackpore area on Thursday.
Laventille man murdered
A 25-YEAR-OLD man of Trou Macaque Road, Laventille was shot dead while walking along Village Council Street in Laventille on Thursday night.
Watchman found dead
POLICE ARE investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a watchman found slumped over the steering wheel of his car yesterday morning. The man has been identified as Mannieram Khadan, 49, of Dubarrie Trace, Barrackpore.
Girl,14, begs court for prison
A-14-YEAR-OLD girl yesterday asked a magistrate to send her to the Women’s Prison at Golden Grove so she could benefit from counselling, rather than back to her siblings.
The St Clair police are aware that our students are attacked all the time—cellphones and money are taken away.
IN what school principal Lennard Hinkson calls an “on-going problem,” some Queen’s Royal College (QRC) students were attacked and almost robbed opposite the United States Embassy, Port-of-Spain, in an incident that began near the school compound just before 2 pm yesterday...
Sixteen murders since election
A 20-YEAR-OLD Paramin mother became the country’s sixteenth murder victim since the 2007 general election 11 days ago...
Just a quick glance at today's newspapers.
Things real fockin sweet in Trinidad eh !
A SCREAMING Tineka Constantine, aged three, watched in horror as her mother was being chopped to death by a close male relative on Thursday in front of her Paramin Village, Maraval, home.
Policeman beaten up
A POLICEMAN who was returning to station after conducting enquiries was badly beaten when he intervened in a fight where two men were beating up a woman at the side of a road in Buen Intento, Princes Town on Tuesday morning.
Man rapes relative
SOUTHERN DIVISION police are searching for a 26-year-old man who allegedly raped a 23- year-old female relative during a family lime at the victim’s home.
Gunman shot, another held
A MAN has been hospitalised while another is in police custody and a third person is on the run following an early morning shootout between police and suspects at Sisters Road in Hardbargain, South Trinidad yesterday.
Bandits attack brothers
POLICE ARE searching for two bandits, one of whom shot and robbed a salesman while he and his brother were conducting sales in the Barrackpore area on Thursday.
Laventille man murdered
A 25-YEAR-OLD man of Trou Macaque Road, Laventille was shot dead while walking along Village Council Street in Laventille on Thursday night.
Watchman found dead
POLICE ARE investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a watchman found slumped over the steering wheel of his car yesterday morning. The man has been identified as Mannieram Khadan, 49, of Dubarrie Trace, Barrackpore.
Girl,14, begs court for prison
A-14-YEAR-OLD girl yesterday asked a magistrate to send her to the Women’s Prison at Golden Grove so she could benefit from counselling, rather than back to her siblings.
The St Clair police are aware that our students are attacked all the time—cellphones and money are taken away.
IN what school principal Lennard Hinkson calls an “on-going problem,” some Queen’s Royal College (QRC) students were attacked and almost robbed opposite the United States Embassy, Port-of-Spain, in an incident that began near the school compound just before 2 pm yesterday...
Sixteen murders since election
A 20-YEAR-OLD Paramin mother became the country’s sixteenth murder victim since the 2007 general election 11 days ago...
Just a quick glance at today's newspapers.
Things real fockin sweet in Trinidad eh !
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Pizza Boys Glencoe
First hand account of where we reach.
Charissa & I decide to order pizza from Pizza Boys Glencoe on the way home from errands after church.
Arrive at Pizza Boys at 10:45am on a Sunday morning, we enter The Food Mall at Highland Plaza and about 10 - 12 youths (18 - 25yrs) making noise with some of the staff. One time comments start to pass about my wife.
Ah man call me , 'Red Man, come leh meh talk to yuh'
So I just told him I just came to pick up and went in the line with Cherry in front of me.
So the guys continue making noise with the staff and a few of them fixated on Charissa. By now I realise they refer to Themselves as 'City of Gods' and some of them actually have it printed on their shirts.
As I step to the cashier I notice out the corner of my eye one of them try to touch Cherry ass.
So I grab his hand and step between them. I said to him , 'Bro, doh be on that'.
One time he watch me and start threatening me up in my face ............ asking me if I feel I bullet proof because I white, and telling me he could kill me right there and have Cherry if he want. So I just held his gaze and clenched my fists. Trust me if he touched her this email might not have come this morning.
He step away still talking and this time now 3 or 4 of them watching me waiting for a reaction.
So I tell Cherry we will leave soon as I think it safe. (this time I studying inside the place have cameras and I doh want them following us outside so we cyah leave just yet). The man start balling how he will 'F*** Charissa in her ass and buss her Shit Box after he shoot me'......... ......... ... hmmmm.
Anyway, after a few minutes of tension, a separate and unrelated altercation broke out between another gang member and a pizza boys staff member so once their attention was diverted I grabbed Charissa and we buss out briskly.
By the time we reach home I was quiet. Both of us were upset but it had not sunk in. I started to mount up a TV stand we have to make myself feel useful...... ...... hell of a helpless feeling to shake off.
But by this time my wife is crying inside. At least we had company coming over so no time to dwell on it.
But Charissa is really shaken up and scared. Trust me, there are fates worse than death if you're a woman.
Cyah explain to alyuh how this makes me feel. Just figured I would write because it is driving me insane and I guess some of us still in denial about the state of our beloved country.
When do you react? When is it worth it? In this day and age , who gonna jump in to help?
Alyuh ever see that movie , 'A Time to Kill' with Matthew MacConoughy & Sam Jackson ?????(ironically the night before we watched 'The Brave One')
Anyway, needed to get it off my chest.
Keep Cherry in your prayers because it may not be obvious but she is traumatized and it was two streets away from home so it is a little difficult to brush off!
Feet on ground...Heart in hand...Facing forward...Be Yourself...
The fact is Trinidad continues to live a lie and everyone refuses to call the fockin spade ah fockin spade while the PNM Government continues to protect "poor little nigga boys" aka community leaders.
The problem is that the African male underclass (niggas) is the problem.
They bave been brought up and programmed by the PNM to believe that we all owe them something. The reality is that laziness is the root of all evil.
In a country flowing with money and jobs these "poor little nigga boys" dont want to work but they want money and they want bling and the brand name shoes too.
By December its Christmas and its time to rob some fockin Coolies and kidnap and rape their daughters.
Then its Carnival and they need money again and so the cycle goes.
Trinidad is finished.
Charissa & I decide to order pizza from Pizza Boys Glencoe on the way home from errands after church.
Arrive at Pizza Boys at 10:45am on a Sunday morning, we enter The Food Mall at Highland Plaza and about 10 - 12 youths (18 - 25yrs) making noise with some of the staff. One time comments start to pass about my wife.
Ah man call me , 'Red Man, come leh meh talk to yuh'
So I just told him I just came to pick up and went in the line with Cherry in front of me.
So the guys continue making noise with the staff and a few of them fixated on Charissa. By now I realise they refer to Themselves as 'City of Gods' and some of them actually have it printed on their shirts.
As I step to the cashier I notice out the corner of my eye one of them try to touch Cherry ass.
So I grab his hand and step between them. I said to him , 'Bro, doh be on that'.
One time he watch me and start threatening me up in my face ............ asking me if I feel I bullet proof because I white, and telling me he could kill me right there and have Cherry if he want. So I just held his gaze and clenched my fists. Trust me if he touched her this email might not have come this morning.
He step away still talking and this time now 3 or 4 of them watching me waiting for a reaction.
So I tell Cherry we will leave soon as I think it safe. (this time I studying inside the place have cameras and I doh want them following us outside so we cyah leave just yet). The man start balling how he will 'F*** Charissa in her ass and buss her Shit Box after he shoot me'......... ......... ... hmmmm.
Anyway, after a few minutes of tension, a separate and unrelated altercation broke out between another gang member and a pizza boys staff member so once their attention was diverted I grabbed Charissa and we buss out briskly.
By the time we reach home I was quiet. Both of us were upset but it had not sunk in. I started to mount up a TV stand we have to make myself feel useful...... ...... hell of a helpless feeling to shake off.
But by this time my wife is crying inside. At least we had company coming over so no time to dwell on it.
But Charissa is really shaken up and scared. Trust me, there are fates worse than death if you're a woman.
Cyah explain to alyuh how this makes me feel. Just figured I would write because it is driving me insane and I guess some of us still in denial about the state of our beloved country.
When do you react? When is it worth it? In this day and age , who gonna jump in to help?
Alyuh ever see that movie , 'A Time to Kill' with Matthew MacConoughy & Sam Jackson ?????(ironically the night before we watched 'The Brave One')
Anyway, needed to get it off my chest.
Keep Cherry in your prayers because it may not be obvious but she is traumatized and it was two streets away from home so it is a little difficult to brush off!
Feet on ground...Heart in hand...Facing forward...Be Yourself...
The fact is Trinidad continues to live a lie and everyone refuses to call the fockin spade ah fockin spade while the PNM Government continues to protect "poor little nigga boys" aka community leaders.
The problem is that the African male underclass (niggas) is the problem.
They bave been brought up and programmed by the PNM to believe that we all owe them something. The reality is that laziness is the root of all evil.
In a country flowing with money and jobs these "poor little nigga boys" dont want to work but they want money and they want bling and the brand name shoes too.
By December its Christmas and its time to rob some fockin Coolies and kidnap and rape their daughters.
Then its Carnival and they need money again and so the cycle goes.
Trinidad is finished.
FOCKIN DUMB ASS NIGGAS
Vanessa Vick for The New York Times
Afonso GarcÃa, 6, was exiled from his relatives’ household after being accused of being a witch.
