Editorial

A report into the misconduct of a prominent BBC interviewer has shown the difficulty of holding prominent news agencies to account when they make foolish or unethical decisions.

After Minister of Education Priya Manickchand spoke at the National Grade Six Assessment booster programme last Friday, her words were seized upon by a number of people in the belief that the exam was about to be abolished.

News that the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security had recently approached the University of Guyana (UG) with a view to having courses in the Social Work and possibly Sociology programmes tailored to the needs of Guyanese serviced by the ministry is a step in the right direction.

Today, the nation of Guyana is 55 years old, an age at which people tend to contemplate (though quite a few abstain or procrastinate) the status of their lives; get that long overdue physical check-up, make preparations for retirement, begin the first drafts of their wills and generally put their affairs in general order.

The practice of placing public communications ‘specialists/ experts’ – or whatever other contemporary titles attach themselves to such personages – in almost every state agency, is reflective of government’s unceasing ‘circling   of the wagons’ around the preparation and dissemination of information for public consumption.

At a wide-ranging press conference on Friday, Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo disclosed that the state had decided to settle several significant cases brought against well-known businessmen as they had apparently been unsuspectingly drawn into the transactions in question.

The City Council has not lost its talent for taking the harried citizens of Georgetown by surprise. 

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas offers a slender hope of a return to “normal life” for those caught in the crossfire.

On Sunday we reported on Mr David Granger’s comments made in the course of his party’s ‘Public Interest’ programme.

Some wise soul once said that nursing is the glue that holds the healthcare sector together.

“…Only art penetrates what pride, passion, intelligence and habit erect on all sides – the seeming realities of this world.

In what may well have been one of the more poignant presentations that he has had to make to his countrymen and women during his tenure in office, Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister, Dr.

On May 4th, the US Embassy here issued a statement in which it said that the US Department of State  was supporting an 18-month project to strengthen the capacity of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the Attorney General’s Chambers regarding electoral processes, and to encourage civil society organizations (CSOs) to advocate for electoral reform in line with regional and international standards.

On International Mother Earth Day, April 22, 2021, President Irfaan Ali spoke on the Escazú Agreement, which had been adopted in 2018 but which has now become effective.

Donald Trump’s hold over the Republican base was evident this week as Liz Cheney was ousted from her post as chair of the GOP conference.

It would perhaps surprise younger Guyanese to know that the heritage item originating from this country that is most internationally famous is a tiny, octagonal piece of paper which the majority of them would have tossed in the rubbish had they encountered it in the course of their daily activities.

Despite a surfeit of good-intentioned, positive local programmes on which billions of dollars are being spent, the other pandemic, the one in which mostly women and girls are harmed, maimed and killed, races on unabated.

Last Wednesday, Cricket West Indies (CWI) released the names of the 18 players who have been confirmed for international retainer contracts for the 2021 – 2022 season, which will run from 1st July 2021 to 30th June 2022.

It is not unheard of for circumstances of national crisis or even lesser emergency to bring out the worst in people, not least, manifestations of runaway indifference to important response measures, particularly when these get in the way of our routines.

If the jolt from the Ministry of Health on Saturday that another nine deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 doesn’t shatter the complacency that is evident in Georgetown and other parts of the country, it is unclear what else will.