Editorial

On Monday, the Pacific Alliance, which is barely two years old and comprises Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, held a groundbreaking seventh summit, in Cartagena, Colombia.

The recent admission in Parliament that Guyana has just 3 working breathalyzer kits in the entire country, which would obviously negatively impact on the functioning of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) as regards road safety should be of serious concern to all of us.

At the end of July 1990 an attempted coup in Trinidad & Tobago against the government of ANR Robinson took place, that continues to the present to be the subject of a Commission of Inquiry in that country.

If the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is widely favoured to be returned to office after      South Africa’s general elections scheduled for May this year, the political party once revered for its sustained struggle to bring an end to the apartheid regime in South Africa has plunged to considerable depths from the pedestal upon which it had been placed by the international community.

So, the undisguised takeover of world cricket by the Indian, English and Australian cricket boards has been approved.

The political contortions in relation to the failure to pass the Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill have left the public in a state of bewilderment.

During the last two weeks the United Nations has issued warnings that the Democratic Republic of Congo’s richest province, Katanga, stands at the brink of a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

It is perhaps a happy coincidence that following the success – both real and symbolic – of hosting last week’s second summit of the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (CELAC), when Cuba effectively secured the unambiguous and unanimous endorsement of the path it is pursuing by all 33 independent states of Latin America and the Caribbean, ambassadors of the European Union (EU) should have reached consensus, this week, in Brussels, on a recommendation to the EU’s Council of Foreign Ministers, to approve, next Monday, the terms of a mandate to negotiate an association agreement with Cuba.

Whoever thought that garbage was the main issue in Georgetown and that removing the piles of it that abound every which way and charging litterbugs would restore the city must have had a jolt when Alisha Thomas and her two-year-old daughter fell into a manhole near the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) outlet at Stabroek.

What Venezuelan President Maduro, at the Second Summit of ALBA and Petrocaribe, in December last year, described as a set of arrangements designed to “continue advancing the food security and sovereignty of our peoples,” has now been extended to all the smaller islands of the Caribbean.

The shooting to death of Leon McCurdy on Wednesday by the owner of a Paradise, East Coast Demerara home which McCurdy and two accomplices had invaded has evoked a range of public reactions.

Following a tense meeting of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in Dubai last week, it may appear that opponents of the sneak attack by India, Australia and England to take over the game have made significant gains.

Nothing is straightforward in Guyana. Last week Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang issued his ruling on the cuts to the government budget made first by the opposition political parties in 2012, which will almost certainly be appealed to the Court of Appeal and the Caribbean Court of Justice.

When President Vladimir Putin decided to hold the forthcoming winter Olympics at a summer resort near the Caucasus, he must have known that it wouldn’t be cheap.

Whatever the official pronouncements coming out of the second summit of leaders of the 33-member Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (CELAC), in Havana, Cuba, earlier this week, under the theme, ‘Eradication of hunger, poverty and inequality in Latin America and Caribbean States’ and whatever President Donald Ramotar and Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett have to report on efforts to combat inequality, recognition of the challenges facing Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, the summit will probably be remembered as historic for other reasons.

Acting on a request from Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, which was made public by the same minister on Monday, Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell has removed the police officers stationed at the Number 51 Village Police Station and replaced them with a new batch of law enforcers in a move he believes will reduce crime on the Corentyne and restore confidence in the Guyana Police Force – at least on the Corentyne.

The area encompassing what is broadly characterized as the Middle East continues to thrust itself into the global headlines and editorial spaces.

Now that President Ramotar has said that he supports an independent probe into the Colwyn Harding baton rape allegation, will his pronouncement necessarily lead to a swift, fair and transparent enquiry that will put to rest the issue and ensure that justice prevails?

Tomorrow, the Board of the International Cricket Council (ICC) will begin deliberations on a proposal by its Finance & Commercial Affairs (FCA) committee for sweeping and astonishing changes in the way the game is run and how tours are scheduled.

The resignation of Local Government Minister Ganga Persaud came out of left field.