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
Published: November 15, 2007
UIGE, Angola — Domingos Pedro was only 12 years old when his father died. The passing was sudden; the cause was a mystery to doctors. But not to Domingos’s relatives.
They gathered that afternoon in Domingos’s mud-clay house, he said, seized him and bound his legs with rope. They tossed the rope over the house’s 10-foot-high rafters and hoisted him up until he was suspended headfirst over the hard dirt floor. Then they told him they would cut the rope if he did not confess to murdering his father.
“They were yelling, ‘Witch! Witch!’” Domingos recalled, tears rolling down his face. “There were so many people all shouting at me at the same time.”
Terrified, Domingos told them what they wanted to hear, but his relatives were not appeased. Ferraz Bulio, the neighborhood’ s traditional leader, said seven or eight captors were dragging Domingos down a dirt path to the river, apparently to drown him, when he intervened.
“They were slapping him and punching him,” Mr. Bulio recalled. “This is the way people react toward someone accused of witchcraft. There are lots of such cases.”
Mr. Bulio is right. In parts of Angola, Congo and the Congo Republic, a surprising number of children are identified as witches and beaten, abused or abandoned. Child advocates estimate that thousands of street children in Kinshasa, Congo’s rubble-strewn capital, have been accused of witchcraft and cast out by their families — often as a rationale for not having to feed or care for them.
The authorities in one northern Angolan town identified 432 street children who had been abandoned or abused as suspected witches. A report last year by the government’s National Institute for the Child and the United Nations Children’s Fund described the number of children deemed to be witches as “massive.”
The notion of child witches is not new here. It is a common belief in Angola’s dominant Bantu culture that witches can communicate with the world of the dead and usurp or “eat” the life force of others, bringing their victims misfortune, illness and death. Adult witches are said to bewitch children by giving them food, then forcing them to reciprocate by sacrificing a family member.
But officials attribute the surge in persecutions of children to war — 27 years in Angola, ending in 2002, and near constant strife in Congo. The conflicts orphaned many children, while leaving other families intact but too destitute to feed themselves.
“The witches situation started when fathers became unable to care for the children,” said Ana Silva, who is in charge of child protection for the children’s institute. “So they started seeking any justification to expel them from the family.”
Since then, Ms. Silva said, the phenomenon has followed poor migrants from the northern Angolan provinces of Uige and Zaire to the slums of the fast-growing capital, Luanda.
Two recent cases horrified officials there. In June, Ms. Silva said, a Luanda mother blinded her 14-year-old daughter with chlorine bleach to try to rid her of evil visions. In August, a father injected battery acid into his 12-year-old son’s stomach because the man feared the boy was a witch, she said.
Angola’s government has campaigned since 2000 to dispel notions about child witches, Ms. Silva said, but progress comes slowly. “We cannot change the belief that witches exist,” she said. “Even the professional workers believe that witches exist.”
Instead, her institute is trying to teach everyone, from police officers to teachers to religious leaders, that violence against children is never justified.
The Angolan city of Mbanza Congo, just 50 miles from Angola’s border with Congo, has blazed a trail. After a child accused of witchcraft was stabbed to death in 2000, provincial officials and Save the Children, the global charitable organization, rounded up 432 street children and reunited 380 of them with relatives, the witchcraft report stated.
Eleven fundamentalist churches were shut down because of reports of child exploitation and abuse. Eight Congolese pastors were deported. Villages formed committees to monitor children’s rights. The authorities say the number of children who are abused or living on the streets dropped drastically.
Uige, about 100 miles to the south of Mbanza Congo, is another story. Surrounded by lush green hills, it is a cluster of mud-clay settlements around crumbling shops pockmarked by bullet holes. In this region, said Bishop Emilio Sumbelelo of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, persecution of children is rising.
“It is very, very, very common in the villages,” he said. “We know that some children have been killed.”
His church runs the town’s only sanctuary for children victimized as witches, a shelter barely bigger than a three-car garage. Thirty-two boys, including Domingos, occupy bunk beds stacked a foot apart, their few clothes stashed in cardboard boxes underneath. No shelter exists for girls.
Since July, all newcomers have been turned away. “Children come here to ask for protection, but we have no space,” the bishop said. “To date, we have not found any special way to fight against this phenomenon.” Many of the shelter’s boys describe pasts of abuse, rejection and fear. Saldanha David Gomes, 18, who lived with his aunt until he was 12, said she turned on him after her 3-year-old daughter fell ill and died.
After, he said, his aunt refused to feed him and bound his hands and feet each evening, fearing that he would take another victim.
A neighbor finally warned him to flee. “I am not a witch, and I was not a witch,” Saldanha said. “But I had to run away because they were threatening to kill me.”
Afonso GarcÃa, 6, took the shelter’s last empty cot in July. “I came here on my own because my father doesn’t like me and I was not eating every day,” he said matter-of-factly.
After Afonso’s mother died three years ago, he moved in with his father. His stepmother, Antoinette Eduardo, said she began to suspect that he was a witch after neighborhood children reported that he had eaten a razor. Besides that, she said, “he was getting thinner and thinner, even though he was eating well.”
Under questioning, she said, Afonso admitted that a male relative had visited him in his dreams, demanding that he kill a family member. Afonso denies ever confessing to witchcraft.
What unfolded next is typical of many cases here. Afonso’s relatives turned to a traditional healer for a cure.
The 30-year-old healer, João Ginga, wears a fur-collared leather jacket and works out of what he calls a hospital — a cramped mud-walled room. “If someone has a bad spirit, I can tell,” he said one recent morning as clients waited on a wooden bench. “We treat more than a thousand cases a year.”
With such a busy trade, Mr. Ginga said, he could not remember Afonso’s case. Afonso’s aunt, Isabella Armando, said her family gave Mr. Ginga $270 in cash, candles, perfume and baby powder to treat Alfonso.
Mr. Ginga performed some rituals, put a substance in Afonso’s eyes that made him sob in pain and pronounced him cured, she said. But Afonso’s father and stepmother, the only relatives who could afford to care for him, did not agree, and exiled him from their household.
“I pitied him, and I still pity him because he was living in the streets,” the stepmother explained. “But we were afraid”
Mr. Ginga is hardly the only healer here who claims to cure child witches. Sivi Munzemba said she exorcised possessed children by inserting a poultice of plants into their anuses, shaving their heads and sequestering them for two weeks in her house.
Moises Samuel, the director of the provincial office of the children’s institute, said he was concerned not only about traditional healers but also about a bevy of churches with soothsayers who claimed to exorcise evil spirits and drew crowds even on weekdays.
Once a soothsayer or healer brands a child a witch, child welfare specialists say, even the police often back away.
Officers kept Domingos, the boy who was suspended from a rafter, for one night at the station house, then sent him home, said Mr. Bulio, the settlement’s traditional leader. They never investigated Domingos’s uncle, who Mr. Bulio said led the attack.
“Of course it was a crime,” Mr. Bulio said. “But because it is witchcraft, the police do not take any responsibility.”
Domingos, now 15, insisted that he said he was a witch only to save his life. But even his 32-year-old mother, Maria Pedro, disbelieves him.
Ms. Pedro is obviously fond of Domingos, her oldest child. She beams over his academic progress and worries about further attacks by his relatives, should he leave the shelter.
Still, she said, she suspects that he was bewitched into murder. “It must be true because he himself confessed,” she said, eyeing Domingos carefully across a table in her two-bedroom house.
At that, Domingos stood up and walked swiftly from the house. Ten minutes later, he reappeared in the doorway, his face red and splotchy. “Mother, from this day on, I am no longer your son,” he declared fiercely.
Ms. Pedro wordlessly watched him go. “I just don’t know why Domingos got so angry,” she said later.
Afonso GarcÃa, 6, was exiled from his relatives’ household after being accused of being a witch.
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
Published: November 15, 2007
UIGE, Angola — Domingos Pedro was only 12 years old when his father died. The passing was sudden; the cause was a mystery to doctors. But not to Domingos’s relatives.
They gathered that afternoon in Domingos’s mud-clay house, he said, seized him and bound his legs with rope. They tossed the rope over the house’s 10-foot-high rafters and hoisted him up until he was suspended headfirst over the hard dirt floor. Then they told him they would cut the rope if he did not confess to murdering his father.
“They were yelling, ‘Witch! Witch!’” Domingos recalled, tears rolling down his face. “There were so many people all shouting at me at the same time.”
Terrified, Domingos told them what they wanted to hear, but his relatives were not appeased. Ferraz Bulio, the neighborhood’ s traditional leader, said seven or eight captors were dragging Domingos down a dirt path to the river, apparently to drown him, when he intervened.
“They were slapping him and punching him,” Mr. Bulio recalled. “This is the way people react toward someone accused of witchcraft. There are lots of such cases.”
Mr. Bulio is right. In parts of Angola, Congo and the Congo Republic, a surprising number of children are identified as witches and beaten, abused or abandoned. Child advocates estimate that thousands of street children in Kinshasa, Congo’s rubble-strewn capital, have been accused of witchcraft and cast out by their families — often as a rationale for not having to feed or care for them.
The authorities in one northern Angolan town identified 432 street children who had been abandoned or abused as suspected witches. A report last year by the government’s National Institute for the Child and the United Nations Children’s Fund described the number of children deemed to be witches as “massive.”
The notion of child witches is not new here. It is a common belief in Angola’s dominant Bantu culture that witches can communicate with the world of the dead and usurp or “eat” the life force of others, bringing their victims misfortune, illness and death. Adult witches are said to bewitch children by giving them food, then forcing them to reciprocate by sacrificing a family member.
But officials attribute the surge in persecutions of children to war — 27 years in Angola, ending in 2002, and near constant strife in Congo. The conflicts orphaned many children, while leaving other families intact but too destitute to feed themselves.
“The witches situation started when fathers became unable to care for the children,” said Ana Silva, who is in charge of child protection for the children’s institute. “So they started seeking any justification to expel them from the family.”
Since then, Ms. Silva said, the phenomenon has followed poor migrants from the northern Angolan provinces of Uige and Zaire to the slums of the fast-growing capital, Luanda.
Two recent cases horrified officials there. In June, Ms. Silva said, a Luanda mother blinded her 14-year-old daughter with chlorine bleach to try to rid her of evil visions. In August, a father injected battery acid into his 12-year-old son’s stomach because the man feared the boy was a witch, she said.
Angola’s government has campaigned since 2000 to dispel notions about child witches, Ms. Silva said, but progress comes slowly. “We cannot change the belief that witches exist,” she said. “Even the professional workers believe that witches exist.”
Instead, her institute is trying to teach everyone, from police officers to teachers to religious leaders, that violence against children is never justified.
The Angolan city of Mbanza Congo, just 50 miles from Angola’s border with Congo, has blazed a trail. After a child accused of witchcraft was stabbed to death in 2000, provincial officials and Save the Children, the global charitable organization, rounded up 432 street children and reunited 380 of them with relatives, the witchcraft report stated.
Eleven fundamentalist churches were shut down because of reports of child exploitation and abuse. Eight Congolese pastors were deported. Villages formed committees to monitor children’s rights. The authorities say the number of children who are abused or living on the streets dropped drastically.
Uige, about 100 miles to the south of Mbanza Congo, is another story. Surrounded by lush green hills, it is a cluster of mud-clay settlements around crumbling shops pockmarked by bullet holes. In this region, said Bishop Emilio Sumbelelo of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, persecution of children is rising.
“It is very, very, very common in the villages,” he said. “We know that some children have been killed.”
His church runs the town’s only sanctuary for children victimized as witches, a shelter barely bigger than a three-car garage. Thirty-two boys, including Domingos, occupy bunk beds stacked a foot apart, their few clothes stashed in cardboard boxes underneath. No shelter exists for girls.
Since July, all newcomers have been turned away. “Children come here to ask for protection, but we have no space,” the bishop said. “To date, we have not found any special way to fight against this phenomenon.” Many of the shelter’s boys describe pasts of abuse, rejection and fear. Saldanha David Gomes, 18, who lived with his aunt until he was 12, said she turned on him after her 3-year-old daughter fell ill and died.
After, he said, his aunt refused to feed him and bound his hands and feet each evening, fearing that he would take another victim.
A neighbor finally warned him to flee. “I am not a witch, and I was not a witch,” Saldanha said. “But I had to run away because they were threatening to kill me.”
Afonso GarcÃa, 6, took the shelter’s last empty cot in July. “I came here on my own because my father doesn’t like me and I was not eating every day,” he said matter-of-factly.
After Afonso’s mother died three years ago, he moved in with his father. His stepmother, Antoinette Eduardo, said she began to suspect that he was a witch after neighborhood children reported that he had eaten a razor. Besides that, she said, “he was getting thinner and thinner, even though he was eating well.”
Under questioning, she said, Afonso admitted that a male relative had visited him in his dreams, demanding that he kill a family member. Afonso denies ever confessing to witchcraft.
What unfolded next is typical of many cases here. Afonso’s relatives turned to a traditional healer for a cure.
The 30-year-old healer, João Ginga, wears a fur-collared leather jacket and works out of what he calls a hospital — a cramped mud-walled room. “If someone has a bad spirit, I can tell,” he said one recent morning as clients waited on a wooden bench. “We treat more than a thousand cases a year.”
With such a busy trade, Mr. Ginga said, he could not remember Afonso’s case. Afonso’s aunt, Isabella Armando, said her family gave Mr. Ginga $270 in cash, candles, perfume and baby powder to treat Alfonso.
Mr. Ginga performed some rituals, put a substance in Afonso’s eyes that made him sob in pain and pronounced him cured, she said. But Afonso’s father and stepmother, the only relatives who could afford to care for him, did not agree, and exiled him from their household.
“I pitied him, and I still pity him because he was living in the streets,” the stepmother explained. “But we were afraid”
Mr. Ginga is hardly the only healer here who claims to cure child witches. Sivi Munzemba said she exorcised possessed children by inserting a poultice of plants into their anuses, shaving their heads and sequestering them for two weeks in her house.
Moises Samuel, the director of the provincial office of the children’s institute, said he was concerned not only about traditional healers but also about a bevy of churches with soothsayers who claimed to exorcise evil spirits and drew crowds even on weekdays.
Once a soothsayer or healer brands a child a witch, child welfare specialists say, even the police often back away.
Officers kept Domingos, the boy who was suspended from a rafter, for one night at the station house, then sent him home, said Mr. Bulio, the settlement’s traditional leader. They never investigated Domingos’s uncle, who Mr. Bulio said led the attack.
“Of course it was a crime,” Mr. Bulio said. “But because it is witchcraft, the police do not take any responsibility.”
Domingos, now 15, insisted that he said he was a witch only to save his life. But even his 32-year-old mother, Maria Pedro, disbelieves him.
Ms. Pedro is obviously fond of Domingos, her oldest child. She beams over his academic progress and worries about further attacks by his relatives, should he leave the shelter.
Still, she said, she suspects that he was bewitched into murder. “It must be true because he himself confessed,” she said, eyeing Domingos carefully across a table in her two-bedroom house.
At that, Domingos stood up and walked swiftly from the house. Ten minutes later, he reappeared in the doorway, his face red and splotchy. “Mother, from this day on, I am no longer your son,” he declared fiercely.
Ms. Pedro wordlessly watched him go. “I just don’t know why Domingos got so angry,” she said later.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Pistol and ammo missing from Police Headquarters
BY GEISHA KOWLESSAR
The homes of at least four senior police officers were being searched up to late yesterday afternoon, after a Smith and Wesson pistol went missing from the property box of the Police Administration building in Port-of-Spain over the weekend.
And senior members of the police executive have admitted to being “baffled” as to how the firearm, along with 25 rounds of live ammunition, “mysteriously disappeared” from a heavily-guarded area.
The missing gun comes in wake of another similar incident in which a police constable was nabbed red-handed trying to break into the property room of the abandoned St Joseph Police Station on Saturday evening.
But despite a full-scale probe by cops, the items which went missing from the Police Administration building are yet to be found and arrests made.
According to a senior officer, the items were discovered missing almost immediately after the afternoon shift reported for duty on Saturday.
“The morning shift worked from 8 am to 6 pm. But when the afternoon shift took over from 6 pm, officers who checked the property box discovered the firearm and ammunition missing,” the officer added.
According to the officer, immediately after the firearm was discovered missing they made repeated sweeps of the premises.
But some two hours later, nothing was found.
Another officer said lawmen assigned to Saturday’s morning shift were interviewed “at length,” but they all denied knowledge of the missing firearm and ammunition.
“It seems strange that an area where there is always a constant and heavy police presence a firearm and ammunition could go missing like that.
“What is even more strange is the fact that no officer saw anything amiss that day,” another officer said yesterday.
Investigations ongoing
During the weekly press briefing yesterday afternoon, Police Commissioner Trevor Paul said his officers were working to bring closure to the matter.
“Search warrants have been executed and officers are steadfastly working to bring closure to the matter as soon as possible.”
Yes Papa!
The fockin onslaught continues. Ages ago everybody saying the fockin police involved in crime in this country. Dey find ah senior fockin nigga police wid ransom money in he office and home...nutten done. He get paid vacation wid driver and big office in New York.
Dey find ah next fockin nigga police and he son depositing money in ah fockin bank and again....nutten done.
Dey now begininng to prime up for all dem fockin stupid knife and fork coolies dat vote for COP. Dey comin soon for all yuh mudder cont.
Yuh see dey done start teefin gun and ammo to rent out to dey pardners
Hold all yuh fockin head and bawl in shame in front all yuh fockin mirror.
Duncee head fockin coolies.
The homes of at least four senior police officers were being searched up to late yesterday afternoon, after a Smith and Wesson pistol went missing from the property box of the Police Administration building in Port-of-Spain over the weekend.
And senior members of the police executive have admitted to being “baffled” as to how the firearm, along with 25 rounds of live ammunition, “mysteriously disappeared” from a heavily-guarded area.
The missing gun comes in wake of another similar incident in which a police constable was nabbed red-handed trying to break into the property room of the abandoned St Joseph Police Station on Saturday evening.
But despite a full-scale probe by cops, the items which went missing from the Police Administration building are yet to be found and arrests made.
According to a senior officer, the items were discovered missing almost immediately after the afternoon shift reported for duty on Saturday.
“The morning shift worked from 8 am to 6 pm. But when the afternoon shift took over from 6 pm, officers who checked the property box discovered the firearm and ammunition missing,” the officer added.
According to the officer, immediately after the firearm was discovered missing they made repeated sweeps of the premises.
But some two hours later, nothing was found.
Another officer said lawmen assigned to Saturday’s morning shift were interviewed “at length,” but they all denied knowledge of the missing firearm and ammunition.
“It seems strange that an area where there is always a constant and heavy police presence a firearm and ammunition could go missing like that.
“What is even more strange is the fact that no officer saw anything amiss that day,” another officer said yesterday.
Investigations ongoing
During the weekly press briefing yesterday afternoon, Police Commissioner Trevor Paul said his officers were working to bring closure to the matter.
“Search warrants have been executed and officers are steadfastly working to bring closure to the matter as soon as possible.”
Yes Papa!
The fockin onslaught continues. Ages ago everybody saying the fockin police involved in crime in this country. Dey find ah senior fockin nigga police wid ransom money in he office and home...nutten done. He get paid vacation wid driver and big office in New York.
Dey find ah next fockin nigga police and he son depositing money in ah fockin bank and again....nutten done.
Dey now begininng to prime up for all dem fockin stupid knife and fork coolies dat vote for COP. Dey comin soon for all yuh mudder cont.
Yuh see dey done start teefin gun and ammo to rent out to dey pardners
Hold all yuh fockin head and bawl in shame in front all yuh fockin mirror.
Duncee head fockin coolies.
CRIME
Las Lomas women in hiding
By RHONDOR DOWLAT
Tuesday, November 13 2007
OVER 7,000 Las Lomas residents are said to be running scared since the upsurge of bandit attacks in the area. The women are also said to be in hiding as they are attacked by the bandits who are described as “No respecter of colour, creed, race and age.”
Girl, 12, critical after rape
Tuesday, November 13 2007
A 12-YEAR-old schoolgirl is fighting for her life at the San Fernando General Hospital after she was allegedly tied up and sexually assaulted by two masked men at her Rio Claro home yesterday morning. Police report the men also stuffed a melongene into her body and left her for dead.
Woman stabbed to death
Tuesday, November 13 2007
A 25-YEAR-OLD woman of Chinapoo Village in Morvant died at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital yesterday shortly after being stabbed by a male relative.
Scalping suspect surrenders
By Andre Bagoo
Tuesday, November 13 2007
A man who allegedly chopped and scalped the boyfriend of his former common law wife surrendered to the police at the St Clair office of attorney Jagdeo Singh last night.
Crime rises as Manzanilla police post closed
Carolyn Kissoon South Bureau
Tuesday, November 13th 2007
An increase in break-ins, illegal drug sales and the lack of a permanent police presence in their community have caused residents of Manzanilla to lock their doors early. Residents have been running scared since a mobile police post which was stationed in their community was removed nearly three months ago.
Relatives worry as killers still at large 85-year-old San Juan woman found dead
Peter Christopher pchristopher@trinidadexpress.com
Tuesday, November 13th 2007
IT has been two weeks since 85-year-old Leonora Burnette was found dead at her home in San Juan. Since then, the family's home at Jogie Road has remained vacant, as police continue to investigate the incident. However, no one has yet been officially charged with the killing.
This is only from today's newspaper!
We on ah fockin roll.
As Panday said, "to those of you that voted for the PNM and the COP, you should look yourself in the fockin mirror and cry shame.
This is what you voted for!
By RHONDOR DOWLAT
Tuesday, November 13 2007
OVER 7,000 Las Lomas residents are said to be running scared since the upsurge of bandit attacks in the area. The women are also said to be in hiding as they are attacked by the bandits who are described as “No respecter of colour, creed, race and age.”
Girl, 12, critical after rape
Tuesday, November 13 2007
A 12-YEAR-old schoolgirl is fighting for her life at the San Fernando General Hospital after she was allegedly tied up and sexually assaulted by two masked men at her Rio Claro home yesterday morning. Police report the men also stuffed a melongene into her body and left her for dead.
Woman stabbed to death
Tuesday, November 13 2007
A 25-YEAR-OLD woman of Chinapoo Village in Morvant died at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital yesterday shortly after being stabbed by a male relative.
Scalping suspect surrenders
By Andre Bagoo
Tuesday, November 13 2007
A man who allegedly chopped and scalped the boyfriend of his former common law wife surrendered to the police at the St Clair office of attorney Jagdeo Singh last night.
Crime rises as Manzanilla police post closed
Carolyn Kissoon South Bureau
Tuesday, November 13th 2007
An increase in break-ins, illegal drug sales and the lack of a permanent police presence in their community have caused residents of Manzanilla to lock their doors early. Residents have been running scared since a mobile police post which was stationed in their community was removed nearly three months ago.
Relatives worry as killers still at large 85-year-old San Juan woman found dead
Peter Christopher pchristopher@trinidadexpress.com
Tuesday, November 13th 2007
IT has been two weeks since 85-year-old Leonora Burnette was found dead at her home in San Juan. Since then, the family's home at Jogie Road has remained vacant, as police continue to investigate the incident. However, no one has yet been officially charged with the killing.
This is only from today's newspaper!
We on ah fockin roll.
As Panday said, "to those of you that voted for the PNM and the COP, you should look yourself in the fockin mirror and cry shame.
This is what you voted for!
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Top Cop gets one more year
Police Commissioner Trevor Paul has been given a one-year extension in office.
Paul celebrated his 60th birthday yesterday and was officially due to retire on Friday.
He was enlisted in the police service on June 1, 1966, and was appointed Police Commissioner on July 15, 2004.
Sources from the Police Service Commission confirmed yesterday that Paul was asked to remain in office under Section 75 of the Constitution.
That section was amended by the UNC Administration to make it possible for a Commissioner of Police to remain in office even after he or she turns 60, which is the mandatory retirement age in the police service.
Contacted yesterday, Paul told Sunday Newsday that he was officially asked to remain in office until a suitable replacement is found. Paul added that he was unaware of how long that process will take but admitted that he has accepted the proposal to remain in office.
Sunday Newsday learned that on Tuesday, President George Maxwell Richards will officially make public the announcement of a one year extension for Paul. The only other Police Commissioner who was given a one-year extension was Kenny Noor Mohammed on July 19,1998.
The Police Service Commission is searching for a new Commissioner and has received several applications from persons wishing to fulfill the post. The applicants are from Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean, the United States, Canada and England. The recruitment drive for a new Commissioner came about as a result of recent changes to the legislation governing the police service.
Sunday Newsday learned that the PSC is seriously considering an applicant from England but they were advised to give Paul the extension. Commissioner Paul had promised in July 2004, when he became Commissioner to deal with the escalating crime in the country. He said then, “It is no doubt that I am at the helm of the police service at a time when its performance rating is probably at its lowest. “I am now in charge at a time when public opinion suggests that the failure of the organisation to adequately protect and serve our citizens is as a result of major deficiencies at the management level,” said Paul.
Despite the assurance from Paul to make a dent in crime, the country was plagued with murders, kidnappings and other forms of crime.
It was widely speculated that Assistant Police Commissioner James Philbert was the person tipped to replace Paul when he retires. Deputy Police Commissioner Glen Roach is also expected to hold the post as Ag Commissioner until a replacement is found. Yesterday, President of the Police Second Division, Cpl Emrol Bruce, said that the police service has at this point in time persons other that Commissioner Paul who are capable of taking the police service forward.
He added that if an extension has been granted to Paul, he is hoping that the Police Service Commission identifies a suitable replacement from within the police service and not think for a minute about any outside replacement.
“They could train a successor from within the police service because we have competent persons to take us forward,”said Cpl Bruce.
He pointed out that the foreigners who were hired to assist the police service in the transformation process, have done little to assist the police service.
Geezus Kraist!!!
Yuh mean this dotish fockin PNM government done start dey fockery awready.
How the fock yuh could give the biggest cont in the history of the Police Service ah year extension.
Well fockin T&T people, expect more kidnapping, murders (that will never be solved or lost in court), robberies galore, rapes and the fockin beat goes on.
Remember this is the fockin man that get his appointment letter direct from Manning, so he have to be lickin Manning cacahole all the time. Remember this is the big cont that tell ACP Graham in south he "doh want to rock the boat, he goin an retire soon." Remember this is the fockin asshole that went and speak at a PNM cottage meeting. (Lying focker).
Criminals probably celebrating today. Public Holiday for bandits. Another year of fockin prosperity.
Paul celebrated his 60th birthday yesterday and was officially due to retire on Friday.
He was enlisted in the police service on June 1, 1966, and was appointed Police Commissioner on July 15, 2004.
Sources from the Police Service Commission confirmed yesterday that Paul was asked to remain in office under Section 75 of the Constitution.
That section was amended by the UNC Administration to make it possible for a Commissioner of Police to remain in office even after he or she turns 60, which is the mandatory retirement age in the police service.
Contacted yesterday, Paul told Sunday Newsday that he was officially asked to remain in office until a suitable replacement is found. Paul added that he was unaware of how long that process will take but admitted that he has accepted the proposal to remain in office.
Sunday Newsday learned that on Tuesday, President George Maxwell Richards will officially make public the announcement of a one year extension for Paul. The only other Police Commissioner who was given a one-year extension was Kenny Noor Mohammed on July 19,1998.
The Police Service Commission is searching for a new Commissioner and has received several applications from persons wishing to fulfill the post. The applicants are from Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean, the United States, Canada and England. The recruitment drive for a new Commissioner came about as a result of recent changes to the legislation governing the police service.
Sunday Newsday learned that the PSC is seriously considering an applicant from England but they were advised to give Paul the extension. Commissioner Paul had promised in July 2004, when he became Commissioner to deal with the escalating crime in the country. He said then, “It is no doubt that I am at the helm of the police service at a time when its performance rating is probably at its lowest. “I am now in charge at a time when public opinion suggests that the failure of the organisation to adequately protect and serve our citizens is as a result of major deficiencies at the management level,” said Paul.
Despite the assurance from Paul to make a dent in crime, the country was plagued with murders, kidnappings and other forms of crime.
It was widely speculated that Assistant Police Commissioner James Philbert was the person tipped to replace Paul when he retires. Deputy Police Commissioner Glen Roach is also expected to hold the post as Ag Commissioner until a replacement is found. Yesterday, President of the Police Second Division, Cpl Emrol Bruce, said that the police service has at this point in time persons other that Commissioner Paul who are capable of taking the police service forward.
