Editorial

The backstory to the uprising that brought the 27-year rule of President Blaise Compaoré to an end is one that has become all too familiar in postcolonial Africa.

Contrary to the report by Tony Cozier, on Wednesday, of an “official forecast that the storm clouds hanging over West Indies cricket are beginning to lift,” based on a joint statement issued by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) and representatives of the West Indies team, following Sunday’s emergency meeting in Jamaica, we are not that sanguine about the prospects of clear skies ahead.

Next year marks the halfway point of the United Nations (UN) designated Decade of Action for Road Safety, so appointed because of the unacceptably high number of deaths as a result of road accidents with the global figure for 2010 being given as 1.24 million.

We adverted, last week, to an editorial and substantial commentary in the New York Times directed towards advising President Obama to bring an end to the embargo on Cuba, and to begin a normalization of relations with that country.

Guyana is one of a number of countries in the western hemisphere where child-begging is a manifestation of poverty and while the practice may not be as pronounced here as in the capitals and bigger, more crowded cities of countries like Mexico and Brazil, any country in which poverty in the family renders it necessary to press children into service as beggars has good reason to be concerned with its social fabric.

While anxieties about Ebola have taken flight globally, it is particularly important in a small economy like ours with definite health challenges and ringed by porous borders that levelheaded approaches utilizing government and non-government resources be deftly and swiftly applied.

Francis Fukuyama’s latest tome on politics and history has recently been released, according to the Economist which reviewed it.

Reporting on two acts of terrorism in the space of a week, the Canadian media’s restrained coverage of events, and the general absence of provocative speculations – most noticeably in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s live coverage – has shown how profoundly a country’s media culture can shape its response to a crisis.

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), in response to the unprecedented mid-tour termination of the series in India and the decision of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to suspend all bilateral tours to the West Indies and to consider legal proceedings against the WICB, has decided, among other things, to “establish a task force, comprising critical stakeholders, to review the premature end of the tour to India” and “request a meeting with the BCCI”.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) report which named Guyana as the country with the worst suicide rate in the world has revealed more than the statistics that shocked some and sent others into denial mode.

An old saying has it that circumstances alter cases and recent events suggest that the way is once again opening for a substantial discussion among governments on the issue of Cuba’s role in the Hemisphere, and more particularly on the question of Cuba-United States relations.

One of the positives about the annual Secondary Schools Home Economics Competition sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in conjunction with the Ministries of Agriculture and Education is that it provides opportunity for schools possessing children with varying levels of academic acumen and located in far flung corners of the country to match skills in a discipline where the playing field is more or less level.

Whenever the next West Indies team is composed either for a domestic series or overseas engagement, a mandatory aspect of its preparations must be a detailed study and recounting of the glories of its cricketing history.

In his column in this newspaper last Wednesday, Dr Henry Jeffrey compared the murder rate in Guyana, firstly, with countries in South America which have a high incidence, and then with the largest members of Caricom because they are more similar to Guyana.

At the end of a week of sensational and often fear-filled news – which culminated with no fewer than 39 US Congressmen calling for travel restrictions on Ebola-stricken West African countries – millions of Americans were also puzzling over the sudden rise of an Internet controversy known as #GamerGate.

A general feeling of repugnance for a dictator and his regime does not necessarily equate with universal distaste.

Congratulations are in order for the 30 groups of students who conceptualised, cooked and presented healthy food made from local products at this year’s Secondary Schools Home Economics Competition which was held on Tuesday last.

If British Prime Minister David Cameron felt that with the No vote in Scotland he would have a respite from political pressures, the loss of one of his Conservative Party’s seats in a by-election last week will quickly have brought him back to reality.

A few generations ago we would still have been numb with shock over the revelation that schoolchildren were performing sex acts for the camera.

Nine days after a report appeared in this newspaper on the concerns expressed by residents and organisations of the Rupununi over road building, Chinese company Baishanlin issued a statement denying that it had built a new road network 130 kilometres long.