Editorial

There was, understandably, significant consternation expressed over a recent article published in this newspaper on the results of the Guyana Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Round 5 (MICSR5), particularly the findings regarding physical violence.

One year after general elections were held in Trinidad & Tobago and the Peoples National Movement (PNM), led by Dr Keith Rowley, was elected to government, the pollsters have been busy assessing the views of public opinion on the government’s performance.

September, Education Month, serves as a timely reminder of what remains the gap between the various challenges in our education system and our failure to effectively address many if not most of those challenges, despite our significant financial investment in education and the unending public discourse, over the years, about what the problems are and how they can be fixed.

Coming after years of serious questions about Baishanlin’s conduct here, the decision last week by the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) to repossess the Chinese company’s forestry concessions will be seen as a positive development in ensuring the accountability of foreign investors and the judicious development of the country’s resources.

President David Granger has proved resistant to reshuffling his cabinet, which is sometimes used as a euphemism for dropping a minister or two.

The Observer newspaper recently invited five writers to share their reflections on the Obama years – to consider what had changed within the United States and how the President would most likely be remembered.

In its guidelines for drinking-water quality, the World Health Organization says that access to safe potable water is “essential to health, a basic human right and a component of effective policy for health protection”.

For close to six years now reporters attached to this newspaper have gone to various communities in all ten regions of Guyana, seeking to shed light on their customs, way of life and issues in a series of features called ‘The World Beyond Georgetown’, recognising that for a very long time, many of the far-to-reach places were out of sight and in several instances out of mind as well.

We in Guyana, as against citizens in other Caribbean states, will certainly have had a more intense interest in Latin American affairs recently, as the governments in our two neighbours, Brazil and Venezuela, have been facing substantial challenges, deriving largely from declines in their economies.

The first stanza of the long-awaited negotiations between the Government of Guyana and the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) on wages and salaries for public servants has not gone well.

When oil and gas revenue becomes available in the next five or six years there will be a long list of priorities to address including matters like public service wages currently facing the government.

A letter appeared in this newspaper on Thursday which relayed an account of conversations between lawyers and former senior GDF officers in the diaspora about the need to seek a modification in the role of the army and a change in the law so it could “assist in investigations and other crime-solving activities.”

Two months after a failed coup the Turkish government continues to exploit vague threats of further plots to jail its critics and deepen its hold on the country’s institutions.

Workplace safety incidents have been an issue in Guyana for a number of years, a consequence of employers and employees not following safety guidelines, but the burden of responsibility mostly rests on employers who, in the pursuit of profits, do so at the expense of the health and safety of their workers.

When 41-year-old Akola Wayne fell in her yard at Melanie Damishana and broke her leg just over a week ago, she possibly considered that she would be inactive for a while.

Ongoing polls in the course of the United States presidential elections campaign generally show Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by a margin not dramatic enough to decisively state that she is already home and dry.

It was always likely that the negotiations between the government and the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) over increases in public servants’ wages, salaries and allowances might, at some stage, hit hurdles and that is exactly what now appears to be the case.

The cringe-worthy apology of the Minister of Public Health, Dr George Norton on Friday over the bond scandal demonstrates the APNU+AFC government’s complete unwillingness to hold its senior officials accountable and to take condign action.

The government has found itself in a few scandals since coming into office, but none has been more corrosive to its image than the drug bond contract.

The long-awaited treaty that may finally end Colombia’s 50-year civil conflict is a study in perseverance.