Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Is this the kind of guidance Red Thread is offering our youths ?


Two mothers and a lesbian

We at Liveinguyana find it very strange that Red Thread of all people would be in support of actions that are politically motivated which at the same time may also lead our children to believe that it is quite okay to be lawless and disrespectful as long as politicians on the other side are the targets.
If this is the kind of guidance the group which consisted of mostly women-apart from a few lesbians and Benschop and Kissoon- who are not doubt mothers are giving this child then it only leaves us to imagine the kind they offer their children.

Ramjattan uses erroneous Mc Dougall report to bolster his claim that Indos being favoured over Afros

The report of the supposedly 'Independent Expert on Minority Issues', Gay McDougall which is being used as a reference in the Jagdeo v/s Kissoon libel case by Kissoon's attorneys caused an uproar in Guyana. The report was deemed extremely flawed and biased. The report consisted of a number of negative findings about human rights violations and racial prejudice, without applying an appropriate methodology. The tone of the McDougall Report suggested that it was intended to reinforce the “Doudou Dienne Report”. That Report suggested that “every level of Guyanese society is permeated by a profound moral, emotional and political fatigue, arising out of the individual and collective impact of ethnic polarisation.”

McDougall had no substantial meetings with Government Officials tasked with human rights responsibilities; but instead met with substantive members of the opposition, the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), ‘fly-by-night’ non-governmental organizations, civil society and some members of the Social Sciences Faculty of the University of Guyana. The so-called independent expert visited communities, and talked to community members about their lives and issues, disregarding inputs from a representative and multiethnic cross-section of Guyana.

Reliable sources indicated that well-known names from the Social Sciences Faculty who are also connected to the PNC assisted in the writing of the McDougall report, giving biased and flawed information to McDougall. McDougall’s reports for Australia and Greece were previously rejected; these countries claimed that the reports were filled with inconsistencies and were grossly slanted against their governments.
The McDougall report exerted the opposition’s line and failed to incorporate even a miniscule aspect of the government’s responses. It was seen in some quarters as an attempt to create racial strife and hostility among Guyanese and disturb the peaceful environment that exists today; so as to provide the catalyst for the destabilization of Guyana. So for Khemraj Ramjattan and Nigel Hughes, both AFC senior members to now use this report as a reference to foster the lie that Jagdeo is racist and all his decisions favour Indo-Guyanese over Afro-Guyanese is shameless.


WICB President apprised of Guyana Gov’t's approach to GCB discord

The measure government intends to use to quell the ongoing furore among members of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) was outlined in detail to President of the West Indies Cricket Board Dr. Julian Hunte, after meeting President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday. His visit to the Head of State followed the establishment of an Interim Management Committee (IMC) to govern the GCB, following a recommendation made by Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang for Government, more particularly the Ministry of Sport, to “take the bull by the horns.”
At yesterday’s meeting, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr Frank Anthony, and West Indies icon, Clive Lloyd, were also present. The discussions were held at President Jagdeo’s State House residence.
A release from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport later yesterday stated that a menu of measures taken by the government to concur with the recent ruling by the Chief Justice (ag) was discussed at the meeting and will be finalised in a subsequent meeting to be held within one week.
The recommendation for government’s involvement in the affairs of the board stemmed from allegations of misdemeanors at the last WICB elections, and an injunction filed by the Berbice Cricket Board against the GCB in that regard.
Flaws in the financial operations of the board and the absence of a quorum at the board’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) were at the centre of the discord.
On August 25, board officials in the three counties were summoned to meetings with President Bharrat Jagdeo at State House for discussions that will hopefully end the ongoing dispute. The meeting ended with President Jagdeo ordering the establishment of an IMC to oversee the affairs of the board.
At a press conference in July, President Jagdeo had described the GCB fiasco as an “unhappy situation” which clamours for government’s involvement and “to some extent, contributes to the West Indies Cricket Board behaving the way it does.”
“We don’t have strong representation there, and it reflects the disorganized nature of our own cricket,” President Jagdeo said.
President Jagdeo has also been at the forefront of government’s involvement in the affairs of cricket regionally, “given that sports are so important to our well-being, particularly cricket in the West Indies, to our psyche and everything else.”
At the recently concluded 32nd regular meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), leaders had heeded President Jagdeo’s call for their intervention in the stalemate between the former West Indies captain, Chris Gayle, and the West Indies Cricket Board by resurrecting the Prime Ministerial sub-committee on cricket.