He added that if an extension has been granted to Paul, he is hoping that the Police Service Commission identifies a suitable replacement from within the police service and not think for a minute about any outside replacement.
“They could train a successor from within the police service because we have competent persons to take us forward,”said Cpl Bruce.
He pointed out that the foreigners who were hired to assist the police service in the transformation process, have done little to assist the police service.
Geezus Kraist!!!
Yuh mean this dotish fockin PNM government done start dey fockery awready.
How the fock yuh could give the biggest cont in the history of the Police Service ah year extension.
Well fockin T&T people, expect more kidnapping, murders (that will never be solved or lost in court), robberies galore, rapes and the fockin beat goes on.
Remember this is the fockin man that get his appointment letter direct from Manning, so he have to be lickin Manning cacahole all the time. Remember this is the big cont that tell ACP Graham in south he "doh want to rock the boat, he goin an retire soon." Remember this is the fockin asshole that went and speak at a PNM cottage meeting. (Lying focker).
Criminals probably celebrating today. Public Holiday for bandits. Another year of fockin prosperity.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Elections 2007 - Post Mortem
To many people, the results of the recent general elections came as no surprise. They knew that the PNM would win because the rest of the votes were split between the UNC and the COP. What blows one’s mind away however was how the COP supporters and the leaders really seemed to have believed that they could win. For a while I believed that many of them knew that they could not win but they were voting on what they called the ‘issues’ and based on their ‘consciences’, only to realize just before the elections that most of them really believed that the COP could win. Needless to say, there were no ‘surprises’ as these people predicted; I believe that the only ‘surprise’ was the one received by them- not a damn seat and PNM back in office.
Of course, for there is always Panday to be blamed, like many of them said before and after, “He is the cause!” Let’s now attempt to examine the COP supporters and try to see what their attitudes and beliefs tell about them.
First of all, they seemed to be really in their own world and totally isolated from the masses. These COP’S seem to be people who believed that they could save Trinidad, save the masses and yet they seemed to be clueless about the feelings of the majority of people whose votes they expected to receive in order to win the elections. One is tempted to ask, how were they going to represent people of whose feelings and interests they seemed to have known very little and which they misread and miscalculated? One is further tempted to ask, if the COP did win, how were they going to address the needs of people about which they obviously are clueless?
It seemed the COP attracted a certain type of individual and a certain group. These supporters seem to be people who choose to be ‘exclusive’. They live a certain kind of life. They seem to be the people who work, work and work and have very little time for general social activities or other people other than their considered few. They seem to be the type who generally show up after the pooja or prayers to which they are invited. They, with their children all of whom come well dressed, dine and then soon after leave.
They don’t come to help and/or be part of the entire activity; no, they are too ‘busy’. When they have their own prayers, it is ‘catered’ and they invite only a few people; again, they are too busy. They also generally don’t go to the temples and if they do one can always spot them, they are ‘exclusive’. These people shop at the malls where they have time to go and also go on holidays. They cater for themselves and their nuclear family. Many of them, mind you, would arrive on time for a function hosted by ‘one of them’ or someone socially ‘higher’.
They listen to 97.1FM and attend exclusive fetes, may socialize with ethnically mixed people but only of their own ‘class’. They have exclusive birthday parties and would boast about the fact that they have never been to a chutney show although they may attend functions which are considered to be ‘politically correct’. Chutney shows are considered by them to be denigrating.
At work they go about their own business and mix only with a selected few and quite often they are the ones who perform their jobs because they have a ‘conscience’. Mind you, there are people like these who may have supported either the PNM or UNC but they know why they associate themselves with these parties and they don’t comprise the majority. There are many others who would have voted COP or UNC just to remove the PNM.
The general COP voter is disgusted with the ‘immorality’ and ‘corruption’ present in the country and especially of the Panday family. One wonders how good many of them would come out looking if their lives were placed under microscopic lenses; at least Oma Panday has raised successful and professional girl children.
Tell me, from where do they get their information, the unbiased media. Are they fair to all individuals and parties? Really! who are being blindly led and by whom? These people talk about how stupid the UNC and PNM supporters are and claim that they deserve what they get for their blind loyalty. The COP supporters’ loyalty seemed to be only to them. They are angry with the sector of the population who did not support their cause. In their view, it seems, Trinidad should be able to facilitate their selfish existence- it must be crime free and corruption- free so that they could continue to lead their selfish existence.
They should be allowed freely to continue to commit their white-collar crimes as doctors, lawyers, Brahmins, business people and others or live honestly but in their own private world not bothered by the ‘low-class’ people and their behaviour and problems. These people, mind you, can pick up and leave at anytime or can afford to live quite comfortably in this country with their salaries.. so many of them could have sacrificed the country for their ‘issues’ and their ‘consciences’.
One wonders how many of them knew Anil Roberts or listened to him when he was on Power 102; the way he bashed Dooks, on the other hand most UNC and PNM people knew him on that radio station. Why, one may question? Also, how many of them listened to Radio Jagriti and Sat Maharaj with whom they would not otherwise associate, for the first time? Was it because it was convenient and catered to their selfish needs?
Another thing about the COP people is their arrogance. Who the hell did they think they were? They were fighting ‘alone’ and would ‘win’. They did not want or need ‘accommodation’. They boasted that they would win all of the 41 seats. Did they think that Courts had a raffle for 41 seats to be won? That’s not surprising, now that we have analysed this group. They think of themselves and do not ‘mix’ too much; they live in their own worlds and are too self-righteous to follow ‘corrupt’ and ‘immoral people’.
Also, one is struck by the aggression, hate and anger of most of these people. One wonders how many of them are aware of the fact that by the end of the day Panday did influence their votes after all; he was their issue! Many of them were quite willing to cut out their noses to spite their faces. They just wanted Panday out; it was personal, and to hell with country and future.
Needless to say, the UNC knew they could not win without the COP voters unlike the Cop voters who arrogantly believed that they could win over decades of UNC support in a few months or better yet, in a few weeks. By the end of the day, it seemed that everyone was listening to his/her people and if they listened to each other at all they did not take heed.
Now we are all faced with another five years of PNM rule but might that be so bad after all? One may question, how could these UNC and COP leaders have done much when they could not even agree to win the war and share in the spoils? At the top the COP must have known like the UNC that they could not win alone but that did not matter to either side.
Throughout the election campaign, the UNC had to concentrate in fighting for survival in holding on to its base rather than going after the PNM in the way they should have. The COP was a threat to them. The COP couldn’t care less whether the country stand or sink. All they were interested in was to ensure that if they can’t win, the UNC must not either.
There are certain so-called professionals and false leaders who went on the COP platform and boasted of how innocent and trustworthy their leader is, one who you can trust and who can put his hand on the state’s money, but if their lives are examined and scrutinized 100%, they would be found condoning many unjust actions committed by their friends and family. One just has to read the newspapers of the past and see all the facts are there printed in black and white.
Remember, there is a God.
Re-examine all those Brahmins and Pundits, they may not be the kind of persons you think they are. For eg. You can shove it up. The COP voted with hate, anger, malice and aggression. All against the BAS.
But you know what, the BAS turned out to be the man who is still very much attractive.
A Winner.
Of course, for there is always Panday to be blamed, like many of them said before and after, “He is the cause!” Let’s now attempt to examine the COP supporters and try to see what their attitudes and beliefs tell about them.
First of all, they seemed to be really in their own world and totally isolated from the masses. These COP’S seem to be people who believed that they could save Trinidad, save the masses and yet they seemed to be clueless about the feelings of the majority of people whose votes they expected to receive in order to win the elections. One is tempted to ask, how were they going to represent people of whose feelings and interests they seemed to have known very little and which they misread and miscalculated? One is further tempted to ask, if the COP did win, how were they going to address the needs of people about which they obviously are clueless?
It seemed the COP attracted a certain type of individual and a certain group. These supporters seem to be people who choose to be ‘exclusive’. They live a certain kind of life. They seem to be the people who work, work and work and have very little time for general social activities or other people other than their considered few. They seem to be the type who generally show up after the pooja or prayers to which they are invited. They, with their children all of whom come well dressed, dine and then soon after leave.
They don’t come to help and/or be part of the entire activity; no, they are too ‘busy’. When they have their own prayers, it is ‘catered’ and they invite only a few people; again, they are too busy. They also generally don’t go to the temples and if they do one can always spot them, they are ‘exclusive’. These people shop at the malls where they have time to go and also go on holidays. They cater for themselves and their nuclear family. Many of them, mind you, would arrive on time for a function hosted by ‘one of them’ or someone socially ‘higher’.
They listen to 97.1FM and attend exclusive fetes, may socialize with ethnically mixed people but only of their own ‘class’. They have exclusive birthday parties and would boast about the fact that they have never been to a chutney show although they may attend functions which are considered to be ‘politically correct’. Chutney shows are considered by them to be denigrating.
At work they go about their own business and mix only with a selected few and quite often they are the ones who perform their jobs because they have a ‘conscience’. Mind you, there are people like these who may have supported either the PNM or UNC but they know why they associate themselves with these parties and they don’t comprise the majority. There are many others who would have voted COP or UNC just to remove the PNM.
The general COP voter is disgusted with the ‘immorality’ and ‘corruption’ present in the country and especially of the Panday family. One wonders how good many of them would come out looking if their lives were placed under microscopic lenses; at least Oma Panday has raised successful and professional girl children.
Tell me, from where do they get their information, the unbiased media. Are they fair to all individuals and parties? Really! who are being blindly led and by whom? These people talk about how stupid the UNC and PNM supporters are and claim that they deserve what they get for their blind loyalty. The COP supporters’ loyalty seemed to be only to them. They are angry with the sector of the population who did not support their cause. In their view, it seems, Trinidad should be able to facilitate their selfish existence- it must be crime free and corruption- free so that they could continue to lead their selfish existence.
They should be allowed freely to continue to commit their white-collar crimes as doctors, lawyers, Brahmins, business people and others or live honestly but in their own private world not bothered by the ‘low-class’ people and their behaviour and problems. These people, mind you, can pick up and leave at anytime or can afford to live quite comfortably in this country with their salaries.. so many of them could have sacrificed the country for their ‘issues’ and their ‘consciences’.
One wonders how many of them knew Anil Roberts or listened to him when he was on Power 102; the way he bashed Dooks, on the other hand most UNC and PNM people knew him on that radio station. Why, one may question? Also, how many of them listened to Radio Jagriti and Sat Maharaj with whom they would not otherwise associate, for the first time? Was it because it was convenient and catered to their selfish needs?
Another thing about the COP people is their arrogance. Who the hell did they think they were? They were fighting ‘alone’ and would ‘win’. They did not want or need ‘accommodation’. They boasted that they would win all of the 41 seats. Did they think that Courts had a raffle for 41 seats to be won? That’s not surprising, now that we have analysed this group. They think of themselves and do not ‘mix’ too much; they live in their own worlds and are too self-righteous to follow ‘corrupt’ and ‘immoral people’.
Also, one is struck by the aggression, hate and anger of most of these people. One wonders how many of them are aware of the fact that by the end of the day Panday did influence their votes after all; he was their issue! Many of them were quite willing to cut out their noses to spite their faces. They just wanted Panday out; it was personal, and to hell with country and future.
Needless to say, the UNC knew they could not win without the COP voters unlike the Cop voters who arrogantly believed that they could win over decades of UNC support in a few months or better yet, in a few weeks. By the end of the day, it seemed that everyone was listening to his/her people and if they listened to each other at all they did not take heed.
Now we are all faced with another five years of PNM rule but might that be so bad after all? One may question, how could these UNC and COP leaders have done much when they could not even agree to win the war and share in the spoils? At the top the COP must have known like the UNC that they could not win alone but that did not matter to either side.
Throughout the election campaign, the UNC had to concentrate in fighting for survival in holding on to its base rather than going after the PNM in the way they should have. The COP was a threat to them. The COP couldn’t care less whether the country stand or sink. All they were interested in was to ensure that if they can’t win, the UNC must not either.
There are certain so-called professionals and false leaders who went on the COP platform and boasted of how innocent and trustworthy their leader is, one who you can trust and who can put his hand on the state’s money, but if their lives are examined and scrutinized 100%, they would be found condoning many unjust actions committed by their friends and family. One just has to read the newspapers of the past and see all the facts are there printed in black and white.
Remember, there is a God.
Re-examine all those Brahmins and Pundits, they may not be the kind of persons you think they are. For eg. You can shove it up. The COP voted with hate, anger, malice and aggression. All against the BAS.
But you know what, the BAS turned out to be the man who is still very much attractive.
A Winner.
St Barb’s man shot dead
BY KYLE JEREMIAH
The shooting death of a St Barb’s resident led to an explosion of rage in Laventille neighbourhood yesterday with some residents calling for a new election to retract their votes for the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) to support the Congress of the People (COP).
Residents allege that 29-year-old Sheldon Des Vignes, a labourer with Community Environment Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP), died following an altercation with the police.
Des Vignes was the father of an eight-year-old girl and a boy, nine.
According to Des Vignes’ sister Afisha, police entered their yard at about 12 noon and started harassing her cousin Richie because he was wearing a camouflaged pants.
Sheldon subsequently intervened to defend his cousin from being assaulted by police when he was then shot twice in the head.
Residents claim Des Vignes’ body was “thrown” into a van and transported to a location unknown to them.
The mother of Des Vignes’ children Asma Mohammad, surrounded by dozens of angry residents, explained that Des Vignes was the only provider for her children.
Residents enraged
The residents’ rage was fuelled by the refusal of police to allow the media to view the scene of the incident.
“Let them see. All yuh only trying to cover up what all yuh do,” cried one resident.
One woman, who gave her name only as “Warrior Princess,” said: “I want Manning to call election now so we could vote for COP instead.”
Other residents also questioned their votes for the PNM in the general election on Monday, saying that they were being victimised after they lent support for the party they were “born into.”
Several allegations were made that certain officers told the residents that they voted for the PNM and as a result, that was the treatment they voted for.
“Panday say that. He say when somebody get killed we can’t blame nobody but we self,” were the words piercing through the crowd as residents clamoured together to try to get police to explain to them what had happened.
Residents blocked the main road leading to the community with huge boulders.
Hypolite in the bacchanal
Newly-elected Member of Parliament for the Laventille West constituency NiLeung Hypolite was on spot for the confusion as he had started a walkabout around the community yesterday to thank residents for their support in the election.
Des Vignes was Hypolite’s employee under CEPEP, residents said.
“Sheldon Des Vignes was a very peaceful and quiet guy. I don’t know exactly what happened. We have to wait until the investigators come so any information can be confirmed,” Hypolite said.
But Hypolite was also heavily criticised for proving himself to be “a weak MP” by not being able to ensure that media personnel were able to view the scene of the crime.
“This is who we vote for?” asked one resident.
Police account
Police sources told the Guardian they received a tip-off that Des Vignes’ cousin Richie had a gun in the pocket of his camouflaged pants.
Upon investigation, they said, Des Vignes confronted police allowing Richie to escape.
A scuffle ensued, before he was shot twice in the head.
Up to late yesterday, residents were protesting against what they believed to be police brutality and made threats to take matters into their own hands if they did not get justice.
ACP Gilbert Reyes said yesterday the matter would be thoroughly investigated and refused to comment further.
VOTE PNM!
The niggas continue killing one another..Hahahahah doh worry, the saga continues.
One less vote for the PNM in the upcoming local elections...
Another one bites the dust.
The shooting death of a St Barb’s resident led to an explosion of rage in Laventille neighbourhood yesterday with some residents calling for a new election to retract their votes for the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) to support the Congress of the People (COP).
Residents allege that 29-year-old Sheldon Des Vignes, a labourer with Community Environment Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP), died following an altercation with the police.
Des Vignes was the father of an eight-year-old girl and a boy, nine.
According to Des Vignes’ sister Afisha, police entered their yard at about 12 noon and started harassing her cousin Richie because he was wearing a camouflaged pants.
Sheldon subsequently intervened to defend his cousin from being assaulted by police when he was then shot twice in the head.
Residents claim Des Vignes’ body was “thrown” into a van and transported to a location unknown to them.
The mother of Des Vignes’ children Asma Mohammad, surrounded by dozens of angry residents, explained that Des Vignes was the only provider for her children.
Residents enraged
The residents’ rage was fuelled by the refusal of police to allow the media to view the scene of the incident.
“Let them see. All yuh only trying to cover up what all yuh do,” cried one resident.
One woman, who gave her name only as “Warrior Princess,” said: “I want Manning to call election now so we could vote for COP instead.”
Other residents also questioned their votes for the PNM in the general election on Monday, saying that they were being victimised after they lent support for the party they were “born into.”
Several allegations were made that certain officers told the residents that they voted for the PNM and as a result, that was the treatment they voted for.
“Panday say that. He say when somebody get killed we can’t blame nobody but we self,” were the words piercing through the crowd as residents clamoured together to try to get police to explain to them what had happened.
Residents blocked the main road leading to the community with huge boulders.
Hypolite in the bacchanal
Newly-elected Member of Parliament for the Laventille West constituency NiLeung Hypolite was on spot for the confusion as he had started a walkabout around the community yesterday to thank residents for their support in the election.
Des Vignes was Hypolite’s employee under CEPEP, residents said.
“Sheldon Des Vignes was a very peaceful and quiet guy. I don’t know exactly what happened. We have to wait until the investigators come so any information can be confirmed,” Hypolite said.
But Hypolite was also heavily criticised for proving himself to be “a weak MP” by not being able to ensure that media personnel were able to view the scene of the crime.
“This is who we vote for?” asked one resident.
Police account
Police sources told the Guardian they received a tip-off that Des Vignes’ cousin Richie had a gun in the pocket of his camouflaged pants.
Upon investigation, they said, Des Vignes confronted police allowing Richie to escape.
A scuffle ensued, before he was shot twice in the head.
Up to late yesterday, residents were protesting against what they believed to be police brutality and made threats to take matters into their own hands if they did not get justice.
ACP Gilbert Reyes said yesterday the matter would be thoroughly investigated and refused to comment further.
VOTE PNM!
The niggas continue killing one another..Hahahahah doh worry, the saga continues.
One less vote for the PNM in the upcoming local elections...
Another one bites the dust.
Penny to decline Deputy Speaker post?
BY CAROL MATROO
FORMER Public Utilities Minister Pennelope Beckles was last night on the verge of declining the post of Deputy Speaker of the House which Prime Minister Patrick Manning on Thursday said he had offered her.
Insiders of the People’s National Movement (PNM) said yesterday that Beckles, who was first elected to represent the Arima constituency in 2000, indicated that she was not prepared to accept the post of Deputy Speaker.
A party source said Beckles hinted at this when she met with the Arima party executive on Thursday night.
The source who attended the meeting said this might be Beckles’ way of defying Manning for passing her over for his Cabinet.
