Editorial

The horrendous minibus accident which occurred on Homestretch Avenue on Monday prodded the PPP into issuing one of their customary releases, in which drivers were urged to act more responsibly and commuters were exhorted to insist that drivers conduct themselves responsibly.

Although the imminent starvation of millions in the  Horn of Africa has now, finally, been classified as a famine – a term the UN and other international aid agencies reserve for only the most dire emergencies – there is little hope that aid will arrive in time to prevent tens of thousands more deaths.

Love him or loathe him, everyone recognizes that President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is a fighter.

Road rage is the term used to describe a violent incident, which results from stress caused by an accident (mainly minor) or other road incident, where a driver expresses aggressive behaviour.

The apparently serious illness of President Hugo Chávez has taken observers by surprise, as it has, from all accounts, taken the President himself.

Trinidad and Tobago is in the midst of one of those high-octane political periods with which we in Guyana are altogether unfamiliar.

For 24 years while in opposition, the PPP railed against rigged elections, human rights abuses, corruption and lack of transparency in government.

The Friday before last President Jagdeo gave a news conference at his office during which he told reporters on the matter of reforming the presidency: “There are things I think I would like to see… But I don’t see anything major because… we did the major thing, which was to limit people who sit in this job, unlike any country in the Caribbean.”

The phone-hacking scandal which has brought News International to the attention of British media regulators will surprise no one who has followed the career of Rupert Murdoch.

What more can one say about Shivnarine Chanderpaul that has not already been said?

Treasurer of the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) of Georgetown Mr Andrew Meredith confessed on Monday that he has been having difficulty sleeping and the reason for this is the poor state of the city’s finances.

After over fifty years of fighting, or civil war, even preceding the attainment of independence by the Sudan, and after about two million recorded deaths, South Sudan obtained its independence from the larger state relatively peacefully last Saturday.

Linden has long fallen on difficult times. The decline of the bauxite industry has sent the economy of what is still euphemistically referred to as the mining town into a tailspin.

When the definitive analysis of Mr Rupert Murdoch’s torpedoing of his 1969 acquisition News of the World is written it will undoubtedly conclude that the ever ruthless media baron wasn’t really concerned with the ethical transgressions of the tabloid but rather with self-preservation.

The Minister of Home Affairs appears long ago to have surrendered the lead on fighting piracy to the Minister of Agriculture.

Cricket has always been a game with political meanings. The 2009 BBC documentary Empire of Cricket explicitly chronicled its development in India, Australia and the West Indies as part of larger narratives of postcolonial self-determination.

It is a good thing that we had no great expectations going into last weekend’s meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of Caricom, at Frigate Bay, St Kitts, as we cannot really complain of any great disappointment that no decisions of any consequence appear to have been taken there.

It has been said that there are now more Guyanese in the diaspora than at home and while this may seem an exaggeration, the fact is that Guyana’s economic migrants are continuing to leave in droves for the Caribbean, North America, Europe; anywhere that will have them.

The continuing struggle in Libya, with its dual character – between Colonel Gaddafi’s government and opposition forces largely centred in Benghazi, and between Libya and the NATO forces under UN Resolution General Assembly Resolution 1973, forces us to return to this issue.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is correct in its pronouncement that the bellyaching by the Indian cricket Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni over what he felt were flawed decisions made by Umpire Daryl Harper in the first Test of the current three-Test West Indies vs India series has deprived Mr Harper “of the opportunity to sign off as a Test umpire in a manner befitting someone who has served the game so well since making his debut back in 1994.”