BahamasUncensored.Com Archive

THE HIRED HANDS
The standard of journalism is low in this country. Perhaps it is low everywhere in the West or maybe it is that we are hankering for an age that simply does not exist. You have a Guardian writer who continues to write stories about an agency and a Minister that he worked for less than year ago as if there is nothing wrong with that obvious conflict of interest. It is brought to the attention of his employers and nothing is done about it.

A headline is carried in the Bahama Journal that is completely inaccurate, and it is bought to the attention of the editors and again nothing is done about it.

The Tribune has hired an Englishman as its managing editor who hates The Bahamas, hates Bahamians, hates black people, publishes racist drivel in the press each week; hates especially and the PLP Government that stands for the national patrimony of The Bahamas but fortunately for him it does not have the courage to give him his walking papers back to the land that he left where he languished on the regional paper circuit.

In some senses the mainstream newspapers have joined the down market papers as they compete for ever more salacious material and sensational headlines. No paper tries anymore to be a paper of record. But they are the record anyway. What they record is a pretty sordid collection of nonsense that will one day pass for the history of a people.

It is possible for example for the Government to announce that it has increased the pensions of retired civil servants by 50 dollars per month beginning the 1st January 2007 and given them a $300 lump sum, and no newspaper carries it. But instead the class clown as we have called him Rodney Moncur can be carried with a detailed piece of propaganda calling for the excommunication from the Anglican Church because of the supposed role of the Foreign Minister in the arrest of the Nassau Flight Services baggage handlers in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Each week, there is a new low and a new lament. Each week there are only a few PLPs who will dare to battle back.

The Branch Meeting in Fox Hill stunned the FNM. It is always interesting to see someone who is running by themselves. They always look like they are running fast. It is only when they are involved in a competition that you truly see how fast the other side is running. So when the PLP brought out its forces, the FNM was stunned. They had come to believe their own propaganda that the PLP was not a force to be reckoned with. If they can’t hear they will feel.

The FNM’s candidate for Fox Hill went on a public platform in Fox Hill to denigrate, defame and dismiss the incumbent PLP Fred Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell had been warning them for months to fight a clean campaign. They did not listen, and the result was he struck back at his meeting on Monday 29th January. He responded to the allegation made by the candidate that Mr. Mitchell had done nothing in Fox Hill, does nothing for anyone in Fox Hill. He told how he had done a personal favour for a close relative of the candidate. He told how he had done favours for the candidate herself after she had abandoned her post as the head of the Fox Hill Festival. He told how he had done a personal favour for her husband.

Two days later stung by the charges The Tribune was in full gear with one letter writer after the next responding with additional lies of their own. The husband was himself incensed, writing that the Minister was in a panic and that the charges levelled against him were untrue. It is so sad. The co-ordinator of the Fox Hill constituency office responded that Minister Mitchell stood by his story. You may click here for the full address of Mr. Mitchell and you may click here for the response of the Constituency Co-ordinator.

The interesting fact about this is the feigned outrage by the candidate and her husband over the remarks. It has to be feigned because when they went and engaged in a campaign of deceit and lies throughout the constituency did they ever imagine that this was something that could not have a consequence. The same with the FNM itself.

Carl Bethel, who must be the most impish politician in public life, continues to mislead and try to create scandal where there is none. Up to last week he was back in the newspapers again denying that he was complicit in obtaining visas for someone whom the police believed was involved in smuggling Haitians into The Bahamas. He then sought to adduce evidence that he said showed that the Minister has approved visas for another group of people. This again is evidence that had been fully discredited by the Minister in November 2005 when he brought the first allegations. Despite the fact that it has been disproved over and over again, the newspapers continue to print nonsense.

There is a very interesting tack they take with regard to Fred Mitchell. They will print unsubstantiated allegations about Mr. Mitchell without contacting him. But when he responds they run off to the next side and say this is what he has said, what is your response.

The Bahama Journal for example did not print what Mr. Mitchell said with regard to what he had done for the FNM Fox Hill candidate and her husband save and except to lead with a misleading headline about Mr. Mitchell telling civil servants how to vote. In that story which led on Tuesday 30th January, the writer said that Mr. Mitchell savaged the FNM candidate but did not say what he had said. Yet the very next day, there was a front page story of the response of the husband of the FNM candidate without any attempt to contact Mr. Mitchell to find out what he had to say in response to it.

What is clear is that there is a concerted and sustained campaign by the FNM which is aimed at Fox Hill. Mr. Mitchell himself said that it is clear that Mr. Ingraham is driven by a hatred of Fred Mitchell which knows no bounds. The cartoonist Stan Burnside seemed not to accept that because he published two cartoons that seemed decidedly negative in their implications for a simple message. Mr. Mitchell indicated that if Fox Hill is lost then the PLP loses the election. The fact is with a majority of 1200 votes, and a country that votes for a party not the man, a shift of such a proportion to move 1200 votes in five years means that there has been a shift in the country that will cause the FNM to win. There is no evidence of such a shift.

The knives are clearly out. Rodney Moncur, the class clown is suddenly active in all sorts of nonsense. The question is where is he getting the money from to do what he is doing? He certainly does not have it himself. The letter writing campaign in the press by known FNM operatives in which scores of column inches are given to writers to savage Fred Mitchell and the PLP. The man in the street interviews, the radio talk shows, all of them inundated with people who call every day, who turn up in every forum saying that the Government is doing nothing.

The evidence is compelling on the other side that the Government has had one success after another but the message does not seem to be getting out, and you cannot dismiss that the reasons it isn’t getting out is because of a press that is anti PLP and press relations not properly handled by the PLP.

Let us say what we think. The hired hands are on the attack. The PLP must launch its missiles in return.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 3rd February 2007 up to midnight: 88,137.

Number of hits for the month of January up to Wednesday 31st January 2007 up to midnight: 30,092.

Number of hits for the year 2007 up to Saturday 3rd February 2007 up to midnight: 444,898.

THE REGISTER TO CLOSE

    Prime Minister Perry Christie announced on Thursday 1st February that in accordance with the law, the register on which the last general election was fought will be closed as of 12th March 2007 and a new register of voters will come into force. Registration for the new register began about 18 months ago and some 109,000 persons have registered to vote. The Parliamentary Commissioner is disappointed with this number because he believes that there should be some 160,000 voters on the rolls.
    The new register of voters will determine the new boundaries for the next general election. One report has it that Bahamians are a last minute people. They say that in the 2002 election, some 30,000 people registered in the last 30 days prior to the register closing. Already the speculation has started about boundaries.
    One of the papers ran a story during the week that the constituency of St. Margaret’s is to disappear. This would make sense because the PLP opposed its creation in 2002. The seat was created to cause the votes of the Kemp Road area to be diluted by the votes of Blair, making it a second safe FNM seat in New Providence and get rid of Pierre Dupuch. What the FNM did not count on was that as a party they would self destruct when Mr. Ingraham fired Pierre Dupuch. Mr. Dupuch left the FNM and ran as an independent in 2002. He was not opposed by the PLP and he won the seat. The FNM's candidate in 2002 was Loretta Butler Turner, granddaughter of the first Bahama Governor General Sir Milo Butler who was a PLP before going to Government House.
    The hope is that with closing the register this will spur more people to go out and register since it is clear that elections are coming. The Prime Minister has said that he will hold the election on or before the 2nd May 2007.
Prime Minister Perry Christie announces the close of the register of voters. Bahamas Information Services photo: Peter Ramsay

THE BRANCH MEETING IN FOX HILL

Prime Minister Perry Christie when he showed up to the meeting in Fox Hill told the crowd gathered there that he was listening to it on the radio and he could hear the excitement and he thought since he was the leader of the party, and although he had not been invited, he would crash the meeting. What a meeting he crashed. Mr. Christie was able to call up two former FNMs to the podium and he said that others were coming. But the most enduring line must be Philip Brave Davis MP for Cat Island who was on his cell phone and told the party on the line he had to go, because he was attending “one Branch Meeting” up in Fox Hill. Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services was there and it’s his photos that tell a thousand words. Please click here for Mr. Ramsay’s complete photo essay.

SIDEBURNS ON FRED MITCHELL

Stan Burnside’s ‘Sideburns’ from The Nassau Guardian of Tuesday 30th January, 2007

Stan Burnside’s ‘Sideburns’ from The Nassau Guardian of Wednesday 31st January, 2007

Most times Stan Burnside of the Sideburns cartoon carried in the Nassau Guardian is a safe predictor and interpreter of what is happening politically in Nassau. But two cartoons seem off kilter and out of type this past week on the 31st and 30th January. They seemed to have missed the mark but then again who knows. We present them simply for the entertainment value.

PENSIONS FOR RETIREES RAISED
Fred Mitchell, the Minister for the Public Service, announced in Fox Hill on Monday 29th January and again in the House of Assembly on Wednesday 31st January that the Government has decided to raise the pensions of retired public servants by a lump sum of 300 dollars and that each civil servant will get an additional 50 dollars per month on to their pensions effective 1st January 2007. You may click here for the Minister's presentation in the House of Assembly.

INGRAHAM OPPOSES PENSION BILL
    The Minister for the Public Service led the debate in Parliament on Wednesday 31st January to bridge the service of a number of public servants who had been Beach Wardens under the Ministry of Tourism and were transferred to the Police but could not take their years of service with them from the Ministry. There was a more omnibus bill to allow the Minister for the Public Service to bridge the service of all civil servants, a power that is exercised now but that has no statutory basis.
    The measure was opposed by Hubert Ingraham, the Leader of the Opposition because he said that he did not want the power in the hands of a Minister, especially one like Fred Mitchell. In Fox Hill on Monday 29th January, Mr. Mitchell pointed out that Mr. Ingraham has a hatred for Fred Mitchell that knows no bounds. Mr. Ingraham appeared again to reinforce the case.
    Alfred Gray, the MP PLP for Mayaguana, Acklins, Crooked Island and Long Cay (MICAL) said that Mr. Ingraham ought to be ashamed of himself for keeping his pension as a former Prime Minister and collecting the salary of a Leader of the Opposition and an MP, and then seeking to deny a little increase to public servants who were retired and on fixed incomes. He said that Mr. Ingraham knew no shame. We agree. The Bills were passed and now move on to the Senate.

