Editorial

“Character is not formed by the mind,” wrote Baron Pierre de Coubertin, “it is formed above all by the body.

If anyone was expecting the announcement of a comprehensive strategy to tackle the student debt problem, both in terms of existing non-performing debt already on the books, and the processing and managing of new debt through the Student Loan Programme, they were to be disappointed.

It was disturbing to learn that many children are not only unprepared for their placement in residential care, but continue to be unaware of how long they are required to stay.

The decision of the Government of Jamaica to establish a Caribbean Community (Caricom) Review Commission probably caught other Caricom countries and governments by surprise.

There had been an audible public outrage after news of the fire at the Hadfield Street Drop-In Centre managed by the state-run Child Care and Protection Agency and which claimed the lives of two young children.

Given the entrenched ethno-political polarisation in the country and the willingness of any number of politicians to exploit this, it is no surprise that there have been shrill declarations recently about discrimination against Indo-Guyanese and other ills.

Cases involving illegal immigration usually slide by without attracting much public attention, but that was not so last week.

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion,” said US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan a generation ago, “but not his own facts.” 

Last month when he announced government’s plan to expand our emergency medical services Minister Joe Harmon stopped short of acknowledging that the emergency response here is downright poor, and that it fails to provide timely and life-saving assistance to citizens.

Something seems to be not quite right with the accounting at City Hall, or if it is, there is a huge misunderstanding that needs to be cleared up.

It might have been surprising to observers that so soon after the 37th Caricom Heads of Government meeting from the 4th to 6th of this month, the Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley should have chosen to make an official visit to Jamaica to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries.

Sunday’s comprehensive defeat suffered by the West Indies cricket team in the first of four Test matches against a clearly superior Indian outfit provided a poignant reminder that the road back from ignominy to international cricketing respectability in Test cricket will be long and difficult, and that it may well take a generation or more ‒ if indeed those days do return even that quickly.

It’s now been over six months since the meetings of the Region Five council have been disrupted by APNU+AFC councillors over a perceived slight to President Granger by the Chairman of the Region, Vickchand Ramphal who happens to represent the opposition PPP/C.

The Mayor & City Council seems to lurch from one embarrassment to the next.

Narratives of America’s decline have become so entrenched in the US media that is possible to forget that the same news outlets that created, and continue to foster, such pessimism are responsible for giving Donald Trump an estimated US$2 billion in free media coverage.

When the government released the findings of a forensic audit of the University of Guyana Student Loan Agency last month, there was an expectation in some quarters that an announcement would follow of a set of comprehensive steps to address this national problem.

Last week, three minor girls aged ten, seven and five years old were seen on the seawall in a Berbice village at an hour in the morning which suggested that they would have slept there the night before.

This week the American presidential race has moved on to a new stage, with the Republican convention to formally select a candidate currently being held, and that for the Democrats to take place next week – all in preparation for the presidential election on November 8.

Early on Wednesday morning a West Demerara murder suspect who was being held at the La Grange Police Station escaped custody reportedly through a hole in the wall of the cell where he was being held.

In recent days, criticisms of the actions of the Chairman of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), Rawle Lucas in the media have reached a crescendo.