Editorial

It would appear that the late President Chávez is to join a select band of deceased leaders whose mortal remains have been embalmed and placed on public display.

The late Martin Carter used to tell an amusing anecdote from his time as Minister of Information and Culture in the late ’60s. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the late Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, was capable of deeply dividing public opinion both at home and abroad, there is no gainsaying the massive outpouring of grief in Venezuela and across Latin America and the Caribbean on his death at the relatively young age of 58.

Tomorrow will mark the 102nd celebration of International Women’s Day. One hundred and two years of a struggle for women’s rights, for an end to discrimination, for an end to violence and yet this year’s UN theme “Elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls,” comes over as repetitive, pleading and even placatory.

The narrowness of the election results in Barbados reflects a decision on the part of voters to keep close to the parties to which they have had allegiance.

Our editorial of Tuesday February 26 sought to make a case for holding parents more accountable for children who attend schools and who demonstrate a proclivity for violent behaviour that becomes disruptive and dangerous to the wider school population.

In a meeting with the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry on February 27, the Minister of Home Affairs is  reported as having said that the private sector will participate in the selection of 10 civilians to oversee sweeping police reforms that were announced on December 31st last year.

The long-awaited Commission of Inquiry report on the events in Linden on July 18, 2012 has now been released.

It is hard to believe that books can still provoke demonstrations and death threats but in mid-February the 75-year-old Azeri novelist Akram Aylisli became the target of public anger reminiscent of the Rushdie fatwa.

Succession in politics and the politics of succession can be rather thorny issues.

Will the current ban of the top ten calypsos in this year’s Republic Anniversary celebration competition succeed in putting the final nail in the coffin of this genre of music, for which the death knell had begun to sound some years ago?

Last week the Canadian Foreign Minister, John Baird, made a diplomatic foray into Latin America, in a follow-up to, or probably reassessment of, Canada-Latin American relations since Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited the area in 2007.

Violence in schools and among schoolchildren has long become both sufficiently prevalent and sufficiently dangerous to warrant far greater official attention.

By virtue of his decisive ruling on the question of whether there should be any restraint on the participation by the Minister of Home Affairs in the activities of Parliament, the Speaker of the National Assembly Mr Raphael Trotman has made two important declarations.

It was the PPP’s premier spokesperson Ms Gail Teixeira who decided to take on the media last Monday, by accusing them of facilitating criticism of a racist and xenophobic character in relation to the employment of an all-Chinese workforce to construct the Marriott Hotel.

During the last few weeks an unusual quarrel between a Cambridge Classics professor and her anonymous online critics has highlighted the shortcomings of debate in a digital public sphere.

Those with an eye for coincidence and irony might have observed that, just as we were warning in last Friday’s editorial, that “a high academic title alone is no guarantee of personal achievement or, indeed, integrity” and that we should not “take anyone’s curriculum vitae at face value,” a mini-drama involving the appointment of Dr Naresh Singh to the post of Caricom Deputy Secretary-General was beginning to unfold.

In Guyana, it is estimated that some 3,000 young girls drop out of school annually as a result of pregnancy.

Over the last few months Caricom states have been involved in a number of regional and international meetings, the most recent of which will have been the 24th Intersessional Meeting of Caricom itself, held earlier this week in Haiti.

Like his immediate predecessor, the new Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Professor Jacob Opadeyi, has been speaking of the desirability of a partnership between the University of Guyana and the private sector.