“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.
On February 28, the Government of Honduras announced an end to open-pit mining of any sort.
It is no news to anyone that this government does not like criticism, but then in fairness no government does.
Barbadian PM Mia Mottley’s speech at the recent Energy Expo was well received even by those outside of the event and those sceptical of the oil industry’s effects upon this small land.
As of February 23 the world suddenly changed. Not just Ukraine, not just Russia, not just Europe but the entire globe.
What do a technical college in Minnesota, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in Washington, DC and the Church of England in the UK have in common?
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” is the well-worn adage which we have heard in perpetua, and here in Guyana we are well versed – both by imposed regulations, like banning and force of tough circumstances: lack of foreign exchange – in how innovative we can be when our backs are against the wall.
As has been unmistakably demonstrated over the past week or so, insofar as a handful of countries continue to constitute a unique ‘club’ of nuclear weapons’ possessors and insofar as members of that ‘club’ continue to believe that they can, as they please, threaten to press their nuclear arsenals into service as instruments with which to seek to re-shape the world order, the international community will continue to be an unstable place.
As was stated in the February 25th editorial in this newspaper, Guyana’s position on Russia’s diabolical invasion should be clear: we support international law as it applies in this instance, we support Ukraine’s rights as an independent state, we support its right to territorial integrity, and we support democracy.
Today marks the 259th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1763 Uprising, one of the region’s most remarkable revolts and a forerunner in some key respects of the Haitian Revolution.
The PPP/C is fast approaching three years left in office and there is still no identified contractor for the New Demerara Harbour Bridge (NDHB) even as the aging floating structure continues to be a literal bottleneck to development of the West Demerara, and a bane to commuters.
There was no other Security Council meeting like it. While the members with Russia in the chair met in emergency session to try and avert an invasion of Ukraine, they began to receive messages on their mobile phones that Vladimir Putin had ordered exactly that.
Recently, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study that was conducted by a group of researchers last year under the auspices of the University of York, UK on the pharmaceutical pollution of the world’s rivers.
Fifty-two years ago today, Guyana rescinded ties to its former colonial ruler, England, becoming the first nation in the Caribbean region to declare itself a republic.
With climate change, oil spills and beyond those, the Covid-19 pandemic being foremost among the major concerns confronting groups of countries and in some instances, the international community as a whole, it is altogether understandable that various other arguably no lesser global challenges tend to attract rather less attention, surfacing at junctures when some sufficiently suitably endorsed study brings the issue to international attention.
Many questions can legitimately be asked about the deal announced on Wednesday, February 16 for 55 acres of land at Enmore (part of the East Demerara Estate) and the much-vaunted sugar packaging plant which had been hailed under the previous PPP/C government as the lynchpin of the hoped-for industry turnaround on the East Coast and further afield.
A Democracy, Human Rights and Governance assessment for USAID which we reported on last week has said that the major parties in this country needed to create a means of forming a functioning democracy “based on power-sharing rather than a ‘winner takes all’ mentality”.
Roundabouts have been around for about 250 years. An early version is Paris’ La Place D’Etoile (renamed Place Charles de Gaulle) built in 1777 where up to ten lanes of traffic encircle the Arc de Triomphe.
