Editorial

On the evening of September 6, 15-year-old Renard ‘Rene’ Fernandes had gasoline poured on his body which was then set alight by a workmate on the fishing boat where he was working.

Nearly sixteen months since the People’s Partnership (PP) swept the polls in Trinidad & Tobago with a majority of 29 seats to 12 over the People‘s National Movement (PNM), there is still much discussion in the country as to whether Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s government has settled to smoothly running the country.

History is replete with bizarre examples of political ambition taken to unfathomable extremes.

Considering that he is widely believed to have commandeered a death squad that eliminated dozens of suspected criminals and rivals while reputedly aiding in the fight against crime, it is not suprising that Mr Roger Khan’s connections with the government and senior government officials have come under scrutiny.

In the late 1970s, then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham wanted to celebrate the anniversary of his years in Parliament.

WikiLeaks’ decision to place sensitive diplomatic traffic completely within the public domain (following the inadvertent disclosure of codes used to encrypt the material) has prompted a number of heated debates around the world.

The recent statement by Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett that Guyana has made a full submission of a claim to an extended continental shelf to the United Nations, in accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), has elicited an interesting pair of responses in Venezuela – or rather, one interesting response and one interesting non-response.

A letter from a septuagenarian, published in yesterday’s Stabroek News, proposes lowering the age of consent from its current 16 to 15 years old.

Even as the United States and other predominantly Western world countries marked the tenth anniversary of destruction and death wrought by al Qaeda in the United States, the sentiments expressed by world leaders suggest a large degree of uncertainty about the consequences of that event.

It has become customary, at the start of the academic year, for the commencement of classes in some state-run schools to be delayed either on account of defective schoolhouses or a shortage of furniture.

It is disgraceful that Lindeners continue to be showered on a daily basis with dust from the operations of Chinese miner, Bosai.

Since for obvious reasons much of what was divulged in the US Embassy cables by WikiLeaks concerned individuals in government, the administration was reluctant to comment initially, although Dr Luncheon was eventually moved to dismiss the contents as “predominantly opinions,“ while PPP presidential candidate Donald Ramotar deemed them not “earth shattering” and described himself as “slightly amused” by them.

One credible estimate of the financial losses suffered by America in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks places them somewhere close to 2 trillion dollars.

In a response to the mindless criminality that shook London and other cities in England last month, Boris Johnson, the colourful and sometimes outspoken, Conservative Mayor of London, writing in the Daily Telegraph on August 14, proffered the view that, in addition to the necessity for robust policing, a way had to be found to give young people moral guidance and hope.

Caribbean Airlines, formerly BWIA, has had a near monopoly on the Guyana air travel market for over a decade now.

As the tussle between the insurgent forces and the Gaddafi administration nears its end, Western minds will be turning more decisively to events in Syria where the minority Alawite administration is using its security and military resources to withstand the persistent and geographically widening popular demonstrations against its rule.

In May 2010, University of the West Indies Political Science lecturer Tennyson Joseph wrote a brief but insightful article titled, ‘The ‘Dudus’ Coke Affair: Lessons for Eastern Caribbean,’ in which he sought to place the so-called Dudus Coke affair in the wider context of what he sees as the legitimization of the role of crime in contemporary Caribbean political culture.

No matter the amount of times the government pleads ignorance and blusters, the stinging questions about convicted drug lord/phantom squad organizer, Mr Roger Khan and his connections to its senior officials will persist.

In the bad old days of absolute monarchy, several European countries had a crime on their statute books called lèse majesté.

For the last two weeks Canada has mourned the death of one of its most charismatic old-style politicians, Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP).