Grand Cayman: An Island of Hope for Caribbeanites
January 31, 2008
Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brac are the three islands collectively called the Cayman Islands. Ideally located in the western Caribbean about 460 miles south of Miami, 150 miles south of Cuba and 167 miles northwest of Jamaica, the Cayman Islands hosts Read more
Guyana: Hopes for Oil Discovery Gone Cold
January 29, 2008
Recent press release by CGX Energy Inc, Canadian based oil and Gas Company focused on oil recovery in the Offshore Guyana Basin retained Gustavson Associates LLC of Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. (Gustavson), a global consulting firm to access its potential in recovering oil in perspective basins in Guyana. Read more
Statement on Lusignan atrocities
January 29, 2008
SASOD extends its condolences to the families and loved ones of the six children and five adults killed in Lusignan on Saturday morning. We urge that full support is given to the persons who survived this masacre, especially the children.
As a society, we seem to have dealt with the violence which escalated since 2002 on the East Coast by becoming desensitised to the news of murders which happen far from us. The more gruesome pictures in sections of the print media have done little to galvanise change, but rather it has allowed us to become dispassionate about murder and violence. There seems to be little improvement in the capacity of the security forces to bring the perpetrators of crime to justice.
Not only has crime grown more sophisticated, but the pathology of the criminals seems to indicate total disregard for life and a savagery which seems to have caught the society completely off guard. The security forces should then receive all support in order to deal with this extremity of murder and violence and should be able to request that support from within and outside of Guyana.
In a society in which our diversity has been manipulated to pit us against each other, SASOD urges
all Guyanese to use the expressions of our collective anger and grief to continue to advocate for the changes needed in our society to ensure that all citizens can enjoy a safe and secure life.
Profile Guyana: A nation suffering from “brain drain”
January 21, 2008
For those of us who are Guyanese, the following discussion will bear some familiarity. The subject is “brain drain” and the term implies a situation where by a nation has been depleted of its most influential minds, the very minds that that keeps a nation in tact so to speak and the economic wheels turning. Guyana by far has experienced a severe case of brain drain and is now at risk of loosing the scattering of skilled laborers and formally educated incumbents that have the drive and motivation to own the problems that Guyana suffers from and make a genuine effort to turn the economic wheels forward and get Guyana on the start to recovery. Read more
STATEMENT BY A GROUP OF CONCERNED CARIBBEAN CITIZENS CALLING FOR FULL AND PUBLIC REVIEW OF THE CARIFORUM-EC ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT (EPA)
January 20, 2008
SASOD has joined with the group of citizens calling for a review of the recent EPA
We note with interest the recent statement by President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana in which he observed that the Caribbean stands to gain little from the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) recently negotiated with Europe. President Jagdeo stated that the agreement was concluded against the backdrop of a threat that tariffs would be imposed on Caribbean exports of sugar, bananas and manufactured goods to the European community as of January 1st 2008 if the region did not meet the timeline of December 31, 2007 — the date when the Cotonou Agreement was set to expire. He suggested that the shift from the principle of preferential trade to one of reciprocity introduces a new set of challenges that the Caribbean is ill equipped to face. Read more
Cultural Dissimilation and Degradation: the West Indian Diaspora
January 6, 2008
There is no uncertainty that popular culture, technological advancements and the pursuit to secure capital have in many ways percolated into our systems and have adapted us into “modern life.” Now this is not an appalling thing, rather it is a wonderful metamorphosis but as I see it, too much of it, as it stands mimics an active imploding volcano.
They scope of my analysis extends from an observational dissection of West Indian communities in the United States, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana and the extent to which my examination should remain is respectively the same. Read more