Editorial

Over the time of its lengthy existence, Main Street in Georgetown has served as the location of many iconic edifices, which have had, and in some instances still have, significant bearing on the course of our history.

Much has been written in recent weeks regarding the estimated US$300 million windfall which the 2024 Cricket World Cup is likely to bring to the Caribbean even though that amount, unequally divided among most of the CARICOM member countries, does not amount to anything even remotely resembling a King’s ransom. 

At his press conference at Freedom House on Thursday, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo spoke about corruption and procurement – an unlikely topic as this government has tried hard to embed the image that corruption is not a problem and that it has taken a hard line on it.

Today marks the fifty-eighth anniversary of Independence.  Those who witnessed release from colonialism all those years ago will have cause to reflect on the many changes which have taken place over the past decades.

The news that the government  will be training 3,000 Guyanese to weld through a new programme by the School of the Nations in collaboration with the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) is a positive development.

The Suriname fishing licences are back in the news again with President Irfaan Ali telling a public meeting in Crabwood Creek last week that he was “dissatisfied with the situation.”

Early this month, when the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched its 2022-2023 Results Report, it admitted that with less than six years to their 2030 target date, the Sustainable Development Goals related to health were basically out of reach.

Sunday was the final day of the season for the English Premier League (EPL), the most watched and followed football (and arguably sports) league in the world.

If there is any veracity in the media reports arising out of the electrocution of  nineteen-year-old Bryan Hardial on Friday, who reportedly came into contact with a live wiring on the roof of a house where he had been assigned to do a job – installing gutters – that had nothing to do with electrical wiring – then there is much reason for an immediate and scrupulous probe into the occurrence to determine whether or not safety protocols were afforded the deceased young man to do his job in a safe environment. 

In a letter in the May 12th edition of Stabroek News, Dr Jerry Jailall, a civil society advocate defended the invitation to, and presence of President Ali at an Assembly of God (AOG) Youth Group function.

The members of the Constitutional Reform Commission were sworn in early last month. 

Announced on the afternoon of May 5th, the results of voting for the new Central Committee (CC) of the PPP has evoked much interest.

The US Center for Strategic and International Studies on Tuesday issued its latest analysis of Venezuela’s strategy in relation to Guyana following its inaugural report which was published on February 7 this year.

The Dominican Republic (DR), the Caribbean nation that shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, is a popular tourist destination.

The quote, “Use a picture. It’s worth a thousand words,” is attributed to Arthur Brisbane, by two publications, The Post-Standard, a newspaper published in Syracuse, New York, and Printer’s Ink, the first American trade magazine dedicated to advertising.

On Friday May 3, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) welcomed the resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (proposed by the United States of America and adopted by consensus) inviting the FAO, in collaboration with the other UN agencies, to facilitate the implementation and observance of the International Year of the Woman Farmer.

Last week on his Facebook page, attorney at law Darren Wade queried the presence of Education Ministry Permanent Secretary, Shannielle Hoosein-Outar at the just concluded PPP Congress.

The PPP lives in what it perceives to be a binary local universe:  there is the party and there is the opposition.

Sunday’s announcement that the PPP’s 32nd Congress had taken a decision to erase Marxism-Leninism and Socialism from its Constitution is epochal in several ways.

Some of the Indigenous nations have been in contact with Europeans and later coastal society for hundreds of years.