Editorial

14.MAY.10 The centenary celebrations of the Girls’ High School were launched in fine style last weekend with a torch relay that passed through almos...

07.MAY.10 Over the last weekend and right up to early this week, news reports from around the world gave details of activities held to commemorate Int...

30.APR.10 Educators, parents and indeed the general public are expected to pay keen attention to an experiment which will begin in Trinidad and Tobago...

23.APR.10 LAST month it was announced that regional Heads of Government were to meet in Port of Spain in mid-April in a special Summit on crime in the...

16.APR.10 There has been huge public outcry about a recently held schools’ dance off and cheerleading competition. The outcry followed the broadcast...

09.APR.10 On Wednesday of this week Vincentians joined the rest of the world in observing World Health Day. The Ministry of Health and the Environment...

19.MAR.10 This weekend, 250 Editors and Publishers who are members of the Inter American Press Association will meet in Aruba for its Mid-Year meeting...

12.MAR.10 IN our last issue, SEARCHLIGHT carried a story based on a recent World Bank study on the availability of nurses in the English-speaking Cari...

05.MAR.10 The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states “the will of the people shall be the basis of authority of the government”. Half, ...

26.FEB.10 The dry season is well and truly with us, and throughout the Caribbean the complaint is the same - scarcity or lack of water. The spreading ...

19.FEB.10 Last week the people of the world commemorated the 20th anniversary of one of the great moments of history, the release from 27 years of cap...

12.FEB.10 Nine years ago, one of the key issues in the elections of 2001 was that of economic citizenship. The debate around this added to the volatil...

05.FEB.10 IT SEEMS the time has come for Government to effect the provisions made in the Education Act of 2008 for Truancy Officers to be hired. With ...

This must have been the most difficult Budget that Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has ever had to present to Parliament. H...

22.Jan.10 Just as the Old Year closed with the political implications of the November referendum competing for attention with the Christmas celebratio...

15.Jan.10 If the devastation which has hit the people of Haiti does not touch the social consciences of the people of the world, then nothing else wil...

08.Jan.10 THE TRAGIC vehicular accident on the new Argyle by-pass road raises for the umpteenth time questions about the enforcement of regulations fo...

30.DEC.09 December 31, 2009 not only marks the end of yet another year, it also signals the end of one of the most momentous decades in human history....

23.DEC.09 The entire nation reacted with outrage last week when word spread that burglars had broken into the local Salvation Army headquarters and ha...

18.DEC.09 The recently released Barbados and OECS Corporate Performance and Outlook report has confirmed what we have all suspected. The majority of b...

11.DEC.09 Some anniversaries pass relatively unnoticed, shorn of the hype and attention given to others. This is particularly so of events with which ...

04.DEC.09 IT WAS MOST refreshing to hear Prime Minister Gonsalves, at his Press Conference on Monday of this week, take up the cause of Climate Change...

27.NOV.09 The people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines have spoken, decisively so. In the first ever referendum to be staged in this country, the prop...

20.NOV.09 On Wednesday of next week, the voters of St. Vincent and the Grenadines will have their first experience in dealing with a referendum, a pop...

16.OCT.09 To all our Vincentian sisters and brothers returning home for our 30th anniversary of Independence, we say a hearty “WELCOME”. Whether t...

09.OCT.09 Caribbean countries can beam with pride at much of the results of the recently-released Human Development Report of the United Nations Devel...

02.OCT.09 A major task lies ahead for those of us who are charged with the responsibility of educating our people leading up to the national referendu...

25.SEP.09 We have heard it all before - in the fifties, sixties and seventies - “We are not ready”(for independence, then). It was a song not just...

18.SEP.09 The national debate on the proposed new Constitution for St. Vincent and the Grenadines took another turn this week with the formal launchin...

11.SEP.09 Another twist in the drama surrounding the events of October 1983 in neighbouring Grenada occurred last weekend with the freeing of the rema...

04.SEPT.09 It is a real pity that after all the hard work of the last six years to prepare our people for a mature role in the historic task of shapin...

28.AUG.09 When a young man, barely twenty years old, speaks casually of a foreign hit man being hired to kill him and another claims he was shot at th...

21.AUG.09 We are almost three weeks into Emancipation month, although you would scarcely know it based on the paucity of related activities happening ...

14.AUG.09 St. Vincent and the Grenadines must be a strange place indeed, if we are to judge by the attitude of its people. For umpteen years we have l...

07.AUG.09 The launch of the $5.8 million Sustainable Agriculture Livelihood Project last week by the Government of St.Vincent and the Grenadines repre...

31.JULY.09 With school examinations out of the way and Carnival a fading memory, the long vacation is now in full swing. Pupils and students of all ag...

24.JULY.09 The contents of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Poverty Assessment Report, the subject of a National Consultation last week, make very in...

17.JULY.09 “Well, it can hardly get worse, can it?” That was the rhetorical question asked by one regional commentator in the midst of the debacle...

10.JULY.09 There is a lot about our Carnival of which we can be justly proud. VINCY MAS 2009, the self-proclaimed “Hottest Carnival in the Caribbean...

03.JULY.09 For us in the newspaper business, this is our busy season, not just because of Carnival, but because of the many graduation ceremonies we a...

26.JUNE.09 In the midst of growing resentment among many persons in our society about what is being viewed as the excessive use of force by some branc...

19.JUNE.09 Swine flu was upgraded last week by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to a global flu pandemic, the first in 41 years. Cases have been re...

12.JUNE.09 The Carnival season is with us again. Over the next two months, the people of the Eastern Caribbean will stage five full-fledged sets of Ca...