MINISTER OF TOURISM APOLOGISES
    Last week, we reported on this site that there was considerable confusion in the country on whether or not there was a suspension of the Western Hemisphere Passport Initiative of the United States. The passport initiative mandates that all passengers on flights leaving the Caribbean including The Bahamas must have passports to enter the US. The industry in the region was able through its foreign ministers to get the deadline pushed back one year to 23rd January 2007. The Tourism Ministers and the industry were still not satisfied and one of their spokesmen described the potential effect as being that of a category six hurricane. That kind of hyperbole did not serve the region well. The facts have proven otherwise and the industry is adjusting to the matter quite well.
    In fact the region ought to have stopped allowing American tourists into this region without passports long time ago. It simply is not secure to do so. But the industry wants a level playing field, not ceding any ground to the cruise ships who can continue to take on passengers with no passports into 2009.
    In The Bahamas it was mistakenly announced that the US had granted a waiver of the initiative. The Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe in a press conference on Thursday 1st February apologized to the country for the confusion it caused by the use of the word waiver, with the US Ambassador saying one thing and the Ministry of Tourism another. All is well that ends well.

POOR DWIGHT HIGGS
    At Tony Brown’s on Saturday 3rd February, the men and women of the village of Fox Hill gathered and they do each Saturday for the best jerk chicken in town bar none. Tony Brown just knows what he is doing with chicken. Dwight Higgs, the husband of the FNM candidate for Fox Hill, and all around loud mouth was at Tony’s trying to defend himself in the face of the slap back by the PLP at its meeting on Monday 29th January in Fox Hill. He had himself a hard task.
    The fellows told him in no uncertain terms and that he and his wife were in for the biggest cut a… excuse our French in their lives. He was taken to task for misleading the country on the question of what took place when he begged Fred Mitchell to help save his contract at Paradise Island, not once but twice. Mr. Higgs claims that the work by done by Mr. Mitchell in repairing homes and making homes liveable and in building homes for the indigent from scratch was done by Urban Renewal. It just shows you what a simple minded man he is. Urban Renewal is a government, a PLP programme which could not do the job if Mr. Mitchell and his colleagues did not bring it to Fox Hill.
    He claims to have other information which he is going to use to defeat Mr. Mitchell. A defeat in Dwight Higgs’ dreams of course. A word to the wise is usually sufficient but in this case we are probably wasting our time. This is the same man whose friends were going around saying that they heard that he had built the church that he goes to in Fox Hill for free when in fact he was paid for every dime of service that he rendered. The point is this, it’s his wife that’s the candidate not him but he sure does have a lot to say.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE FOX HILL BRANCH MEETING

What a branch meeting it was. It was the branch meeting to end all branch meetings. It is estimated that at its height 4000 people showed up to hear the Ministers of the Government talk about their policies and put the FNM in their places in Fox Hill where they sought to trouble the incumbent representative for Fox Hill Fred Mitchell. The meeting was broadcast live on Love 97 and Gems Radio. A good time was had by all. It was informative and it was politically spicy. The PLP had a good time (see our photo essay). Below we report some of what some of the speakers had to say:
St. Thomas More MP Frank Smith shown as he delights the crowd in this Nassau Guardian photo by Ferreno Ferguson

Glenys Scored The FNM

Minister of Transport Glenys Hanna Martin said that she did not need the credit for what she had done for the transportation sector in the country by improving the airports and the docks with multi million dollars of expenditure left to be done because of the neglect of the FNM. She said that she would forgo the credit if the FNM would accept the responsibility for their failures.
Glenys Hanna Martin: file photo

Shane Gibson Attacks The Glass Ceiling

The Minister for Immigration spoke up for Bahamian professionals when he said that there was a glass ceiling in The Bahamas beyond which Bahamian professionals could not go and that he was determined to remove it by aggressive policies to combat it. He warned employers on the question. Next move should be to give John Marquis of The Tribune his walking ticket home to England.
Nassau Guardian photo: Ferreno Ferguson

Leslie Miller Speaks Up for Grouper Ban

Minister for Marine Resources Leslie Miller spoke up in favour of the moves by his Ministry to protect the grouper in The Bahamas during the spawning season which comes at the full moon in December to February. He ridiculed Hubert Ingraham, the Leader of the Opposition, for suggesting that a ban on the grouper should be shifted to each island from month to month. Mr. Miller said that he looked up over The Bahamas and there is one moon that covers the whole country, so he learned something new when Mr. Ingraham suggested shifting from one island to the next from month to month. That meant that there is more than one moon in The Bahamas, a moon for each island. The crowd dissolved into laughter.
Leslie Miller: file photo

PM Says The Tribune Is A Threat To The PLP
Prime Minister Perry Christie told supporters in Fox Hill that one of the main threats to the government of the PLP is The Tribune. He urged supporters to pin up Tribune articles on their walls as an inspiration for the upcoming campaign, because The Tribune is determined to return Hubert Ingraham to power and to be aware of who is trying to take the PLP out.

IN PASSING
Agatha Marcelle To Leave The House

On Wednesday 31st January in the House of Assembly announced that she will not be standing for re election to the House when the general election is held later this year. Ms. Marcelle said that she had been pleased to serve and that she would continue to serve. Speaking for the Progressive Liberal Party, Fred Mitchell, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, congratulated Ms. Marcelle on her contribution to the House and her devotion of her constituents and said that he was sure that she would continue to give public service.
Agatha Marcelle is shown in this file photo being sworn in as Parliamentary Secretary by former Governor General Ivy Dumont

Nottage For The Bain Town Seat

The PLP has not chosen its candidates for the next general election but there is already speculation in the press about who is going where. The press has speculated that Bradley Roberts the incumbent MP for Bain and Grants Town is not returning to office and that Dr. Bernard Nottage who returned to the PLP last year as a Minister of Health will be running in his stead. This will be a major disappointment for Rev. C.B. Moss who has been trying to get the PLPs nomination for the seat. No confirmation from the Party however on what is to be.
B.J. Nottage: file photo

FNM List of Candidates
The FNM has revealed its list of candidates for the next general election. There are 39 candidates for 40 seats. So far they can’t find anyone to run for St. Cecilia against Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia ‘Mother’ Pratt. The Boundaries Commission has not yet reported to fix the new constituencies for The Bahamas but the talk is that St. Margaret’s is to be eliminated and a new seat fashioned out west in New Providence to take into account the population shift. But what is being said is the map submitted by the Leader of the Opposition’s representative on the Commission virtually assures former Leader and now Senator Tommy Turnquest a defeat to the PLP but seeks to ensure that Mr. Ingraham’s friends Dr. Hubert Minnis and Lawyer Michael Barnett get safe seats. This is an amazing fellow. He is eliminating the real FNMs one by one.

Raising The Minimum Wage
Shane Gibson, the Minister for Labour told the PLP's Branch Meeting in Fox Hill on Monday 29th January that he was looking into amending the labour laws to increase the present $150 per week minimum wage law. No word on how much it will be but the minimum wage in the Government service is $175 per week.

Senator Doswell Coakley

Prime Minister Perry Christie has appointed Dr Doswell Coakley the PLP’s candidate for High Rock and the former President of the Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce, to the Senate. The instrument of appointment came on Monday 29th January and he was sworn in on Wednesday 31st January. Congratulations to our friend and brother. He promised while in the Senate to be a voice for Grand Bahama. Senator Coakley and his wife Janice are pictured with Prime Minister Perry Christie at a Government House reception which followed his formal swearing in,
BIS photo: Peter Ramsay

Lady Dupuch Buried
Lady Marie, the widow of the late Sir Etienne Dupuch, the Editor and publisher of The Tribune, died and was buried on Saturday 27th January. She was 100 years old. She is survived by her children included amongst them the MP for Shirlea Pierre Dupuch and the now Publisher of The Tribune Eileen Carron.

Yvonne Christofilis Farewell
The Class of 1970 of St. Augustine’s College paid farewell to Yvonne Christofilis one of their number at a funeral service for her at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Nassau on Saturday 3rd February. Ms. Christofilis who was a nurse and midwife, and an advocate for the disabled died suddenly. In the House of Assembly on Wednesday 31st January, a number of Government Ministers including Melanie Griffin, the Minister responsible for relations with the disabled expressed their condolences. Class members include Fred Mitchell, Foreign Minister; Michael Barnett, Lawyer, FNM candidate; Teresa Butler, former Permanent Secretary and former Chair of the Public Service Commission; Michael Weech, senior Bahamasair pilot and Augustine Roberts also a Senior Bahamasair pilot, Hugh Tai, Scotiabank Manager.

‘Apple’ Elliott Dies

Musician Edwin ‘Apple’ Elliott the former organist at Christ The King Anglican Church in Freeport, Grand Bahama died on his home island of Grand Bahama on Thursday 1st February, 2007 reportedly after falling ill while playing a game of tennis. He was 71.
Apple attended Government High School in Nassau then gained a BA degree in music from Florida A&M University. He was a pianist in the fabled orchestra of Freddie Munnings Sr. In the 1960s, he took over as director and conductor of the ‘Don Reagan Band’ which was a highlight to the tourism product on Paradise Island in those days. For many years, Apple Elliott led the house band at the Princess Casino in Freeport. He is survived by his wife Una; daughters Lynette and Sherrie and four grandchildren.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
BABAK’S $2 MILLION LOSS
    Recent news from Freeport, while definitely not surprising, is certainly disheartening, especially for the people of Freeport who deserve so much better. Once again, this time in a very shocking and tangible way, the devastating error of the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) has been demonstrated for the entire world to see.
    I refer to the story recently carried by one of the morning dailies about the projected $2 million loss at Freeport Concrete Company, a company owned and until recently managed by Hannes Babak, the man who was named last June to be the Chairman of the GBPA. Moreover, when his appointment was announced, he was promoted to the men and women of Freeport as a very successful businessman in his own right who knew the solution to all of Freeport’s problems, as someone whose business acumen was unparalleled and as someone who knew how to turn the economy around in that economically hard-hit city.
    While Hannes Babak’s company is probably going to post a $2 million loss, we need to ask ourselves how much will this man’s leadership of GBPA cost the people and the economy of Freeport if he continues in his quest to remain its Chairman, something that he has been doing from behind the scenes? Can the licensees of Freeport withstand huge losses like Freeport Concrete? If they remain under the inept and incompetent guiding hand of Hannes Babak, this is a question that the licensees have to ask themselves.
    The sad thing about this situation is that Hannes Babak replaced a competent, professional Bahamian whose judgment and expertise guided the Central Bank of The Bahamas through perilous times, while Babak cannot even guide a concrete company through a year. I speak of Julian Francis, former Governor of the Central Bank and the Chairman of the GBPA who was replaced by Babak. And what has happened in the GBPA and in Freeport since Babak took over? Chaos and upheaval the likes of which have never been seen in the fifty-plus years of the history of the GBPA. This businessman whose “successful” company loss of $2 million in a brief period of time has replaced someone who, I firmly believe, would have been able to steer the GBPA and the people of Freeport through these difficult times and who would not, I feel certain, have been associated with any company that could lose money like Freeport Concrete.
    You do not need to be an economist or banker to realize that the GBPA needs skilled and capable leadership and that a businessman whose company loses a sum like $2 million dollars is not qualified in any way to fill that position. It is obvious to even the most casual observer that the GBPA and the people of Freeport do not need Hannes Babak, a man whose own business is clearly in trouble. Freeport needs qualified, steady leadership. As we begin a new year, Freeport needs to demand that Hannes Babak does not ever return to serve one more day as Chairman of the GBPA. Freeporters should not have to endure the leadership of Hannes Babak who cannot even solve his own business’ problems, much less come up with solutions to the complex problems of Freeport.
    2007 should be the year that Freeport emerges from the economic doldrums and experiences a prosperity that is the right of every Bahamian. No one, especially Hannes Babak, has the right to stand in the way of that prosperity. It is time to end this nightmare and let Babak take care of his own business and let someone who knows their business take the helm of the GBPA and guide it and the people of Freeport to the success they deserve.
Senator Philip C. Galanis
January 29, 2007

