Editorial

Minister of Education, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine is apparently hopeful that extra lessons can in due course be dispensed with.

“Laudato Si” – the Papal Encyclical on the environment (“our common home”) – is, by any standards, an extraordinary document.

Minister of State Joseph Harmon told reporters, on Wednesday, that Guyana will be seeking a “very strong statement” of support by Caricom Heads of Government on Venezuela’s recent claim on Guyana’s maritime territory.

Traditionally, street parking in Georgetown has been the rule rather than the exception.

At first sight, an editorial on this topic may seem somewhat far flung, and not of great relevance to ourselves and other countries in Caricom.

During the course of the past week Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge finally got around to setting up the new political administration’s stall as far as foreign policy is concerned.

For every occurrence of rain-fuelled flooding in Georgetown there are manifestations in various other parts of the country and particularly in the communities nestled along the Abary, Mahaicony and Mahaica creeks.

Last week PPP General Secretary Clement Rohee wrote to the newspapers about the precarious state of the Cummingsburg Accord.

Mass shootings in the United States occur with soul-numbing frequency. In the last 30 years there have been at least 70.

What were Clive Lloyd, fellow selectors Courtney Walsh, Eldine Baptiste and coach Phil Simmons thinking when they asked 21-year old, middle-order batsman, Shai Hope, with just 14 first class matches under his belt, to open the batting in his maiden Test against England last month and then again, in the First Test against Australia, earlier this month?

Visits by Minister of Public Health Dr George Norton to hospitals and health centres beyond Georgetown have revealed a most unhealthy state of affairs.

At a time of what can be described as maximum global publicity, deriving from the challenges involving the arrest of former CONCACAF President and Minister of National Security in the People’s Partnership Government Jack Warner, Trinidad Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has announced general elections to be held on September 7th.

Since successive political administrations in Guyana have – to varying degrees − used ownership and control of some media houses and the suppression of others to retard the democratic process, the new government, we expect, will understand that its attitude to media and media freedom will be used as a barometer for measuring the sincerity of its commitment to raising standards of democratic behaviour.

With a 10% rise in serious crime and a 12% increase in murders at the end of May, the new Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Khemraj Ramjattan and the police hierarchy have their work cut out for them.

On May 27th a decree which had been issued by President Nicolás Maduro the previous day was gazetted in Venezuela.

Every country with a native population that has been neglected, marginalized and underserved by government should take note of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report just published in Canada.

In law, a person is innocent until proven guilty. Nevertheless, there is a strong sense that in the court of public opinion, in Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean and around the world, Jack Warner, the former regional football supremo and International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) vice-president, is already guilty of the charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering levied against him in a US federal court.

Any situation in which an elderly person is denied the right kind of care and food and where the basic necessities are lacking can be deemed an abusive one.

This week the so-called Group of Seven, essentially the major capitalist countries, subsequently known between 1998 and 2014 as the Group of Eight when post-communist Russia joined, met again in Germany this week.

The revelation last week that Minister Simona Broomes met what was described as “atrocious” working conditions during an impromptu visit to the Linden bauxite operations run by the Chinese company Bosai is probably not as surprising as it may seem to those who have not kept abreast of issues of safety and health in the workplace.