Editorial

The awful history of Canada’s “residential schools” resurfaced this week when the remains of 215 Indigenous children were discovered at a former school.

One would have thought that after the 2005 flood crisis our politicians might have learned a few basic lessons, but it seems that they are endowed with a unique capacity to forget the things they should remember.

To say that tennis star Naomi Osaka’s with-drawal from the French Open on Monday shock-ed many in the sports world is nothing short of an understatement.

“Sooner or later the truth comes to light” – Dutch proverb   It’s that time of the year again in Canada when every other conversation seems to revolve around the hockey playoffs and the pursuit of the Stanley Cup.

Reading, over the weekend, a short but insightful account of the impact of the ongoing countrywide heavy rainfall on the South Rupununi village of Karaudarnau, afforded the Stabroek News by the young village Toshao allowed for a sobering insight into the gulf between the lifestyles – if indeed such a term is appropriate here – of ourselves, coastal dwellers, and those other Guyanese, Amerindians, mostly, domiciled in the same territorial space as us but, nonetheless, dwelling at a distance sufficiently far removed in terms of way of life, as to cause it to seem as though we live in different worlds.

On December 31st last year, Stabroek News reported that the Guyana Gold Board (GGB) was investigating allegations made to the international Minerals Grievance Platform (MGP) that  local large-scale gold trader, El Dorado Trading was connected to illegally sourced Venezuelan gold, a claim the company denied vehemently when contacted by this newspaper.

It seems Guyana is to have a new city.  Not a town, or an urban settlement, but a city. 

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.