It has been publicly announced that the Force is being restructured. – Editor

THIS WEEK WITH THE PM
Musical Instruments for Kemp Rd. Band

St. Thomas More MP Frank Smith, with matching aid solicited by Prime Minister Perry Christie has secured musical instruments for the fledgling Kemp Road Community Marching Band. One of the proven and most popular elements of the Prime Minister’s highly successful Urban Renewal Initiative is the formation of youth marching bands in disadvantaged urban areas. Smiling members of the band pose for the camera with their benefactors and their new instruments. The event took place this past week at St. Margaret’s Church on Kemp Road.

International Food Distributorship Launched in Grand Bahama

    Prime Minister Perry Christie is shown being greeted to the opening session of the International Distributors annual convention in Freeport, Grand Bahama by the President of the organization, Calvin Miller. Mr. Christie officially travelled to Grand Bahama to officially welcome International Distributors (Associated Grocers) to Grand Bahama Thursday, indicating that their advent here could spell a reduction in food prices throughout the country, and new employment opportunities for Bahamians. International Distributors, which is constructing a mega wholesale distribution outlet off Queen’s Highway in the area of the Fishing Hole, staged its Annual Trade Show on Grand Bahama. The firm displayed an impressive range of grocery and related products at the Our Lucaya Resort and has attracted hundreds of foreign buyers.
    The Prime Minister noted that in discussions with executives of International Distributors he came to understand that their business here could exceed more than $600 million annually. He then told the owners that somewhere in this process they will have to see how The Bahamas will be able to access food, foodstuffs from the region coming to Freeport. This he said would result in cheaper prices for food items for Bahamians. Mr. Christie said he has great optimism for the island of Grand Bahama, and that only last week he flew to Florida where he spoke to several hundred buyers of property in the mega Ginn Development at West End, Grand Bahama.
    He told the many hundreds attending the Trade Show that “this is a country that offers you an opportunity for absolutely splendid recreation. It is a place where you are able to see opportunities for investments, and for good return on that investment. It is an island whose people are the best resource that we can offer.” Mr. Christie said that in the coming weeks and month all will see why he is so optimistic. “Things are happening and happening for the people in a very positive way,” he said.
Reported with input from SIMON LEWIS
Bahamas Information Services
BIS photo: Vandyke Hepburn

Sunland School Students visit House of Assembly

Members of Parliament paused in their business this past Wednesday to acknowledge the presence of a class of students visiting from Sunland School in Freeport, Grand Bahama. During the luncheon break at the House, the Prime Minister Perry Christie chatted with the students outside.
Nassau Guardian photo: Letisha Henderson

New Rector for St. Agnes

This Sunday morning, Prime Minister Christie worshipped at St. Agnes Anglican Church, listening to the first service conducted at the Church by Rev. Fr. I. Ranfurly Brown, the new Rector of St. Agnes. Prime Minister Christie is pictured among the parishioners leaving the Church and being greeted by Father Brown after the service.

Shuffle for Fox Hill

As we have reported, the Prime Minister 'crashed' the Fox Hill PLP Branch Meeting held Monday 29th January on the Fox Hill Parade. Mr. Christie arrived unobtrusively and mingled with the large crowd, numbering into the thousands, before being called to the podium for an unscheduled talk. On the way, he gave in to shouted requests for his trademark Junkanoo dance, the 'Christie Shuffle'.
Nassau Guardian photo: Ferreno Ferguson

Bahamas Information Services photos by Peter Ramsay [Except where otherwise noted].

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THE DEBATE ON A PRIME MINISTER’S PENSION

Debate began in the House of Assembly on Wednesday 7th January on an amendment to the Prime Minister’s Pension Act which would prohibit in the future, any Prime Minister from collecting both the salary and a pension in the House of Assembly. This is as a result of the misbehaviour of Hubert Ingraham, the now Leader of the Opposition, who is a former Prime Minister, who collects both his salary as a Member of Parliament and Leader of the Opposition amounting to some $78,000 per year and he collects the pension of a retired Prime Minister at $114,000 per year. None of this would be an issue if it were not for the hoodwinking of the late Sir Lynden Pindling when he retired from office in 1997.

The present law does not repeat a provision in the Parliamentary Pensions Act which prohibits Members of Parliament and Senators from receiving both their Parliamentary pension and that of a sitting Member of Parliament or Senator. The amendment seeks to do just that. The idea is that once you are retired, you are retired. Mr. Ingraham engaged in a wink and a nod and a sleight of hand to force Sir Lynden out of the House. He wrote a note on the file when Basil O’Brien, the then Secretary to the Cabinet asked whether he should release the monies owed to Sir Lynden, to do so only after it had been confirmed that Sir Lynden had resigned his seat in the House. This was not a lawful requirement. Mr. Ingraham then did not apply this requirement to himself when he started to collect his pension at the start of 2002.

Members of Parliament from the PLP side and two independents expressed their outrage at the trickery when they spoke on Wednesday 7th February. The new law will not only prohibit that from happening with any new occupant of the House but it has a provision which will allow Mr. Ingraham to write the Government and cease the pension within 21 days of the amendment coming into Force until such time as he is truly retired.

The debate was led by Fred Mitchell, the Foreign Minister, who first brought this matter to the attention of the country in the PLP’s convention of 2003.

Mr. Mitchell said that this amendment would give Mr. Ingraham an opportunity to do the right thing. He indicated that at the present time, Mr. Ingraham has in a suspense account a sum of over $100,000 to his order or direction. Mr. Ingraham has been purporting to send the salary back even though he knows that there is no lawful way that the salary can be accepted back by the Government. The sum is his and if he does not collect it, then his estate will benefit from it.

Other speakers made their contributions and we share some of what they said. Alfred Gray MP for Mayaguana, Inagua, Crooked Island, Acklins and Long Cay (MICAL-PLP) said that you would never see the day when Hubert Ingraham would give up that pension. He said that if he were proven wrong, he would buy lunch for the whole House. Tennyson Wells MP Independent for Bamboo Town said that he supported the bill and apologized to the Bahamian people for allowing the first act to go through with his support. He said that the first act was passed without reference to him as Attorney General.

Pierre Dupuch MP Independent St. Margaret’s joined in with Alfred Gray attacking the current theme of the Free National Movement that you can’t trust the PLP. He told the story of the time the FNM members agreed to forgo their salary increases under the Pindling administration when they were told by the then Attorney General that they could not lawfully refuse their salaries. The FNM led by Hubert Ingraham, he said, announced that all FNM MPs would put their salary increases to charities. He said that when he checked, the only one putting in any money was him. He added: “And the FNM says that this is a man you can trust.” Mr. Dupuch pledged his loyalty to Perry Christie because he said that you could trust him.

Ken Russell, the FNM High Rock MP, tried to defend Mr. Ingraham saying that he was not double dipping because the account did not belong to Mr. Ingraham that was set up in the Royal Bank of Canada. He said that the monies were only put there after it was made clear that Mr. Ingraham was rejecting the salaries. The Fox Hill MP Fred Mitchell repeated that the monies were in trust for Mr. Ingraham so they were his monies no matter what he claimed.

On Thursday 7th February, Mr. Ingraham held a poorly attended rally in the Seagrape Shopping Centre in New Providence. He did not come to the House of Assembly the day before. He was too afraid to come. The debate continues on Wednesday 14th February and it remains to be seen whether Mr. Ingraham will have the courage to show up.

Hubert Ingraham took a pounding this week. He is exposed for the political coward that he is. He is a double dipper, taking two salaries and a pension and trying to fool the Bahamian public into thinking that he accepts only one thing. He has to be rejected by the Bahamian people as a man that cannot be trusted. We await the continuation of the debate next week.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 10th February 2007 at midnight: 140,839.

Number of hits for the month of February up to Saturday 10th February 2007 at midnight: 170,931.

Number hits for the year 2007 up to Saturday 10th February 2007 up to midnight: 585,737.

