Editorial

In its consequential orders yesterday, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) set out pithily that the Granger administration fell from office on December 21, 2018 and must now only function as a caretaker government for the purposes of holding general elections in three months from June 18 unless there is an enlargement of that period with the concurrence of the opposition.

Two weeks ago the government announced that the Cabinet had decided to approve a proposal to remove custodial sentences for persons found with 30 grammes or less of marijuana.

Last month, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Population Division revised its estimate of the world’s population growth.

In recent years, cricket and baseball fans have been entertained with significant increases in run scoring, propelled by a rush in the striking of sixes and home runs, in the respective sports.

With markedly less aplomb than its 2018 predecessor, the Guyana Trade and Investment Exhibition (GuyTIE) 2020 was officially launched last Wednesday at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, the comparatively low key nature of the event signalling, perhaps, a veiled official  concession that last year’s inaugural event staged at the Marriott Hotel had fallen well short of  its widely advertised objectives, not least of those being the growing of the global market for Guyanese products and the significant strengthening of linkages between the local and international business sectors.

On June 28, an analysis on the Nasdaq stock exchange  website stated that based on a projected growth rate of 16.3% during the period 2018 to 2021, as sourced from the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects June 2019 data, Guyana had been identified as having the fastest growing economy in the world.

The results from the annual Grade Six Assessments were no less dismal than usual, with the qualification that in 2019 there was a slight increase in the number who passed Mathematics in comparison with the previous year.

The recent G20 meeting in Osaka highlighted both the obstacles to and the need for genuine engagement between the world’s leading nations.

Georgetowners have been noticing the presence of Cubans for quite a while now, but in recent times they appear to be even more in evidence on our streets.

There was welcome news last week that the members of the West Indies Rum and Spirits Producers’ Association (WIRSPA) will be (hopefully soon) introducing alcohol labels, “that contain visual guides against drinking and driving, underage consumption and drinking during pregnancy, all areas of concern both for producers and for the health sector.”

Elite sportsmen in all fields of competition, despite their protestations otherwise, possess secret inner fears which they are loathe to reveal.

There will be no boisterous region-wide public post-mortem of the West Indies’ early exit from the 2019 Cricket World Cup.

At some point it must dawn on the APNU+AFC government that the ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) on June 18 upholding the December 21, 2018 motion of no confidence means that it has been occupying office since March 21 without a mandate.

Following the exposure in the media of alleged police corruption in ‘B’ Division, Crime Chief Lyndon Alves has been sent on administrative leave to facilitate an investigation.

Modern information technology has made us so used to a flow of bad news that it is easy to overlook the ways in which the world has improved during our lifetimes.

There is a certain logic to how bureaucracies work; there has to be, otherwise no organisation could function at all.

The action taken by the management of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) against the employee of a concessionaire, almost a year after she alleged that she was sexually harassed by a senior CJIA manager almost makes no sense until one considers it in the light of male privilege and the downside of this, which is discrimination against women.

When the Ministry of Education decided to include marks from the Grade Two and Grade Four Assessments in the Grade Six Assessment (formerly known as the Common Entrance), the curse of the Extra Lessons Syndrome spread all the way down the ladder of the school system.

It may not have been the grand finals of a national debating competition where those schools considered to be the best in the land usually pit wits and strategies against each other to determine the country’s debating ‘top guns; and yet, for all that, the recent report in the media that St.

Later today, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) will issue a series of orders concomitant on its two landmark rulings last Tuesday declaring the appointment of the GECOM Chairman unconstitutional and upholding the validity of the December 21, 2018 Motion of No-Confidence against the government.