CounterPunch TT

26/07/2024

JULY, THE COOLIE WOMAN AND INDENTURESHIP - Read Full Article

JULY is a historic month in the transportation of Indian indentured labourers to Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. While more than 500,000 such workers were shipped to the Caribbean between 1838 and 1917, a sailing in 1903 has particular significance because of a subsequent striking documentation. In....

26/07/2024

CARICOM CONCERNS OVER T&T’S VENEZUELA’S TIES - Read Full Article

TRINIDAD and Tobago’s warm relationship with Venezuela is raising eyebrows across the region, as the South American country heads to the polls. The administration of Dr. Keith Rowley signed a natural gas exploration contract with the Nicolas Maduro regime just four days before Sunday’s president...

26/07/2024

WOULD T&T AND GUYANA FINALLY GET INTO JOINT GAS BUSINESS? - Read Full Article

TRINIDAD and Tobago is seeking to sign natural gas exploration agreements with Guyana and other regional countries. But will it fly? Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley said such contracts would be similar to that initialled with Venezuela for exploration in the Cocuina-Manakin field. T&T’s Energy Min...

26/07/2024

VENES IN T&T CAN’T VOTE IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION - Read Full Article

MOST Venezuelan exiles in the Caribbean and elsewhere will be unable to vote in this weekend’s presidential election. That is because they have not been registered to cast their ballots in the high-stakes poll. Of the estimated 7.8 million Venezuelans who have fled the country over the past few ye...

24/07/2024

A TALE OF TWO ECONOMIES - Read Full Article

THERE was a time, mere decades ago,\ when the economies of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana were diametrically different from what currently exists. In the 1970s, Guyana’s economy fell by more than a third, there was mass nationalisation of several enterprises, steep poverty and high unemployment, c...

24/07/2024

PESTICIDES IN ONE-THIRD OF T&T’S SUICIDES - Read Full Article

PESTICIDES are used in at least one-third of suicides in Trinidad and Tobago, a new Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) report has revealed. Pesticides are also commonly used in suicides in Guyana and Suriname, according to PAHO. The researchers said that pesticides are as common in deaths in th...

24/07/2024

CARIBBEAN, US EYE VENEZUELA’S POLL - Read Full Article

THE authorities in the United States are keeping close tabs on Saturday’s presidential election in Venezuela.“The Biden administration is particularly concerned that the Maduro government could claim victory without verifiable results,” New York Times newspaper reported on Sunday.The newspaper...

24/07/2024

THE KHAN'T-DO LADY: PROCUREMENT REGULATOR STALLS - Read Full Article

THEY refer to her as the Khan’t-do lady. That is because Procurement Regulator Beverly Khan – whose official monthly financial package is around $85,000 – has no public record of positive action since her appointment a year ago. That is despite several startling accounts from knowledgeable peo...

24/07/2024

Why doesn’t President speak out on national crises? - Read Full Article

PRESIDENT Christine Kangaloo’s attempt to play down painful national crises is typical of high office holders insulated from the reality of ordinary citizens. Kangaloo suggests that youths could find solace in the steelband, although successive PNM administrations refused to protect, commercialise...

24/07/2024

COPS ONLY BAD WITH TRAFFIC TICKETS - Read Full Article

A FEW months ago, a bulky police officer stepped into my path as I drove off Churchill-Roosevelt Highway between St. Augustine Girls’ High School and the university campus. The lawman was preoccupied with a document, which I soon found to be a traffic ticket he was issuing another motorist. The ar...

24/07/2024

BIDEN NAMES GANG WITH T&T TIES A THREAT - Read Full Article

UNITED States President Joe Biden has declared Venezuela’s deadliest gang – which is linked to crimes in Trinidad and Tobago – as a “significant transnational criminal organisation.” Biden made the dramatic designation after his administration identified Tren de Aragua as an “emerging th...

24/07/2024

WHAT A KAMALA PRESIDENCY COULD MEAN FOR THE CARIBBEAN - Read Full Article

KAMALA Harris is President Joe Biden’s point person for the Caribbean. Ms. Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican-born father, spearheads the high-powered US-Caribbean Partnership. That cooperation includes law and order matters, such as gun control and forensics, along with climate change, the Haitia...

24/07/2024

HALLIBURTON'S PROFIT BOOSTED BY GUYANA - Read Full Article

A MAJOR energy service company that moved much of its regional operations from Trinidad and Tobago to Guyana is reporting high profit. The company’s 2024 second-quarter profit rose by three per cent, to US $3.4 billion, thanks to increased activity in Guyana and other international operations. Hal...

24/07/2024

WHAT IS MUSK’S AGENDA IN GUYANA? - Read Full Article

ONE of the world’s richest men calling the leader of the fastest-growing economy! What could be the interest here? The official statement speaks in nebulous tones of Elon Musk examining opportunities in innovation, technology and other sectors in Guyana. Nothing more has officially emerged, and no...

