Editorial

Unlawful political authority

The findings of the recent audits of the various state agencies provide some disturbing insights into the manner in which aspects of the state’s resources were being managed under the previous political administration.

Flooding and the NDIA audit

Friday’s release of the disturbing findings of the forensic audit into the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) coincided with the deepening of floods in Mahaica-Berbice as a result of heavy rainfall in the Mahaicony watershed and on the coast.

Prisons report

The Prison Disturbances and Subsequent Deaths Commission of Inquiry Report has at least established the sequence of events for what happened in the Georgetown Prison on March 3 and the days immediately preceding and following that date.

Campaigns without vision

A generation ago, President George H W Bush famously dismissed “the vision thing” when asked to consider the larger aims of his presidency.

Muhammad Ali

The funeral takes place today of the former, three-time world heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, the self-proclaimed and for many, ‘The Greatest of all Time’, in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

Silent victims

An announcement by the Caribbean American Domestic Violence Awareness (CADVA) group last week that it has begun working with the surviving children of domestic homicide is laudable and worthy of emulation.

The Association of Caribbean States meets again

Cuba hosted the Seventh meeting of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) last week, in the current wider ideological atmosphere of the effort of normalization of Cuba-United States relations that has been welcomed by the wider hemisphere.

Effective enforcement of food safety regulations

Public Health Minister Dr George Norton’s pronouncement last week about an intended clampdown on the sale of ‘irregularly’ packaged and unlabelled goods is not the first declaration of its kind by government in recent years.

NCN audit

What has been revealed in the forensic examination of state broadcaster, NCN will raise again the question of what the APNU+AFC government and the respective boards are doing in relation to the published reports on the series of audits which were commissioned last year and which have revealed a host of wrongdoings, transgressions and poor practices.

Carifesta Avenue

There must be many streets in Georgetown in need of attention, and a huge number in rural and interior areas.

Ghosts of Tiananmen

It is hard to recall the last time a senior political figure spoke to the press with the candour shown by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Ottawa earlier this week.

Civilisation versus barbarism

In an online comment on a letter to this newspaper (‘Lost opportunities at the flag-raising ceremony’, May 28, 2016), which related some of the security shortcomings of the event and the boorish, violent behaviour of one section of the crowd towards a group of young Americans, Dave Martins notes, “We have become cantankerous and hostile, and both visitors and residents encounter those attitudes… Those behaviours are now ingrained, and even accepted as the norm.”

The work children do

Last Friday night, 16-year-old Onika Luke was carrying out her duties as a waitress at a Chinese restaurant at Better Hope, East Coast Demerara when she was shot in the chin by a lone gunman who apparently attempted to rob the restaurant.

Regional reassessments?

In the course of the month of May the Caricom region has been up for scrutiny either by governments or government officials, or by individual commentators and practitioners, and their perspectives have varied over the field from relative optimism to some degree of pessimism.

Learning from the flag-raising fiasco

What this newspaper has already said was a considerable measure of incompetence and ineptitude that attended aspects of the protocol and logistics that were in evidence at the Jubilee Flag-Raising Ceremony ought to be responded to by the Government of Guyana in a far more fulsome manner than was afforded by the quixotic content of the statement issued by Junior Minister Nicolette Henry, and which, justifiably, has come in for a fair measure of further public flak.

Obama at Hiroshima

After such dispiriting campaigns for the Democratic and Republican nominations, President Obama’s judicious speech at the Hiroshima memorial is a bracing reminder of what can be achieved when political rhetoric is used with intelligence and empathy.

Venezuela needs help

No serious observer of the Venezuelan crisis could believe that President Nicolás Maduro’s recent, hastily planned trip to Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago had anything to do with simply reaffirming his government’s commitment to the PetroCaribe arrangement and improving trade relations and cooperation in the areas of energy and security, as per the official communiqués.

Independence

Independence was born in circumstances of discord, and fifty years on the nation is still imprisoned in the straitjacket of that past.

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