Editorial

As anticipated for some time now, the latest private sector innovation in air transportation in the Eastern Caribbean (also serving Guyana) has come to an end, leaving LIAT, the publicly owned airline of the area as once again the only substantial inter-island player in the region.

Under sustained pressure from international football’s governing body, FIFA, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has announced the temporary suspension of a law banning the consumption and sale of beer in stadia for the duration of the 2014 football World Cup.

In two separate reports, Stabroek News has exposed to the public glare the disastrous work done on roads in Amelia’s Ward, Linden as part of a $300M project.

Last Thursday, Reuters issued a report headlined ‘Guyana oil exploration stirs up Venezuela border dispute.’ 

George Orwell famously described sport as “war minus the shooting,“ since it activated passions that pandered to the baser forms of nationalism, racism and xenophobia.

Some of us might have noted the delicious irony of Guyana-born Colleen Harris, former press secretary to Queen Elizabeth II’s son, Prince Charles, being invited by the BBC World Service, on the occasion of the monarch’s Diamond Jubilee Thanksgiving Service on Tuesday, to provide insights into that most hallowed of British institutions, the Royal Family.

Violence, including sexual violence, against women and girls is sweeping across Guyana like an epidemic, leaving in its wake tombstones and grave markers, scarred and traumatized women and children, mute legislators and a justice system that is apparently unable to cope.

Somewhat surprising news has been coming out of some of the BRICS, concerning their diminished rates of economic growth in recent times.

Collectively, the rising tide of violent schoolchildren, the erosion of the authority of the school and the threat which these pose to the effective delivery of education constitute a problem of crisis proportions.

A full six months after the general elections of November 28, 2011 the people who voted – no matter which party – must be hard pressed to find anything positive flowing from the casting of their vote.

In a Reuters report carried in this newspaper yesterday, it was said that the eight nations which make up Alba had praised President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria.

The sensational story of a man who videotaped a murder and posted it online is a cautionary tale for our times.

President Donald Ramotar is supposed to have told his Cabinet at one of their early meetings that he was concerned about corruption.

Every city, rather like every citizen, has parts that do not reflect well on it; eyesores, ramshackle bits, the odd carbuncle or blemish.

The intensity of what can now be called a civil war in Syria continues unabated.

Whenever a policeman comes under attack in the line of duty the authorities have a particular obligation to seek to apprehend and bring the perpetrators to justice quickly.

Last week, residents of Demerara River communities took extreme measures to ensure that ships journeying to the Bosai bauxite plant didn’t go excessively fast or too close to the bank.

There has been no epiphany in Freedom House. No new thinking.

The success of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Mursi, in  the opening round of Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential election will undoubtedly prompt fearful responses in the West.

We are loath to insert the adjective ‘former’, when describing Ramnaresh Sarwan as a West Indies batsman, but we have to wonder whether this wonderful but unfulfilled talent will ever return to the West Indies Test team.