Editorial

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.

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.