Editorial

Barnwell, a 20-something-year-old squatting community aback of Mocha, East Bank Demerara and ignored for most of that time has been thrust into the limelight in a negative way for the second time, following a stabbing death there last Saturday.

President Obama visited Mexico and Costa Rica last week, and in Costa Rica had a meeting with the leaders of Central America, indicating the emerging priorities of his second term as far as that geopolitical arena is concerned.

It took almost ten years since the passage of the Small Business Act in the National Assembly in 2004 for us to come as close as we now appear to be to the allocation of meaningful financial resources to the development of the small business sector.

As had been intimated by Minister Benn, the Public Works Ministry on Saturday announced the end of the popular Sunday seawall limes between Kitty Byways and the Ocean View Hotel citing damage to the embankment, garbage accumulation and the traffic hazard.

Last Sunday morning lines of houses from Kitty to Liliendaal became like chains of islands in an oceanic archipelago. 

It is not at all surprising that the nation has not immersed itself in oceans of shock and awe following last week’s two reported vigilante killings. 

With retrospect, it seems inevitable that the dramatic shutdown of a major city and the house-by-house manhunt which led to the killing and capture of the Boston bombers would seem justifiable to most Americans.

Perusing the statements by West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) chief executive officer Michael Muirhead and newly elected Board president Whycliffe ‘Dave’ Cameron regarding Pakistan’s tour of the West Indies this year, which will comprise five One Day Internationals (ODIs) and two Twenty20 (T20) matches, one is left none the wiser as to what precisely were the “circumstances” Mr Cameron was referring to that “dictated” that no Test matches would be played.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

Last week, Prime Minister Kenny Anthony of St Lucia presented his Budget for the year 2013-14, an event that followed a three-week strike by the country’s civil servants in protest against the government’s wage offer for a triennium ending in 2013.

The United States and its allies, both in the West and the Middle East, have good reason to be concerned over the prolonged crisis in Syria. 

It is evident from the outcome of the 2013 budget jousting that nothing has changed at many levels of engagement between the government and the opposition since the consideration of the 2012 edition and indeed since the ground-breaking election of November 28, 2011.

A mere matter of weeks after the family of the late President Forbes Burnham had been informed that he was to be given the Order of the Companions of O R Tambo by South Africa, persistent reports began to circulate that the award had been withdrawn. 

A fortnight ago the mildest of spats between a food writer and a local restauranteur simmered on these pages for a few days.

With Nicolás Maduro’s narrow victory in Venezuela’s presidential election still being contested by the Venezuelan opposition, even though he has already been sworn in as president, there is a growing feeling that, with a majority of only 50.7 per cent of the popular vote, the self-styled ‘son’ and heir of Hugo Chávez may well be in for a rough ride.

Government annually seeks to deny the prevalence of trafficking in persons (TIP) in Guyana, especially following the publication of US Department of State TIP reports, which reveal statistics that show this country in a poor light.

The storm that had been blowing and strengthening in the direction of Trinidad & Tobago National Security Minister Jack Warner’s direction for the last five years or so, has finally hit him with full force.

It transpires that People’s Progressive Party stalwarts and former government ministers Harry Persaud Nokta and Clinton Collymore are employed in the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, the same ministry in which they both served as ministers, since 2007.

During Thursday’s consideration in the National Assembly of the estimates of expenditure for the Ministry of Labour, the question of unemployment statistics arose. 

What appears to the electorate to be confusion in our parliamentary operations has had its parallels from time to time in other Commonwealth jurisdictions.