Editorial

‘How’s life?’ It’s a seemingly innocuous question that people tend to ask when they have not seen each other for a long time.

Recent news about developments at Caribbean Airlines (CAL) considered still, in fact if not in legal terms, as an airline of and for the Caricom area, must be disturbing to Caribbean citizens beyond Trinidad and Tobago.

Last Wednesday, at a meeting convened to discuss work permit issues affecting Brazilians mining gold in Guyana, Commissioner of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission Karen Livan was subjected to a thorough tongue-lashing by Natural Resources and Environment Minister Robert Persaud.

Earlier this month, the public became aware of a convoluted arrangement involving central government, the Guyana Revenue Authority and the National Insurance Scheme for the gigantic, ill-starred CLICO building on Camp Street.

Last week we reported the case of a student who was killed at lessons.

Within two days of its Initial Public Offering, the social network Facebook was worth more than US$100 billion – making it, at a stroke, more valuable than such iconic brands as online bookseller Amazon, banking giant Citigroup, and global fast-food empire McDonald’s.

For all his titles and letters after his name, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, KA, PhD, etc, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, really does spout a lot of rubbish sometimes.

On Tuesday last, women’s rights activists picketed the Medical Council of Guyana and the Ministry of Health over the sloth in the investigation of the abortion death of Karen Badal, and also to lobby Minister of Health Dr Bheri Ramsaran to make abortion procedures accessible countrywide.

Only a few weeks after Chancellor Merkel of Germany appeared to be on the upswing as she dominated Eurozone policymaking in respect of the crises in Italy, then Spain and Greece, her apparent success seems to have begun to unravel.

We can only hope that the incident last Wednesday in which a resident of Sophia collapsed and died while shots were being fired by police in the community where she lives is deemed by the authorities to be deserving of a full and unbiased investigation.

Amid the hysteria whipped up over the cuts to its 2012 budget, it may seem trite to state that it is the government which has failed signally to deliver on the steps that would put the designated sums in its hands for the Low Carbon Development Strategy projects. 

On Friday the Guyana Human Rights Association described the PPP/C as being in denial over the November 28 election results.

“Brown skin girl stay home and mind baby / I’m goin’ away, in a sailing boat, /And if I don’t come back, /Stay home and mind baby.”

In celebrating Arrival Day, notwithstanding the critical importance of commemorating the contributions of all of our ancestors to the building of our nation – still a work in progress – we run the risk, as is recognised by some, of emphasising our differences rather than focusing on our similarities.

Early this year, when they revealed the road accidents statistics for last year, the police had said that while there was a 5% increase in fatal accidents over the previous year, the number of deaths was the same; 115 people were killed on the roads in 2010 and another 115 were killed in 2011.

As was not entirely unexpected, President Sarkozy of France was defeated in the second round of the presidential elections, though his margin of victory was not substantial – 51.6% to 48.4%, as had been implied in the first round of the voting.

Teachers appear mostly to internalize the issues that affect them in the delivery of the service that they provide.

More than ever before, the selection of an elections commissioner to replace the late Mr Robert Williams has underlined the fact that the Carter-Price formula for the Commission that was used for the 1992 elections has no relevance to the present context and must be abandoned in its entirety before any new poll is held.

Last week the major Venezuelan newspapers began to cautiously explore political scenarios which  assumed that President Hugo Chávez would not be leading his party (The United Socialist Party) in the foreseeable future.

The NGC Bocas Lit Fest held last week in Port of Spain is a timely reminder that however bleak political and cultural life in the West Indies may seem from time to time, at least Caribbean literature is alive and well.