Editorial

Fighting crime in any country in the world is an ongoing battle for control and dominance – first by the criminals seeking to get away with actions that harm the society as a whole, and then, the society fighting back through the criminal justice system, in an attempt to curb the criminality, and to capture and punish the perpetrators as a form of redress for the victims and society, and as a deterrent to others.

There is a saying that change is the only constant in the world, but what about when nothing changes?

The tension for West Indies cricket fans has been mounting very slowly since the International Cricket Conference World Cup qualifiers began in Zimbabwe last week.

Even in a global community where the international relations agenda is teeming with other issues of pressing importance – the Syrian crisis and its related superpower confrontation; the resurfacing geo-political tensions in the Middle East; political instability linked to regime change in Africa; the protracted crisis confronting the Maduro administration in Venezuela; and Russia’s fast-eroding relationship with the West –  no current global development comes close to matching the recent dramatic turn of events than relations between the United States and North Korea.

In the Guyana Football Federation Inc (GFF) column in Saturday’s Guyana Chronicle in recognition of International Women’s Day,  GFF President, Wayne Forde set out what his organisation is doing for gender parity.

One can just imagine the joy suffusing citizens’ faces when they read that Georgetown, following the example of villages, mining areas and towns in this green and verdant land of ours, is to have a ‘City Week’.

Over the last five years, Venezuela has suffered a greater economic contraction than America experienced during the Great Depression.

The announcement this February by Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GLSC), Mr Trevor Benn, that the Commission was preparing a code of ethics intended to guide the work and conduct of land surveyors across the country, is another in a growing list of organisations that is seeking to upgrade or lay down standards by which they conduct their operations.

Today, Guyana joins the rest of the world in observing International Women’s Day.

Last Saturday, the eyes of the world of track and field were focused on the penultimate day of the 2018 International Associations of Athletic Federations (IAAF) World Indoor Championships being held in Birmingham, England.

There is a justifiable case for the Guyana Press Association (GPA) not being entirely satisfied with the apology tendered by Minister Khemraj Ramjattan arising out of his recent encounters with media operatives.

According to an advertisement in Friday’s Stabroek News by the Special Purpose Unit (SPU) set up under the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) to oversee the privatization of sugar estates,  Lots numbered 1 to 12 and 14 to 31, parts of Plantation Wales along the eastern and western sides of the West Bank Public Road have been put up for sale.

There were three stories on a related topic in our edition yesterday: the first dealing with the pressure being put on Region One’s health services owing to illegal Venezuelans entering and seeking treatment, the second a general story about the numbers fleeing our western neighbour and their destinations on the continent, and the third the fining of a man in the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court because he entered Guyana illegally through Eteringbang.

Last week, a literacy initiative established by the actress and county music legend Dolly Parton donated its 100 millionth book to a child.

For some years Guyana held the dubious distinction of being the suicide capital of the world by virtue of a staggering suicide rate of just about 44 persons per 100,000 in 2012.

During last week, two government officials were reported speaking on fighting hunger and malnutrition in Guyana.

Last Thursday evening, on the eve of Guyana’s forty-eighth anniversary of becoming a Co-operative Republic, the nation was served with a sharp reminder that it has a long way to go before we truly become One Nation, One People, One Destiny.

There has been no official disclosure from the Ministry of Education beyond the initial report around two weeks ago regarding alleged drug (ecstasy) distribution in two named Georgetown secondary schools, and afterwards, the announcement that these occurrences were being probed by the police and the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU).

Disregard for one moment the breathtaking bumbling by the APNU+AFC government on the sugar industry and consider the plight of nearly 5,000 workers who have been made redundant since the Wales Factory shut its operations at the end of 2016.

A senior Caricom official was the latest victim to be shot and robbed after withdrawing money from a bank.