Editorial

Sir James Mitchell’s life ended as he lived it, on his terms. He departed with dignity and on Bequia, the island he loved and the place of his birth. ...

In today’s edition of SEARCHLIGHT, we share the excitement of restaurateur and backyard gardener Yvonne Thomas who reaped a pumpkin weighing over 100 ...

Today, State employees working in a range of frontline and strategic positions have an important decision to make. They can choose either to be vaccin...

MOST VINCENTIANS, including leaders in the private and public sector, seem very clear about the role and responsibilities of the media, and they take ...

Carlos James, our Minister of Tourism, Civil Aviation, Sustainable Development and Culture in his address to COP26 earlier this week made the importan...

NOVEMBER IS Lung Cancer Awareness Month, a time to educate the public about the disease, take action for and raise awareness of lung cancer, and share...

On Monday of this week, in a message to his membership, Oswald Robinson, President of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Teachers Union (SVGTU) made an...

FULLY 12 MONTHS AGO, on October 27, 2020, the COVID-19 profile of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) was the envy of the world. There were five known...

WORLD FOOD DAY 2021 was celebrated this year under a most insightful theme: “Our actions are our future, better production, better nutrition, a better...

St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) is a nation made up of several tiny islands and cays, but we are not islands unto ourselves. Despite retaining muc...

SUNDAY OCTOBER 10 was observed as World Mental Health Day, a date set aside annually to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world and m...

From very early in our lives, our experiences as a people, through slavery, colonialism and under white plantocracy, right down to the present, the wi...

YESTERDAY, MILLIONS of people around the world were reminded just how dependent they have become on Facebook and its family of apps, including WhatsAp...

In this time of uncertainty for all our students, some students carry heavier burdens than others, financial insecurity being among the main stressors...

IN A SMALL country like ours, the majority of services and business transactions either take place in, or revolve around the capital city Kingstown or...

Christians in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) have been receiving conflicting information from our religious leaders on whether we should follow t...

SLOWLY, WE are seeing an uptick in the number of people coming forward to be vaccinated against COVID19 in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). Unfort...

THE DOORS of our schools are scheduled to be reopened in three weeks time. Sadly, the stated date seems tentative now, given the current spike in COVI...

LAST WEEK, to register its opposition to an amendment to the Public Health Act which would require workers in specific jobs to be vaccinated, the Publ...

FROM TIME TO time, governments must take hard decisions in the interest of the public. Making COVID19 vaccination mandatory for certain categories of ...

After waiting five weeks for results; an unusually long period for the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA), our grade six pupils, their teachers ...

Today, August 31, 2021, we send our congratulations to the government and people of the twin-island republic of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) on the occas...

The leadership of one of the local unions which represent public servants, the Public Service Union (PSU), has raised the stakes in its long-running d...

The Vincentian YouTuber at the centre of the fake abduction of a female last Saturday says people who have criticized what she terms a “social experim...

THE GOVERNMENT OF St Vincent and the Grenadines is poised to make an amendment to our public health laws which in the words of the Prime Minister, wou...

SEARCHLIGHT extends its congratulations to the St Lucia Labour Party (SLP) which romped to an impressive victory in Monday’s general elections in that...

Over the last few weeks, after many months of online classes, school age children in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) have been returning to school...

The street protests which occurred across several cities of our Caribbean sister state of Cuba two weekends ago sent a powerful message to the world a...

THERE IS A popular international campaign purporting to “get rid of racism in sports”, approved by most if not all international sporting organisation...

WHEN HEALTH AUTHORITIES in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) announced a few weeks ago that home quarantine had been introduced as an option for ful...

THE TRINIDADIAN paramilitary police and the Special Services Unit (SSU) of the Royal St Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force wear different uniform...

The old adage: “When it rains, it pours”, can literally be applied to St Vincent and the Grenadines of the present time. As if we don’t have enough on...

HAS THE Royal St Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force (RSVGPF), or at least elements within it, assumed the role of judge, jury and executioner whe...

Our heads still reeling from the upheaval occasioned by the explosive eruptions of La Soufriere in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Vincentians are...

When residents or nationals of a country are able to arrive at consensus on matters of national concern, social stability is enhanced, co-operation in...

IN THE midst of all the havoc created world-wide by the deadly coronavirus pandemic, the matter of vaccination as a viable means of curbing the spread...

YESTERDAY, THE Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (ECTEL) announced the winners in a recent ‘Girls in ICT’ activity which was observed thi...

A major result of the disastrous 2019-2021 period  which has confronted our country, has been the tendency to focus on the damage to our society and h...

Several of our recent editorials have expressed concern about the continuing spread of COVID -19 in our country, and mused on our weaknesses in follow...

Issues of food security have been under discussion at meetings of government, farming organisations and civil society entities for numerous years whet...

There are eight member countries of the East Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU), St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) being one of them. In the 15 or so m...

THERE ARE MANY dates in our history that we take for granted, unaware of the enormous significance of occurrences on those dates. May 25, 1931 is one ...

SOMETHING IS not quite right. The number of Covid-19 positive cases in the country is on the rise again, yet, seemingly unconcerned about the risk, hu...

