Editorial

The Ministry of Education’s announcement last month that the Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) will be piloted in 11 schools starting next month, is a step in the right direction.

Last Saturday, the game of cricket, Test cricket (not its distant relative – one day cricket or its cheap impersonator – T20 cricket), quite appropriately returned to its rightful position, centre stage.

Last Thursday’s claim emanating from a Russian Federation spokesperson that Guyana and the United Kingdom are jointly stoking the fires of an ongoing insurrection against the Maduro administration in Venezuela, using an unnamed island in the Essequibo river to train “sabotage and spy groups” for reentry into the country, amounts to a contrivance so far-fetched that it would merit no serious attention at all under different circumstances.

In the aftermath of the June 18, 2019  ruling by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) throwing out the government’s challenge to the December 21, 2018 motion of no confidence and dismissing the appointment of GECOM Chairman Justice Patterson as unconstitutional, it is important to keep reminding those in power what has been ordained in relation to the holding of general elections so that they can either comply or continue to register their defiance for all to see.

Announcing the CSEC results on Wednesday, Minister of Education Nicolette Henry said that this year, 251 candidates had achieved Grade Ones in eight or more subjects of which 55 had gained 12 or more Grade Ones.

The El Paso shooting, which claimed 22 lives earlier this month, is further evidence of how profoundly hateful and xenophobic rhetoric has altered public discourse in the United States.

Education Minister Nicolette Henry was in buoyant mood when she announced the results of the CSEC examinations at NCERD in Kingston on Wednesday.

It should concern all of us that the relevant authorities appear to be unable to deal comprehensively with illegal mining.

It’s the month of August, which to the millions of football (or soccer, if you prefer) fans around the world, means only one thing; the start of another English Premier League (EPL) season.

It is almost certainly the case that the recently reported illegal mining operation in the Kuyuwini River in Region Nine had been occurring long before the public disclosure that “at least three river dredges” were operating illegally in the area.

On July 29th in a statement welcoming the appointment of the new GECOM Chairman, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Patricia Scotland QC also adverted to the larger issues that have arisen here in the aftermath of the successful December 21, 2018 motion of no-confidence against the APNU+AFC government.

In a statement last week, the PPP/C inveighed against comments made by Attorney General Basil Williams during a panel discussion at the Marriott Hotel organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Guyana.

Toni Morrison – the first black woman to win a Nobel Prize – died during a week marked by senseless gun violence and cringe-inducing vulgarity from a leader whose political career began with his implacable hatred of a black president.

While the horizon must seem unrelievedly grim to many citizens, once in a while a few specks of bright light appear to relieve the gloom.

On Monday last, NBC news in the United States carried a story of a Roman Catholic priest in Florida who had been arrested the previous Saturday night after a breathalyzer test allegedly showed that he was two times over the legal limit to drive.

It is quite understandable that fans of international swimming are once again rather bemused and disgruntled following developments at the 18th World Aquatic Championships which were held from the 12th to 28th July in Gwangju, South Korea.

Some uplifting things occurred in the course of the Emancipation Day festivities at the National Park last Thursday; and If ever we arrive at a point where considerations of race and ethnicity cease to be a barrier to the sense of nationhood to which we say we aspire, or at least if we can, somehow, manage to leave the historic toxicity of racial division behind, that may well be the result of the incremental effects of manifestations like those at the National Park on Thursday.

In an affidavit filed by Deputy Solicitor-General Deborah Kumar in the challenge brought by Christopher Ram against the ongoing house-to-house registration exercise, Attorney General, Basil Williams SC has made another spurious excuse for the government not abiding with constitutional strictures imposed as a result of the passage of the December 21, 2018 motion of no confidence against the government.

The matter of the number of Haitians entering Guyana has raised its head again.

“The past is never dead,” wrote the American novelist William Faulkner, “It’s not even past.”