Editorial

News that the investigation into the macabre killing of eight men at Lindo Creek in 2008 has come to an end is unlikely to convince members of the public that real answers will be forthcoming.

Last week, demonstrators were on the streets of the major cities of Spain in their hundreds of thousands.

Yet again the United States is reflecting on its persistent problems with gun violence following a mass shooting at a suburban movie theatre near Denver, Colorado. 

After a period of relatively little comment regionally on the changing of the guard in Mexico’s July 1 general elections, two of our editorials last week focused on the implications of the return to office of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), for that country, its neighbours and the Caribbean, not only in political and economic terms but also with respect to the long-running drugs war that has claimed more than 50,000 lives.

Patchwork approaches to fixing what goes wrong in this country seem to be the order of the day.

Comment so far on the 33rd meeting of the Conference of Caricom Heads of Government has not suggested that there was much consideration of the effect, or effects, of the current economic crises plaguing countries in the region, in particular Jamaica, once, along with Trinidad & Tobago, considered a key lynchpin of the regional integration system.

Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee is usually not inclined to allow critical public comment on any matter that falls under his portfolio to pass without weighing in with a view of his own.

What the Guyana Chronicle editorial of July 2nd,   has wittingly or unwittingly succeeded in achieving is to focus attention again and perhaps conclusively on the need to end the abuse of the state media by ruling parties and their coterie of elites.

A week last Friday Mr David Granger, the Leader of the Opposition, gave the inaugural lecture in the National Assembly’s Governance and Democracy series.

The somewhat underwhelming return to power of the Institutional Revolutionary Party  (PRI), with less than 40% of the vote in Mexico’s recent elections, is one measure of the jostling and competitive political culture that has emerged since the party lost its seventy-year lock on government in the 2000 elections.

There is not inconsiderable irony in the sense that the removal of President Fernando Lugo by Paraguay’s Congress last month and his replacement by Vice-president Federico Franco, has actually been of some benefit to Mr Lugo’s leftist ally, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

In the midst of congratulatory notes to pre-teens for their success at the National Grade Six Assessment and to children in general who have passed their end-of-year examinations and are moving up to a higher grade in school, yet another underage girl has made the news for the wrong reason.

There has been relatively little comment in our regional press about the change of government which took place after the general elections last week in Mexico.

It took the Egyptian military establishment just over sixteen months to restore itself at the apex of the country’s political ladder.

For journalists in Latin America the direst threat in recent years has emanated from the drug cartels and the gangs that proliferate particularly in Honduras.

Guyanese politics could hardly be accused of being boring – at least most of the time.

The title of the leader in The Economist says it all: Banksters.

Most of us will recall the exultation we felt at the exploits of the Jamaicans at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in winning six gold medals, five of them in the sprints, with the magnificent Usain Bolt leading the way, with gold in the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m relay and the unprecedented feat of setting world records in all three events.

In less than 4 years, the deadline for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be upon us, a time when world leaders assess themselves and each other on how well they worked to realize targets they set to improve the lives of people and make the world a better place.

The talk of the month in Trinidad & Tobago has been the ministerial reshuffle announced by Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar.