Oluatoyin Alleyne

The Donald Ramotar administration yesterday moved to the court to challenge the recent cuts made to the national budget, arguing that the opposition-controlled National Assembly had no power to reduce or set public spending.

The last time Indira Singh was seen alive was one week before her decomposing body was found in the dilapidated house she shared with her teenaged mentally challenged daughter located at Post Office Street, Vergenoegen, East Bank Essequibo.

Every day 42-year-old Padmawattie Faikall with her five-year-old son in tow heads to the Anna Regina car park where they stand in the rain or the blazing sun begging for most of the day before returning home to count the day’s ‘earnings’.

US county judge in Tallahassee, Florida, Judith Hawkins, had many firsts when she became a judge in 1996 as she was the first African-American in the Second Judicial Circuit elected in a contested election, the first African-American county judge and the first African-American female county judge.

Psychologist Dr Faith Harding has expressed grave concern over the number of suicides and attempted suicides among young people, and she has attributed the problem partly to them living life too quickly and becoming bored by the time they are in their late teens.

Former central executive member of the PNCR Dr Faith Harding has been moving ahead with her Quick Impact Programme (QIP) and one of her major programmes is already under way with the planting of many acres of sorrel at Long Creek which is expected to be exported when reaped.

Twenty-four-year-old Susanna Jamal is a young woman full of life who is never lost for an encouraging word for others, even though the experiences of her own life would have caused the fittest of stalwarts to falter.

President of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) Patrick Harding has pledged his association will work along with the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO) to combat trafficking in persons.

A teacher for 24 years, new A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) parliamentarian John Adams, hopes that by the end of the next five years teachers and students of the Vreed-en-Hoop Secondary School will no longer have to be away from school for about four days every time there is a high tide.

Many years ago avid book collector and Emeritus Professor of Africana studies Tony Martin picked up a book by George F Warner cheaply as it was at the end of its print run, but it took him years to discover that the book contained what he now describes as “startling pieces of new information,” one being that the first East Indian immigrant came to the Caribbean in 1595, not  1838.

Both the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha and the New Jersey Arya Samaj Mandir/ Guyana Central Arya Samaj Humanitarian Mission receiv-ed land from the Government at Ankerville, Port Mourant to set up shelters for abused children and both organisations have signalled their intention to move on with their missions.

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) will continue to push for reform of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) with the AFC calling for the commission to be a more “professional body” rather than a “politically dominated” body.

Rennis Morian – APNU Pastor Rennis Morian’s mission in the National Assembly is to be one of the driving forces behind the development of Region 10 and to “clear up some of the misconceptions” about the region.

Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) President Komal Chand yesterday said this can still be a turnaround year for the sugar industry once major defects at GuySuCo’s Skeldon factory are fixed, and while he welcomed government’s intervention in the sector, he accused opposition party, the AFC of trying to undermine the union.

Two years ago 54-year-old Lata Inderdeo witnessed the brutal murder of her only daughter, a tragedy that not only left her emotionally scarred for life but with physical scars as well, since the man who snuffed out her daughter’s life also severely chopped both her arms.

The executive of the Guyana Women Miners’ Organisation is very concerned about being perceived as “the enemy” by officials and is calling for the organisation to be recognized as working to improve the lives of women and young girls in need of protection in the country’s interior.

This is the Sixteenth in our series on new parliamentarians After twenty-three years in the Guyana Defence Force and another 15 years as a lawyer in private practice, Joseph Harmon is now an “active politician” and a new face in the 10th sitting of the National Assembly, a sitting he hopes would be the turning point in the country’s history.

Photos by Anjuli Persaud You knew something big was about to happen yesterday when APNU’s Chief Whip Amna Ally, before the National Assembly reconvened, herded her MPs and told them that no “walking about” was going to be tolerated during the sitting.

The Ministry of Human Services & Social Security has taken three girls who were removed from the Oko Backdam in Region Seven late Friday afternoon, where they were reportedly taken to be part of a prostitution ring, into its custody as the police step up their investigations.

A veteran politician but a brand new face in the National Assembly, APNU’s Desmond Trotman believes that the partnership’s central focus should be the development of a government of national unity, and he feels that is how the populace voted in the November 28 elections which resulted in the PPP/C becoming a minority government.