Editorial

In law, a person is innocent until proven guilty. Nevertheless, there is a strong sense that in the court of public opinion, in Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean and around the world, Jack Warner, the former regional football supremo and International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) vice-president, is already guilty of the charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering levied against him in a US federal court.

Any situation in which an elderly person is denied the right kind of care and food and where the basic necessities are lacking can be deemed an abusive one.

This week the so-called Group of Seven, essentially the major capitalist countries, subsequently known between 1998 and 2014 as the Group of Eight when post-communist Russia joined, met again in Germany this week.

The revelation last week that Minister Simona Broomes met what was described as “atrocious” working conditions during an impromptu visit to the Linden bauxite operations run by the Chinese company Bosai is probably not as surprising as it may seem to those who have not kept abreast of issues of safety and health in the workplace.

In many ways, the aftermath of the May 11th general election is reminiscent of the atmosphere after the return to democracy in 1992.

The municipality has 50 miles of canals, 12 outfalls, 13 kokers and 8 [?]

A few years back, when asked about FIFA’s politics, Sepp Blatter, the four-term president who has just resigned amid a growing corruption scandal, memorably said: “We are conservative, like the Catholics, when it comes to the laws of the game and referees.

Coalition governments are inherently fragile constructs and the newly elected APNU+AFC government is no exception.

While she may be a professional in her field and can lay claim to working in the public service for over 40 years, Director of the Childcare and Protection Agency Ann Greene has never been shy about demonstrating her lack of tact and disingenuousness.

Though no date has been called, it is apparent that the election fever in Trinidad & Tobago is nearly at its boiling point.

In the period prior to the May 11 general election there was active public speculation as to which functionaries would be appointed to which Cabinet posts, assuming that the then opposition coalition was victorious at the poll.

Exiting office with the sugar industry in its most catastrophic state since 1990, the PPP/C will be harshly judged by history for its dereliction of duty towards thousands of sugar workers and an important segment of the economy.

A lot of talk about unity is being thrown around, although there is little evidence of that on the ground.

Just a few years ago, even the shrewdest bookmaker would have offered long odds against Ireland becoming the first national electorate to formally approve of same-sex marriage — previous countries have introduced it by parliamentary fiat.

During their almost 23 years in office, it was a perennial gripe of the PPP/C administration that they were being criticised for things that had passed without comment during the ‘dark days’ of the PNC, under both Mr Forbes Burnham and Mr Desmond Hoyte.

There has been an election, swearing-in and inauguration and now that the dust has more or less settled, one imagines that the servants of the people are getting down to doing the jobs they would have campaigned hard for.

With the recently held general elections in Britain now over, indicating what is held to be reasonably strong sentiment in favour of a changing of the relationship between that country and the European (EU) Union, the re-elected Conservative government has accepted the challenge of a referendum for the electorate to decide on proposals for a revised relationship.

Having experienced over half a century with just a single previous instance of substantive change in the political order we find ourselves in the throes of an unaccustomed newness.

As was said in the May 17th Sunday Stabroek editorial, it is high time for former President Ramotar and his associates to put country before party.

Normally new governments get a certain honeymoon period where early blunders are either overlooked or given an easy ride; however, the current administration may not be so fortunate.