Editorial

Disappointing. That word was in constant usage by many delegates at the final round of talks on what was supposed to be a landmark agreement on tackling plastic pollution in South Korea, but which ended with no resolution in the early hours of Monday last.

Last Thursday, Australia’s Parliament approved the Social Media Minimum Age bill, which effectively bans children under the age of 16 from accessing social media.

The expression ‘A Bridge Too Far’ is often used to illustrate a circumstance/decision/situation that strains credulity, goes beyond the point of reason or is widely considered to be doomed to public ridicule or failure.

It has now been six months since the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) advertised for judges to be appointed to the bench of the Guyana Court of Appeal (GCA) yet there is still to be an announcement of new appointees.

The week before last Trinidadian Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced that a Caribbean-wide gangs database was to be introduced along with a Caricom Arrest Warrant.

In Guyana, where political commentary is often polarized and media coverage frequently sensationalizes issues, one might assume that citizens are more informed than ever.

Vision and enthusiasm are great impellers towards progress but they must also intersect with reality before they can really impact on programmes, policies or even the littlest of tasks.

If the result of the latest United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) held in Baku, Azerbaijan is to be taken as a sign of where this world is heading, then the future is destined to be uncertain, at the very least.

“A house divided against itself, cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

For all sorts of reasons, the vast majority of which are widely known to the Guyanese public and which officialdom has made no serious effort to address over the years, the image of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) is now, unquestionably, in tatters, the latest occurrence, an alleged enormous financial ‘rip off’ involving a senior member of a GPF still resonating across a country shocked over the sheer scale of the alleged financial shenanigans in which the accused police officer is allegedly involved.

Recent blackouts have underlined how this government – like its predecessors – has signally failed to deliver a reliable, stable electricity supply.

Dr Bertrand Ramcharan is not one to shy away from controversy. 

Imagine a Martian landing in Guyana tomorrow and taking in their first view of the country.

On November 16th, in Cummings Park, ‘E’ Field Sophia, an 11-month-old baby girl, Melveena Angel Blair, was burnt to death in her family’s home.

Twenty-five years ago, a cellular phone was a clunky device that could not fit into a regular pocket or small purse; it did not have a camera or much of a screen.

As one examines the ever evolving culture of Guyanese society, the shortchanging of a well-rounded high school experience for students of the last two decades, unfortunately, glows brightly in the spotlight.

The sense one gets from President Irfaan Ali’s recent 5:30 am meeting with Ministers and some senior Public Servants is that he seeking to send a message that there are mechanisms within aspects of the government’s machinery that are, at the least, creaking at the hinges, and that he is seeking to send a boisterous message to those state functionaries of his unhappiness with the performances of some key institutions of government and that he is seeking significant changes in the modus operandi of those aspects of the operational side of the governance process.

On November 15th, the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) charged two former employees of the Ministry of Health’s Materials Management Unit (MMU) Bond at Diamond, East Bank Demerara with money laundering.

Wrapped in the package of this year’s Christ-mas policing plan came the annual crime figures.

Every person has in their mind, an idea of the person they are.