Editorial

President Vladimir Putin will go down in history as one of those leaders who changed the world, although not in the way he intended.

Search the Stabroek News  website for “cyclist killed” and you will find “134 results since 2007”. 

A story carried by this newspaper earlier this week raised questions about issues connected to air safety in this country. 

“The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.”

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth week, we, as a nation, should be paying close attention to the continuing violation of the integrity and sovereignty of this state.

On Wednesday March 5 the lead story in the Stabroek News addressed the response of President Irfaan Ali and some members of his Cabinet to a statement credited to a number of local organizations associated with advocacy in   matters of national interest including some that had to do with issues of accountability in various sectors including the extractive sector.

Nearly seven years after it was inaugurated in a blaze of publicity, serious questions persist on the financial viability of the Guyana Marriott Hotel in Kingston and it is a matter that the administration and government holding company, NICIL should speak forthrightly on.

 We’re not very good at running bureaucracies with any efficiency in this country, and our failings are particularly on display when there has to be co-ordination between more than one agency.

When we interpret geopolitics through personalities we can create false narratives.

“Who could be happy to be sharing space with a Chemical Waste Treatment Plant to your immediate right, and a Radioactive Storage Plant at the entrance of your village?” 

On Monday, Guyana joined the list of countries that have lifted COVID-19 restrictions.

Casual West Indies cricket fans channel surfing the wide ranging multitude of options now available on their television sets last Saturday afternoon probably assumed that they had stumbled on a replay of a past Test match from England.

Amidst the seemingly never-ending swirl of multi-faceted controversy that has become an embedded occupational hazard of the Guyana Police Force, seriously limiting the effective delivery of its mandate, periodic public pronouncements dripping with altruism are made by the Head of State, at the forum of the annual Conference of Police Officers. 

While the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) legislation passed by the government remains wholly unacceptable as a result of the enormous powers vested in the President and the Minister of Finance, there was still some interest in whether the PPP/C administration would seek bipartisanship at the level of Parliament which was accorded the right to nominate one of the possible five members of the governing board.

The war in Ukraine has opened up a channel of communication between the US and Venezuela “that may lead to Maduro drinking less vodka and exporting more oil,” commented the Caracas Chronicles last week.

The decision, guided by the Biden administration, to veto a US$180M Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) loan for the expansion of the Guyana Shore Base Inc was dubious back in October.

Politics aside, the one thing which never seems to change very much in this country is the recklessness of so many of our drivers. 

“Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime.” –  French Romantic poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and dramatist, Victor Hugo In its latest report, issued on February 28 this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN intergovernmental body comprising 95 nations, which is responsible for providing policymakers with scientific assessments on the risks and implications of climate change, doubled down on its previous dire warnings about the effects of the climate crisis.

Amongst our older generation, few topics (aside from the obvious political divide), can ignite a fire-storm of debate, like that of the Guyana National Service.

It may or may not have occurred to our local Ministry of Agriculture that reputable international food security monitoring sources continue to upgrade the breadfruit as a strategically important food source, moreso, in the light of the food security challenges arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on global food production.