The Covid19 pandemic and the resulting restrictions placed on how business is conducted have forced us to re-imagine many aspects of our economy and f...

Six weeks after many areas in the north of St Vincent had to be evacuated owing to the volcanic eruption, persons evacuated from “Orange Zone” areas a...

The global battle to contain the deadly COVID19 pandemic, to minimise its effects and to protect the people of planet earth takes various forms accord...

It is very sad and yet another blot on our country that this week’s debate and passage of the supplementary budget following the volcanic eruption, sh...

Most Vincentians are legitimately concerned about the allegations being made against Senator Ashelle Morgan and the Assistant Director of Public Prose...

At this time last year, carnival lovers in SVG were smarting over the cancellation of the 2020 Carnival celebrations, but consoled themselves with the...

In the war against Covid-19, testing saves lives. Testing is the only way to determine if someone is infected with SARS-CoV-2 – regardless of whether ...

Another May Day will pass tomorrow without any activities organized to mark what is such an important occasion globally, the celebration of Internatio...

A LOT OF PRAISE has been heaped, deservedly, both officially and in the media, on the many persons, organisations, business entities and countries whi...

We at SEARCHLIGHT share the sense of collective shock and grief felt by our nation in learning of the passing of Brother Parnel ‘PR’ Campbell earlier ...

This past Sunday, there was an explosive eruption at La Soufriere, the 30th such event since the volcano moved into the present phase of seismic activ...

ON THE RECENT occasion of World Water Day (March 22), we quoted from the English poet W H Auden as follows: “Thousands live without love, not one with...

WE CAN ALL FEEL PROUD of the response of thousands of Vincentians to our latest collective calamity, the violent eruption of La Soufriere volcano. It ...

As if to remind us that there are far greater problems than the ones we create, the wrangle between the Teachers’ Union, the Public Service Union and ...

Last Sunday, March 28, the governing Unity labour party celebrated the 20th anniversary of its historic election victory in 2001. The celebrations wer...

There has, in recent times, been a resurgence of criticism of the Customs Service Charge imposed by the government as part of the 2021 Budget as a mea...

ONE CAN ONLY WELCOME the news over the past week, from three significant sources that the allegations about the lack of safety of the Astrazeneca vacc...

Old sayings and proverbs often take on meaning in our modern world. Take the one which says “It’s an ill wind which blows nobody good”, meaning that o...

This weekend is the highpoint of our country’s National Heroes Month, a month so designated primarily to focus on the heroic resistance of the Garifun...

THE CENTERS for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States yesterday announced for the first time, guidelines that ease restrictions fo...

When the women of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) join our sisters all over the world next Monday to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD), we...

Monday, March 8 is International Women’s Day which will be celebrated this year under the theme #ChoosetoChallenge with a call to action for us to all...

The world, our country being no exception, has been preoccupied for a year now with the COVID-19 pandemic. Understandably, much of the attention has b...

Out of adversity comes opportunity, the old adage says. The minister of finance and business leaders have recently sounded the warning that we are in ...

As if the COVID pandemic has not done enough damage to our society, another troubling offshoot came sharply into focus this week. We speak here about ...

While it is agreed that compared with the general population, COVID-19 infections are much less prevalent in children, and also less severe when they ...

There are two new developments in the COVID-19 situation in our country. First and foremost is the alarm about the rising casualty figures both quanti...

This plague has denigrated our world, To a blackened state of dysphoria. A cloud of depression has settled Over our land, dampening our spirits. We ha...

The challenges that we face today have highlighted the indispensable role played by a number of regional organizations in the governance, safety and r...

ST VINCENT AND THE Grenadines’ (SVG) reputation of being the most cash-dependent nation in the Caribbean is hopefully under threat. During yesterday’s...

It has now become somewhat of a spectator sport around the world to take pot shots at public health officials charged with responsibility for managing...

Last Wednesday, January 13, the University of the West Indies (UWI) Open Campus had a virtual ceremony to honour Vincentian musical genius Franklyn ‘F...

In the space of less than one month, St Vincent and the Grenadines moved from having not a single recorded case of locally transmitted Covid-19 infect...

The ongoing events in the United States, particularly those in Washington DC over the past week have come as a profound shock to hundreds of millions ...

As we live through this period of national difficulty, with runaway numbers being reported for Covid-19 infections and La Soufriere looming over our h...

If we thought that the events of 2020 posed serious threats to our health, well-being and economic survival, then here comes 2021. Going in to only th...

Last week, for the second time since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Commissioner of Police announced that a ban had been placed on the playin...

What a climax to an already tumultuous year! With just days before we put a wrap on everything that was 2020, it refuses to go quietly and Vincentians...

Each year at Christmas, many Vincentian organizations and individuals reach out to needy persons or families in the spirit of love and goodwill that s...

Over the past few weeks and particularly since the November 5 elections in SVG, many of us in the media, and in the wider society as a whole, have bee...

At this time of the year, Vincentians tend to boast that St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) must be among the top places in the world to be for Chris...