Editorial

Rahul Bhattacharya has done it again. The Indian cricket writer and novelist, who was so intrigued by our country during a cricket tour by India that he returned to spend a year among us and wrote The Sly Company of People Who Care (2011), has now written for the November edition of the new online magazine, The Cricket Monthly, a wonderful tribute to one of our favourite native sons, Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

On Tuesday, the Public Relations Department of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) issued a statement in which it sought to defend Commander of ‘A’ Division Clifton Hicken who has been justly lambasted for his suggestion that if young women’s attire was “accepted morally”, they could avoid being raped.

As the Group of 20, made up of the leading industrial and so-called emerging-market countries, plus the European Union, met as the G20 in Brisbane Australia last week, it almost looked as if the belief of some commentators, and indeed countries that that area will become the centre of world economic and political activity has become the global reality.

It may, perhaps, still be too soon to conclude that the fruits of South Africa’s liberation struggle have been squandered and that the architect of the country’s transition to black majority rule, the African National Congress (ANC) now appears unsteady on its feet, though there are unmistakable signs that amongst black South Africans the ANC has lost much of the magnetism that it once had.

Having inexplicably been without an Ombudsman for nearly 10 years, Guyanese got a flavour last week of the breadth of work that can be undertaken by this office in pursuit of alleged injustice at the hands of public officers.

The President recalled Parliament on November 10, but it was all a charade.

Commentary on the 25th anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall has repeatedly touched on one of central political arguments of the early twenty-first century, namely the relationship between political and economic freedoms.

Having considered the Scottish referendum and the Catalan independence movement in previous editorials in September, we would be remiss if we did not now comment on last Sunday’s non-binding vote on independence for Catalonia.

Among the topics that readers write to us about, noise nuisance perhaps takes second place only to politics, and that is politics in the wider spectrum, all aspects considered.

Not unexpectedly, President Obama found himself increasingly pushed into a corner as the elections results to the 144th Congress were announced last week.

The most recent missive from the University of Guyana Students Society (UGSS) President, Mr Joshua Griffith, to the university administration about the physical conditions on the campus is familiar in both its tone and its content.

It must be either complete discombobulation in the thinking of the government, pressure from some external source or a ploy to buy time which prompted Cabinet Secretary, Dr Roger Luncheon to announce on Thursday that the administration was attempting to authenticate the contents of the vulgar and threatening conversation between the Attorney General Mr Anil Nandlall and a Kaieteur News reporter.

We have reached a pivotal point in our political history – perhaps.

When the Republican Party assumes control of both houses in the US Congress in January 2015, it is expected to press for expedited construction of the TransCanada Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline.

By all accounts, last week’s Queen’s College Old Students’ Association (QCOSA) reunion, marking the 170th anniversary of the founding of QC, was a great success, with old boys and, significantly, an impressive number of old girls, gathering to relive the carefree days of their youth and to celebrate the institution that laid the foundation for their many and varied achievements.

When the International Day of the Girl Child was observed last month, much emphasis was placed on the lack of access to education which is still a major issue for many adolescent girls in several developing countries around the world.

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party have found little respite from political pressures after his successful fight against the Scottish National Party’s threat to have Scotland leave the United Kingdom.

Truth be told the disruption of the Sunday morning mass at St Philips Parish Church by three gun-toting young men who proceeded to rob what must have been a bemused and terrified congregation, ought not to come as a surprise to anyone.

There will be no disputing that each of us is entitled to private conversations and musings.

Last week Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman instructed Clerk Sherlock Isaacs to convene a sitting of Parliament on November 6, which he refused to do.