Submitted by Senator Caswell Franklyn Many commentators have weighed in on the application of the COVID-19 directives, particularly with regards to the sentencing of offenders and the apparent gusto displayed by the chief magistrate while presiding over the resulting cases. My own view is that these directives are flawed, but for the purposes of this article I would consider them
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Honey is the most influential force known to man. Governments and businesses who want to learn a competitor’s trade secrets, need only send a honey trap. Men at the height of their professional careers, and who cherished their families, have lost it all for honey. Let us try to understand why. When an attractive woman smiles at a man, he
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In May 2018 the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) achieved the unprecedented in a general election by winning all 30 seats. Although Bishop Joseph Atherley seized the opportunity to defect and by default forced the Governor General to appoint him Leader of the Opposition, it does not detract from the shellacking of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) at the 2018 polls.
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Kudos to the Nation newspaper for highlighting the human interest story Family lacks electricity for online classes. The story resonated with the blogmaster for many reasons that should be obvious to sensible people. Leaders in education of late, forced to implement Covid 19 measures, have been repeatedly braying the cliche “no child must be left behind‘ – what does that
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Submitted by William Parker I wish to congratulate the BLP government on their handling of the Covid 19 in 2020. Now that the various “versions” of the original Virus has reached here and the infection rate and deaths are spiralling out of control it is apparent to some, including me, that the government has no answers and is reacting and
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The blogmaster followed with interest the passing of Bills yesterday in the Lower House of the National Payment System Bill 2021 and the Barbados Identity Management Bill 2021. The government appears to be moving to take advantage of technology to enhance and transform how Barbadians do business in a new ecosystem, pay for goods, services. Gone are the days when
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Submitted by Richard Petko The past two weeks has seen a national pause and a furtherance of the pause. What are the actual goals of the pause? What are the goalposts for re-opening? What are the goals for tourism? These are all valid questions and I think they should be asked and answered. Before answering it is pertinent to see
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Submitted by Unknown Keeping this purely fact-based with no emotional argument — logic is needed in this time. This is not a conventional opinion piece, but a summary of all the reasons why we shouldn’t have lockdowns. This piece although written in a Barbadian context can be extrapolated globally. A positive PCR test ALONE does not mean that you have
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In the last thirty six hours the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) had reason to retract a declaration of some candidates to contest the next general election. With the election constitutionally due by 2023 political pundits have suggested the DLP should have completed the task by now. We understand President Verla De Peiza’s explanation that the selection of candidates is involved
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Submitted by Grenville Phillips II We have been asked how we would have responded to COVID-19. We provided our best advice about one year ago, but the Government rejected it at that time. Given the foreseen nightmare scenario, they should reconsider – for all our sakes. In the past 15 days, we had 15 new deaths. In the previous 15
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For months I have contemplated but resisted writing about the rule of law, or lack thereof, in Barbados under two consecutive states of emergency. All that changed after I read a WhatsApp message sent to me from an unknown person. It simply said: “If you allow the government to break the law in an emergency, they will create emergencies to
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Submitted by Richard Petko These pages have been inundated with comments concerning the Welcome Stamp (WS). I don’t wish to disparage the concept (with all respect to PLT), but the notion that Barbados can earn new amounts of foreign exchange from it or transition to a long-stay tourism/work model as opposed to regular tourism model are completely unrealistic. The first
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We have critical questions about the COVID-19 vaccine. We have highly qualified medical professionals who treasure their reputations enough to tell us the truth. We have a Prime Minister who has asked for difficult questions, and instructed our professionals to answer such questions on live TV. What can possibly go wrong? NO ANSWERS. I have asked several questions about this
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The Adrian Loveridge Column usually occupies this space on Monday mornings. The blogmaster takes this opportunity to thank Adrian for being a strident social commentator over the years and willingness to enter the BU fray, especially as it relates to promoting and defending the tourism sector he is very familiar. The BU household extends best wishes as he takes a
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Submitted by Doc GP Last week we harped on 1Peter 2 v2 on the need for spiritual neonates to desire the sincere milk of the Word of God. This week we will look at 2 Timothy 2 v 2, where the injunction is that believers ought to faithfully teach others what they have learned from those who have preceded them
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During the current lockdown it’s perhaps an ideal opportunity to reflect on the positives and negatives of an everyday small business and hope that these experiences can benefit us all in the recovery days to come. While not directly tourism related, any reasonable person has to ponder what on earth was on the minds of the management of one or
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The recent announcement by the IMF states that Barbados is in line for reform to it’s pension system. With drastically reduced revenue intake due to Covid-19, the expenditure associated with pensions , gratuity and retirement benefits will of course take the spotlight . The intended pension reform is preparing government for the reality of an ageing population, declining birthrate, declining
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Since we all learn new things through a process of failure, we are normally at our least responsible time as late-teenagers. That is when we transition from being dependent children into adults. As children, our parents were mostly responsible for our actions. As adults, we are fully responsible for our actions. Late-teenagers can do much damage as they get used
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