Beckles served as Minister of Tourism and Culture and as the Minister of Public Utilities and the Environment in the 2002-2007 Parliament.
Beckles was bypassed for a ministerial portfolio in favour of PNM candidates in the 2007 general election who had no experience serving in Cabinet. There are 13 ministers in the 23-member Cabinet who have no previous experience at the central government level.
If Beckles declines to accept the post of Deputy Speaker, she would be the second former minister to spurn an offer made by Prime Minister Manning. The Prime Minister admitted that Christine Sahadeo, the former Minister in the Ministry of Finance, had been offered a Cabinet position which she declined. Speaking with the media after the swearing-in ceremony for the Cabinet at President’s House on Thursday, Manning did not reveal what was the portfolio that Sahadeo declined.
Sources speculated that Beckles was so hurt by the prime-ministerial snub that she was contemplating resigning from the PNM.
Manning’s explanation for Beckles being left out of his Cabinet was that the PNM faced an experienced Opposition in Parliament.
In light of that, Manning said, the Government needed an experienced Deputy Speaker of calibre; a void which Beckles was supposed to fill.
Beckles’ victory in the 2007 general election at Monday’s polls earned her her fourth successive term in the House of Representatives.
Concerns about East representation
People in east Trinidad were now concerned that, if Beckles were to resign from the PNM, then that would leave the constituents in the East without PNM representation, the source said.
During the general election, the PNM lost the Mayaro seat to UNC’s Winston “Gypsy” Peters. This seat was previously held by PNM’s Franklin Khan, who is currently before the courts on charges of corruption.
The Cumuto/Manzanilla constituency was won by the UNC’s Harry Partap.
Beckles’ resignation would leave PNM supporters without representation in the House, the source said.
Several attempts to contact Beckles yesterday were unsuccessful.
Her mobile phone was out of service and a female, who answered her home phone, said Beckles was not in.
Look Penny! We Indian people real like yuh. Buh yuh have to understand wa happenin.
Manning lookin for fresh pussy! Yours slack now and is of no use to him. Yuh ent see what he do to Christine Sahadeo. Da oman geh bull all over Trinidad, ask Malcolm Jones.
Is only Christine Kangaloo (Garcia, ah doh know why she fraid to use the Garcia. Everybody know she married ah ole nigga.) geh a lil position because we understand that Brian now start to fock she.
Doh fret yuh self girl... doh worry bout Linda too...she is the blow job expert. Stress relief nah.
FORMER Public Utilities Minister Pennelope Beckles was last night on the verge of declining the post of Deputy Speaker of the House which Prime Minister Patrick Manning on Thursday said he had offered her.
Insiders of the People’s National Movement (PNM) said yesterday that Beckles, who was first elected to represent the Arima constituency in 2000, indicated that she was not prepared to accept the post of Deputy Speaker.
A party source said Beckles hinted at this when she met with the Arima party executive on Thursday night.
The source who attended the meeting said this might be Beckles’ way of defying Manning for passing her over for his Cabinet.
Beckles served as Minister of Tourism and Culture and as the Minister of Public Utilities and the Environment in the 2002-2007 Parliament.
Beckles was bypassed for a ministerial portfolio in favour of PNM candidates in the 2007 general election who had no experience serving in Cabinet. There are 13 ministers in the 23-member Cabinet who have no previous experience at the central government level.
If Beckles declines to accept the post of Deputy Speaker, she would be the second former minister to spurn an offer made by Prime Minister Manning. The Prime Minister admitted that Christine Sahadeo, the former Minister in the Ministry of Finance, had been offered a Cabinet position which she declined. Speaking with the media after the swearing-in ceremony for the Cabinet at President’s House on Thursday, Manning did not reveal what was the portfolio that Sahadeo declined.
Sources speculated that Beckles was so hurt by the prime-ministerial snub that she was contemplating resigning from the PNM.
Manning’s explanation for Beckles being left out of his Cabinet was that the PNM faced an experienced Opposition in Parliament.
In light of that, Manning said, the Government needed an experienced Deputy Speaker of calibre; a void which Beckles was supposed to fill.
Beckles’ victory in the 2007 general election at Monday’s polls earned her her fourth successive term in the House of Representatives.
Concerns about East representation
People in east Trinidad were now concerned that, if Beckles were to resign from the PNM, then that would leave the constituents in the East without PNM representation, the source said.
During the general election, the PNM lost the Mayaro seat to UNC’s Winston “Gypsy” Peters. This seat was previously held by PNM’s Franklin Khan, who is currently before the courts on charges of corruption.
The Cumuto/Manzanilla constituency was won by the UNC’s Harry Partap.
Beckles’ resignation would leave PNM supporters without representation in the House, the source said.
Several attempts to contact Beckles yesterday were unsuccessful.
Her mobile phone was out of service and a female, who answered her home phone, said Beckles was not in.
Look Penny! We Indian people real like yuh. Buh yuh have to understand wa happenin.
Manning lookin for fresh pussy! Yours slack now and is of no use to him. Yuh ent see what he do to Christine Sahadeo. Da oman geh bull all over Trinidad, ask Malcolm Jones.
Is only Christine Kangaloo (Garcia, ah doh know why she fraid to use the Garcia. Everybody know she married ah ole nigga.) geh a lil position because we understand that Brian now start to fock she.
Doh fret yuh self girl... doh worry bout Linda too...she is the blow job expert. Stress relief nah.
Gang murders man, terrorises family
UJISTAR Narine, 44, of Dora Meah Trace, Las Lomas No 1, was an avid bird lover. He was looking forward to hearing his birds whistling at family celebration to commemorate his 22nd wedding anniversary yesterday, but that was not to be.
It was the same birds he went out of the house to protect around 2 a.m. yesterday, after he heard them making a distressing noise.
Armed with his pellet gun, Narine stepped outside and entered the yard. As he walked out, he was approached by six men, five wearing masks, who had just come out a car.
The men told him they came to collect the "pepper money". They then overpowered Narine, relieving him of the pellet gun, then they stormed into the house.
While there, some began waking up other members of the household, demanding money and jewelry. The others began grabbing anything they could lay their hands on, including a computer, stereo equipment and other electronics.
Narine's family was asleep when the men stormed in.
One of his sons, Jason Narine, 16, was awakened in his bedroom by one of the men, who began beating him with the flat side of a cutlass. The bandit chopped off a piece of the young man's left ear.
Another one of Narine's sons, Jessie, 14, was also planassed. So severe was the beating, bits of his skin was removed from his legs.
The bandits also kept asking for Narine's daughter, aged 18, who was at the home of a relative at the time.
Narine's wife, Dhanmatie, pleaded with the bandits to take what they could but not to harm anyone.
"Oh God, leave we alone, we is Christian," she said she told them, as she recalled the ordeal yesterday.
One of the bandits replied that he knew.
After taking what they could, the men dropped it into the Narines' Toyota Cressida. Narine, in the meantime, had been dragged out his yard, beaten even more and then shot with his own pellet gun. The men then dumped him on the side of the road close to his home and sped off in the family's Cressida laden with the stolen items.
Narine, who was also known as Krisendath and was an employee with the San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation, is believed to have died shortly after.
Apparently, in their haste to get away, the car skidded off the road about a half mile away from the house. The bandits then took the loot and set the car ablaze.
Narine was a farmer who specialised in the cultivation hot peppers and egg plant crops around his house.
Speaking about the brutal murder yesterday, a female family member, who did not want to be identified, said, "We will miss him for his regular words of wisdom to members of his family, which he was well known for. They have taken his body but his spirit will always remain with the people in the trace because he was a good man to everybody."
Yesterday morning there were about 200 people at the trace, sympathising with the family.
The mourners included former Caroni East MP Ganga Singh, who said he heard about the murder from a community activist in the area.
"As a community we are very hurt about the incident and hope the Minister of National Security would deal with the murder and bring the perpetrators to justice," Singh said.
Family members also said that earlier in the night, they had seen four strange men walking along the trace.
Over the last couple weeks, Las Lomas residents had staged several protests about the high level of crime in the area, after several attacks on households by bandits.
Homicide Bureau officers are continuing investigations.
Well, we told these fockin assholes that support the COP that this will happen. We told dem that the PNM just put ah hold on things for the campaign. We told them that after all yuh split the mudder cont vote that the fockin thugs will restart to terrorise Indian fockin people.
But........the mudder cont knife and fork coolies who feel that they does shit ice cream doh want to hear that.
Well the fockin action now start. Ah hope dem fockin criminals leave poor people like meh boy above and start goin for the knife and forkers.....
They are the ones that empower all yuh.
It was the same birds he went out of the house to protect around 2 a.m. yesterday, after he heard them making a distressing noise.
Armed with his pellet gun, Narine stepped outside and entered the yard. As he walked out, he was approached by six men, five wearing masks, who had just come out a car.
The men told him they came to collect the "pepper money". They then overpowered Narine, relieving him of the pellet gun, then they stormed into the house.
While there, some began waking up other members of the household, demanding money and jewelry. The others began grabbing anything they could lay their hands on, including a computer, stereo equipment and other electronics.
Narine's family was asleep when the men stormed in.
One of his sons, Jason Narine, 16, was awakened in his bedroom by one of the men, who began beating him with the flat side of a cutlass. The bandit chopped off a piece of the young man's left ear.
Another one of Narine's sons, Jessie, 14, was also planassed. So severe was the beating, bits of his skin was removed from his legs.
The bandits also kept asking for Narine's daughter, aged 18, who was at the home of a relative at the time.
Narine's wife, Dhanmatie, pleaded with the bandits to take what they could but not to harm anyone.
"Oh God, leave we alone, we is Christian," she said she told them, as she recalled the ordeal yesterday.
