Year: 2016

Government to challenge findings of Rodney probe

TIMES INT'L

Leader of the controversial People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), President David Granger has finally broken his silence on the damning findings of the internationally acclaimed Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry which accused his party of being involved in extrajudicial killings, political assassinations and the intimidation of hundreds of innocent Guyanese at the behest and order of former Prime Minister and President Forbes Burnham. Granger, whose party the PNC is also specifically adjudged of HAVING orchestrated and ordered the death of renowned Guyanese Walter Dr Rodney, was grilled by Guyanese media…

Read More

Young remigrant revolutionising plantain chips business in Guyana

TIMES INT'L

“If the plantain chips come from Guyana, then it packaging somewhere else” was the conclusion of one side as a group of friends debated the origin of the best tasting plantain chips available in New Amsterdam. A glance at the labelling soon upturned that belief: “Maya Hot and Spicy Plantain Chips, product of Guyana”. The Gy$500 at stake over the bet was quickly handed over. Sampling soon began and a further debate commenced, this time over the type of spices used. Navin Hansraj, the manufacturer of Guyana’s ‘number one’ plantain…

Read More

PNC used youth arm to terrorise political opponents – Rodney Report

TIMES INT'L

The People’s National Congress (PNC) used its youth arm, the Young Socialist Movement (YSM), to terrorise innocent Guyanese and politicians who opposed the repressive politics of former Prime Minister and President Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham. This is according to key findings of the internationally acclaimed Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry which was probing the circumstances which led to the death of Guyanese Historian and international scholar, Dr Walter Rodney. The Commission’s final report which has not been officially released by the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change…

Read More

Speaker says will abide by High Court ruling

TIMES INT'L

…Scott, Felix no longer in Parliament BY EDWARD LAYNE Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr Barton Scotland on Monday upheld Justice Ian Chang’s decision, which declared that Citizenship and Immigration Minister Winston Felix and Minister within the Social Protection Ministry Keith Scott cannot sit in the house as non-elected members, since they were candidates on the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) List of Candidates for the May 11, 2015 General and Regional Elections. At the commencement of Monday’s sitting which continued consideration of the 2016 Budget Estimates,…

Read More

Granger stresses importance of community policing in fight against crime

TIMES INT'L

As the Guyana Police Force (GPF) opens its annual Officers’ Conference to review its performance over the past year and to discuss action plans for 2016, President David Granger has touted community policing as an ideal mechanism in the fight against crime and violence. Delivering the feature address at Police Officers’ Annual Conference on Thursday at the Police Officers’ Mess Annex, Eve Leary, he stated that in order to win the war against crime and violence, focus will have to be placed on the causes of these societal scourges. The…

Read More

Discretionary funds

TIMES INT'L

Satiricus breathed a sigh of relief. All the “long talk” was over in the Budget “debate”. Satiricus really had no time with the first week of this annual ritual. It was just an opportunity for the politicians to “mouth off” and show how much they knew. And even there, they cheated: all excepting a handful of them like Nagga Man, had to read from notes. But this week was the real deal…who was going to get what, when and where – money that is. And while some philosopher claimed “money…

Read More

Wear Red and White – Representing our flag

TIMES INT'L

Satiricus was appalled at the ignorance of his fellow Guyanese. He accepted he wasn’t usually the brightest bulb in the room by any means. But even HE knew what the Chief Talker in the National Talk Shop was talking about when he said “Green and yellow are the colours of the National Flag” – our dear, old Golden Arrowhead. And that the Opposition mustn’t “lampoon” our beloved flag. Now Satiricus knew lampooning was bad. You can’t go around mocking people using biting sarcasm and wit. Like those folks who keep…

Read More

Jubilee and the National Question

TIMES INT'L

By Ravi Dev I have always had mixed emotions when thinking about our “independence”.  I am old enough to have experienced first-hand the violent wrenching apart of our peoples that preceded this supposedly blessed state and left it in quotation marks for me ever since. I was in short-pants as the police fired tear gas to clear “peaceful protesters” squatting on my primary schools steps at Uitvlugt during the 80-day strike of 1962. It was an open secret, known even by schoolboys, that the British and the US wanted the…

Read More

Making art intimate

TIMES INT'L

‘Good art is not what it looks like, but what it does to us,’ says young artist Possessing a talent for being creative, Andre Jacobus was inspired to pursue art, which serves as therapy and catalyst, to become a distinguished artist. “Art is one of the few things I enjoy doing. Also, I am always in the habit of creating stuff, so that is why I decided to take it up,” Andre said in an interview with Sunday Times Magazine. The artist recalled that since he was five years old…

Read More

Diddling workers…

TIMES INT'L

…in bauxite In Guyana, as in the Caribbean as a whole, the political class emerged out of the struggle for workers to be treated like human beings. Plain and simple. Brought to provide labour on the plantations, the powers that be defined them as “workers” – like in “worker bees” – who were fulfilled to produce as much sugar as possible. Not “humanely” possible – just “possible”. Even slavery was justified. You’d think with our politicians coming out of that crucible, they’d be a bit more sensitive not to jerking…

Read More