Blogs

by Knolly Moses

The BBC’s insulting interview with a West Indian elder spread virally on the Internet this week. With colonial high-handedness, a rude and inept news presenter suggested Darcus Howe was a rioter. Fiona Armstrong’s vacuous attempt at painting the respected writer and broadcaster as a criminal was as disingenuous as it was disrespectful, and cost the venerable news organization much of its credibility.

by Gigs

Just when it seemed like PNP comrades were mending fences and making nice, along comes a WikiLeaks exposé to tear down the fragile façade of unity. In a 2008 US diplomatic cable, Peter Philips apparently agreed with a US official that Jamaica risked becoming like Haiti if Portia Simpson-Miller, whom he called a “disaster”, was returned to power.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he went on to tell the US official that it would be too distasteful to serve under another Simpson-Miller run government, and that the 18-year PNP administration had run Jamaica into the ground.

Is it a case of Tek shame mek fight or does Prime Minister Bruce Golding have a valid point? Golding is lashing out at the Gleaner for publishing WikiLeaks’ confidential diplomatic cables that have caste his administration in a bad light. He claims, “There is a sustained effort being made by the power brokers of North Street to harass the government.”

Once again corruption is in the headlines. Well, to be exact, Jamaica’s high level of corruption. Contractor General Greg Christie has made yet another call for Jamaicans to demand decisive and urgent action in the fight against corruption; the US government says corruption continues to undermine efforts against drug and other major crimes; and all the while the white noise continues from the verandahs of upper St. Andrew as the occupants bemoan the corrupt state of affairs in Jamaica.