Editorial

Wednesday’s signing of a US$3m grant deal between Guyana and the World Bank is a significant development on two counts.

What might be considered a minor contretemps in the National Assembly on Wednesday could have more serious implications.

In Ciudad Juarez earlier this week, Pope Francis spoke of the “humanitarian crisis” of mass migration and human trafficking.

It is good that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued an official statement on the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Agreement on February 17.

Figures released by the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) last week reveal that a staggering 75% of the girls who were sent to the New Opportunity Corps (NOC) last year were sent there for wandering.

Those following the contest for the American presidency, as it proceeds with its first stage of party choices of candidates, can recognize that the process is less institutionalized and, we might say, less constricted than that with which we and other Caricom countries are familiar.

A brief media release issued by the Office of the Presidency last Wednesday alluded to a meeting on the same day between President David Granger and University of Guyana Chancellor Professor Nigel Harris.

As the 50th independence celebration will undoubtedly lead to sobering and introspective reflections on how poorly placed the country is after five decades as a free nation we mustn’t unnecessarily add to this burden by unthinking behaviour.

It seems that City Hall is the source of some of the more outlandish proposals jostling for attention on the airwaves these days.

One billion light years ago two black holes collided. One hundred years ago, Albert Einstein predicted that this impact would send gravitational ripples through the universe.

February 7 marked the 54th anniversary of the imposition of the US trade embargo against Cuba.

Georgetown’s homeless, like their counterparts in every other city in the world, are its most highly visible yet unseen residents.

It is almost natural that, for reasons of our historical and contemporary connections, Guyana and the other Caricom countries would have been closely following the latest stages, and now the recent agreement, on negotiations between the European Union authorities and Britain.

Mostly for the wrong reasons, the majority-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) has been in the news fairly frequently in recent weeks.

Awaited for so long, the March 18 Local Government Elections (LGE) presents an epochal opportunity for citizens to take back control of the running of their communities and to have an ongoing role in developments.

It was Ram & McRae which pointed out in their 2015 ‘Focus on Guyana’s National Budget’ that the public service is broken and therefore the government would not be able to avoid hiring some people on contract while the problems in the system are being addressed.

Despite the UN’s stalemate with peace negotiations for Syria and continuing turmoil in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa, attitudes towards refugees are hardening throughout Europe.

Since last Friday’s editorial thanking Shivnarine Chanderpaul for his 21 years of exemplary service to West Indies cricket, we have learnt that former West Indies cricketer and ex-president of the West Indies Players’ Association Dinanath Ramnarine is planning a gala dinner in Trinidad to honour Mr Chanderpaul.

Georgetown is in clear and present danger of being choked by the sheer number of vehicles which jostle for space on its narrow and congested roads.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson, who led her People’s National Party (PNP) to victory in December 2011, has chosen to call for the general elections on February 25th, almost a year before they are statutorily due, and with public opinion polls showing her party holding a 4% lead over the opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).