Editorial

The account of domestic violence victim Sandy Persaud’s resort to living in hiding following a near-fatal cutlass attack by her ex-partner, published on Sunday last, so closely mirrors that of another woman from the same county last December that it’s time to ask: just what is going on in Berbice?

Last week, Geoffrey Hinton, the expatriate British computer scientist, in an interview with the New York Times (published on Monday), revealed his growing fear with developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

Governments of member countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), all too frequently, find themselves in the unhappy position of having their promises meet with healthy doses of skepticism from the people of the region, that condition having derived from what has become an ingrained propensity on the part of those governments to ‘chalk up’ unfulfilled undertakings.

In its Executive Summary, the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the March 2nd 2020 General Elections expressed the hope that its work would bring closure to this chapter of Guyana’s sordid electoral history.

Last Monday, a Bill which potentially could be viewed in a sinister light was read for the first time in the National Assembly.

In a rebuttal on April 26, the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance took umbrage at the April 23rd editorial in this newspaper entitled ‘Regional anti-corruption conference’.

Home Affairs Permanent Secretary Mae Toussaint Jr Thomas was in transit to China on April 8 when she was subjected to what is called a secondary inspection by US Customs and Border Protection at Miami Airport.

There is a story told of a mother who gives her children food, shelter and nurture; the best of all she has, only to have them later ignore or ill treat her for the most part.

The tinkling of the wind chimes at the door of Test Cricket breaks the silence as an intruder swings it wide open.

Quite what to make of the reported recent remark (Stabroek News, Monday March 27) by the General Secretary of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), Coretta Mc Donald, that the recent incident at the Houston Secondary School during which a teacher had  “armed herself with a cutlass” had been resolved, and that the parent of the offending child and the cutlass-wielding teacher have “sorted out their differences” is difficult to say.

In the National Assembly today – one of too few of its meetings – the government intends to table for first reading the National Intelligence and Security Agency bill.

Last week Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira was in full flow on the subject of the corruption rankings issued by Transparency International.

You have to give it to Bharrat Jagdeo. He has been trying to “sell” Guyana’s rainforest since the early 2000s going around the world saying if you don’t buy our trees they may have to be chopped down.

In the Press Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders last year, Guyana secured a commendable 34th place out of the 180 countries reviewed. 

One imagines a number of jaws dropped on Monday when PPP General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo submitted that party’s list for the June 12 Local Government Elections, inclusive of the name Patricia Chase-Green.

The Guyana contingent to the 50th Junior Carifta Games, held in Nassau, The Bahamas from 7th to 10th April, returned home last Thursday evening basking in the glow of their fifth place finish, to a rousing welcome of drumming, confetti and bouquets of flowers.

Quite how it turned out that a contingent of national athletes travelling to represent Guyana at the CARIFTA Games in The Bahamas found themselves issued with one-way airline tickets, is a bit of a mind-boggler though it has to be said that astounding anomalies in the administration of sport have not, historically, been altogether alien to us.

On December 11th last year, more than four months ago, there was a confrontation in the Providence Police Station between two civilians during which a gunshot was fired and the cops fled for cover.

It is difficult for anyone who has never stood in front of thirty secondary school students averse to learning to understand exactly what is involved.

The dream of owning one’s own home is probably a widely held aspiration for the remaining renter/landless class of Guyana.