Archive for January, 2011|Monthly archive page
Kartel and Cake Soap
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bleach, bleaching, cake, jamaica, january. 2011, kartel, lightening, skin, soap, vybz
Comments (2) What is the man doing?
Here’s the photo doing the rounds on the internet – Kartel looking so handsome in the good old days with the glowing skin and the after photo – after the skin bleaching. Comments I received on facebook included, “idiot” and “he now looks like a monster”. I think it’s just so sad and tells me that the guy is seriously losing his way. This is not what someone who loves and respects themselves does.
I actually really like the song though, been listening to that alot and also the counteraction song, has a good vibe to it.
He talks about it in this video – forward to 3’23
BBC Caribbean RIP
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bbc, caribbean, cut, cuts jobs, jamaica, service, world
Comments (2) It is with great sadness that I heard the news about BBC Caribbean being closed in the latest round of BBC World Service cuts.
Bush house, London photo courtesy of Redvers
It leads me to worry about the media coverage in Jamaica as the BBC’s news correspondent Nick Davies has also been returned to London. There is a big difference being there full time and living there, rather than flying in when there’s a big story to cover. The expertise and the daily news that will be lost will have consequences far beyond the loss of jobs and programmes. This relates to holding government and officials in Jamaica to account. The BBC were in a unique position to do this in a place where there is widespread intimidation by the police and by gangsters, protecting their interests at the expense of ordinary Jamaicans.
Coke and Wikileaks
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 2011, christopher, coke, demond, dudus, jamaica. january, kingston, mayor, mckenzie, wikileaks
Comments (1) Happened ages ago I know, but just updating the blog and in case someone was not aware, the wikileaks website revealed what we all knew about the Coke extradition and pretty much makes this whole Jamaican govt enquiry completely redundant (at a cost of JA 40 million), but they carry on regardless and the Jamaican people have to eat it.
What was revealed (see below), is nothing at all we didn’t know and perhaps PM Bruce Golding and the JLP would have been forgiven, had they not tried to lie their way through the whole thing.
Jamaican police search for Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, in a long sought-after manhunt which US embassy staff claim was delayed because of corrupt politicians Photograph: Hans Deryk/REUTERS
The mayor of Kingston, Jamaica, tried to dissuade the US government from extraditing a local druglord because he correctly predicted it would ignite violence and unleash a challenge to the state, according to statements attributed to the mayor within leaked US diplomatic cables.
Councillor Desmond McKenzie, mayor of Kingston and St Andrew, allegedly told US officials in September 2009 that the Americans’ request to extradite Christopher “Dudus” Coke on narcotics and firearms charges risked “serious repercussions” and would “risk destroying everything the government was trying to do on the economy and crime”.
When Jamaican officials eventually tried to arrest Coke in May 2010 violence did indeed break out between gangs loyal to the druglord and state forces. At least 73 people were killed as the government declared a state of emergency. Coke was eventually captured and extradited in June.
The mayor also allegedly told diplomats Coke had collaborated with the Jamaican government in various crime crackdowns. The confidential cable states: “The mayor said that in recent years his administration had worked with Coke to reduce crime in the inner cities of Jamaica, particularly in West Kingston. If he now were extradited this would ‘leave a vacuum’, and matters would be much worse.”
The cable continues: “McKenzie noted that in recent days several of his “contacts in the communities” had told him they “would not take this [Coke's extradition] lying down”.
A further cable claims Lorna Golding, the Jamaican prime minister’s wife, told a US embassy official that the extradition request “had been orchestrated as a means of embarrassing her husband politically” by people – including US congressman Charles Rangel – sympathetic to her husband’s political enemies.
The cable states: “In an often surreal and disjointed conversation, Mrs Golding alleged that Congressman Rangel is a ‘sympathiser’ of the opposition People’s National party (PNP) who is ‘manipulated’ by PNP elements in the Jamaican diaspora in the US and is ‘whispering in secretary Clinton’s ear’ in order to ‘downgrade’ the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the government of Jamaica.” Excerpt taken from here
