SHOCK AND AWE!

On ‘liberation day,’ April 2, President Donald Trump announced, to the shock and awe of the world, sweeping reciprocal tariffs on the goods of most countries, bringing to an end, in one fell swoop, the era of free trade, the foremost champion of which was Adam Smith in 1776 in “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth […]

GUYANA – SHADES OF AUTOCRACY?

In an article published in SN on August 27 – “Whither Guyana: Autocracy or democracy?” Dr. Bertrand Ramcharan, a former senior UN official and regular contributor to SN, concludes that in Guyana there are “shades” of autocracy. The events that give rise to the “shades”  are: “official inquisitions into the tax status of NGOs; calls […]

DRAMATIC TURN IN US POLITICS

Kamala Harris, described as an American woman of African and South Asian heritage, is poised to be nominated as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in US elections to be held in November. In slow-motion, over two weeks and more, the effort of President Biden to seek a second term as President, amidst collapsing poll numbers, palpably […]

WHITHER APNU?

All agree that there is a democracy deficit when an Opposition is unable or unwilling to hold a government to account. In 1992, APNU, then known as the PNC, was voted out of office and remained in opposition for 23 years. After 19 years, circumstances began to change when two opposition parties, APNU and the […]

MAHDIA

Leading up to the 57th Anniversary of Guyana’s Independence, a searing tragedy occurred in which fire destroyed the girls’ dormitory of the Mahdia Secondary School and took the lives of 19 children, all but one being girls. This catastrophic event transformed the observance of Guyana’s Independence into a remembrance for the children who had tragically […]