Jamaica truns to Cuba in an effort to boost its Health Care system

Jamaican Minister of Health Rudyard Spencer says his Government will be recruiting an additional 56 health-care workers from Cuba next month to boost the capacity of the sector.

"We have a tremendous shortage (of health-care workers) worldwide, not just in Jamaica, ... this is why the Ministry of Health has entered into an arrangement with the Cuban government," he said.

He was speaking recently at the official reopening of the Seaview Gardens Health Centre in Kingston Jamaica.

He noted that a team from the ministry visited Cuba last month and interviewed a batch of more than 200 nurses, from which 114 will be selected. These nurses, with various specialities, will be placed in both primary and secondary care systems.

He noted that the workers already recruited have been "doing extremely well", adding that the Cubans have been especially proficient in terms of the service offered at the Jamaica/Cuba Ophthalmology Centre, at the St Joseph's Hospital in Kingston.

Spencer pointed out that, within the first two months of operation, over 1,500 patients were treated at the centre, and it is facilitating persons with eye problems who otherwise would have had to travel to Cuba for treatment.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

AFC's response to Impress Youth is to offer some computers and refreshments



This is precisely why the ruling PPP/C coalition will win the upcoming elections. It is obvious to all that the other parties are out of ideas, lack vision and are only capable of knee-jerk reactions. This is demonstrated once again in the AFC's response to the PPP's Impress Youth-the AFC is actually 'responding' when it should've been leading the way-where they have organized some sot of confabulation in Campbellville with refreshments and the chance to wins computers, cell phones and electronic dictionaries being used to entice youngsters to be part of this event.
Worst is that participants will be addressed by the offspring of AFC senior members who have lived their entire lives outside of Guyana. Wow!

Some inconvenient truths Carl Greenidge and the PNC/APNU cannot ignore.

