Editorial

To say that the recent bombshell news of the arrest, in New York, of former Antigua and Barbuda ambassador to the United Nations and 2013-2014 UN General Assembly president Dr John Ashe, on charges of corruption and tax evasion, is deeply embarrassing to his country and Caricom as a whole would be a gross understatement.

If you work in an office where the number of women employed is at least 12, then according to the most recent statistics for the region, four of them would have been or will be raped, beaten, coerced into sex, verbally, mentally or emotionally abused.

In last week’s editorial on the continuing interchanges between the major powers, in particular the United States and Russia, we noted that both powers had come to realize that Syria’s civil war was forcing an increasingly direct diplomatic confrontation between them.

Among the issues raised by President of the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) Mr Patrick Yarde in his opening address to the Union’s Twenty First Biennial Delegates Conference last week was the worrisome issue of the continued occupancy of the Camp Street complex by the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) in the face of the revelation some weeks ago by GRA Board Chairman Mr Rawle Lucas that the physical conditions pose a threat to workers’ health and arrangements should be made for the relocation of the staff at the earliest possible time.

Four policemen being charged on Friday over the soliciting of a $6m bribe to free cocaine smugglers underlines the depth of the challenges facing law enforcement and the Ministry of Public Security.

The Venezuelans can’t have been very happy when they left New York last week; President David Granger stole the show, and commanded as much of the space in the margins of the General Assembly as it is possible for a small nation to do in such a brief space of time.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent visit to Jamaica has vividly exposed how differently Europe and the Caribbean see the legacy of slavery and colonialism, especially when it touches on the question of compensation for historical injustices.

Just when we thought that things could not get any worse in West Indies cricket, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) took the unprecedented step, on Monday, of suspending head coach Phil Simmons.

Not content with its aggressive posture towards Guyana and provoking tensions with Colombia, its western neighbour, the government of the so-called Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has also trained its sights on the new Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro.

The spectre of the major powers’ leaders finding themselves at the current 70th General Assembly meeting devoted, among its other preoccupations, to a focus on Sustainable Development will have drawn global attention.

With the Commission of Enquiry into the operations of the Guyana Public Service having only just gotten underway, it is evident that the commission’s journey will be a long and interesting one and that the outcomes – many of them – will spark more political cat-sparring between the Granger administration and the opposition PPP/C.

The tragic death of Alexis Syfox earlier this month from pregnancy complications prompted a frank admission from Minister of Health Dr George Norton about the difference between criticising a system from the outside and addressing its difficulties from within.

There was no shortage of strange statements on the border last week.

Most high-profile remarks to the US Congress can be safely forgotten within a news cycle.

Exactly what President Nicolás Maduro thinks he is doing has everyone perplexed.

As part of its avowed plan to restore Georgetown, the Mayor and City Council has indicated its intention to host a ‘Green Expo’ from October 30 to November 1, through which it aims to “start a national discussion and encourage the establishment of partnerships to promote and maintain a clean and green environment.”

It would not be entirely surprising that a Pope whose origins are in Argentina, though he is indeed of Spanish parentage, would have had a particular interest in an issue that has fascinated Latin Americans for most of his own lifetime, this being the political evolution of a Cuba which veered from the autocracy of Batista to a Soviet-style authoritarianism over the period from 1958 to the present.

Last week, Chief Education Officer Olato Sam made a public comment on what he asserts is a nexus between teachers’ performance and the weaknesses of children that many teachers, among others, would have considered unfair if not offensive.

Tuesday’s formal opening of Guyana Goldfields’ Aurora mining project will again place under close examination the quantum of benefits accruing to the country in return for the extraction of its non-renewable mineral wealth.

The Culture Department of the Ministry of Education has nothing to be proud about, and neither, it must be added, has the Mayor and City Council.