Monthly Archives: September 2008

Guyana Times Front Page Headline (September 30th 2008): “World financial crisis deepens as Wall Street bail-out fails”

The quackery at the Guyana Times is on glorious display once again. They quack editor Avery ‘Fowl Up’ Gomes does not even understand what is going on. He is clearly guessing as he writes his headline and wishing for the best.

It cannot be said that the bail out failed. That would imply that the bail-out was effected but proved ineffective. Of course the bail-out has not happened because it has been blocked. Therefore the quack editor Avery ‘Fowl Up’ Gomes should have written that the bail-out was ‘blocked’ not ‘failed’.

So reports are that the heavily promoted Genesis Fashion Show at the Promenade Gardens on Sunday evening put on by the people who are putting together the Accolade Music Awards was a big buss show.

The programme was a disaster, the sound was worse than the Carifesta opening ceremony sound catastrophe and the whole production was amateur and worse than poor.

Oh well. Why were we expecting anything better?

The owner of Toucan Suites which was destroyed in 2000 by the police and army in their raid to take out notorious criminal Linden ‘Blackie’ London was today awarded GY$125,000,000 in damages.

The guesthouse where Blackie was hiding out for some time was completely destroyed by a combination of heavy artillery and fire.

Permission was sought from the owner to destroy portions of the building at the time of the gunfight and permission was granted by the owner after he was assured that he would be compensated for all damages however it this position was later withdrawn and the owner went to court and after eight years won his case.

For the record let’s just say, in terms of technical quality this is what we think:

1. NCN Six O’Clock News - 6 out of 10
2. Capitol News - 5 out of 10
3. The Evening News - 1 1/2 out of 10
4. Prime News - Bottom house newscast
5. GNA Newswatch - Bottom house newscast
6. First Look News - Bottom house newscast
7. MTV News Update - Bottom house newscast

GNA Newswatch anchor Andrew Weekes: “Join us for balanced news, Monday to Friday from 5:30pm”

This was at the start of the newscast at 5:44pm and without any apologies whatsoever for the late start. Life in Guyana - anything goes.

PS: Is it that Andrew is missing teeth or he got bad teeth? Or gold teeth? We’re not quite sure but something really nah look right. And how he resemble Linden ‘Jumbie’ Jones so? Dem is brother or wha?

Neil Marks, who was recently fired by Guyana Times for not bowing to political pressure and interference and writing a frank report on the Carifesta opening ceremony will join the Capitol New team from tomorrow.

Marks had worked at Guyana Chronicle before moving over to the Guyana Times where he served as editor before be was ruthlessly fired without explanation.

Living Guyana was just informed that Nerissa Pearson of NCN radio and television has submitted her letter of resignation. She will resign effective October 5th.

Living Guyana understands that she will be migrating to a Caribbean island.

While we think she is a lovely lady we think she is wholly unfit for broadcast media so we have this to say: good riddance!

We think she needs to seek out a new profession and work hard at it and be very successful because she will never become a master broadcasters because her voice is just too annoying.

Further to this and in spite of this Living Guyana has just been informed by a well placed PPP source that the PPP and PNC are on the verge of stunningly agreeing in principle that the two long standing parties which have dominated the Guyanese political landscape will contest the next general election as a coalition with President Bharrat Jagdeo as the presidential candidate and Robert Corbin, leader of the PNC as the prime ministerial candidate.

The source told Living Guyana that there is strong opposition to the proposed move on both sides with senior members of both the PPP and the PNC objecting to it but the move is being aggressively pushed by President Bharrat Jagdeo on the PPP end and Corbin on the PNC side.

President Jagdeo is desperately seeking a third term in office but this is not constitutionally allowed unless there is consent, agreement and approval from the PNC and with Corbin being aware that the PNC’s chances of realistically prevailing at the polls are slim, he is using Jagdeo’s proposal to score big political clout for himself and some party members loyal to him such as Winston Murray.

It is understood that the several and extensive Cabinet changes being orchestrated by President Jagdeo will now not take place as previously reported by Living Guyana. There will be minimal changes while the party will keep the majority of the Cabinet intact leading up to the 2011 elections.

The agreement between the two major parties is that post-elections a yet to be agreed number of senior PNC members will be given ministerial posts.

The rationale for no longer pursuing the major Cabinet shake up is that it would give the new ministers just two or three years to act in their roles and many of them will then have to be removed to accommodate the PNC compromise ministers. Therefore there will be one major Cabinet change up post-2011.

Those in the two parties who oppose the move are vociferously claiming internally that the two party leaders are putting their own personal interests and ambitions ahead of their respective parties and the country as a whole. Within the PNC the objections are coming mostly from those who were in the Vincent Alexander camp when Corbin’s leadership of the party was challenged. Whereas in the PPP longstanding stalwarts who suffered at the hands of the PNC government during their 28 years of reign are against the move.

Jagdeo and Corbin are attempting to sell the proposed move as their big thrust for inclusive governance but several members of both parties are skeptical of this and have scoffed at such talk.

*More on this developing story as it becomes available.

Do you agree with a PPP/PNC coalition government? Email your responses to guyanamediacritic[at]gmail.com or post a comment.