Guyanese Online
Warming Trends Continue in 2014
Photo Credit: World Meteorological Organization
“Fourteen of the fifteen hottest years have all been this century. We expect global warming to continue, given that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the increasing heat content of the oceans are committing us to a warmer future.”
~ Secretary-General Michel Jarraud, World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, February 2, 2015
Map of Trans-Pacific Partnership Countries
Showing Total US Trade in Goods for each Country, 2013
Source: Federation of American Scientists
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed multilateral free trade agreement between the United States and eleven other countries in Asia and the Pacific, is currently nearing the final rounds of negotiation. Some members, like Canada and Japan, still have unresolved issues. Accounting for around forty percent of global GDP, the TPP is a Big Deal. Given the lack of exposure in the national media, American businesses and the general population don’t appear to be concerned about what could become the largest regional trade block on the planet.
During his recent testimony before the House and Senate committees, US Trade Representative Michael Froman reported that the TPP is nearing the finish line. “We are not done yet but I feel confident that we are making good progress and we…
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Parliament Buildings – Georgetown – Guyana
Source: Guyana Government Information Agency (GINA)
After suspending the nation’s Parliament last November to avoid a no-confidence vote, Guyana President Donald Ramotar finally made the long-awaited announcement. General and regional elections will take place on May 11, 2015.
Official representatives from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom stationed in Guyana released a joint-statement applauding the announcement. “We are hopeful that the upcoming electoral process will allow the Guyanese people to debate the important issues that are facing the country. We are committed to working with GECOM [Guyana Electoral Commission], all political parties, and civil society to support free, fair and peaceful elections,” they stated.
Since the 1950s, when working class Guyanese came together to demand independence from Great Britain, the nation’s politics evolved along racial lines of the majority Indo- and Afro-Guyanese populations. In power since 1992, the ruling party enjoys…
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Happy New Year 2015
Source: Vishava.com
Another yearly cycle comes to an end. A big thank you to each one of you who dropped by and shared your experiences and insights. New friendships forged have been a blessing in my life. Regardless of our differences, we all share the same humanity and the same Earth on our journey together through time and space.
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Guyana President Donald Ramotar
U.N. General Assembly – New York – September 2014
Photo Credit: World Politics Review
During my adolescent years in Guyana, everything was nice. The dress was nice; the food was nice; people were nice. The word nice was so overused that our high school English teacher prohibited us from its use in our essays.
By the time I moved to the United States, everything had become awesome. Your macaroni and cheese is awesome! You look awesome! I’m awesome!
Notwithstanding the American excessive use of the word awesome, I was taken aback at a Fox News TV host’s response to the recent release of the CIA Torture Report covering the Bush-Cheney period in government (January 2001 to January 2009).
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Hands Up Don’t Shoot – Justice for Mike Brown
Ferguson – Missouri – USA – November 2014
Photo Credit: Scott Olson / Getty Images
For millennia, humankind has been plagued with some form of inequality among its populations. As our societies grew, increased in complexity, and became globalized, so did the nature and degree of inequality.
Like a living human organism, inequality has a gender, race, ethnicity, and class that determine income and wealth disparities. To make matters worse, inequality dictates our access to a home, education, healthcare, and protection under our justice system.
Faced with racial inequality, the majority African-American community of Ferguson, Missouri, has received no justice for Mike Brown, an eighteen-year-old black male killed by a white policeman in August 2014.
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Homeless man asleep on sidewalk outside Parliament Buildings
Georgetown, Guyana – October 2014
Photo Credit: Mark Jacobs
On Monday, November 10, 2014, the Guyana government entered into shutdown mode. Facing the threat of a “no-confidence” motion from a combined opposition against his administration, President Donald Ramotar “prorogued” the 65-member National Assembly or Parliament. He invoked a provision from the 1980 Constitution, framed by the former autocratic government of President Forbes Burnham. Such a drastic move could throw the country into a state of limbo for up to six months.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, the Indo-Guyanese dominated party of Marxist Cheddi Jagan finally came to power in 1992 and has remained in power since then. Government corruption, unsolved criminal activity, police brutality, and extra-judicial killings – common during the Burnham dictatorship – continue unabated.
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Divorce – When a Marriage Fails
Photo Credit: culturamix.com
Marriages are tested under fire. Some marriages survive the flame, forging a stronger bond. Others suffer third degree burns, weakening the union. My marriage belonged to the latter group. When it ended in Brazil, I had not only failed as a wife but also had to confront the demon of divorce.
“I can’t sponsor you and your sons to come to America unless you’re divorced,” my mother told me.
I opened my Jerusalem Bible for guidance. In the Gospel of Matthew (Chapter 19), Jesus was clear about divorce.
“[W]hat God has united, man must not divide… Now I say this to you: the man who divorces his wife…and marries another, is guilty of adultery.”
Alone and broken with two kids in a foreign country, I spent a year of soul searching to come to terms with what I needed to do…
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Another great post on Walter Rodney by Rosaliene Bacchus,
Walter Rodney (1942-1980)
Photo Credit: Monthly Review Press
Walter Rodney was born on March 23, 1942 into a working-class family in what was then known as British Guiana. His father was a tailor and his mother a housewife and seamstress: descendants of African slaves brought to the colony (1633-1834).
Rodney grew up at a time when the major ethnic groups, the Africans and Indians – descendants of indentured laborers from India (1838-1917) – were united in their struggle for self-rule. Formed in 1950 during the Cold War (1947-1991), the colony’s Socialist People’s Progressive Party raised concern in Washington DC, USA. In response, Britain suspended the Constitution of British Guiana in 1953, setting into motion events that racially divided the population.
The workers’ united front for self-rule left its mark on the young Rodney. With his father involved in the formation of the party, he helped with door-to-door distribution of party…
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Corruption Scandal at Brazil’s Oil Giant Petrobras – by Rosaliene Bacchus
On January 1, 2015, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff began her second term marred by the corruption scandal at Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. or Petrobras, the state-run oil giant and largest company in the nation. During her address before the National Congress, President Dilma affirmed her commitment to “rigorously investigate all the wrong done and strengthen [Petrobras] even more… and know how to punish [those involved], without weakening Petrobras, or diminishing its importance for the present and the future.”
The Petrobras corruption scandal erupted in March 2014 with the Federal Police money-laundering sting, codename Operation Car Wash, executed across six states and the Federal District (Brasília). They seized R$5 million (US$1.9 million) in cash, 25 luxury cars, jewelry, paintings, and weapons. Among the seventeen people arrested was Alberto Youssef, a black-market money dealer and suspected leader of the scheme.
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