Month: June 2017

Remembering the Birth of a Nation

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By Horace Walcott I was one of the pupil leaders selected by my school, Malgre Tout, to attend a rally at the Parade Ground in Georgetown in honour of Queen Elizabeth II.  Her Majesty and Prince Phillip were visiting Guyana in February of 1966. I can recall standing a few yards from Her Majesty as she took the salutes of military and scout bands as they marched pass her.  I was one of the youngest scouts in Guyana and, though pedantic and introverted, was attracted to the military. There was…

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Art in Pre-independence Guyana ‘Artist had already shown Independence of thought ‘

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Guyana became an independent nation in 1966, but its artists had already, from a generation before, begun to show independence of thought, action and vision. The artistic ferment in Georgetown in the decades between 1930 and 1960 is a yet largely-unrecognised intellectual and philosophical development in Guyana.  The early part of this period laid the foundation for an art which lacks nothing in richness, complexity and ideation. Samuel Horace Broodhagen (1883-1950) is identified as the earliest-known local artist. He was a painter of landscapes and portraits, but not much is…

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Essequibo Coast businessman opens multimillion-dollar supermarket

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By Indrawattie Natram Forty-two-year-old Iftikar Mohamed, a businessman of Cotton Field Village on the Essequibo Coast, has commissioned a multimillion-dollar state-of-the-art supermarket at Supenaam. The father of four said the opening of his second supermarket was a testimony of true courage and determination. He attributed his successes to the almighty and his wife Safeeina. Mohamed ventured into the business of wholesaling and retailing some nine years ago and today, he said, he is proud to be able to have opened a supermarket at a location where there was a dire…

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Changes…

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…in class perspective The PPP was first “abashedly” a Marxist party. But after playing ducks and drakes on the subject with US President John F. Kennedy and getting a quick ouster from office, Jagan came out of the closet in 1969 to declare HIS party was Communist. Among his impressionable protégés were the rustic Moses Nagamootoo from Berbice and the urban (and urbane) Ralph Ramkarran from Bel Air, Georgetown.  Mechanistically following the 19th century European procrustean categories of Marxist sociology, they aped Jagan to insist that race/ethnicity was a mere…

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Waiting to exhale…

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…on Local Government Commission The PNC-led APNU/AFC Government scraped the bottom of the barrel to come up with “125 accomplishments” during their first two years in office. Probably the same barrel they scraped for their 69 National Awardees! They should’ve at least gone back to their Manifesto and taken a gander at the 1254 promises that are still waiting to be fulfilled! One of them was the formation of a Local Government Commission (LGC). Ever since the PNC had bludgeoned the PPP in the streets in the aftermath of the…

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Moco Moco

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The trip from Lethem to Moco Moco village is under 30 minutes. As you pass the village, the scene transforms from savannah into rainforest as the trail wanders through the communities favourite farmlands to the Moco Moco Falls at the base of the mountains. Notably, it is said that most of the areas down and around Lethem seem to have been part of a highly volcanic area a long time ago. There are remnants of lava flows and lava rocks at Moco Moco Falls. According to one visitor to the…

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Driver who fled scene during crash remanded to prison

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Elton Carter, the driver who allegedly fled the scene after crashing into a minibus on Durban and Smyth Streets, Georgetown last Sunday, was on Tuesday charged when he appeared before Magistrate Judy Latchman for causing death by dangerous driving. The charge stated that Carter on May 21, 2017, drove motor pickup GRR 8450 in a manner dangerous to the public thereby causing the death of Daniel Gostavos Richmond. Defence Attorney Stanley Moore seeking to establish that his client is not a flight risk related that Carter is a building contractor…

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G$89M Liliendaal bridge reopened to vehicular traffic

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– after months of rehab work After being closed for more than two months to facilitate rehabilitation works, the Liliendaal bridge located on the train line, Greater Georgetown, is now opened to vehicular traffic. According to the Government, the bridge which was built at the tune of G$89 million was recommended to be repaired by the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB) Inspection Team and engineers attached to the Public Infrastructure Ministry. It was recommended that the bridge be closed for traffic based upon findings which showed that one of the panel…

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Children not the object of sensationalism

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– PM in stern warning to media entities By Samuel Sukhnandan Government has sent a stern warning to media entities, urging them to ensure that children do not become objects of sensational news. Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo said news organisations should desist from carrying negative stories regarding children, and adhere to the laws of Guyana which speaks of the rights of children.  “Children are not the object of sensationalism. If they make the news, they have to make the news in a positive way. And the media has a responsibility,…

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Business sense

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Dear Diary, This is Gas Skin. No…no…no! NOT Ram Own Gas Skin. Please, Dear Diary, don’t keep confusing me with that loudmouth. I am the quiet Gas Skin. I just came back from England trying to drum up some foreign Guyanese to invest back home. It was not as exciting as I thought it would have been. I didn’t get to see the Queen – even though I did see the Guards in their snazzy Red Costumes guarding Buckingham Palace.  I didn’t bother to bring up with the Guyanese they…

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