Members of Parliament making their contributions in the House of Assembly Wednesday 7th February: from top Fred Mitchell; Alfred Gray; Tennyson Wells. Bahamas Information Services photos - Peter Ramsay

THE PRISON OFFICERS
    Prison Officers in The Bahamas went on strike on Friday 9th February. They did so unlawfully and without the right to do so. At noon on Friday 9th February they were ordered back to work by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security. The group of officers does not seem to understand that they placed the entire country at risk with their reckless behaviour.
    There appears to be a disconnect between where they are and where the Government is. One has only to realize that every problem that they raised is one that pre dates the coming into office of the Progressive Liberal Party. This includes the confirmation of a class of officers brought in by the FNM without proper qualifications who were put to work and which the PLP has now to find money to pay them. That money has been found.
    The Superintendent got a list of grievances from the Staff Association and at the top of the list was to increase the number of officers because there was such a shortage of persons working. Some 125 persons have been hired since he came in 2005. Vests have been purchased for the officers that they did not have before. There is a brand new visitor processing centre. But all of this was to no avail. The officers now claim that they want parity immediately with the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and the Royal Bahamas Police Force. They want parity.
    They are supposed to be a disciplined force like the Police and the Defence Force and yet they are not behaving like one. In Jamaica when a similar incident occurred, the entire group that went on strike was dismissed from their jobs. The bet here in The Bahamas is that since this is election time, the PLP will have no such courage to do the same thing.

THE TEACHERS
    On Wednesday 7th February, the Bahamas Union of Teachers had a spokesman in the House of Assembly named Ken Russell, the FNM Member of Parliament for High Rock. Mr. Russell claimed that teachers had not been paid by the Ministry of Education. The Minister of Education Alfred Sears immediately rose to his feet to explain that this was not true. What had happened was that many teachers had been brought onto the system at the minimum of their scales until the Public Service Commission had caught up with the paper work and put them into their proper scales. This process is often long and involved and the bureaucracy does not have the wherewithal to cope with the large demands placed on it for timely processing.
    The next day the Bahamas Union of Teachers led the teachers out of the classrooms on a wildcat strike. If there was any doubt that this is political season be assured that it is. No one is concerned about process. There is no one thinking about the consequences for the country. There is no thought about the culture of how things continue to be run in The Bahamas. In fact, the Bahamas Union of Teachers is one of the main reasons why the country is in a mess today. Their leadership believes in shortcuts and cutting through processes that end up making the situation worse.
    The Government under the leadership of the Minister of Education Alfred Sears put together a task force to deal with the large number of applications that need further processing. The Public Service Commission has agreed to process them on a special basis. You can rest assured though that somewhere down the road some other group will now suffer because of this special exercise for the teachers. But the BUT leadership doesn’t care about that. Just give me my money and give it to me now.

FNM CANDIDATE SNUBS MINISTER MITCHELL

Stan Burnside’s ‘Sideburns’ from The Nassau Guardian of Wednesday 7th February, 2007

    When you are in politics, you have to have a tough skin. You have to take as good as you give and it has to be as water off a duck’s back. There is a lot of play acting in politics even when you don't mean it because the public is always watching to see if you break a sweat. That perhaps is a lesson that the FNM candidate for Fox Hill needs to learn. This is especially so in a church.
    You will remember the history of this matter. The FNM candidate for Fox Hill went into Fox Hill almost a month ago to be introduced by her party to the people of Fox Hill. During that meeting she went on a public platform and made several allegations. One was that the now Member of Parliament for Fox Hill Fred Mitchell had done nothing in Fox Hill. A second was that the now Member for Fox Hill Fred Mitchell had helped no one in Fox Hill. A third was that she could find no evidence of his international connections in Fox Hill. These were all bold faced untruths.
    Mr. Mitchell at his Party’s Branch Meeting on Monday 29th January answered the FNM in Fox Hill. He told how he had helped her, a close relative of hers and had helped her husband keep his jobs at the Atlantis project.
    Now the comeback of her allies in Fox Hill is that Mr. Mitchell should not have shared confidential business with the public. Pray tell: you go and make public comments and attacks on Fred Mitchell? Mr. Mitchell has the right to set the record straight. The record was set straight. But this now has the candidate up in arms with various threats being made by members of her team of physical harm at Mr. Mitchell.
    At a church service on Friday 9th February in the Fox Hill Village at St. Marks, the FNM candidate turned her back when a handshake was offered by the now Member of Parliament Fred Mitchell. The snub did not go unnoticed. There is an old saying: if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen. Stan Burnside’s cartoon said much about what the actual situation is on the ground in Fox Hill..

A POLICE TRANSFER
    The Royal Bahamas Police Staff Association has come to the rescue so to speak of Reginald Ferguson, the now Assistant Commissioner of Police for Crime. That he does not need rescue is the first thing, but the rescue is for something which is rather strange.
    The Commissioner of Police has determined that there is to be a reorganization of the Force and Mr. Ferguson is apparently to be transferred to another job in the Force. Mr. Ferguson has been as long as most can remember the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Crime. The crime statistics are generally better but murders which are the figures at which the people of the country look reached 60 last year. That is rate of 5 per month. It may indeed be time for some fresh face and outlook to come to deal with this issue. The same heads have been dealing with it for too long.
    In every other country in the Caribbean, the public has become so fed up with the inability of the police to deal with crime that the Governments called in the British police to come and help. We would think that The Bahamas would want to avoid having to do that. The police here then should get their house in order and rearrange their priorities and their systems to allow for fresh ideas to come.
    The other point that needs to be made however is that the Commissioner of Police has the absolute right to transfer his men. Now all of a sudden this right is being questioned. The intervention of the Association was not right. We would also add this, the country is heading toward major developments and it will need a Force that can cope with the modern world and modern demands. A Force that is still organized in a 1960s mode simply can’t cut it. Later in the week an anonymous senior office spoke to The Tribune and said that the Commissioner was right to transfer Mr. Ferguson because it was perceived that Mr. Ferguson had been a law unto himself in the Force for too long.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH’S DEATH

Anna Nicole Smith, the B movie actress, who moved to The Bahamas and obtained Permanent Residence in the midst of controversy, dropped dead in a Florida hotel room on Thursday 8th January. What a life. For the past year or so since she moved to The Bahamas she has had a rough time. She had a rough time before that but her life simply seems to have gone off the rails. The FNM in The Bahamas has been seeking to make a connection between her and a Government Minister in The Bahamas and maybe now that she is dead they will let the matter rest. The cause of death has not been disclosed or determined.
What we do know is that the Ministry of Tourism could not have asked for better publicity about The Bahamas. Every other word on the television news and in the press in the United States is The Bahamas. Couldn’t pay for it. The Bahamas government has nothing to do with the death. It is entirely a private matter. There is reportedly an action in Bahamian courts to have the name Howard K. Stern struck off the birth certificate as the father of the baby that was born in The Bahamas to Ms. Smith. The baby is now five months old. The drama is likely to be played out in the Bahamian courts since the baby is said to be in The Bahamas.
Photo by: Todd Williamson / FilmMagic

IN PASSING
PNP wins big in TCI poll

Premier Michael Misick has led his PNP to a convincing victory at the polls in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The ruling Progressive National Party has been returned to power with an increased majority. After the ballots were counted on Friday night following the day's general elections, the PNP had secured 13 of the 15 electable seats at stake. The opposition Peoples' Democratic Movement won two seats. Congratulations to Premier Misick.

Bishop Fraser Back in Court
The matter of the Bishop Randy Fraser’s case was before the courts again this week. On Wednesday 7th February, the Bishop was before the Magistrate’s Court again charged with unlawful sexual intercourse with a dependent.

Archbishop on Christie, Mitchell
Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the Anglican Church has commented on the petition of the class clown Rodney Moncur for the excommunication from the Anglican Church of the Prime Minister Perry Christie and Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell. The Archbishop said that excommunication as not a part of the Anglican canons but that sometimes persons are denied holy communication for their actions. However, he said that the petition of Mr. Moncur could not succeed. Mr. Moncur has been leading charge against the Foreign Minister because he claims that the five baggage handlers of Nassau Flight Services were arrested in Florida on drug charges with the complicity of the Government of The Bahamas. On Monday 5th February, one of the men Tony Roney appeared in court in Florida to plead guilty on one count of conspiracy to import drugs into the United States. Sentencing is set for the 17th April.

New Nursing Association Officers

The Nurses Association of The Bahamas (NACB), has announced its new slate of officers for 2006-2008. From left are Nursing Officer II Prescola Rolle, President; Senior Nursing Officer (SNO) Rebecca Johnson, Second Vice President, Nursing Officer II D. Aneka Johnson, Public Relations; Staff Nurse Dominique Rox, Assistant Treasurer; Staff Nurse Rosemarie Josie, Treasurer; and Staff Nurse Leslie Hanna- Pennerman, Membership.
Bahamas Information Services photo: Raymond A. Bethel

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Confused
At the top of today’s [Sunday 4th February] issue “Hired Hands”, you complain about a former government employee who now writes for The Nassau Guardian but you see nothing wrong with a photographer, one Peter Ramsay, employed by the Government of The Bahamas (Bahamas Information Services) and paid by the taxpayers taking photos at a PLP branch meeting/rally, a partisan event. When did the party and government become one? I notice that a lot of the photos on the site attributed to the same individual. So, it makes one wonder if there isn't some affiliation between your site and BIS.
Vaughn N P Scriven

Peter Ramsay is a photographer for the Bahamas Information Services who is personally assigned to the Prime Minister. All BIS photos are in the public domain and are available to any news entity in The Bahamas or any member of the public. – Editor

THIS WEEK WITH THE PM
Law Reform Report Presented

Prime Minister Perry Christie this week was presented with the report of the Commission on Law Reform, one of the expert panels appointed to advise the Government and maximise the contribution of Bahamian expertise across the public and private sectors. The Prime Minister is pictured with Attorney General Allyson Maynard Gibson and members of the Commission accepting the report.

New Roundabout Open

Also this past week, Mr. Christie joined Minister of Works & Utilities Bradley Roberts in opening a new roundabout signifying the completion of major roadworks in the Baillou Hill Road and Tonique Williams Darling Highway area of New Providence. The new roadworks are expected to bring marked improvements in the traffic flow to the area..

Bahamas Information Services photos by Peter Ramsay [Except where otherwise noted].

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THE TABLOIDIZATION OF THE BAHAMAS

On Monday 12th February, the phones in the country began to ring off the hook as it became clear that the Free National Movement and its leader, using the kings of sleaze at The Tribune had sunk to a new low. The home of the dead B movie actress Anna Nicole Smith had been broken into and the computer stolen with a number of other items. Among them were personal photographs taken at a baby shower for the friends of Anna Nicole Smith. It showed the Minister for Immigration of The Bahamas in a light that would suggest that there was an intimate relationship between the two.

Fact number one, the photographs were taken at a private party at a baby shower and were stolen. Fact number two, the photographs were taken by the boyfriend of the late actress, with Mr. Gibson’s family at the event. None of these facts seemed to concern The Tribune. Never let the truth interfere with a good story.