One of the bandits replied that he knew.
After taking what they could, the men dropped it into the Narines' Toyota Cressida. Narine, in the meantime, had been dragged out his yard, beaten even more and then shot with his own pellet gun. The men then dumped him on the side of the road close to his home and sped off in the family's Cressida laden with the stolen items.
Narine, who was also known as Krisendath and was an employee with the San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation, is believed to have died shortly after.
Apparently, in their haste to get away, the car skidded off the road about a half mile away from the house. The bandits then took the loot and set the car ablaze.
Narine was a farmer who specialised in the cultivation hot peppers and egg plant crops around his house.
Speaking about the brutal murder yesterday, a female family member, who did not want to be identified, said, "We will miss him for his regular words of wisdom to members of his family, which he was well known for. They have taken his body but his spirit will always remain with the people in the trace because he was a good man to everybody."
Yesterday morning there were about 200 people at the trace, sympathising with the family.
The mourners included former Caroni East MP Ganga Singh, who said he heard about the murder from a community activist in the area.
"As a community we are very hurt about the incident and hope the Minister of National Security would deal with the murder and bring the perpetrators to justice," Singh said.
Family members also said that earlier in the night, they had seen four strange men walking along the trace.
Over the last couple weeks, Las Lomas residents had staged several protests about the high level of crime in the area, after several attacks on households by bandits.
Homicide Bureau officers are continuing investigations.
Well, we told these fockin assholes that support the COP that this will happen. We told dem that the PNM just put ah hold on things for the campaign. We told them that after all yuh split the mudder cont vote that the fockin thugs will restart to terrorise Indian fockin people.
But........the mudder cont knife and fork coolies who feel that they does shit ice cream doh want to hear that.
Well the fockin action now start. Ah hope dem fockin criminals leave poor people like meh boy above and start goin for the knife and forkers.....
They are the ones that empower all yuh.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
SORRY
SORRY FOLKS FOR NOT KEEPING YOU UPDATED DURING THE COURSE OF THE ELECTION.
AH WAS TOO BUSY CAMPAIGNING FOR THE UNC!
WE SHOULD BE BACK TO NORMAL NOW.
AH WAS TOO BUSY CAMPAIGNING FOR THE UNC!
WE SHOULD BE BACK TO NORMAL NOW.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
How they voted
How they voted
PNM 26
UNC-A 15
COP 0
By Gail Alexander
Heading to Government for another term, the People’s National Movement (PNM) completed yesterday’s general election race with preliminary results of 26 seats over the United National Congress’ (UNC-A) 15 seats.
Both parties trounced the new Congress of the People (COP) which lost in all of the 41 constituencies.
COP leader Winston Dookeran—who lost his former St Augustine seat—conceded defeat by 10.45 pm.
PNM leader Patrick Manning—who appeared set to lead his party back into Government for another term—declared victory where his own San Fernando East seat was concerned, at 11.20 pm.
Manning said the constituency which had elected him to serve for a tenth consecutive year, had made history with the move.
He also called for the public to put aside all animosities now that the election was over.
“The one thing we know is that in a society like ours we must dwell together in harmony,” Manning added.
Manning left south Trinidad to head up to PNM’s Balisier House headquarters, where a packed courtyard of PNMites in red had been celebrating since 10 pm when the party’s lead had been established.
Manning took the PNM to victory in 1991. He also headed a PNM Government in 2001 for a year following the 18-18 election deadlock of that year. And he again headed the PNM which won the 2002 election with 20 seats.
PNM’s campaign manager Conrad Enill, speaking at 12.30 am, said the preliminary results for the party was a 26-seat win.
Panday: Tremendous success for UNC-A
Over at UNC headquarters—where supporters had started gathering since 8 pm—UNC leader Basdeo Panday said around 10.50 pm that his party had had tremendous success.
Panday who won his Couva North seat—and will be returning to the Parliament—added:
“The people have lost and the “mafia” has won. Crime has won, high prices have won and other problems in T&T have won since all of those things will continue. If that is what people want, well they will have it.
“One thing I do know is that if I were Mr Manning I would reward Winston Dookeran very handsomely because had the COP not split the opposition votes, the UNC-A would have won the elections.”
Based on the results up to that time, Panday agreed, the UNC-A would be heading to the Opposition bench of the Parliament.
Panday said he did not know if he would be Opposition Leader.
He added: “Our MPs will meet and decide, but that doesn’t matter. The point is that the mafia has won since they got the COP to split the votes and made it possible for the PNM to win. And if this is what the people want they have got it.”
According to yesterday’s preliminary results of 15 UNC seats, the party now has one less than the 16 seats it possessed in the last Parliament.
Dookeran: T&T not ready for change
At COP headquarters—where some supporters had gathered—COP leader Dookeran said on television in a solemn tone:
“From the disappointing results we have seen the country is not ready for the change we offered. We still believe a change will one day become the reality for people in T&T.
“Let us not consider this day the darkest day in T&T as you will be tempted to do.
“Let us look at it as an effort made by thousands of citizens and to break the politics of the past and give the politics of the future a change.”
Dookeran, who said the COP was here to stay and that the youth of the T&T would “do what is right,” added:
“For now the politics of the past has won but I know we are right and it will happen.”
Dookeran lost the St Augustine seat which he had won initially under a UNC ticket.
UNC’s Vasant Bharath won the seat for UNC last night.
Dookeran had formed the COP with several former UNC MPs last September when they fell out with the UNC leadership.
PNM took an early lead in several seats including San Juan/Barataria and Pointe-a-Pierre. UNC picked up its safe seats including Mayaro, which Winston Peters won.
The total registered electorate was 990,352.
EBC estimates put yesterday’s voter turn-out at around 53 per cent. This was at midnight, when boxes of ballots were still coming in.
The voter turnout in the 2002 election was approximately 69 per cent.
Yesterday’s voting exercise which started at 6 am and ended at 6 pm, was free from violence, police confirmed.
There were several complaints from the UNC and COP on various issues.
PNM 26
UNC-A 15
COP 0
By Gail Alexander
Heading to Government for another term, the People’s National Movement (PNM) completed yesterday’s general election race with preliminary results of 26 seats over the United National Congress’ (UNC-A) 15 seats.
Both parties trounced the new Congress of the People (COP) which lost in all of the 41 constituencies.
COP leader Winston Dookeran—who lost his former St Augustine seat—conceded defeat by 10.45 pm.
PNM leader Patrick Manning—who appeared set to lead his party back into Government for another term—declared victory where his own San Fernando East seat was concerned, at 11.20 pm.
Manning said the constituency which had elected him to serve for a tenth consecutive year, had made history with the move.
He also called for the public to put aside all animosities now that the election was over.
“The one thing we know is that in a society like ours we must dwell together in harmony,” Manning added.
Manning left south Trinidad to head up to PNM’s Balisier House headquarters, where a packed courtyard of PNMites in red had been celebrating since 10 pm when the party’s lead had been established.
Manning took the PNM to victory in 1991. He also headed a PNM Government in 2001 for a year following the 18-18 election deadlock of that year. And he again headed the PNM which won the 2002 election with 20 seats.
PNM’s campaign manager Conrad Enill, speaking at 12.30 am, said the preliminary results for the party was a 26-seat win.
Panday: Tremendous success for UNC-A
Over at UNC headquarters—where supporters had started gathering since 8 pm—UNC leader Basdeo Panday said around 10.50 pm that his party had had tremendous success.
Panday who won his Couva North seat—and will be returning to the Parliament—added:
“The people have lost and the “mafia” has won. Crime has won, high prices have won and other problems in T&T have won since all of those things will continue. If that is what people want, well they will have it.
“One thing I do know is that if I were Mr Manning I would reward Winston Dookeran very handsomely because had the COP not split the opposition votes, the UNC-A would have won the elections.”
Based on the results up to that time, Panday agreed, the UNC-A would be heading to the Opposition bench of the Parliament.
Panday said he did not know if he would be Opposition Leader.
He added: “Our MPs will meet and decide, but that doesn’t matter. The point is that the mafia has won since they got the COP to split the votes and made it possible for the PNM to win. And if this is what the people want they have got it.”
According to yesterday’s preliminary results of 15 UNC seats, the party now has one less than the 16 seats it possessed in the last Parliament.
Dookeran: T&T not ready for change
At COP headquarters—where some supporters had gathered—COP leader Dookeran said on television in a solemn tone:
“From the disappointing results we have seen the country is not ready for the change we offered. We still believe a change will one day become the reality for people in T&T.
“Let us not consider this day the darkest day in T&T as you will be tempted to do.
“Let us look at it as an effort made by thousands of citizens and to break the politics of the past and give the politics of the future a change.”
Dookeran, who said the COP was here to stay and that the youth of the T&T would “do what is right,” added:
“For now the politics of the past has won but I know we are right and it will happen.”
Dookeran lost the St Augustine seat which he had won initially under a UNC ticket.
UNC’s Vasant Bharath won the seat for UNC last night.
Dookeran had formed the COP with several former UNC MPs last September when they fell out with the UNC leadership.
PNM took an early lead in several seats including San Juan/Barataria and Pointe-a-Pierre. UNC picked up its safe seats including Mayaro, which Winston Peters won.
The total registered electorate was 990,352.
EBC estimates put yesterday’s voter turn-out at around 53 per cent. This was at midnight, when boxes of ballots were still coming in.
The voter turnout in the 2002 election was approximately 69 per cent.
Yesterday’s voting exercise which started at 6 am and ended at 6 pm, was free from violence, police confirmed.
There were several complaints from the UNC and COP on various issues.
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