Editorial

The four month-old Arab League-United Nations diplomatic effort to try to bring an end to the increasingly horrific carnage unfolding in Syria has come to bear a striking resemblance, in at least one important respect, to Cold War diplomacy.

In the era of former President Jagdeo and a PPP/C parliamentary majority, the shake-up that has been visited upon state TV, the National Communications Network would have been unheard of.

“I have nothing to hide. The party of which I am the General Secretary, the PPP, does not benefit from any ill gotten gains,” President Donald Ramotar was quoted as saying at the Private Sector Commission AGM on Thursday.

Last week a New York Times op-ed by former American President Jimmy Carter questioned “how far [the United States’] violation of human rights has extended” since the 9/11 attacks.

The impeachment of a president is often cited as proof that, in a functioning democracy, everyone is accountable and absolutely no one is above the law.

Two recent rulings in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court have raised the ire of citizens and there has been a lot of debate about whether Magistrate Hazel Octive-Hamilton, who handed down both rulings, took all of the mitigating factors into account.

The election of Mr Mohammed Morsi marks Egypt’s third attempt at choice of a governance regime in that country in the post-World War Two period.

The current raging controversy over the allegation made in another section of the media that hugely inflated prices were paid for drugs imported by the New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation (NGPC) for the Government of Guyana is not the first health sector-related controversy in which Dr Bheri Ramsaran has had to fight the administration’s corner.  

Each Friday, Stabroek Business gives a fascinating insight into efforts by micro, small and medium-scale businesses to plot their own journeys to success which at the same time often leaves the thinking reader to ponder what exactly is being done by the government and the private sector to enable them to grow.

Last week Mr Ralph Ramkarran caused something of a minor ferment – at least among the political pundits – with his column in the Weekend Mirror, where he called for the government to take action against “pervasive” corruption.

Forty years ago, two journalists at the Washington Post started an investigation into a break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington.

Over 50s may remember when Teófilo Stevenson won his first Olympic heavyweight boxing gold medal in Munich in 1972.

Guyana’s Tier 2 status with regard to human trafficking remains unchanged for the second year running, according to the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report for 2012.

It is a sign of the continuing political and psychological distance between the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean and other states in the region, that there should have been so little commentary on the presidential election that has recently taken place in the Dominican Republic, a member-state of the EU-Caribbean Forum countries that are party to the Economic Partnership Agreement  signed in 2007.

Arguably, there had always been reason to suspect that the Burrowes Commission of Enquiry had not slain all of the ghosts that dwell inside City Hall.

The proposed US$138M Chinese-funded expansion of the Cheddi Jagan International  Airport, Timehri has from the inception triggered notable and well-founded concerns.

In an interview with the National Communications Network on Wednesday, President Ramotar let it be known that he would not give his assent to bills passed by the opposition unless the government had had some input into them.

Any idea how much sugar you consume daily? If you have diabetes, high blood pressure, lipid problems, a sizeable girth, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease or heart disease you may be conscious of your sugar consumption.

Why have people in the Caribbean got so hot under the collar about Denesh Ramdin’s message – “Yea, Viv, talk nah” – to West Indies cricket legend turned commentator, Sir Vivian Richards?

It is time for a serious enquiry into what passes for medical care at the public hospitals in Guyana, but more urgently there is need for an in-depth investigation into what is happening at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH), particularly in terms of maternal and neo-natal health.