Editorial

For all our own crime challenges and the questions that continue to be raised as to whether our law enforcement is up to keeping those challenges in check, it is difficult for us not to look over our shoulders at fellow Caribbean Community member country Trinidad and Tobago where there exists the widespread feeling that the term ‘killing fields’ is altogether appropriate to sum up the contemporary crime situation there.

Just last week in these columns it was lamented how the failure of the prison service and police could have possibly led to the murders of a Saxacalli mother and son, Nellie and David Gomes on March 8.

In case it had escaped anyone’s attention, it seems that the annual remembrance ceremony for Dr Cheddi Jagan last week marked the beginning of the election season.

It was amusing to hear President Ali this week declaring how he and other CARICOM leaders had consulted extensively with Haitian civil society in their plan to stem what is nothing short of a revolution.  

Last Thursday Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo added the subject of the highway sand pits to the varied list of matters he covers at his weekly encounters with the media.

Every three years, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) administers its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which measures the performance of 15-year-old students in mathematics, science and reading as a means of evaluating the global education system in order to decipher its gains and failings and the areas where more work needs to be done.

As of late, Castellani House has been in the news quite a bit.

No country can lay serious claim to possessing an effective overall law enforcement regime in circumstances where the ‘reach’ of law enforcement is constrained either by a substantive lack of physical and technical resources necessary for effective delivery, or, on account of a paucity of support from other critical institutions in the country, as a whole.

The  recent conferences of the police force and the prison service have been shadowed by horrendous crimes and failures that one hopes there was serious introspection at these gatherings and that the government will tame the hoopla about how well things are going and face the facts.

The heads of government of Celac – the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States ‒ met in St Vincent on March 1st.

In early January, European Central Bank Chief, Christine Lagarde spoke out loud what many world leaders are saying privately: that the re-election of Donald Trump as US President would present a major threat to geo-political and economic stability.

When the political party The New Movement was launched in November 2019 it described itself as a non-traditional political organisation. 

As the world celebrates International Women’s Day tomorrow, 113 years after the first global commemoration, which was held on a different day (March 19), it remains more than a little concerning to note that gender parity – the term given to the statistical measurement of relative equality between men and women, including access to resources – is still some 130 years away. 

Last Friday evening the Guyana Prize for Literature Awards Ceremony was held at the National Cultural Centre (NCC).

If Guyana has not quite acquired the level of positive international attention that derives from accomplishments associated with robust physical infrastructure and playing host to significant regional and international gatherings, there are indications that we appear to be getting there.

Has the evidence gathering and prosecutorial functions of the Guyana Police Force improved?

Anyone with common sense, not to mention the teachers, must be saying to themselves, ‘Thank goodness for Justice Sandil Kissoon.’ 

What an extraordinary turn of events. Chevron was all set to move in on John Hess’ oil patch down in Guyana and Boom!

We are less the prisoners of our history than the prisoners of myths about our history.

On February 4, 80-year-old Joni Mitchell won her tenth Grammy award for Best Folk Album.