Editorial

Sunday night’s fire which razed the girls’ dormitory at the Mahdia Secondary School, taking 19 lives, leaving several injured, traumatising dozens, and spreading a streak of grief and pain across Karisparu, El Paso, Micobie and Chenapau, as well as all over this country was, from all accounts, a disaster waiting to happen.

Media freedom, that which rightly belongs to the people and which ought, correctly, to speak for the people, is still, as it has been for as long as we have been an independent nation, manipulated by successive political administrations.

Here was a man who had had eight death sentences handed down to him for his involvement in the 2008 Bartica Massacre and other heinous crimes being casually handled at the maximum security prison at Mazaruni for the inevitable to occur – he made a clean escape on Friday and there has been no further sighting of him.

Last week we published the regional findings of the World Justice Report on public perceptions relating to the rule of law conducted in July-August 2022.

On May 4, the United Kingdom held local elections for various district councils among other contested positions.

Last Sunday this newspaper published an episode in the series ‘132 Carmichael Street’ by the artist Stanley Greaves.

The synergy in Parliament earlier this month, around the Trafficking in Persons Bill, which was passed unanimously, could be compared with hen’s teeth.

Two weeks ago, after the Miami Heat, the number eight seed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) Eastern Conference, had eliminated the number one seed, the Milwaukee Bucks, four games to one in the first round of the playoffs, Giannis Antetokounmpo, was asked by a reporter at the post-series press conference if he viewed the season as a failure.

On the evening of Friday May 5th, outside MovieTowne, bystanders and a wider audience that ‘joined in’ courtesy of ‘candid’ cellphone cameras, witnessed a sustained assault on an on-duty policemen by two men, the brazen openness of which would have shocked those who witnessed the occurrence, either directly or electronically.  It was one of those occurrences that sharply underscored the erosion of public order in Guyana as manifested in a protracted assault on lawful authority and a patent failure on the part of law enforcement to push back the phenomenon.

Regulatory bodies continue to be under pressure to show that they are performing their very important functions and not giving the PPP/C government and their cronies a free pass.

It was none other than Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, not some relevant minister, who held forth on the subject of Georgetown vendors in a press conference last week.

For the first time since it found oil here in 2015 and inveigled a scandalous Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) out of the APNU+AFC government in 2016, ExxonMobil finds itself in uncharted waters. 

In February this year the government estimate of migrants entering Guyana from Venezuela was around 40,000.

Early last month, three of our more prolific artists in the genres of music, film and theatre publicly laid bare their disappointment at the neglect that has been shown to them by successive governments of this country.

Its that time of year again, the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs are on.

Vice President Bharrat  Jagdeo’s recent acerbic response to the country’s sharp dip in its Global Press Freedom rating by the media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) is not in the least bit surprising.

Under increasing pressure from international organisations, the government has opened two draft bills for consultation on tightening anti-money laundering laws.

Some things certainly pass all understanding.  There was Minister of Public Affairs Kwame McCoy addressing members of the press on World Freedom Day on Wednesday indicating that a separate association which would advocate for the rights of the press would be established.

Wednesday’s decision by Justice Sandil Kissoon finding ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, EEPGL in flagrant breach of its insurance obligations in relation to the Liza-1 project is a monumental victory for citizen activism in an oil and gas sector that has been heavily cloaked in opacity which this government and its predecessor have been clearly  complicit in permitting.

Tomorrow Charles III will be crowned king in Westminster Abbey in accordance with rites some of which date back many hundreds of years.