In this culture with its appetite for sleaze the photographs had an immediate effect. Some people were pronouncing that they felt shamed to be associated with their party. Others stoutly and correctly rose to the defence of their party. The talk shows descended into a feeding frenzy. And oh yes Hubert Ingraham, the one who masterminded this nastiness, had a lot to say about how he was concerned about the closeness of the Minister to Anna Nicole Smith but he was more concerned about the fact that the Immigration Minister is alleged to have accepted a gift of a Rolex watch. He said that he had referred the matter to the police.

If you remember an earlier comment of the week, we exposed the Ingraham playbook. This is a man who will stoop to any nastiness, destroy anyone in the pursuit of power, even as he himself has taken advantage of the public purse by double dipping to the tune of $200,000 even though he is not retired. He continues to collect both pay and pension. Yet he is able through his friends at The Tribune to take the moral high ground. This is perfectly laughable.

Shane Gibson and his wife then took to the airwaves on the evening that story broke to explain to the country that this was not a relationship that was in their view in any way untoward. With the wife at his side, that seemed to be that for the moment. However, Mr. Ingraham and his plotters had another piece of nastiness in store.

Fox News that has planted itself and its nastiness here in Nassau began to report an affidavit that they picked up from the website tmz.com which was sworn by a Haitian maid of the late actress who had been fired for stealing. She barely speaks English. She cannot read and write, yet the language and sophistication of the allegations put in the affidavit would suggest that she had a lawyer’s education. The affidavit is not part of any court proceeding, bearing no stamp of the court and so is probably libellous. It reflects adversely on Callenders and Co who are now ensnared in this sleaze as well.

There should be a criminal investigation into the affidavit and who swore it and drafted its contents. The woman herself should be produced to the country to expose all of this nonsense. The woman alleged that there was a sexual relationship between the Minister and the late actress. This we are satisfied is a complete lie and put up job.

Let us look at the time lines. Anna Nicole Smith was met by the Minister in August 2006, shortly after she arrived in The Bahamas, pregnant; and was applying for Permanent Residence in The Bahamas. She received economic permanent residence which is supposed to be by policy granted on an accelerated basis. Nothing wrong there, and the proper due diligence had been done. The baby was born In the Bahamas by Caesarian section. When pray tell was this sexual relationship supposed to have existed between the Minister and the actress? This was most improbable.

At the FNM’s rally on Thursday 15th February, the Leader of the Opposition Hubert Ingraham was in full flight. Having designed this nastiness, he had his crowd worked up and said that the resignation of Shane Gibson would not do. He said that the whole Cabinet had to go. The only one who has to go on this occasion is Hubert Ingraham. This is a man who presided over the most crooked and corrupt Cabinet in the history of the Government of The Bahamas. He allowed one deal after the next to be done by his Ministers and left one investigation after the next undone when he was unceremoniously kicked out of office for his arrogance and the crookedness of his Government. No moral high ground there.

No one quite knows how these matters will play out ultimately in the streets. But one thing for sure is that the Prime Minister had better give this man Ingraham the quick heave ho. Too much pussyfooting as the Attorney General would say. You cannot have someone who presided over a corrupt government telling the country that a Government that has done more for this country in five years than he did in an entire ten years of misrule that he has the moral right to govern again.

The Bahamian public should know better than to allow themselves to be manipulated by this silliness; what we call the tabloidization of The Bahamas by foreign media and a man named John Marquis at The Tribune an Englishman abroad who hates black people, hates The Bahamas and hates the PLP. We know him. We know Eileen Carron. All they could see is a black man in an embrace with a white woman, and spin that for all its worth. A situation taken totally out of context is now manipulated and elevated to the foolishness that must be dealt with today instead of the job of completing the PLP’s term.

On Tuesday night 20th February, the PLP will have a rally in Pinewood and all of its supporters have been asked to come in for it. This is no time to play. We have got to give Ingraham the boot and bury him and his corrupt colleagues once and for all.

Our statistics engine is currently down - Editor
Mr. and Mrs. Shane Gibson appear on ZNS TV Monday 12th February, 2007 - BIS photo: Peter Ramsay

INGRAHAM SHOULD CHECK HIS OWN MEMBERS
    Imagine someone who presided over the most corrupt Cabinet in the history of the country telling the people of this country that the entire Cabinet of the now Christie administration should resign because of unproven allegations against one of Mr. Christie’s ministers. Mr. Ingraham knows that the rule is a Minister is responsible for his own personal conduct. There is no collective responsibility on that score. But as yet the question does not arise.
    What we know is that Tommy Turnquest, Dion Foulkes Frank Watson, all FNM Ministers at the time of the last election, all left the Government under investigation for various forms of behaviour that were questionable. What we know is that Brent Symonette had to resign as Chairman of the Airport Authority for shall we say a questionable decision. What we do know is that Hubert Ingraham paid the police a $1500 raise in pay on the day that they were to go to vote and said on the night before that election they must remember the money. What do you call that?
    We also know that he is double dipping right now taking his salary and his pension, having designed a bill to force Sir Lynden Pindling out of office, he is now benefiting from both salary and pension. This man has the unmitigated gall, the nerve, and effrontery to call someone corrupt. You can’t really say what you want to say on this site and be civil. It is disgusting the nastiness, the innuendo, the wickedness that this man is willing to design to get power.
    Hubert Ingraham has engaged in a campaign that has destroyed the family of Shane Gibson over a matter that was entirely innocent. We hope that when he goes to bed at night he can think of his own wife and children and how as result of his behaviour they have now become fair game in the minds of some as we wind down to this political contest. How else would he expect Mr. Gibson to react?

HOW ANNA NICOLE BENEFITED THE BAHAMAS
There appears to us be an unnecessary ringing of the hands over this issue with Anna Nicole Smith. We think that the interpretation of the photos is perverse. We think that the affidavit that alleges a sexual relationship between the Minister of Immigration Shane Gibson and Anna Nicole is not worth the paper it’s written on and is a put up job.
What we know is that the name Bahamas keeps showing up in the international press and the Ministry of Tourism can't pay for the publicity. Anna Nicole Smith tortured soul that she is, has brought that benefit to The Bahamas. She came here for peace and quiet and a place where she could start again. The press hounded her even here but in doing so, it is clear that the publicity is a great bonanza for the country. That's called turning a positive from a negative.

THE ILLEGAL WORK STOPPAGE AT THE PRISON
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security Cynthia Pratt addressed the House of Assembly on Wednesday 14th February informing the House that an illegal work stoppage at the Prison had ended following the intervention of a group of clergymen headed by Bishop Neil Ellis of the Full Gospel Fellowship at Mt. Tabor. He was joined by Anglican Coadjutor Bishop Laish Boyd and Bishop Ross Davis of the Golden Gates Assembly.
The Deputy Prime Minister said that as a result of the unlawful action each person who stayed off sick would have three days pay deducted from their vacations, the staff executive would pay a fine of 20 dollars per day for the four days they were off and they would be made to make a formal apology to the Prison Superintendent and to the Deputy Prime Minister. We think that these persons are extremely fortunate that they were not dismissed forthwith.

COMMENTS IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
    On Tuesday 13th February, the press in The Bahamas reported that Dr. Elliston Rahming, the Superintendent of the Prison narrowly avoided going to jail for contempt because the President of the Court of Appeal was displeased that a prisoner had not been produced for court for his hearing on 7th February. We have criticized the President of the Court of Appeal Joan Sawyer for her remarks before. We think that the remarks made in this mater were again most unfortunate. In the context of what was then a widely known work to rule at the Prison and what later turned out to be a full scale strike at the Prison, any response ought to have been against that background.
    While the Court is owed an explanation, public figures who make remarks as if life exists in the country in vacuum do a disservice to our country and those in authority. It seems not very discrete or responsible to attack the Superintendent in the manner of the remarks reported in the press. The executive ought to make the strongest representations in this matter.
    As a footnote, the Prison Superintendent’s mother had to be taken to hospital because she developed a brain bleed after seeing that her son was being summoned to Court. She is in guarded condition today. So while dealing with an unlawful strike, and trying to keep the prison under control, he is upbraided by the Court of Appeal in a very public way, and he now has to deal with a very ill mother at 84 years of age. Then we wonder why no one wants to go into public life in this country.

TRANSPORT MINISTER ON AIRPORT SAFETY
Last Sunday shortly after we posted this site, the U.S. Ambassador John Rood made an allegation on the radio show ‘Jones and Company’ that The Bahamas Lynden Pindling International Airport had had 700 violations of security audited by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) over the past two years. The Minister of Transport Glenys Hanna Martin had a swift and certain response on Tuesday 13th February. It was untrue she said. She said in fact that the airport had never been audited by IACO.
Ambassador Rood responded the next day by admitting that the Minister was correct. He added though that the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) had audited the airport and had found violations and that they had not been addressed. The Minister of Transport herself had already acknowledged that the TSA had audited the airport but she showed that the TSA found that the security issues in their last audit (July 06) had been addressed satisfactorily.

IN PASSING
Archbishop Says No stealing At St. Agnes
Archbishop Drexel Gomez has reportedly issued a statement in defence of the former priest and former treasurer of St. Agnes. He has finally and definitively declared that there was no stealing at St. Agnes Parish during the tenure of the late Rector Patrick Johnson. This should smooth the way considerably for the new rector Archdeacon I. Ranfurly Brown.

Mitchell’s Statement On Pensions
Last week, we reported on this site the beginnings of an extensive debate on an amendment to the Prime Minister’s Pension Act. That amendment would make it impossible in the future for any person who served as Prime Minister to come back to the office of a Parliamentarian and obtain both salary and pension. It also gives Hubert Ingraham who presently receives both an opportunity in the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to do the right thing and within 21 days of the coming into force of the act ask the Treasurer for the law to apply to him. Mr. Ingraham now receives over $200,000 in salary and pension alone, while still sitting in the House as an active politician. We provide you this week with the full statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs who led the debate on Wednesday 7th February.