Dr Leslie Ramsammy: Mr. Carl Greenidge ought to be ashamed of himself and should know that his recent press statements are not only intellectual dishonesty, but reckless. That he was a part of a Government which absolutely destroyed our country is no longer a contentious issue among decent and objective Guyanese; everyone now accepts that the post-independence period up to 1992 were lost years for our proud country.
The fact that the Guyanese people have moved on does not mean we have forgotten. Trying to make the 1964 to 1992 period looks as if they were years of prosperity is not merely insult, its adding salt to our wounds. But, fortunately, the Guyanese people are not fooled and, as they have done every time the opportunity presents itself, they would reject Greenidge and others like him.
Greenidge is blinded by his hate for the PPP/C Government and by his un-quenching thirst for power wielded so mercilessly in the years of the PNC dictatorship. Let me remind Greenidge, however, that truth cannot be changed and truth always walks through fire without being destroyed.
Here is an inconvenient truth that Greenidge would like to change. The Guyanese people today live longer than ever in our history. In 1950, the life expectancy for a Guyanese citizen at birth was 47 years. This increased significantly to 60 by 1964, a gain of 13 years.
The increase in life expectancy achieved in the 1950s and up to 1964 stagnated afterwards and in 1970, the life expectancy was still 60.
In 1990, life expectancy had remained at 60.
Sadly, Guyana made no gains in life expectancy for the period 1964 to 1992 when the PNC was in power. Guyana’s life expectancy now stands at 70 years, a gain of 10 years since 1992.
The life expectancy of a country is usually an indication of a country’s economic and social progress. Even though we were among the Caribbean countries with the highest life expectancy in 1964, we were at the bottom of the life expectancy ranking by 1990, lagging between 10 and 14 years behind other Caribbean countries, outside of Haiti.
But today, Guyana is proudly catching up with the rest of the Caribbean and we have a life expectancy similar to many of the CARICOM countries with a gap of only between 2 and 5 years compared to the highest ranking countries.
Our people are living longer and Greenidge could indulge in intellectual dishonesty and foolishness all he wants – the people know the truth, a very inconvenient truth for Greenidge indeed.
Here are some further very inconvenient truths for Greenidge: Guyana’s economy shrunk between 1964 and 1992, was smaller in 1992 than it was in 1964 and we were the only country in the Caribbean with a zero or negative growth for that period.
Whether we use the Government’s own figures or the IMF’s or the World Bank’s, everyone agrees that between 1964 and 1992, Guyana’s economy overall shrunk and our GDP in 1992 was smaller than it was in 1970 or in 1964.
Guyana’s GDP in 1964 was over $US300 per capita compared to about $US250 in 1992. Between 1992 and 2010, Guyana’s economy grew from $US250 per capita in 1992 to over $US2,500 per capita in 2010 and Guyana, which was classified as a least developed bankrupt country in 1992 is today classified as a middle income country.
The really inconvenient truth for Greenidge is that between 1964 and 1992, the GDP grew in Barbados by 1,100%, Trinidad 400%, Jamaica 260% and Haiti 400%, but Guyana experienced zero growth.
Indeed, the embarrassingly inconvenient truth for Mr. Greenidge is that while he was in charge of the Ministry of Finance, Guyana experienced the most dramatic reduction of our GDP, with negative growth rates virtually every year until 1991. These inconvenient truths may be humiliating, but cannot be changed, no matter how strenuous the efforts to rewrite history or distort the facts.
Mr. Greenidge may not want to face the facts, but the inconvenient truth for him is that under his stewardship, Guyana suffered the most dramatic and unbelievable depreciation of our currency
and the most dramatic reduction in real wages. For example, the Guyana currency which stood at G$3 to $US1 in 1985 was $G125 to $US1 in 1992, unbelievably more than 3,000 percent depreciation during his time. Real wages during this time was reduced and in 1992, real wages (in $US) for public servants was lower than they were in 1964. It’s a legacy Greenidge and the PNC want to evade, an inconvenient truth.
It was in his tenure as Finance Minister that the most dramatic increases in our debt burden occurred. Yet Greenidge shamefully attempted to blame the debt burden on the 1957 – 1964 PPP Government. But in 1964, Guyana’s debt stood at $US60M or $US89 per capita and this loan was mostly through the British Government. Recall that during that period, Guyana’s economy was largely still in the hands of the UK Government.
The PPP Government of that time could not have negotiated any loan on its own. In 1985, under the PNC, the loan ballooned to $US1.5B and this rose to a walloping $US2.1B or $US2,785 per capita, with Greenidge as the Minister of Finance. It was absolutely disgraceful that by 1992 Guyana’s debt was 750% of our GDP. The inconvenient truth for Greenidge is that today the external debt to GDP is less than 40%, among the best in the Caribbean.
Mr. Greenidge shamelessly wrote about the Demerara Harbour Bridge and the Essequibo Coast Road, which he claimed they gave to Guyana and these are still standing. Such brazen efforts to re-write history will not work because the travesty of the Demerara Harbour Bridge and the Essequibo Coast Road are still fresh in people’s memory. While it is true Guyanese are resilient and forgiving and we have a propensity to move on, we do not really have a short memory.
What the PNC left us with is a Demerara Harbour Bridge which was in a state of collapse in 1992. It was down and parts floated away frequently. We preserved this bridge through extensive rehabilitation and maintenance work and investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, enabling it to still be standing. They spent a fortune to build a bridge that by 1992 had become a national disgrace. The inconvenient truth for Greenidge is that we rescued the Demerara Harbour Bridge and are keeping it standing many years beyond its useful life.
It is sheer hypocrisy and it is a blatant lie to claim they left us the Essequibo Coast Road. The inconvenient truth is that there is today an Essequibo Coast Road and it is standing. But in 1992, the Essequibo Coast Road was being called the “Abortion” Road. It was not merely a road with many potholes, the road had virtually disappeared. The PPP/C Government has completely re-constructed the Essequibo Coast Road.
What stands on the Essequibo Coast today is a glorious reminder to the people of the Essequibo Coast and Guyana of the difference between the PPP/C and the PNC. The PPP/C has a legacy of building, of making lives better and allowing people to live with dignity; the PNC has a legacy of destruction, bringing enormous pain to the lives of people and depriving people of their dignity.

