Editorial

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) estimated that in 2021, there were between 33.9 million and 43.8 million people living with HIV around the world.

The Lament of the Banana Man (Extracts) Gal, I’m tellin you, I’m tired fo’ true, Tired of Englan’, tired o’ you.

There has never been a time in our post-independence history when we have ever been able to seriously embrace the slogan ‘Sport as a Nation Builder.’

Thursday’s announcement by President Ali of increases in the minimum salaries for various categories of the Joint Services would no doubt have been heartily welcomed by the beneficiaries.

Governing a nation which has become an oil economy with lightning speed is a complex business.

On November 17, Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat launched into a bizarre tirade over the securing by Ramps Logistics (Guyana) Inc of a certificate under the Local Content Act.

The number of self-employed persons filing taxes in 2021 was 27,211 or 24% of the total number of those registered.

The 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties (COP27) overran its scheduled end by two days as its delegates struggled to close a deal on a ‘loss and damage fund’.

It’s that time again. The World Cup (no qualification required) is on and the whole planet goes on hold for one month.

The Caribbean, it seems, among other developing and underdeveloped regions, can identify with at least one takeaway from the now concluded COP 27 Climate Change forum   which,  despite having drifted considerably into ‘overtime,’ failed to arrive at agreements commensurate with the sense of urgency associated with the extent of the global menace which climate change represents.

On October 30th, a US-based Guyanese, Gladstone Haynes, 43, disappeared while touring Orinduik Falls in Region Eight.

The PPP/C has no qualms about breaking the law and certainly no qualms about contravening international conventions to which the government is signatory if it perceives it is in its interest to do so.

The streets of Georgetown must not be allowed to become some parking lot/warehouse/ container terminal for Big Business.

A report in in US business magazine Forbes, the conclusions from which we published on Sunday, has said that of all sovereign countries with populations of at least 75,000, Guyana accounts for the biggest share of its native-born population – 36.4% − living abroad when compared to the rest of the world.

To ‘give Jack his jacket’, a popular saying in this part of the world, President Irfaan Ali’s move away from his predecessors’ groupthink to show genuine concern for the state of Georgetown is to be commended.

Last week Tuesday, prior to the start of the first semifinal of the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup, at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Australia, three new members were inducted to the ICC Hall of Fame: former West Indian Test batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul, former England Women’s Cap-tain, Charlotte Edwards and the late Pakistan Test leg spinner Abdul Qadir, the 107th, 108th, and 109th inductees, respectively.

The fact that the Chief Executive Officer of the Trinidad and Tobago-based company Ramps  logistics opted to cite what he saw as the fairness of the judicial system in the aftermath of the court’s ruling that  deemed as unlawful the decision by the Local Content Secretariat to make available to the company, by yesterday, a Local Content Certificate for which it has properly applied and was legally entitled to, was good for the  country’s judicial system no less than it was for the overall image of the country, not least, external perceptions of the integrity of its business culture.

It must be concerning that days after an exit ceremony for an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)-financed citizen security programme that a man should have died in a ward of the capital, the victim of a stray bullet from a shoot-out between youth gangs.

President Irfaan Ali’s academic thesis was on regional and urban planning, so the citizens of this land might have been justified in assuming that his government would have been more committed to introducing a measure of order into our built environment than what the evidence would currently suggest is the case.

Last Friday Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo unveiled features of a new model Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) to apply to all oil and gas concessions outside of the Stabroek Block.