Editorial

Money pit

News that the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security had recently approached the University of Guyana (UG) with a view to having courses in the Social Work and possibly Sociology programmes tailored to the needs of Guyanese serviced by the ministry is a step in the right direction.

Fifty-five

Today, the nation of Guyana is 55 years old, an age at which people tend to contemplate (though quite a few abstain or procrastinate) the status of their lives; get that long overdue physical check-up, make preparations for retirement, begin the first drafts of their wills and generally put their affairs in general order.

Government and the media

The practice of placing public communications ‘specialists/ experts’ – or whatever other contemporary titles attach themselves to such personages – in almost every state agency, is reflective of government’s unceasing ‘circling   of the wagons’ around the preparation and dissemination of information for public consumption.

‘Unsuspecting businessmen’

At a wide-ranging press conference on Friday, Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo disclosed that the state had decided to settle several significant cases brought against well-known businessmen as they had apparently been unsuspectingly drawn into the transactions in question.

The wrong place

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas offers a slender hope of a return to “normal life” for those caught in the crossfire.

APNU and democracy

On Sunday we reported on Mr David Granger’s comments made in the course of his party’s ‘Public Interest’ programme.

Whither the arts?

“…Only art penetrates what pride, passion, intelligence and habit erect on all sides – the seeming realities of this world.

Electoral reform project

On May 4th, the US Embassy here issued a statement in which it said that the US Department of State  was supporting an 18-month project to strengthen the capacity of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the Attorney General’s Chambers regarding electoral processes, and to encourage civil society organizations (CSOs) to advocate for electoral reform in line with regional and international standards.

Does democracy work?

Donald Trump’s hold over the Republican base was evident this week as Liz Cheney was ousted from her post as chair of the GOP conference.

The One Cent Black on Magenta

It would perhaps surprise younger Guyanese to know that the heritage item originating from this country that is most internationally famous is a tiny, octagonal piece of paper which the majority of them would have tossed in the rubbish had they encountered it in the course of their daily activities.

Getting to the root

Despite a surfeit of good-intentioned, positive local programmes on which billions of dollars are being spent, the other pandemic, the one in which mostly women and girls are harmed, maimed and killed, races on unabated.

West Indies cricketers retainer contracts

Last Wednesday, Cricket West Indies (CWI) released the names of the 18 players who have been confirmed for international retainer contracts for the 2021 – 2022 season, which will run from 1st July 2021 to 30th June 2022.

COVID-19 death toll

If the jolt from the Ministry of Health on Saturday that another nine deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 doesn’t shatter the complacency that is evident in Georgetown and other parts of the country, it is unclear what else will.

Mangrove removal

It was a letter published in this newspaper last week from Mr Shawn Johnson on behalf of other residents of Malgre Tout-Versailles which first drew wider public attention to the destruction of vast swathes of mangrove on the West Bank Demerara.

India’s Covid catastrophe

A year ago the Indian writer Arundhati Roy chronicled the early stages of the pandemic in her “poor-rich country … suspended somewhere between feudalism and religious fundamentalism, caste and capitalism.”

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