Foreign Affairs

By GHK Lall There was this sharp intensity of hard passions, as I absorbed two news developments from late last week. In view of the harsh, unforgiving tones and postures anyone could easily have mistaken the news reports as being about Guyana and its ugly political squabbles. In those two instances, they were not. For it was about powerful Venezuelan ...

Reproduced from AFP Venezuelan prosecutors said Friday they would charge opposition leader Juan Guaido with “high treason” for planning to renounce the country’s claim to a disputed border area controlled by Guyana. Guaido, the National Assembly speaker who is recognized as interim president by more than 50 countries, is being investigated for negotiating to renounce “the historical claim our country ...

Reproduced from Argus Media Venezuela’s rival political authorities are trading accusations of relinquishing the country’s historical claim to a large swath of neighboring Guyana on the eve of ExxonMobil’s launch of offshore production there. Venezuela’s executive vice president Delcy Rodriguez today released what she says is a months-old tape of Vanessa Neumann, the UK envoy of opposition leader Juan Guaido, ...

A section of Guyana’s business community has reacted sharply to United States Ambassador, Sarah-Ann Lynch’s warning that recent chatter about local content may scare away foreign investors. Senior Vice President of the Georgetown Chamber, Timothy Tucker indicated that Ms. Lynch is an American public servant who was merely representing her country’s business interests. Mr. Tucker says nothing is wrong with ...

Co-Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce- Guyana (AMCHAM-G), American Ambassador to Guyana Sarah-Ann Lynch on Saturday cautioned that recent concerns about local content could erode Guyana as an attractive investment destination. “For example, some recent suggestions about local content policy in Guyana may send a signal that some investors as well as the employment and know-how benefits they bring ...

Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman has assured that the ongoing wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, though troubling, will have no direct impact on Guyana. The minister told journalists recently that the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) has increased its monitoring of this country’s forest. “As a government, of course, we are concerned. The Forestry Commission will be monitoring our own ...

Guyana and Britain on Friday rubbished Russia’s claim that a British military base was being constructed on one of the Essequibo islands to train Venezuelan refugees to destabilise the Nicolás Maduro-led government. The Foreign Ministry here called on Russia to withdraw the statement by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova, during a briefing on Thursday on the sidelines of ...

Key diplomats on Friday afternoon welcomed the appointment of retired Justice Claudette Singh as the new Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). British High Commissioner Greg Quinn tweeted, “I welcome this extremely positive development. I look forward to meeting the new GECOM chair. All relevant actors are to be congratulated on this agreement. #Guyana”. Canadian High Commissioner to Guyana, ...

Cuban doctors, who have been monitoring President David Granger, say they are happy with his recovery from non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, and they have asked him to return in three months for another evaluation, Guyana’s Ambassador to Cuba Halim Majeed said. The Guyanese leader, who Tuesday returned to Guyana from Cuba’s Centro de Investigaciones Médicas Quirúrgicas, was ...

  A Venezuelan-registered helicopter, piloted by a former Venezuelan military intelligence officer, made a fiery landing on Mount Ayanganna while on a mission for the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), officials said. A GDF spokesman confirmed that the incident occurred in late May while the Alouette helicopter, bearing registration markings YV-3214, was taking a plaque and other items to Mount Ayanganna ...