05.JUNE.09 Operation Vincy Pac is now over. Now what? Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves reported to the nation earlier this week that the operation, w...

29.MAY.09 Another chapter in the political and constitutional development of St. Vincent and the Grenadines was written this week with the presentatio...

22.MAY.09 The 2009 hurricane season in the Caribbean is 10 days away from its commencement, but Vincentian Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has crea...

15.MAY.09 Since assuming office in 2001, the Ralph Gonsalves-led ULP administration has pursued a bold and innovative foreign policy. While maintainin...

08.MAY.09 We can bury our heads in the sand as much as we want, the problem will not go away. We can blame the media, saying the outcry is of their ma...

30.APR.09 The National Labour Congress of St. Vincent and the Grenadines has at last undertaken the responsibility of reclaiming ownership of activiti...

24.APR.09 Was the Fifth Summit of the Americas, which concluded in Port of Spain last Sunday, a resounding success? Did the Caribbean gain anything su...

17.APR.09 Vincentian Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves is among 35 Heads of State and Government attending the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port o...

09.APR.09 The G20 Summit of the world’s most economically powerful nations ended in London (actually, in Horsham, Sussex) last week, with much of th...

03.APR.09 The month of April has been declared CHILD ABUSE MONTH, and already, activities have been organized to focus attention on the injustices per...

27.MAR.09 There is no longer any pretence about it: the world economy is in trouble-deep trouble at that. Weekly, there are reports of more bank failu...

20.MAR.09 This paper has always been supportive of the idea of a National Heroes’ Day and commemoration of the achievements of heroic Vincentians. W...

13.MAR.09 With the institution of official activities to commemorate National Heroes and Heritage Month, St. Vincent and the Grenadines took one signi...

06.MAR.09 Thirty-five years ago, International Women’s Day (IWD) was first commemorated in this country. Then, even before the United Nations first ...

27.FEB.09 The rare show of unity demonstrated in Parliament on Tuesday by both sides of the House was indeed as refreshing as it was unexpected. Most ...

20.FEB.09 The news circling around our sister island of Antigua over the past week must make all Caribbean people hang their heads in abject shame. As...

13.FEB.09 A healthy public debate as to how countries like ours should respond to the global economic crisis is developing. This follows in the wake o...

06.FEB.09 Reality is fast catching up with the Caribbean, as far as the global economic crisis is concerned. Those of us who may have been harbouring ...

30.JAN.09 The action of the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in convening a Symposium to examine both its work programmes for 2009 and its...

23.JAN.09 SEARCHLIGHT joins with the millions of people all over the world in celebrating the elevation of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the Unite...

16.JAN.09 Hardly have we embarked on the New Year when the signs of the rapidly spreading world economic crisis are manifesting themselves right here ...

09.JAN.09 Out of evil cometh good. The recent detention of journalist Jeff Trotman by the police because he was taking photographs of a fire and did n...

02.JAN.09 Billions of people the world over are engaged this week in the traditional exchange of greetings to welcome in the New Year. The wishes for ...

23.DEC.08 Barack Obama’s winning campaign with its theme “Change we can believe in” was tremendously successful and resonated in the hearts of p...

19.DEC.08 The traditional Vincy Christmas is with us again. We have had official openings of the “lighting up” communities and the grand launch of...

12.DEC.08 Street riots protesting the police killing of a young man in Greece, calls for ending the sham of US military justice at Guantanamo, the con...

05.DEC.08 Prime Minister, Hon. Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, on Monday of this week made his 2009 Budget presentation in the House of Assembly. It followed las...

28.NOV.08 Prime Minister Hon. Dr Ralph Gonsalves faces one of the most difficult tasks of his near-eight year administration when he gets up in Parlia...

21.NOV.08 Two Searchlight staff members were privileged this week to have an open and frank discussion with high-ranking law enforcement officials in ...

14.NOV.08 Thirty-three years after the government of St Vincent and the Grenadines turned on its own teachers, unleashing the Royal St Vincent and the...

07.NOV.08 In the space of a few days, the Caribbean has witnessed two events of tremendous social implication. Last Saturday, the Caribbean’s premie...

31.OCT.08 Before the dust settles on our Independence Anniversary celebrations and our attention gets diverted into the organization of the annual Nin...

24.OCT.08 The 29th anniversary of the attainment of political independence by the nation of St Vincent and the Grenadines could not come amidst more w...

17.OCT.08 Yesterday, October 16th, was observed around the world as WORLD FOOD DAY. A multiplicity of activities was staged in most countries to mark ...

10.OCT.08 The Caribbean Week of Agriculture and the National Agricultural and Agro-based Industrial Exhibition (NAIE) could not have come to this coun...

03.OCT.08 As we go to Press, much of the world awaits with bated breath the outcome of votes in the Congress of the United States of America on a bail...

26.SEPT.08 The tragic death of a Vincentian woman, crushed when a massive retaining wall came tumbling down at Ratho Mill last Friday, serves as a cru...

19.SEPT.08 We must celebrate our nation’s oldest secondary school. Per Aspera Ad Astra. The St. Vincent Grammar School (SVGS) has endured and has to...

12.SEPT.08 Tomorrow is being observed here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as the rest of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), as Caribbean W...

05.SEPT.08 It is said that one good turn deserves another. By the same token, many good turns must at least trigger substantial generosity in return. ...

29.AUG.08 After expressing concern about the performance of our students in last year’s Caribbean Secondary Education Council’s (CSEC) and A’lev...