Editorial

Two weeks ago, and one more time, a Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs addressed the United Nations General Assembly on the ‘Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba’ which has now lasted somewhat over fifty years.

Last Friday the President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) Mr Clinton Urling summoned a media briefing to discuss – among other things – the position of the Chamber on the matter of the ongoing impasse between the government side of the House and the opposition over the so-called Rohee issue.

If one were to appraise President Ramotar’s one-year anniversary and the PPP/C’s unbroken 20-year tenure through the prism of local government the only substantial conclusions that can be drawn are that the government has failed miserably and in doing so has exercised its own version of party paramountcy over the various organs.

The private sector’s interventions on political matters have not always been appropriate or defensible, but at least the most recent ones concerning events in Parliament have plain common sense to recommend them.

The struggle to control the future of trade publishing changed subtly at the end of last month when Penguin and Random House, two of the world’s leading publishing houses, merged to form a company with projected annual revenues in excess of US$3 billion (in the global market of $12.5 billion), and a market share of just over one in seven books worldwide.

It must have been a measure of Sir Shridath Ramphal’s increasing despair over the health of Caricom that he should have recently stated in a speech in Suriname that that country, led by former coup leader and dictator now democratically elected President Desi Bouterse, could “breathe new life” into the regional integration movement.

Caribbean ministers with responsibility for families, human resources, youth, social services and social and community development met over two days in Barbados—Tuesday and yesterday—to focus on ending sexual violence against children by the use of integrated region-wide strategies.

To many older persons, the Israel-Hamas confrontation must induce a sense of déjà vu – and déjà vu over and over again.

Last week a body named the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces emerged out of a protracted and acrimonious discourse in Doha amongst the various factions now positioning themselves to influence the course of events in post-Assad Syria.

With its urgent tone, the draft Eighth Actuarial Review of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) has again lifted the veil into the country’s troubled social security system. 

It would be hard to imagine former President Jagdeo giving away 90% of his salary and living on a ramshackle farm when he was in office, let alone now that he has retired.

The Supreme Court of Brazil’s decision to sentence Jose Dirceu, former chief of staff of ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to 10 years and 10 months in jail is a landmark moment in regional efforts to combat a culture of corruption and impunity.

Angela Cropper, who died of cancer in England on Monday, might not have been well known to the general public in Guyana.

Just over a week ago, an eight-year-old boy was discovered working in a mining pit in the Puruni Backdam by the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO).

The obvious fascination among Caricom citizens with the US election, as reflected in editorials in regional newspapers including our own, cannot but lead us to further contemplate what promise President Obama’s re-election holds for us.

After the bodies of Police Constables Letlow and Aaron had been found at Kato in October rumours began to circulate to the effect that their deaths might have been reprisal killings associated with robberies that had been committed against miners operating in the area.

It is indisputable that PPP/C governments, the Jagdeo administration in particular, developed the reputation for attracting investors who never intended to succeed at the investment they undertook, were not fit and proper or didn’t have the wherewithal and therefore failed miserably.

There seems little doubt that in less anomalous jurisdictions convention would have required Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee to resign, but stony soil blights Guyana’s political landscape, and no such convention has ever taken root here.

The induction of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang as new leaders of the Communist Party of China (CCP) will effectively begin as President Hu Jintao takes leave at the party’s Eighteenth National Congress this week.

Even as most people in the Caribbean breathe a sigh of relief or exult at President Barack Obama’s re-election, if only because they can identify with the way he looks and like the way he speaks, there is already a rush to analyse the deeper meaning of his victory and consider the implications for his second term.