19/07/2024

VENE POLL COULD SEE RETURN OF MIGRANTS - Read Full Article

THE upcoming Venezuelan presidential election could lead to refugees who fled to Trinidad and Tobago and other countries returning to their homeland. That is the view of international experts, who hinge their speculation on one factor – that Opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez beats authoritaria...

15/07/2024

ORTT’S PARASRAM AT CENTRE OF DENGUE CRISIS - Read Full Article

CHIEF Medical Officer (CMO) Dr. Roshan Parasram, who was given Trinidad and Tobago’s highest honour two years ago, is at the centre of the current deadly dengue crisis. The health emergency is also unmasking Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley’s lack of action. The Ministry of Health, of which Paras...

15/07/2024

DOCUMENT REVEALS SSA’S BEST FOUGHT CRIME - Read Full Article

THE Strategic Services Agency (SSA) helped to fight crime while under director Roger Best, a confidential document has revealed. Under Best’s leadership, SSA worked “toward achieving the strategic objectives,” which included “wide-ranging organisational transformation,” according to the do...

15/07/2024

A CIRCUS IN TOWN… - Read Full Article

THERE is a circus in town – and the characters are clowning around with us. Citizens face hefty fines for the dengue crisis after the authorities failed to carry out pre-emptive clean-up and education campaigns, especially in low-lying rural communities with a higher infection rate. This is despit...

15/07/2024

NOW CANADA WARNS OF TERRORISM THREAT IN T&T - Read Full Article

CANADA has joined the United States and Britain in warning about the threat of terrorism in Trinidad and Tobago. The Canadian advisory was issued two days after the US gave a dire caution to its nationals about the risk of terrorism in T&T. The US statement prompted sharp rebukes from several T&T co...

15/07/2024

CORRUPT PRISONS OFFICERS STEALING MAINTENANCE MONEY - Read Full Article

CERTAIN corrupt prisons officers are collecting maintenance money from errant fathers and not sending it to the treasury. The officers accept the funds from delinquent fathers imprisoned for repeated non-payment. The official procedure is for the maintenance allowances to be paid to the treasury, wh...

15/07/2024

WELCOME TO GUYANA, PRESIDENT ALI TELLS INVESTORS - Read Full Article

GUYANESE President Dr. Irfaan Ali’s open-door welcome to investors is playing well throughout the region. Prospective investors are said to be heartened by Dr. Ali’s ringing endorsement and invitation to enter the Guyanese marketplace. “Guyana is open to investment and has a very friendly inve...

11/07/2024

9 M DENGUE CASES IN THE AMERICAS - Read Full Article

MORE than nine million cases of dengue haemorrhagic fever have been reported over the past six months in this part of the world, including Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) revealed that those nine million deaths are out o...

10/07/2024

PAN HONOURED 94 YEARS AFTER INVENTION - Read Full Article

10/07/2024

PM PLAYS POLITICS WITH SECURITY - Read Full Article

MIXING national security with partisan politics makes a dangerous and toxic brew. But that’s what Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley did when he commandeered Parliament for 45 minutes last week for what he pronounced as a serious and urgent state of affairs. Still with the bogey of the bogus “email...

10/07/2024

CASINO WORKERS TO LOSE JOBS OVER HEFTY NEW FEES - Read Full Article

02/07/2024

5 TROUBLING FACTS ABOUT NAVEEN JINDAL - Read Full Article

1. After Jindal was charged in connection with the so-called “coal scam,” he needed the court’s official permission to travel abroad. He was formally allowed to travel for specified days for business purposes and with certain conditions. As recently as last September, he was required to provid...

02/07/2024

THE MAN WHO WHIPPED AN AG - Read Full Article

IN 1995, Razack Ali beat Attorney General Keith Sobion in the then-Ortoire-Mayaro constituency. Ali, who was involved in the agricultural and lumber sectors, polled 8,944 votes, to Sobion’s 8,201. That made Ali a political giant-killer of sorts, since Sobion had been a high-profile member of Prime...

02/07/2024

LOOK WHO IS TALKING INVESTMENTS - Read Full Article

IN 2022, the most recent year for which official statistics are available, net investments to the value of almost US $1 billion fled Trinidad and Tobago. In contrast, the country attracted US $1.5 billion in investments in 2014. Between both years, Arcellor-Mittal, one of the largest private sector....

02/07/2024

$30 M SECONDARY ROADS BOBOL - Read Full Article

MORE than $30 million in bid-rigging, price-fixing and collusion led to the recent shut down of Secondary Roads Rehabilitation and Improvement Company Ltd. (SRRIC). Of the $62 million spent over the past two years on road works, almost half were tied up in contract rackets, whistleblowers are claimi...