Editorial

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.

It was a letter published in this newspaper last week from Mr Shawn Johnson on behalf of other residents of Malgre Tout-Versailles which first drew wider public attention to the destruction of vast swathes of mangrove on the West Bank Demerara.

A year ago the Indian writer Arundhati Roy chronicled the early stages of the pandemic in her “poor-rich country … suspended somewhere between feudalism and religious fundamentalism, caste and capitalism.”

Matters connected to race are the trickiest subjects in the country, and ill-considered remarks, whatever their intention, often have a way of boomeranging back to strike the person who uttered them.

Over the last week, international media have been somewhat preoccupied yet again with stories of sexual misconduct.

We reside in a world today in which rapidly developing technology is not only changing the way we experience life on a daily basis, but also, it could be suggested, as a spin-off, is having a deleterious effect on the way we treat each other, even in basic everyday functions.

Last Saturday, in close proximity to news that we may be in the midst of another rash of smuggling of Towa Towa birds into New York, the Irfaan Ali administration made public the installation of $400 million worth of new baggage and body scanning equipment at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), Timehri. 

Last Monday, Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo convened a forum for the media on the questions that have arisen around plans for piping associated gas from the Liza-1 oil well to shore for conversion into fuel for electricity generation.

Sharon’s Mall situated at Charlotte and King Streets was destroyed by fire last Wednesday evening. 

One good measure of the change in Washington during the last 100 days is the number of false and misleading statements made by the new president.

On Monday Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George-Wiltshire threw out the petition which had been brought by APNU+AFC challenging the results of the March 2nd 2020 elections.

It is possibly audacious to suggest that a multi-billion-dollar company, one which managed to secure a $3.89 billion after-tax profit last year despite the global negative impact of COVID-19, has disappointed.

Two Sundays ago, media headlines worldwide screamed a leaked story from the football world.

It is now a year and more since millions of children across the world, including here in Guyana, have had no access to formal education, that is, the transfer of knowledge that derives from face to face communication and which includes the simultaneous sharing of information in a real time, interactive, learning-friendly environment.