Editorial

Notwithstanding his recent indiscretions, Chris Gayle’s match-winning, 47-ball century with 11 sixes, in West Indies’ first match against England in the ICC World T20 championship in Mumbai on Wednesday, was an undoubted crowd-pleaser and an emphatic reminder that he is still one of the most destructive batsmen in international T20 cricket, if not the master of the format.

On Tuesday, we reported that a ten-year-old boy was taken to the Springlands Police Station by his neighbours last Saturday and an allegation made that he had stolen something from them.

A statement last week by Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados, Dr DeLisle Worrell, indicates a certain optimism on the part of the authorities about the future of a Barbados economy which had barely indicated growth over almost a decade.

Those Guyanese who were not afforded the opportunity of being present to witness at least some of the hearings of the Commission of Inquiry into the Public Service would have been denied an important opportunity to arrive at a helpful understanding of the condition of the public service including, particularly, some of the reasons why it is the way it is in the first place.

In its meteoric transformation after decades-long decrepitude, the Kitty Market can be seen as a metaphor for Friday’s historic local government elections (LGE) while at the same time raising troubling questions about the impositions of central government on the lower tiers of governance.

Save for the 1994 poll, this country has not really been acquainted with local government elections for two generations.

Last week’s takeover of the Zaman newspaper – Turkey’s largest daily and a key forum for opposition views — shows how quickly independent media can be silenced by despotic governments.

Against the backdrop of Venezuela’s worsening political and economic crisis, the country’s opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD is the Spanish acronym), declared on Wednesday that it would pursue all constitutional mechanisms, accompanied by mass peaceful street demonstrations starting in Caracas this weekend, to force President Nicolás Maduro and the chavista United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) out of power.

On Tuesday, Guyana joined the rest of the world in observing International Women’s Day.

The current economic difficulties of Brazil, now expanded into political challenges to the government, as well as specifically to President Dilma Rousseff herself, suggest a change in perceptions of the status not only of Brazil in the ranking of economies in the global system, but the ranking of countries described some years ago by a Western analyst as BRICS, with the implication that they could become among the more select groupings of leading global economies as time goes on.

It ought to have come as no surprise that the APNU-AFC administration has taken this long to announce the names of its heads of mission – ambassadors and high commissioners – to those countries with which Guyana has resident diplomatic relations, even though the very names that were eventually made public last week were being bandied about for many months.

By any measure the loss of 17 lives at one time is a disaster of monumental proportions and requiring the most rigorous examination and inquiry.

The events of last Thursday which ended so tragically are more associated with the news emanating from Brazil, Venezuela or Mexico, than with Georgetown, Guyana.

“Moderation is a fatal thing,” quipped Oscar Wilde, “Nothing succeeds like excess.”

At the risk of being accused of facetiousness, it’s difficult to say which will be the more historic event in Cuba this month: President Barack Obama’s visit on the 21st and 22nd, the first by a sitting American president since Calvin Coolidge in 1928; or the free concert in Havana by British rock superstars The Rolling Stones, on the 25th.

Initiatives expected to be undertaken during this year as announced by Commissioner of Police Seelall Persaud at the opening of the Police Officers’ Annual Conference last week while not revolutionary, will certainly bring the Guyana Police Force (GPF) in line with modern policing if they can be executed well.

With the opposition Jamaica Labour Party gaining 33 of the 63 parliamentary seats in the preliminary count of last Thursday’s general elections in Jamaica, the rejoicing of its supporters will have been substantially stifled as the recount of the vote took place.

Last week brought some additional revelations from President David Granger about his administration’s ambitions for a Public Service Staff College which, taken together with the ensuing Commission of Inquiry into the Public Service, appear to provide the best ever possibility for the comprehensive reform of a public service which, over the years, has become weak and, in some areas, largely ineffective.

Historic local government elections (LGE) are just 19 days away and there is evidently need for more information from GECOM and other stakeholders to the public on a range of areas.

As we reported on Thursday, President David Granger adjudged the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry report “badly flawed”, and gave notice of the government’s intention to challenge its findings and the “circumstances under which … [it] was conducted.”