Tim Donaldson At Lyford Cay

The former Governor of the Central Bank and now Chairman of Commonwealth Bank Tim Donaldson is in the news as a fighter for civil rights. On Saturday 3rd February, Mr. Donaldson and friends went to dinner at the exclusive Lyford Cay Club where he has been a member for 12 years. He was told that because one of his friends had a collarless shirt he could not be served on the patio. To back it up, the Manager himself Didier Piquot came and told him he would have to leave even after they were served drinks and had ordered the food. The Manager told him he could take it up with the Rules Committee. The staff went ahead and defied the Manager’s instructions. Mr. Donaldson refused to give in. He said that he would write a letter of complaint to the Chairman of the Club. Mr. Donaldson said that the staff were happy that he stood up to the man. He said that Mr. Piquot thought because he was “white and foreign” he could talk to him in that way. Mr. Donaldson said that he is writing a complaint to the Department of Immigration. This report first appeared in the Bahama Journal of 5th February. We congratulate Mr. Donaldson on his stand.

Enid Thompson Buried

The mother of Justice Cheryl Albury, the aunt of Chief Justice Sir Burton Hall, the widow of the late Wesley Thompson, owner of the Rusty Nail on East Street, the neighbour of Stephen ‘Daddyo’ Mitchell, was buried on Saturday 17th February 2007. She was 88 years old. Mrs. Thompson was predeceased by her husband the late Wesley G.R. Thompson and is survived in addition to those named by sons Robert and Wesley, daughter Jean.

What About Desmond Bannister?
The former Senator for the Free National Movement and now Chairman of the same party was in full flight at the FNM’s rally on Thursday 15th February. He kept referring to the Minister for Immigration Shane Gibson as “Shane ‘Who Baby Daddy’ Gibson”. Wonders never cease! Most Bahamians and readers to this site will recall the exact circumstances that led to Mr. Bannister’s departure from the Senate and all the stories about why he had to leave and leave quickly, including litigation in the domestic courts. It is interesting how quickly we try to forget.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The hypocrisy of the FNM
    The controversy surrounding Anna Nicole Smith and Minister Shane Gibson took center stage at the FNM rally in Golden Gates on the 15th Feb 2007. The leader of the FNM accused the Immigration Minister of exercising “incredibly bad judgment” in managing the late actress’ application for permanent residency, including fast tracking it.
I found this accusation odd coming from the man who, as Prime Minister, approved the recommendations of his then Immigration Minister, Earl Deveaux, to grant Martin Trembly permanent residence in only 19 days. It was reported that at the time of the approval, Mr. Trembly did not own a home in the Bahamas and had only arrived here 32 days earlier; this was a gross violation of our Immigration laws and therefore illegal. Now how do you spell “FAST TRACK?”
    Who could ever forget how Ingraham fast tracked (I mean really fast tracked) the permanent residency of his son-in-law in a record five days. It is clear that the son-in-law received preferential treatment because under similar circumstances, the foreign spouse of a Bahamian would generally have to wait some five years for a permanent residency approval and in the interim, would secure a General Worker Permit. Securing a permanent residency permit in only five days, in this instance, “reeks with nepotism”, demonstrates “incredible bad judgment” on the part of the former Prime Minister and the then Immigration Minister Deveaux; they should have known better.
    Derek Turner is a foreigner who had his permanent residency application fast-tracked and approved without the necessary qualifying documents. There is evidence that Mr. Turner was convicted of a criminal offence about one year prior to his application filing for permanent residency in the Bahamas. It was reported that Mr. Deveaux allowed Mr. Turner to use an outdated police certificate, one issued before his conviction. This made the certificate more than six months old and therefore invalid. Mr. Turner is now serving time in a federal prison in the United States.
Bahamians still remember Viktor Kozeny. He too was given permanent residency by the FNM. Mr. Kozeny was arrested by Bahamian police after he was indicted in the US District Court of Manhattan on 27 counts of bribery. He was charged with defrauding the clients of the New York based Omega Advisors Inc of $182 million. Kozeny remains imprisoned at Her Majesty’s Prison while he awaits a decision on his extradition to the US to face charges of corruption, money laundering and conspiracy of financial fraud involving billions of dollars. How do you spell “DUE DILIGENCE?”
    The report suggests that the FNM government failed to exercise due diligence and knowingly violated Immigration policy and Bahamian law. This party is now actively seeking to form the next government and in spite of instances of “incredibly poor judgment” demonstrated by the entire Ingraham led FNM cabinet; they expect to be trusted again by the Bahamian people to hold the reins of political power in this country.
    These errors in judgment are “shameful, sordid, and squalid” and are intolerable. The FNM in its present form lacks the moral turpitude and credibility to govern this country. There is nothing like when you have been there, you have governed, and you have a record that all and sundry can present for critical analysis, scrutiny, and judgment in the court of public opinion. The FNM’s disrespect for the rule of Bahamian law dealt a severe blow to one of the pillars that support our democracy: the pillar of good governance. I say the legacy of the FNM, as described above, is bad for the Bahamas and in a show of poetic justice, the Bahamian people must again ceremoniously reject them at the polls by the use of another pillar and instrument of our great democracy: the constitutional right to vote.
Elcott Coleby

THIS WEEK WITH THE PM
Straw Vendors Happy

Prime Minister Perry Christie this week presided over the signing of a $23 million contract for the construction of a new straw market in downtown Nassau. Mr. Christie was clearly energized by the enthusiasm of the straw vendors who gathered for the signing at the British Colonial Hilton Hotel.

Fort Charlotte Urban Renewal

Inspector Mitchell Rolle beams as she accepts a prize on behalf of the Fort Charlotte Urban Renewal programme, which she supervises, from Jewel Major of Urban Renewal. The presentation took place at a ceremony to present new musical instruments to the Community Marching Band of the Urban Renewal Programme in the area. The group is joined by Member of Parliament for Fort Charlotte Alfred Sears, left; and Prime Minister Christie at right.

Tell It Like It Is

'Tell It Like It Is' is the name of a new public affairs Sunday afternoon radio programme on GEMS 105.9 FM, hosted by attorney and public commentator Sean McWeeney. The inaugural programme is to be aired at 6 p.m. today, Sunday 18th February with Prime Minister Christie as the guest. The Prime Minister's interview on the show was expected to be wide ranging.

Bahamas Information Services photos by Peter Ramsay

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FRED MITCHELL IS NOT THE ISSUE

The Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell was a featured speaker at the rally in Pinewood on Tuesday 20th February. He said these words: “Three of his [Hubert Ingraham’s] Ministers left office under the shadow of improper behaviour. His Deputy, the heir to the dread Stafford Sands and the UBP had to leave office because of a clear conflict of interest and now seeks to return to office. The former Prime Minister intends to turn over the country if God forbid he gets back to his Deputy, the heir to the UBP within 18 months. He has announced he will cut the public service if he gets back. The UBP are the poster boys for conflict of interest and corruption. Yet the man who leads them today has the nerve to point fingers.”

In all the resulting furore, with which we will deal, one interesting point to note is that nowhere; nowhere in evidence was there a denial that the FNM are the inheritors of the UBP and its philosophy of exclusion. Nor was there anywhere a denial that Mr. Ingraham said that he intends to remain – if elected – for eighteen months and then turn the party over to Brent Symonette who is his deputy leader. Those are the issues.

On Thursday 22nd February, the unofficial mouthpiece of the Free National Movement The Tribune carried a story under the headline PLP ‘PLAYING RACE CARD’. This was a quote from Brent Symonette, the FNM’s Deputy Leader, who regards himself as white and who is the son of the first Premier of The Bahamas under the full internal self rule government of 1964. Mr. Symonette took the view that because both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs talked about the United Bahamian Party, they were playing the race card. This is indeed funny coming from man who went to high school at St. Andrew's, a school now desegregated. It did not get its first black child until the PLP came to office and that child was a grandson of Sir Milo Butler. Up to that time in 1968, the school was whites only. It was formed for that purpose once Queen’s College became a fully integrated school.

Mr. Symonette of course is from mixed ancestry. His father was regarded as mixed which meant in the parlance of the old days that he had parents of different races: one black and one white. The father himself was a very brown man, proof of the mixing. Mr. Symonette's mother was a white woman. When Cyril Stevenson was Editor of The Herald, he ran a headline in the paper quoting from the report on the birth certificate of R. H. ‘Bobby’ Symonette who became Speaker of the House and was the son of Sir Roland Symonette, the first Premier and another wife also a white woman. Mr. Stevenson proclaimed that Mr. Symonette was a coloured man or in today’s language a black man. Many many “white” families in The Bahamas today are in that category.

One has only to read Colin Hughes comprehensive work on this subject “Race Politics in the Bahamas” to realize the difficulty faced here. Dr. Gail Saunders’ works also attest to the fact which we have always known in this country. Race dominates the politics and life in the country but it is to the advantage of the Free National Movement, the descendants of the United Bahamian Party, to say that race does not matter. One caller to a talk show said that those days will never come again.

How sadly mistaken he is if he believes that. You need only recall our description back when Hubert Ingraham took over the leadership of the Free National Movement. We told you at the time how the remnants of the United Bahamian Party, the money men, met and decided that Tommy Turnquest had to go and that Hubert Ingraham was their man and they told Mr. Turnquest that if he continued to stay on as leader they would withdraw the money from the Free National Movement. He was gone in weeks. Let’s not play here. The United Bahamian Party, the party that stood for exclusion, wants to get the country back.

You need only speak to white foreigners who come here to The Bahamas for the first time and start talking to some white Bahamians who do not know that they have a connection to black Bahamians. They report the inveterate racism that simply seeps out in comments that even the white Bahamians themselves may not be aware of. They speak of black Bahamians as if they are a nation a part. This occurs in a country where under a PLP regime, black government, they have been made richer than ever before. Yet they will not vote for the Progressive Liberal Party. What could possibly be the reason?

Helen Klonaris, published a comprehensive letter, in the press last year, in which she excoriated the attitude of white Bahamians toward black Bahamians and urged a complete confession and repentance. You may click here for that full letter; page 1, page 2.

But back to Fred Mitchell and the Prime Minister. Neither of them mentioned race. It is really Brent Symonette and the FNM who constantly raise race, every time you speak about the UBP and the history of The Bahamas. Why do you want to bring that up they say? They speak as though they want either to forget the history or to rewrite it. There will be no rewriting here and we are going to talk about the history of the country until every one understands what the truth is.

