Editorial

In June, at the commissioning of the US$5.15 million Good Hope Secondary School, President Irfaan Ali hinted that based upon the trajectory the country is on and location, “We now have to move towards making Spanish compulsory in our school system.”

As COP 28 approaches, huge swathes of the affluent ‘North,’ mostly, are contending with one or another manifestation of climate change, extremes of temperature that inflict varying levels of disruption on normal life.

On July 6th, according to  CCTV video footage seen by Stabroek News, businessman Safraz Khan drove his car onto a bridge on Austin Street to enter his yard when another car came from a southerly direction; stopped and opened fire on his.

During the month of May a team from the European Union led by parliamentarian Mr Javier Nart came here to assess the extent to which electoral reform recommendations made by the EU Observer Mission in 2020 had been addressed.

It has been a couple of weeks since President Ali announced that Major General Joe Singh retired would head the COI into the May 21 Mahdia fire. 

Buried in a presidential address lasting all of 78 minutes on Wednesday was the nugget that the Public Service Commission would be set up before the end of the week.

Early last month, a hazy pall hung over parts of the United States, the result of smoke and particles from wildfires burning in Canada, which having started a few months prior, had driven air quality to unhealthy levels.

In mid-February the Nicaraguan Government stripped 300-odd Nicaraguans of their citizenship, the latest in a series of stunts, stifling any form of opposition to the totalitarian regime of Daniel Ortega.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres’ remarks during the recently concluded CARICOM Heads of Government Conference in Port of Spain regarding the need for the protracted travails of Haiti to occupy a more prominent place on the international agenda would, presumably, not have gone altogether unnoticed by the regional movement.

With the questionable decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to advise the police that there was no provision for a charge of rape to be brought against the Minister of Local Government, Nigel Dharamlall, the government no doubt feels it has avoided the jeopardy of a senior official having to face a serious indictment in court.

Friday brought the announcement of the National Grade Six Assessment results.

One of the pitfalls of us trying to guess where this oil-laden republic might be headed both economically and sociologically, is to compare it to other countries which have experienced similar booms.

At the end of last month President Irfaan Ali addressed the nation on a subject which was not at the forefront of citizens’ minds given the questions swirling around the Dharamlall case.

On June 30, the investigation by the Guyana Police Force into the allegation of rape against Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Nigel Dharamlall came to halt when the teen complainant gave what the police referred to as a ‘No Further Action’ statement.

“A wave of sadness and loss swept across St Vincent and the Grenadines when on Friday 24th March, 2023 the news of the passing of renowned Vincentian physician and surgeon Sir Arthur Cecil Cyrus was released.

For a few compelling reasons the Conference of Parties (COP 28), the November 30 to December 12 staging of what has become the foremost international forum on climate change, scheduled to be held in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates,  is likely to attract at least as much controversy as its predecessors, quite likely, a great deal more.

Having a ministry agency preside over an allegation of rape by a powerless child against a sitting minister of government was always going to be a difficult challenge. 

Once there are distinct ethnic groups in a society, particularly a small one such as this, these will often, although not always, generate their own political definition.

On June 20th the judges of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) sat down to dinner with President Ali at State House.

On Friday the design for the proposed bridge over the Corentyne River was unveiled in the presence of Public Works Minister Juan Edghill and his Suriname counterpart, Dr Riad Nurmohamed.