Editorial

Umpires and their decisions have been the topic of highly animated discussions of many sport fans as of late, especially those of international tennis and the Caribbean Premier League. 

We are still to receive official confirmation that the customary programme of activities usually planned and executed by the Ministry of Education to mark Education Month which is usually rolled out in September will not be staged this year.

In the wake of the stark duplicity and opaqueness that has characterised the APNU+AFC government’s handling of the nascent oil and gas sector, the public has been awaiting a clear sign from the administration that transparency and full engagement with all stakeholders will be its mantra.

Guyana’s desire for its own law school dates back to the 1990s, early in the last administration.

The anonymous New York Times Op-Ed which alleges that senior staff have discreetly worked to mitigate president Trump’s emotional incontinence has produced wild speculation within the US media.

Recently, the President of Guyana, having consulted with the Leader of the Opposition, thereafter made a departure from the norm in naming a new Commissioner of Police who was not one of the more senior contenders, nor the acting Commissioner of Police.

For more than 20 years, Estée Lauder, the world-renowned, manufacturing group of companies named for its founder that has been in existence since the 1940s, has been listing P.

 A week ago today in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, Stan Brock passed away, and as is fast becoming the trend here in Guyana, one can expect that his name will soon be forgotten.

Sooner, hopefully rather than later, government and the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) will sit down together again to see through the satisfactory settlement of what has become the difficult issue of settling on a mutually agreed offer to teachers in relation to their salaries, allowances and other conditions of service given a universal acceptance of the reality that there is a gap,  a considerable one, between the service that teachers give to this nation and the extent of the material reward that they receive. 

President Granger’s statement on Friday at his third press conference since taking office three years ago that the government is now seeking to mobilise funds to make a better pay offer to teachers is cause for great concern. 

Yesterday marked the beginning of Indigenous Heritage Month. We will, of course, be treated to all the usual exhibitions and the like, but one cannot help but wish that the population as a whole, and not just the First Peoples, were exposed to the early history of this land.

With a warning that the exodus from Venezuela is close to producing a “crisis moment”, last week the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) urged Latin American nations to relax visa restrictions for more than 1.6 million citizens who have left the country during the last three years.

It is a rather unfortunate, yet undeniable fact, that the concept of animal control as a responsibility of government, whether central or local, appears to have long been abandoned here in Guyana.

In recent years there have been many an outcry over ‘plastic rice’ reportedly being sold as the real thing as well as other so-called fake foods.

The hustle and bustle of back-to-school shopping for the September term is gathering momentum and the converging streets and the never ending flow of traffic amidst the penetrating hum, appear to be a kaleidoscope  of colours  and a ball of bursting energy loosely rolled together  and splattered on to a canvas of shimmering asphalt.

The fact that some commentators are advocating that any increase in minibus fares be linked to an across-the -board improvement in the quality of service afforded commuters resembles a desperate bid to claw back some measure of leverage from an industry ‘gone wild’ though the more one thinks of throwing in ‘good behaviour’ as part of the criteria for increased fares the more it seems to be not a particularly good idea.

Despite assurances, President Granger is yet to convene a press conference for the local media corps and to begin to hold them on a regular basis.

Last week a 23-member US Congressional delegation, including military personnel, breezed in here for reasons which were never officially explained.

Three days ago America’s political landscape began to realign itself. Two of the president’s most senior advisers found themselves at the mercy of a special prosecutor, and it seemed, for the first time, that presidential pardons – the legal sleight of hand Trump has relied on to evade political pressure – had outlived their usefulness.

There is a saying attributed to the 19th century circus owner, Phineas T. Barnum, which says that “there is no such thing as bad publicity.” This bold statement is not usually interpreted too literally and is thought to recognise publicity as a contributor to business success, particularly as compared to no publicity.