Raynard Rigby, the PLP's Chairman, spoke about the matter in response to The Tribune and to Brent Symonette. You may click here for the full statement. What it boils down to is this. Brent Symonette described Hubert Ingraham and himself as “ salt and pepper”. Brent Symonette disqualified himself for running for the FNM’s leadership because he thought he was not qualified not be Prime Minister because he was white. Hubert Ingraham was the one who said that the Prime Minister never put a white man in his Cabinet as though being white was a qualification for being a member of the Cabinet, not your talent or character.

Race does matter but not to the PLP. It matters to the FNM. Fred Mitchell obviously touched a raw nerve and everyone in the FNM is now scrambling again to make him the issue instead of dealing with the facts on the ground. Mr. Mitchell proudly proclaims himself an African. It says so on his birth certificate. What does race mean? Nothing really except that in a social sense it is the basis for some people to discriminate against others. That is what Mr. Mitchell and the PLP is against discrimination, not someone’s race. Fred Mitchell is not the issue. Racism is and Brent Symonette should examine himself and see if he has purged himself of that demon. You may click here for Fred Mitchell's full address.

One more thing, the PLP should not get drawn into what is essentially a red herring. Having exhausted scandal, smearing and scams, the UBP/FNM is on to race. The PLP should stick to the issues.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 24th February 2006 up to midnight: 283,378.

Fred Mitchell addresses PLP Rally in Pinewood Park
Prime Minister Christie wows the crowd with bombshells
Photographs by Peter Ramsay

THE O’REILLY NONSENSE
    The sleaze factor that we talked about in this column last week is still at work (last week’s column). All during last week, Bahamians dominated as they are by the US media were glued to their televisions sets watching the most amazing and macabre circus. There was a judge who seemed to say the least, kind of unbalanced, making all sorts of off the wall comments, allowing irrelevant questioning and hearsay evidence, in a case involving where Anna Nicole Smith, the B movie actress from the US who moved to The Bahamas and died in Florida two weeks ago, is to be buried. The whole thing was strange.
    At the end of the day, the judge who reportedly broke down crying ruled that the guardian for the child of Ms. Smith who (the child) is said to be in The Bahamas should have possession of the body and it was his (the judge) wish that the body be buried next to her (Anna Nicole) son in The Bahamas. The three competing parties in this circus for the body then joined hands and went out of the court and it appeared that the body was to be shipped to Nassau.
    In Nassau, the press was staked out at another event, the paternity suit in the Bahamas Courts. There the mother, the ex boyfriend and the boyfriend at the time of death are locked in combat for the guardianship of the child. So many have come out of the woodwork to say they are the father, you lose count. But not so fast about burying the body. No time soon says another judge in Florida who has apparently accepted an appeal by the mother of Anna Nicole Smith who wants to bury her daughter in Texas where she lives.
    What annoys us is the commentary coming from this event about The Bahamas. In the closing moments of one of the programmes on Friday 23rd February, Bill O’Reilly who has one of these sleazy programmes on Fox News, the sleaziest of the American networks, made a stupid comment, one of many. He and Fox News specialize in right wing causes, and bad mouth anything that is progressive, black or not American. The loud mouth O’Reilly who wouldn't know a logical argument if he saw one ended his programme by saying to another puff of wind Geraldo Rivera that we all know The Bahamas government is corrupt. His ma must be corrupt. It’s that kind of stupidity that comes with the sleaze that surrounds this whole affair that is quite annoying. Mr. O’Reilly has no evidence of a corrupt Bahamas government and The Bahamas government has nothing whatever to do with this matter. This is an entirely private matter.

THE ANNA NICOLE BONANZA
The Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe, the hotel sector, the taxi drivers must be laughing all the way to the bank these days. Anna Nicole Smith’s living in The Bahamas came with a manufactured controversy by the political enemies of The Bahamas within and without, but it has turned into a bonanza for the tourism sector. The media of the United States is camped here in The Bahamas in their scores, paying everyone in sight to give their story on a slow day. They have even staked out the Lakeview Cemetery that is the burial place of the son of Anna Nicole and will likely be her burial place if the body is brought to Nassau for burial. They are attempting to bribe the staff at the graveyard to tell them where his unmarked grave is.
The Crystal Palace hotel has about 30 rooms taken up by the press people. Then you have the telecommunications fees that they pay to do the transmissions. The taxi drivers are getting in on the lot by ferrying tourists and reporters to the place where Anna Nicole’s house is. The tour to drive to the house is $75 per person. Not bad for a half hour ride. But the greatest bonanza of all is the publicity and the future affects that it will have. It is reported that Chinese tourists are lining up to come to The Bahamas because they want to see Anna Nicole’s house. Serve Hubert Ingraham and his buddies right. They thought they were killing the PLP but instead they caused unwittingly the country to have greater publicity and the PLP has come out far ahead on this one. When the Lord closes one door he always opens another.

INGRAHAM DEFENDS THE INDEFENSIBLE
    The Free National Movement’s leader Hubert Ingraham called a rally on the same night that the PLP called its meeting of Tuesday 20th February. He called the meeting because he did not want his supporters to go to the PLP meeting and hear what the PLP had to say. Some of them went anyway. The problem with his meeting is that he had earlier promised that there would be no further meetings in New Providence until after Lent. You can’t trust him. The PLP seems also to have accepted that bit of wisdom. Except that we take the view that Hubert Ingraham held an election in 1997 that caused the entire campaign to be held over Lent and it made not one bit of difference to the church or church people.
    The FNM rally was also a call for Hubert Ingraham to try to defend the indefensible. The fact is that three Ministers of his Government Frank Watson, Dion Foulkes, and Tommy Turnquest each left the government under a cloud because of their ministerial conduct and with open investigations that were never concluded. Amazingly Mr. Ingraham claimed at an earlier press conference that he had personally investigated each complaint and found that the complaint had no basis. The PLP’s Chairman Raynard Rigby had to point out during the course of his response that you can’t be a judge in your own cause.
    The other strange headline that came out of Mr. Ingraham’s meeting was in answering the Prime Minister’s point on how untrustworthy he is; Mr. Ingraham said that while he visited the Prime Minister during his illness the PM asked him to assist the Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia Pratt during her time as acting Prime Minister. So big deal. Any Prime Minister would ask a retired Prime Minister to give help since she had never done the job before. That became an issue because Prime Minister Christie told how Mr. Ingraham came to his sick bed to say in front of Ministers of the gospel and at prayer that he was finished with public life and would not be running again. He said the same thing to Tommy Turnquest and Dion Foulkes. You can’t trust him. But that was the kind of petty stuff that Mr. Ingraham dealt with at his rally. Desperate times for him you know.

THE RALLY IN PICTURES

Ten thousand strong gathered at the Pinewood Park to witness the Prime Minister set the record straight on the resignation of Shane Gibson. He revealed the hypocrisy of the Free National Movement and Hubert Ingraham who granted permanent residence to a known pedophile and are now insisting that Anna Nicole Smith was not properly given permanent residence of The Bahamas. You may click here for the Prime Minister’s full address. The crowd was in rapt attention but boy did they have good time. The rally was hosted by the Member of Parliament for Pinewood; Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Allyson Maynard Gibson. You may click here for Allyson Maynard Gibson's full address. The photo essay is by Peter Ramsay.

THE PRESS OF THE BAHAMAS
The sleaziest publications in The Bahamas are The Tribune and The Punch. They support the FNM and they are controlled in both cases by people who would be called in the old parlance mulattos or coloureds. Therein lies the problem, an inveterate and visceral hatred within them both (Eileen Carron and Ivan Johnson) for all things and people who are black. This infuses the editorial decisions and the sickness has made The Tribune especially a low down dirty rag as opposed to a paper of record.
We have no idea what the excuse of the Nassau Guardian is for not even pretending any more to have any sense or semblance of balance. The editors are all FNM. Even the young woman who recently returned to The Bahamas from training does not seem to get it. There is simply one biased story after the next in favour of the FNM, making the paper appear to be an FNM propaganda rag. The only paper that gives some semblance of balance is the Bahama Journal.

IN PASSING
Ninety In Court
Samuel ‘Ninety’ Knowles appeared in a US court in Florida on Thursday 22nd February to face charges related to drug smuggling into the United States. His counsel put before the US Courts the question of the legitimacy of their process. As a preliminary point, the Judge was asked to rule on whether or not Mr. Knowles was properly extradited from The Bahamas given the fact that there was another case pending in the Bahamian jurisdiction. The judge reserved his judgment. Chances are this will be tossed out since US courts generally don’t concern themselves about how you got before them even to the point of being kidnapped by US law enforcement officers abroad.

The Nassau Flight Services Baggage Handlers
Marcus Rolle, Giovanni Munroe, Lester Bain, Roney Toney, John Peters, Delvin Rigby are charged in the US with conspiracy to import cocaine into the US. They have been at the centre of a demand from some quarters in this country for their immediate return on the grounds that they were lured into the US by the collusion of Bahamian and American authorities. Not a shred of evidence to support it but that’s what is being said. Well not to put too fine a point on it, it turns out that four of the six arrested have now pleaded guilty to the charge. Messrs. Munroe, Rigby, Toney, Peters have all pleaded guilty. Messrs. Rolle and Bain are going to trial. The sentencing dates: Munroe 30/03; Rigby 02/05; Toney 19/04; Peters (to be determined).

Who Is Paying Rodney?
Rodney Moncur is the class clown of politics and the proverbial court jester. Every time elections are near, he appears from out of the woodwork like a worm and creates some mischief or other. This year he is at it as usual. First calling for the resignation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell over the arrest of the five baggage handlers in Florida (see story above). Mr. Mitchell had nothing whatever to do with the matter. Then he was there with another demonstration calling for the resignation of Shane Gibson. Later he had a demonstration calling for the excommunication of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister from the Anglican Church. So the question for us is where is he getting the funding for his demonstrations? The most likely culprit is Hubert Ingraham and the FNM. Mr. Moncur needs to come clean and tell the public who he is really representing in these demonstrations.

The Prison Matter Is Settled
Prison officers have gone back to work with their vacations being deducted three days for staying off work in an illegal work stoppage. The leadership was also called on to make a public apology for their actions to the Minister of National Security and the Prison Superintendent. The National Congress of Trade Unions (NCTU) got into it by asking the Government to review the fines on the leadership of the Association arguing that it appeared to target the leadership of the association. The Deputy Prime Minister agreed in the circumstances and waived the fines. The Guardian claimed that the Unions had stared the Governed down. In their dreams. The Union has no standing in the matter. The Government simply accepted that the arguments about double jeopardy were correct and acted in accordance with well known principles on this point that you don’t punish someone twice for the same offence.

