PNM in Gov't(2015-2020)

[sMASH]

Stark entertainment, is that u?

[The_Honourable]

How the rest and reflect going so far?

[D Diesel Report]

PEP grab less than 50 people for dey protest. I wonder when dat party gonna fizzle out... either with the local government results or the general election results.... who taking bets?

[Gladiator]

How the rest and reflect going so far?

There seems to be a media blackout today on all protest action

[The_Honourable]

How the rest and reflect going so far?

There seems to be a media blackout today on all protest action

Brrr?

A media blackout? How exactly? Not impossible but hard to pull off with social media around.

I'm out of the country so trying to keep up.

[shake d livin wake d dead]

most are reporting business as usual

[Gladiator]

How the rest and reflect going so far?

There seems to be a media blackout today on all protest action

Brrr?

A media blackout? How exactly? Not impossible but hard to pull off with social media around.

I'm out of the country so trying to keep up.

Media blackout as in mainstream media blackout.... TTT, CNC3, TV6

Rowley: " Aye CNC3 make sure and doh show nutting with Roget and them in tv eh"
CNC3: " Sure ting boss"

[The_Honourable]

Ohhh i see... thanks for that Gladiator

[aaron17]

Given the traffic into PoS this morning I wouldn't think too much people heeded the call to rest and reflect.

It didn't have traffic around 6.

[fatboy slim]

Ohhh i see... thanks for that Gladiator

[Kasey]

[agent007]

Some people really special yes. You get caught in a roadblock with a 3line in your trunk wrapped in newspaper and somehow the US Embassy finds out and denies you a visa or renewal visa. Then there is AR, who can create civil unrest and support nationwide anarchy and amongst other unlawful acts but yet is allowed in the US without question.

[eliteauto]

Watson Duke in Miami also.

[De Dragon]

Watson Duke in Miami also.

Wha' Dukey do? Aside from his rape allegations that is.

[shake d livin wake d dead]

About right

[De Dragon]

About right

What is sad is that with the exception of ex soldier Antoine, every single person in that picture has some scandal or arseness attached to their name Every single one. You think I'm lying? Pick one, any one.

[Rovin]

[shake d livin wake d dead]

The avinash fella under it too?

[The_Honourable]

Keet drop a video... the La Brea Drydocking Facility

[vaiostation]

Wonder how much we gotta pay de chiney for this?

Hope we don't end up like Sri Lanka, who let de chiney build de port for them, but then couldn't repay the debt, so now de chiney have a 99 year lease on de port.

[Gladiator]

Wonder how much we gotta pay de chiney for this?

Hope we don't end up like Sri Lanka, who let de chiney build de port for them, but then couldn't repay the debt, so now de chiney have a 99 year lease on de port.

We let the chinee build Napa and Sapa - hundreds of millions in cost overuns
They have the Eteck park like a white elephant half way build and a billion+ spend
They never finish the UWI south campus. Default on the contract

We still geein dem ting to build?

[hydroep]

Sh!tkicker say that project will provide 5,000 jobs, ex-Petrotrin workers could apply dong dey...

[sMASH]

Wonder how much we gotta pay de chiney for this?

Hope we don't end up like Sri Lanka, who let de chiney build de port for them, but then couldn't repay the debt, so now de chiney have a 99 year lease on de port.

We let the chinee build Napa and Sapa - hundreds of millions in cost overuns
They have the Eteck park like a white elephant half way build and a billion+ spend
They never finish the UWI south campus. Default on the contract

We still geein dem ting to build?

The uwi south campus is nearing completion, it was left abandoned a little while ago though.

They intentionally keeping the couva hospital down.

That thing of the dry dock and defaulting, well, so far, no deals went like that,

What would America think of having a Chinese dock used so close to Venezuela ? Or even Atlantic lng.

Lol.



That dry dock is like the first good decision they made that could help the country as a whole.
The only other real thing was to cut back on goverment expenditure.

[shake d livin wake d dead]

I tort they ha no moarney

[Cantmis]

Dry dock = angelin

[rspann]

La Brea people will run them out with protests and bad behaviour. Growlers warn them , but is like when AbuBakr said "there must be no looting".

[Gladiator]

Wonder how much we gotta pay de chiney for this?

Hope we don't end up like Sri Lanka, who let de chiney build de port for them, but then couldn't repay the debt, so now de chiney have a 99 year lease on de port.

We let the chinee build Napa and Sapa - hundreds of millions in cost overuns
They have the Eteck park like a white elephant half way build and a billion+ spend
They never finish the UWI south campus. Default on the contract

We still geein dem ting to build?

The us I south campus is nearing completion, it was left abandoned a little while ago though.

They intentionally keeping the couva hospital down.

