Today is Thursday 5th June 2007 and I’m glad you could join us.

I want to clarify some confusion in the last podcast about the delegation of The Bahamas to the Caricom Heads of Government Conference in Barbados that wrapped up on Wednesday 4th July.  When I reported it last time, the Jamaica Observer reported that only our Ambassador for Caricom Leonard Archer was there.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs website gave no indication about whether or not the Minister was going.   It turns out that a ministerial delegation did go but they went late.

The delegation was headed by Foreign Minister Brent Symonette, Minister of State Zhivargo Laing, former Ambassador Joshua Sears who is now a special assistant in the Prime Minister's office, Ambassador Archer and Ava Lane, an officer of the Ministry.

Well one should be thankful for small mercies but the important point is that Hubert Ingraham, the Prime Minister did not attend. Remember The Bahamas is to become the Chair of Caricom next February and you would think that he would like to have his fellow Prime Minister's come to Nassau. Or who knows? The way this is going, he may just tell them to let The Bahamas pass and go to the next country.

We continue to say that Brent Symonette is not an appropriate person to be Foreign Minister. The job should have gone to Joshua Sears, the former Ambassador and the losing FNM candidate in Exuma. In fact, Mr. Symonette's deficiencies show by the fact that you have Ambassador Sears and Ambassador Archer and a Minister of State go down to the Caribbean with him.

The central point of the meeting seemed to be functional cooperation in Caricom but as I said before The Bahamas has always been engaged in functional cooperation in foreign affairs, in education, in health, in law, in the development of common standards, in agriculture , in disaster relief and many other fields . This is not new.  The Bahamas has to make the hard decisions with regard to its economy, in order to bring about greater equity in the economy and allow access to fresh sources of Capital.  Brent Symonette would have no interest in that.  He has all the capital he needs.

Last time, I spent some time talking about the media and its bias. It also talked about the need to redirect the marketing choices of PLPs when it comes to what they rely on for their sources of reading.   The words were hardly out of my mouth when I got a call from a PLP incensed about some garbage written in the weekly rag, run by a natural nutcase, who simply sits down in a drunken haze and makes up stories every week.

There have been a series of drug busts in the country, and this lying newspaper says that this is because the PLP stopped the police from executing their jobs when the PLP as in power.  It is important for Assistant Commissioner Marvin Dames, Assistant Commissioner Reginald Ferguson, and the Commissioner Police Paul Farqhuarson to say now whether this is so.  It certainly is not so.  This kind of nonsense then is read by PLPs who help to keep this reprobate in business and they help to spread propaganda about themselves.  I keep saying: don’t buy it, don’t read it.

The country is preparing for Independence and I hope to join the people of Exuma at the ecumenical service in   Exuma on Sunday night and the flag raising on the eve of Independence.  Have happy a Independence weekend.

That’s it for now. Thanks for joining us and I hope you will join us next time.