PM In Turks And Caicos
Prime Minister Perry Christie, accompanied by the Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe attended the opening of Parliament in the Turks and Caicos Islands following the landslide victory at the polls for the ruling party there led by Premier Michael Misick. The opening took place on Friday 23rd February. The Prime Minister and his party returned to the country the same day.

Happy Birth Day Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier the actor who was born in Miami to Bahamian parents has celebrated the proverbial four score of his birth as in “if by reason of strength” from Psalm 90. At 80 years old the Ambassador to Japan and UNESCO for The Bahamas still leads a full life and looks well. Happy birthday to him.

Cabinet Changes
Consequent upon the resignation of D. Shane Gibson as Minister for Immigration, Labour and Training, the Prime Minister announced on Monday 19th February that the duties of Mr. Gibson will be split between two existing Ministers. Bradley Roberts will take Immigration in addition to his Public Works portfolio. Vincent Peet will take Labour and Training in addition to his Financial Services portfolio. Bahamas Information Services and the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas have now been transferred to the Minister of Health Dr. Bernard Nottage. The Prime Minister has given up Bahamasair to Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe in what appears to be a trade-off since the Minister lost the information portfolio in this latest reallocation.

Brazil Opens An Embassy Here
Brazil has joined the number of countries who have a resident Ambassador to The Bahamas. The embassy will open shortly to the public. The Ambassador presented his credentials to the Governor General on Thursday 22nd February.

Foreign Minister Meets The Egyptian Ambassador

His Excellency Abdel Fattah Moustafa, Ambassador Designate of Egypt, presents his letters of credentials to Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Public Service the Hon. Fred Mitchell during a courtesy call at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2007. Ambassador Moustafa expressed his interest in a cultural exchange between the Bahamas and Egypt which would include a television documentary exchange program.
BIS Photo: Tim Aylen

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
HOW ANNA NICOLE BENEFITED THE BAHAMAS
There appears to us be an unnecessary ringing of the hands over this issue with Anna Nicole Smith. We think that the interpretation of the photos is perverse. We think that the affidavit that alleges a sexual relationship between the Minister of Immigration Shane Gibson and Anna Nicole is not worth the paper it’s written on and is a put up job.
What we know is that the name Bahamas keeps showing up in the international press and the Ministry of Tourism can't pay for the publicity. Anna Nicole Smith tortured soul that she is, has brought that benefit to The Bahamas. She came here for peace and quiet and a place where she could start again. The press hounded her even here but in doing so, it is clear that the publicity is a great bonanza for the country. That's called turning a positive from a negative. - from BahamasUncensored.com last week.

In response to what you wrote with all due respect, it has become public knowledge that Ms. Smith did not land in your country looking for a peaceful and quiet place to start over as that was not her lifestyle nor does inviting ET and other media into her Bahamas home a testimony to that, she was in Bahamas with Mr. Stern to avoid and deny the rightful father Mr. Larry Birkhead of being a father and playing any role in his child's life. Despite a DNA test not yet being conducted it is apparent that the child strongly resembles Mr. Birkhead.
Your country was used by Ms. Smith and Mr. Stern for more sinister purposes then peace and quiet and fresh starts. And now a baby is without a mother or father and is in the custody of someone that appears to have lived off the infants mother and if not responsible fully certainly contributed to her and possibly her son's demise. I truly hope your countrymen and women will now step up to the plate and rectify this horrible mess, and know that the world is watching to see it is done.
Mrs. William Harper
Orangeville, Ontario, Canada

Dear Father in heaven, help us. I truly wonder how working journalists cover this story. I consider it a waste of journalistic time and energy, but people seem so consumed by this non-news. I suppose the fate of the baby is worth public attention, but Jeez. Why is this writer getting so serious about this? The whole story is just a lark. There are more serious matters in the world to concern yourself about. Even the baby is not now at threat at all. She is well taken care of. All of them appear to be carpetbaggers to us. What the writer asserts about the law in The Bahamas is not correct. There is an action now on paternity and guardianship; you can’t avoid having the proper father by coming to The Bahamas. - Editor

If two companies own the Port equally, but Hayward owns more shares of one of those two companies, he clearly owns more of the GBPA than St. George ever did in terms of share ownership. Share ownership is the easiest thing in the world to prove. One pulls out their documentation and there it is! Why all the court action, if he is indeed the major shareholder?
Former Freeport Resident

There is documentation acknowledged in writing by Sir Jack that he owned 50/50 with Edward St. George. He has since repudiated that document but the St. George Estate relies on it. - Editor

THIS WEEK WITH THE PM
Bombshells

Prime Minister Perry Christie this past week was the main draw at a PLP rally held in Pinewood Park. The PM promised bombshells and bombshells he delivered, telling how Hubert Ingraham knowingly welcomed into The Bahamas a known pedophile. Mr. Christie's full address may be read here.

Moss Town Primary Visits

Students from Moss Town Primary School in Exuma, paid a courtesy call on the Prime Minister Christie on Wednesday, February 21, 2007, at the Office of the Prime Minister at Cable Beach. From left are Stephen McQueen, PTA President; Virginia Ellis, Chaperone. At far right is Eleanor Hield, Teacher.
BIS Photo Raymond A. Bethel

Bahamas Information Services photos by Peter Ramsay [Except where noted]

4^th February, 2007 *Welcome to bahamasuncensored.com* *How do you do today? It's great to have you as a reader. We have the most incisive political news about and from The Bahamas!* *Please tell all your friends about us.* ...THE HIRED HANDS...
THE REGISTER TO CLOSE...	THE BRANCH MEETING IN FOX HILL...
SIDEBURNS ON FRED MITCHELL...	PENSIONS FOR RETIREES RAISED...
INGRAHAM OPPOSES PENSION BILL...	MINISTER OF TOURISM APOLOGISES...
POOR DWIGHT HIGGS...	WHAT THEY SAID AT THE FOX HILL BRANCH MEETING...
IN PASSING...	LETTERS TO THE EDITOR...
	THIS WEEK WITH THE PM...







The Official Site of the Progressive Liberal Party...	The Official Site of the Free National Movement...
PLPs On The Web...	Interesting Places...
Bradley Roberts / PLP Grants Town	Bahamas Government Website
Neville Wisdom / PLP Delaporte	Reg & Kit's Bahamas Links
Alfred Sears / PLP Fort Charlotte	Bahamians On The Web
Melanie Griffin / PLP Yamacraw	Bahamian Cycling News
John Carey / PLP Carmichael	FredMitchellUncensored.Com ARCHIVES...
Grand Bahama PLP

11^th February, 2007 *Welcome to bahamasuncensored.com* *How do you do today? It's great to have you as a reader. We have the most incisive political news about and from The Bahamas!* *Please tell all your friends about us.* ...THE DEBATE ON A PRIME MINISTER’S PENSION...
THE PRISON OFFICERS...	THE TEACHERS...
FNM CANDIDATE SNUBS MINISTER MITCHELL...	A POLICE TRANSFER...
ANNA NICOLE SMITH’S DEATH...	IN PASSING...
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR...	THIS WEEK WITH THE PM...









The Official Site of the Progressive Liberal Party...	The Official Site of the Free National Movement...
PLPs On The Web...	Interesting Places...
Bradley Roberts / PLP Grants Town	Bahamas Government Website
Neville Wisdom / PLP Delaporte	Reg & Kit's Bahamas Links
Alfred Sears / PLP Fort Charlotte	Bahamians On The Web
Melanie Griffin / PLP Yamacraw	Bahamian Cycling News
John Carey / PLP Carmichael	FredMitchellUncensored.Com ARCHIVES...
Grand Bahama PLP

18^th February, 2007 *Welcome to bahamasuncensored.com* *How do you do today? It's great to have you as a reader. We have the most incisive political news about and from The Bahamas!* *Please tell all your friends about us.* ...THE TABLOIDIZATION OF THE BAHAMAS...
INGRAHAM SHOULD CHECK HIS OWN MEMBERS...	HOW ANNA NICOLE BENEFITED THE BAHAMAS...
THE ILLEGAL WORK STOPPAGE AT THE PRISON...	COMMENTS IN THE COURT OF APPEAL...
TRANSPORT MINISTER ON AIRPORT SAFETY...	IN PASSING...
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR...	THIS WEEK WITH THE PM...









The Official Site of the Progressive Liberal Party...	The Official Site of the Free National Movement...
PLPs On The Web...	Interesting Places...
Bradley Roberts / PLP Grants Town	Bahamas Government Website
Neville Wisdom / PLP Delaporte	Reg & Kit's Bahamas Links
Alfred Sears / PLP Fort Charlotte	Bahamians On The Web
Melanie Griffin / PLP Yamacraw	Bahamian Cycling News
John Carey / PLP Carmichael	FredMitchellUncensored.Com ARCHIVES...
Grand Bahama PLP

25^th February, 2007 *Welcome to bahamasuncensored.com* *How do you do today? It's great to have you as a reader. We have the most incisive political news about and from The Bahamas!* *Please tell all your friends about us.* ...FRED MITCHELL IS NOT THE ISSUE...
THE O’REILLY NONSENSE...	THE ANNA NICOLE BONANZA...
INGRAHAM DEFENDS THE INDEFENSIBLE...	THE RALLY IN PICTURES...
THE PRESS OF THE BAHAMAS...	IN PASSING...
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR...	THIS WEEK WITH THE PM...









The Official Site of the Progressive Liberal Party...	The Official Site of the Free National Movement...
PLPs On The Web...	Interesting Places...
Bradley Roberts / PLP Grants Town	Bahamas Government Website
Neville Wisdom / PLP Delaporte	Reg & Kit's Bahamas Links
Alfred Sears / PLP Fort Charlotte	Bahamians On The Web
Melanie Griffin / PLP Yamacraw	Bahamian Cycling News
John Carey / PLP Carmichael	FredMitchellUncensored.Com ARCHIVES...
Grand Bahama PLP

Compiled, edited and constructed by Russell Dames Updated every Sunday at 2 p.m.

Volume 5 © BahamasUncensored.Com 2007

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