Thursday, March 6, 2008

News Review 7th March 2008

Gambia: Hundreds of Banjul/Serre-Kunda Left Stranded Wednesday!!

Typical Freedom hate-spiel, typical Freedom misrepresentation of facts and completely getting wrong their interpretation of what actually is happening. The car shortage is actually due to the police impounding vehicles which have not renewed their licenses, a perfectly reasonable activity, given that drivers have ample time to do this (once-a-year) activity. From the article: "It could be recalled that several times after these monies are collected one man steals and disappears in the thin air, this has several times hit the Immigration department and people are hoping that it would not happen this year as many are only trying to fill their pockets and get away from the government.".

Seriously as long as Freedom continues to pull allegations like this seemingly out of thin air, with no backing and no hard facts whatsoever to back them, I do not see how people can take them seriously.

Gambian Students Flying Our Flag High in Taiwan

- A very reasoned, well-thought-out reply to the Freedom article concerning the same topic, which I will not dignify by linking to here. The only sad thing is that so much energy has to be spent defending against smear campaigns like this one - surely we have enough REAL issues to discuss, that we don't need to make new ones up.


Man Collapses, Dies While Approaching President Jammeh

"In an interview shortly afterwards the President said that he had spotted the man at a distance and knew his intentions were motivated by hate but that he was better prepared for any eventuality."


Seriously. Someone. Tell. This. Guy. He. Is. Not. Jesus. Reincarnate. !!!(And funnily enough it's The Point who are reporting this, myth-building aspects and all, whilst the usually eager-as-puppies-for-propaganda Daily Observer didn't say a word).

Armed Robbery Becoming Habitual in CRR - Governor Touray

The evidence sounds a bit too circumstantial to me. If Mr Jallow owned his own shop, why did the supposed armed robbers not rob him? Why would armed robbers who had planned enough to get a truck and choose a time of night and everything then not know how to get to the place they wanted to rob, and have to ask for directions? And, if they were armed, why did they ask nicely?

Gambia: Lieutenant Bakary Camara Still Not in Court


No matter what else you have to say against Foroyaa, I think it still is very, very admirable that they not only keep pressing the Government to account for missing persons, and downright noble of them that they don't limit this to just opposition figures, but also Government personnel as well, people who on a normal day would probably consider Foroyaa mortal enemies. Not that anything gets done about it. Ah well - at least in the future, when we are all dust and all that, archivists and historians will have quite a comprehensive record of the current Government's disappearings and human rights abuses, simply by going through back issues of Foroyaa.

“We are happy and grateful to DOSE” - Gambia College Students

Very nice. How it's supposed to work really - the citizens speak, the Government hears them and tries to make things better. And teachers are the public servants about whom all the clichés are true: they are the bones in the backbone of the country, the masons and bricklayers right at the bottom whose work is so very important for building a strong, durable foundation for the nation-as-building-metaphor.

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Welcome to gambianewsfilter, a group blog where we post analyses, commentary and essays on current gambian news topics. Our stance is that the interests of the nation supersedes all political views and parties, and we believe in intelligent debates about issues, respecting each others' views even when they are completely different from each other.

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