GUYANA: Budget 2023 – Editorial January 23, 2023

 EDITORIAL – By January 23, 2023

Of note, is the roughly US$1b in oil revenue which has been allocated to the 2023 budget.

This is the fourth budget produced by this PPP/C government and the 2021 and 2022 editions also contained substantial outlays for infrastructure and improvements in key sectors. The upshot of all of this is that major development work is in the pipeline and how it turns out will provide valuable insight into whether the country is on the right trajectory.        Continue reading →

01/23/2023 – 6:08 am Categories: Government, Guyana, Personalities, Politics, poverty | Post a comment

Tagged , , , |

Short Stories: Memories of Jamaica – Geoff Burrowes

Memories of Jamaica – by Geoff Burrowes

       When I was 16 years old I was selected to represent Guyana at Rugby in the first West Indies Rugby Cup which included Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados. It was held in Kingston, Jamaica the Northernmost of the West Indian Islands, a country of rare beauty and diversity. As this was 1961 my memories may be timeworn and faulty. They were fresh at the time and I hope to recreate them here, on this page!

        We flew from Guyana in the brand new Vickers Viscount Turbojet. I was nuts about planes at the time and the sleek design of the aircraft with its slim Rolls Royce turbojets on the wings was exciting just to look at! When the captain fired up the engines, instead of a deep roar there was a sibilant whistling thrum and when we finally took off there was not the usual deep growl felt throughout the plane but instead the whistling of the turbojets.            Continue reading →

01/23/2023 – 6:05 am Categories: alternate energy, Arts / Culture, Caribbean news, Commentary, Geography, Guyana, Guyana Diaspora | Comments (1)

Tagged |

CHINA: China’s population falls for first time since 1961 – BBC News video

CHINA: China’s population falls for first time since 1961 – BBC News

Comments  from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaemqDZZkMg

01/22/2023 – 12:33 pm Categories: Government, USA Politics and Economy, War and conflict, World Politics and Economy | Post a comment

Tagged , |

GUYANA: “Small days” and “Itaname” and other Guyanese folk song lyrics.

Comments on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nfR6y3G4sM

—————-

Itaname (Wan marnin’ de captin wake) Guyanese folk song lyrics.

Sanko Boy and other folk songs 

Comments on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQOh-fzozxI

01/22/2023 – 6:23 am Categories: Arts / Culture, Biography, Commentary, Music Videos, Short Stories | Post a comment

Tagged , , , |

GUYANA SPEAKS: Sunday 29th January 2023 – London UK. – ZOOM Event

Please join Guyana SPEAKS on Sunday, 29th January 2023 for an uplifting start to the new year!   The zoom event starts at 3.30pm UK time / 10.30am Toronto & New York / 11.30am Guyana Time.  Please register your interest via the link and you will receive zoom details nearer the time:
.
This month we will be celebrating the achievements of three Guyana-born members of the UK diaspora: Adele Williams Sewell MBE, Russell Profitt MBE and (pending confirmation) Dr Yvonne Thompson CBE. They will be talking to us about their lives and as Auntie Joyce Trotman might say how they turned ‘adversity into opportunity’!

Continue reading →

01/21/2023 – 11:09 am Categories: Arts / Culture, Biography, famous Guyanese, Guyana, Personalities, Philosophy, ZOOM Events | Post a comment

GUYANA: A dip in the Dark – Short Stories – By Geoff Burrowes

  By Geoff Burrowes

When I was growing up I had an older friend named Tony. He was a lawyer at the old, well established firm of Cameron and Shepherd. He loved to gyaff (the Trinidadians call it  “old talk” and it was an art form widely practiced and refined throughout the West Indies and as Tony was an interesting gyaffer I enjoyed gyaffing with him after rowing in the dark fresh Georgetown evenings.

A gyaffer is generally a story teller, full of interesting , often humourous facts that his listener will often reply to, keeping the conversation going, often in a quite different and often more interesting direction. A good gyaff could often last for hours to the mutual satisfaction of all parties.              Continue reading →

01/21/2023 – 9:56 am Categories: aging, Arts / Culture, Commentary, Guyana, History, Personalities, Short Stories | Comments (6)

Tagged , |

VIEWPOINT: The World Economy No Longer Needs Russia

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin

VIEWPOINT: The World Economy No Longer Needs Russia

With alternative sources in place, Putin’s attempt at blackmailing Europe on energy has failed.

By Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Lester Crown professor in management practice and a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management, and Steven Tian, the director of research at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. | Foreign Policy

For much of the past year, and since his invasion of Ukraine last February, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been riding high on his supposed energy omnipotence, holding the global economy hostage to his whims. Since last summer, Putin has choked off natural gas supplies to Europe, hoping that Europeans, shivering and without heat during the winter, would turn on their leaders and make it politically infeasible to continue support for Ukraine.               Continue reading →

01/20/2023 – 9:06 am Categories: Commentary, Disasters, Economics/Finance, Energy- Oil and Gas, Environment, USA Politics and Economy, War and conflict, World Politics and Economy | Comments (11)

Tagged |

GUYANA:  43% of Guyanese can’t afford healthy diet, 5% undernourished- FAO report

 43% of Guyanese can’t afford healthy diet, 5% undernourished- FAO report

Jan 20, 2023 – Kaieteur News – Around five percent of Guyana’s population is undernourished and a further 43% cannot afford a healthy diet, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has concluded in a new report released this week.

With Guyana’s population averaging around 800,000 the five percent of undernourished people works out to about 40,000. Titled “REGIONAL OVERVIEW OF 2022: TOWARDS IMPROVING AFFORDABILITY OF HEALTHY DIETS,” the report also concluded that in 2020, 42 percent of the population in the world could not afford a healthy diet, almost 3.1 billion people. Due to the higher cost of a healthy diet, this percentage in Latin America and the Caribbean was 22.5 percent, or 131 million people, an increase of 8 million from 2019. According to the report South America accounts for 57 percent of people unable to afford a healthy diet in Latin America and the Caribbean (74.2 million), followed by Mesoamerica (43.1 million) and the Caribbean (13.9 million). More than half of the Caribbean population (52 percent) cannot afford a healthy diet, followed by Mesoamerica (27.8 percent) and South America (18.4 percent).                Continue reading →

01/20/2023 – 8:52 am Categories: Cuisine - Foods, Government, Guyana, Personalities, Politics, poverty | Comments (2)

Tagged , , |

GUYANA: ‘No money in budget to monitor & audit oil sector’ – Opposition Leader

 …Opposition Leader says this spells danger for Guyana

Aubrey Norton

By Davina Bagot – Jan 19, 2023 – Kaieteur News – Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton is stunned at the Government’s failure to appropriate funds in this year’s Budget to help the country improve its auditing and monitoring capabilities, as oil production activities continue to accelerate.

On Monday evening, following the Budget presentation by Minister with Responsibility for Finance Dr. Ashni Singh, Norton said he expected that this year’s fiscal plan would have made specific provisions to improve the country’s human resource capacity.

“I would have thought that in a Budget like this, the minister would have been speaking in terms of human resource development, that we have put resources there to improve our capacity to audit cost oil. We would have put resources there to be able to monitor what is happening offshore. There is none of that and therefore, you are not increasing our capacity to ensure we get what we deserve in terms of profit oil,” the Opposition Leader pointed out.        Continue reading →

01/19/2023 – 1:36 pm Categories: Arts / Culture, Energy- Oil and Gas, Government, Guyana, Oil Exploration, Personalities, Philosophy, Politics | Post a comment

Tagged , , , |

GUYANA: Georgetown – City Hall restoration climbs to over $1B with $263.2 M budgetary allocation

The restoration works ongoing at City Hall

Jan 19, 2023  – Kaieteur News – In addition to the $780M being used to rehabilitate City Hall, another $263.2M from this year’s budget has been set aside for construction work to the building taking City Hall’s restoration cost to just over $1B.

This was outlined by Minister within the Office of the President with the Responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh.   During the reading of the national budget on Monday, Dr. Singh outlined that the additional sums will be diverted to City Hall for the completion of the building.        Continue reading →

01/19/2023 – 1:19 pm Categories: Business, Economics/Finance, Education, Health / Environment, Politics | Post a comment

Tagged |

%d bloggers like this: