Guyana: Just as the country is preparing for the start of oil production in the last quarter of 2019, Guyana’s multiparty coalition government will first have to survive a spirited opposition parliamentary no confidence motion that is set for debate before Christmas if it wants to enjoy the financial windfall from its fledgling petroleum sector. Comment

Music: Jamaican-born, Grammy-nominated international jazz maestro, Monty Alexander, CD, is set to make his first United States performance this holiday as a newly-minted honorary Doctorate of Letters of the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. Comment

Music: Legendary reggae artist Buju Banton was released from prison after serving seven years in a federal facility in Georgia on Friday, Dec. 7. The Jamaican singer was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 10 years for drug and gun charges in a Florida bust in 2009. His sentence was later reduced to seven, but the Grammy-award winning artist’s absence in the music industry was strongly felt in the reggae music community. Comment

Guyana: Administrative errors cost the Barbados football team points in the CONCACAF Nations League qualifier competition and shot Guyana up the standings ladder giving the South Americans a fair chance of making the final cut for the prestigious Gold Cup next year. Comment

Jamaica: West Indies cricket star Chris Gayle was awarded US$221,000 in damages by an Australian judge, three months after a jury found he was defamed in an Australian newspaper, which claimed he had exposed himself indecently to a female masseur. Comment

Sports: West Indies slumped to a five-wicket defeat to hosts Bangladesh in the first of the three-match One-Day International series (OD) in Dhaka on Sunday, Dec. 9. Comment

Sports: Cricket West Indies (CWI) and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) have come together to secure a health insurance plan for retained players from all six regional franchises and all CWI contracted international players (men and women). Comment

Brooklyn: A newly formed organization is trying to close a gap between the school system and parents with hands-on informative workshops. The Brooklyn-based group, No Rest Until Success, is a generous organization that aims to raise educational awareness, by assisting families struggling to provide their children with schoolwork with resources. Comment

Guyana: Guyanese-born Justice Ingrid Joseph says she’s “privileged and blessed” that she gets “to do work that I love” by sitting on the judicial bench in Brooklyn and Queens. Comment

Guyana: Losing his parents at a very young age, Dr. Sean Doorn, a Georgetown, Guyana-born educator, views this time of the year as his least favorite, simply because his mother died a few months before the Christmas season, and later, his father died, memories, despite sad, helped him to toughen-up, and strive for excellence during his life’s journey. Comment

Bronx: Councilman Andy King (D–Baychester) gave awards to several kids at a chess tournament at MS 390 last Saturday. At the Chess in Schools’ Fernando Cabrera Chess Challenge on Dec. 8, the politician presented more than a dozen winners and teams of the challenge with medals and trophies. Comment

Brooklyn: More than 100 kids and families attended the 500 Men Christmas Tree Lighting and Toy Drive at Herbert Von King Park in Bedford-Stuyvesant on Dec. 8. Comment

Arts & Theater: Tourists visiting the Big Apple during this holiday season are no different from residents of the state who since 1932 make Radio City Music Hall the destination families are guaranteed a spectacular fun-filled showcase. Comment

Movies: “Widows” was a British TV series, which enjoyed a two-year run from 1983 to 1985. Created by legendary English author Lynda La Plante (Prime Suspect), the popular crime show was nominated for a BAFTA award in the Best Television Drama category. In 2002, ABC turned Widows into a four-part miniseries starring Brooke Shields and Rosie Perez, but that substantially-revised overhaul failed to resonate with the American audience. Comment

Brooklyn: Several residents, healthcare workers, officials and members of the community were on hand Friday, Dec. 7 for the annual Holiday Lighting Ceremony at NYC Health+Hospitals McKinney on Albany Avenue in Brooklyn. Comment

Trinidad and Tobago: Barbados President of the Barbados’ Prison Officers Association pleaded not guilty of encouraging four other prison officers to stay off the job in May this year when he appeared in court recently. Comment

Trinidad and Tobago: The heartbreak felt by ex-Petrotrin workers was the same that was experienced by retrenched University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) lecturers who were sent home earlier this year. Comment

People: Stockholm / Rome, Dec. 10, 2018 (IPS) — Several celebrities use their power to insult or take advantage of women. We read about sexual abuse from men like Harvey Weinsten, Bill OReilly, Leslie Moonves, Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Cosby, R. Kelly, Dennis Hastert, Robert Packwood, Roger Ailes, James Levine, Hans Hermann Groër, Marcial Maciel, Justin Forsyth, Ruud Lubbers, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Bill Clinton, Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump. Comments (1)

Books: You dig, and you dig, and you dig. Like a dog with a bone, you’re all in when presented with a tiny scrap of intriguing information. You don’t let go until you know everything there is to know about it, searching and uncovering and digging until, as in the new novel “Triple Threat” by Camryn King, you’ve dug yourself into trouble. Comment

Movies: Capernaum (R for profanity and drug use) Coming-of-age tale about a young Lebanese boy (Zain al Rafeea) who sues his parents (Fadi Yousef and Kawsar Al Haddad) for neglect while serving a five-year sentence for attempted murder. With Yordanos Shiferaw, Cedra Izam and Nadine Labaki. (In Arabic and Amharic with subtitles) Comment

Brooklyn: Several of the city’s domestic workers will be celebrated at an annual gala next week. The celebratory Dec. 15 gala, created by nanny platform — My Nanny Circle, is honoring some 21 nannies with awards at Grand Prospect Hall. This year, the annual gathering is not only extolling a hardworking group of women, but with a major backing from a leading media company — honorees will be getting special surprises, said its founder. Comment

Books: She’s all about manners. A Trinidadian-American teacher and author is releasing a new children’s book about general courtesy and manners. Debut author Amarimba Charles, introduces youngsters to the do’s and don’ts of employing common courtesy and politeness in her book, “Please and Thank You are Magic Words! A Story About Manners And Etiquette.” Comment

Manhattan: Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte (D–Flatbush) joined Councilman Mark Treygar (D–Coney Island) in a push to advocate for more translation services for Russian and Haitian Creole speaking voters at City Hall on Dec. 5. The politicians demanded that the Board of Elections revise their current law, which limits interpretation services for a select number of languages. Comment

Arts & Theater: More than a half dozen Caribbean actors are going to perform excerpts from Zeno Obi Constance’s plays at TheatreLab Studios on Dec. 10. Parts from eight of the Trinidadian playwright’s work will be read by some of the rising and dominant names in Caribbean theatre in “From Page to Stage: A Caribbean Journey.” Comment

Music: Vincentian gospel artiste LaFleur Durrant and her Jamaican counterpart Croswell Daley brought the house down Saturday with heart-wrenching gospel songs as the Bronx-based St. Matthias Charities, Inc. hosted its annual fundraising prayer breakfast at the Friends of Crown Heights Educational Center in Brooklyn. Comment

Sports: The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf) recently announced that the Estadio Nacional, in San Jose, Costa Rica will host a Concacaf Gold Cup doubleheader, featuring the home nation, on Sunday, June 16, 2019. Comment