Monday, August 29, 2011

JOKE OF THE DAY: The academic qualifications of Gordon Anestase Moseley


Source: Wikileaks U.S Diplomatic Cable

Waddell's killing the result of a drugs or other criminal deal gone sour -Wikileaks Cable


Ronald Waddell

US officials believed that former PNC MP and controversial talk show host Ronald Waddell's 2006 execution was most likely as a result of a drug or other criminal deal that went sour. This was revealed in the latest batch of U.S Diplomatic cables released by whistle-blowing site Wikileaks last week on Guyana.Waddell was named as one of the political architects of the Buxton/Agricola gang which was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of persons during the crime waves that started in 2002/2003.



Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
06GEORGETOWN111 2006-02-01 13:32 2011-08-26 00:00 UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Embassy Georgetown

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS GEORGETOWN 000111

SIPDIS

SIPDIS
SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PINS ASEC KCRM GY
SUBJECT: PROMINENT AFRO-GUYANESE JOURNALIST RONALD
WADDELL MURDERED

¶1. Prominent Afro-Guyanese journalist/television talk
show host/politician, Ronald Waddell, was gunned down in
front of his home at in the Subryanville section of
Georgetown, seven doors down from the USAID Mission
Director’s residence, at approximately 8:30 p.m. on
January 30.

¶2. Waddell hosted a controversial talk show and stood for
parliament as a PNC/R candidate in the 2001 elections.
He was a central figure in organizing post-election
violence and was arrested and charged in May 2001 on two
counts of sedition for inflammatory statements on the
air. The government twice suspended his TV program for
his on-air inflammatory remarks. In October 2005 Waddell
praised the work of the “Buxton resistance”, referring to
armed Afro-Guyanese militants who turned Buxton Village
into an armed camp where government security forces
feared to enter and who kidnapped post’s former RSO. The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a diplomatic note to
foreign missions condemning the Waddell’s statement. The
most recent suspension was still in force at the time of
his death. Consular FSN recalls that Waddell had been
deported from the U.S. fifteen years ago. Information
available at Post suggests that Waddell did have a FBI
record
.

¶3. Several rumors are circulating in Georgetown to
explain the killing.

- One rumor is that the PPP/C government is responsible
for the killing as retribution for Waddell’s extreme anti-
government stance.

- A second rumor is that the opposition PNC/R or its
fringe elements perpetrated the killing, hoping that
blame falls on the PPP/C.

- A third rumor, suggests that the killing is gang-
related, the result of a drugs or other criminal deal
gone sour. In post’s judgement this is the more likely
scenario.

BULLEN

Sasenarine Singh should write a letter detailing the abuse he inflicted on his wife and those bribes he took.


Sasenarine Singh

Will the AFC's Sasenarine Singh write a letter detailing the accusations of fraud and soliciting bribes made against him(Click here to see) by established businessmen who identified themselves and publicly detailed instances and amounts involved?
Or will he write one detailing the physical abuse he inflicted on his wife Gitanjali Singh which often resulted in broken limbs and subsequently forced the former Stabroek News reporter to flee for her life?