That thing of the dry dock and defaulting, well, so far, no deals went like that,

What would America think of having a Chinese dock used so close to Venezuela ? Or even Atlantic lng.

Lol.



That dry dock is like the first good decision they made that could help the country as a whole.
The only other real thing was to cut back on goverment expenditure.

Yeah UWI South campus being completed by different contractor's.... The Chinese disappear 3 years now...

[The_Honourable]

China’s game of debt

If you’re like me, when you think of China, you imagine magnificent things like the Ming dynasty, the Yangtze river and of course the Wu Tang Clan album, ‘Enter the 36 Chambers’. But if you’re a Trinbagonian politician , China only means one thing ; easy money. That’s because for over a decade China has been dishing out soft loans to suckers, sorry, I mean developing nations to fund infrastructure projects. It’s part of China’s strategy to strengthen their geopolitical influence. But as my genius cousin Sheldon, who took a loan with a certain now deceased car dealer discovered , there is no such thing as easy money and these nations have now found themselves ensnared in a debt trap; with a creditor who wants more than their 2001 Toyota Corolla as repayment.

Soft Chinese loans have helped to fund numerous projects in T&T, from the National Academy of the Performing Arts, to the Diplomatic Centre to the Couva Children's Hospital and more. T&T ‘s politicians love Chinese loans so much you would swear it comes with free wantons and crispy skin pork. According to the Ministry of Finance T&T owes China TT$ 2.2 Billion. A smart person would try and stop this debt spiral which explains why Dr. Rowley thinks it’s a great idea to borrow a further US$100 Million from China to build an industrial park in Point Lisas. But what’s more concerning is that this proposed park is being billed as T&T’s official entry into China’s ‘One belt, one road’ initiative (OBOR) According to China OBOR is meant to “enhance regional connectivity”. But according to critics the only thing OBOR is meant to enhance is the capability and reach of the People’s Liberation Army.

One only needs to look at recent events in Sri Lanka to see the pitfalls that signing up to OBOR brings. For years Sri Lanka’s President Mahindra Rajapaksa looked for investors for his Hambamtota Port Development Project, but usual lenders India kept turning him down , pointing out that the port would be as profitable as opening a geera pork shed in Saudi Arabia. China however gave Mr. Rajapaksa all the loans he asked for. When the port predictably failed, Sri Lanka struggled to maintain its debt payments, and then the Port and the land around it became the property of China.

According to former Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, that was China’s plan all along. “ The only way to justify the investment in Hambantota is from a national security standpoint — that they will bring the People’s Liberation Army in” said Menon.

Sri Lanka isn't alone , The Center for Global Development , analyzed debt to China that will be incurred by nations participating in OBOR and have listed eight nations Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, the Maldives, Mongolia, Montenegro, Pakistan, and Tajikistan.- as all being vulnerable to above average debt. This debt they said would be a serious threat to a nation’s overall development and expressed concern that Beijing doesn't follow best practices adopted by international lenders. That last part might explain why during Sri Lanka’s election in 2015 no one seemed to notice that millions of dollars was flowing out of the Chinese port construction fund and into Mr. Rajapksa’s campaign.

None of this appears to matter to Dr. Rowley’s Government , who boasted about the proposed Industrial Park as if it were a major “investment”. Which only makes sense if you think borrowing money at predatory interest rates to buy lottery tickets is an investment . The government has trotted out the usual tired lines about the park being part of ‘economic diversification’ and ‘creating employment’ and even that Chinese firms will be taking up residence.

But some lingering questions remain, like; were any feasibility studies done on this proposed park ? What will make this park different from the dozens of Industrial parks we’ve already built and which are all struggling to generate any meaningful activity? Or why would Chinese firms, who have access to vast amounts of productive labour at home be interested in a small country where people take a day off before a public holiday to prepare for it?

But hey on a completely unrelated note, did you know the Gulf of Paria has one of the deepest natural harbours in the Western Hemisphere? You didn’t? Well don't feel bad, -it’s not like you have a navy and want to do military drills in the Atlantic or anything.

Darryn Dinesh Boodan
Trinidad Express

[sMASH]

That's just it eh, it could work, but how much business could it really attract?

I could understand the Brian Lara stadium will be a buss, but with dry docking, I don't understand that enough to know if it could pull business or not.

Because, in my little understanding, I would prefer to do my maintenance at the end of a departure/arrival point. Trinidad is not a destination, but a place along the routes,,, and not that close by neither.

So, I would think boats would be passing by while the are in transit to collect or deliver cargo. And I would not want to delay that to dry dock.


I can see that boats that do come to Trinidad may use Trinidad as an option to dry dock. And that would be the petrochemical boats or the pitch shipment boats.



(We can't use pitch to pave roads but other countries could use it to pave)

[shake d livin wake d dead]

How much that facility costing ?