Editorial

Earlier this month the English-speaking world celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of the Authorised Version of the Bible.

In the Caribbean, where nature’s destructive power is never a distant memory, governments often seem ill-equipped and under-prepared for the consequences of hurricanes, earthquakes, fires and floods.

As if Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar did not have enough problems on Tuesday, having to sack her Minister of Planning, Economic and Social Restructuring and Gender Affairs, Mary King, for her involvement in the awarding of a government contract to a company owned by Mrs King’s family, potentially damaging revelations about the behaviour of another member of her Cabinet emerged that same day in London.

It was revealed this week that immigration officials in Trinidad and Tobago had been seeking and finding illegal Chinese immigrants who are being used to provide free labour at casinos, supermarkets, restaurants and private members’ clubs.

The approval by the recent Congress of the Cuban Communist Party of a continuation, and perhaps enhancement, of plans for redirection of the economy, has confirmed that President Raul Castro is committed to ending what is a continuing stasis in economic production and growth.

Last week the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) issued a statement on Mr.

The 2010 report of the Fire Advisory Board established by the Ministry of Home Affairs was tabled in the National Assembly on April 28.

In our edition of April 27 we reported that Stabroek News together with Kaieteur News had been cited by the Ethnic Relations Commission for “unacceptable” statements made in articles and a letter which had been published in the two newspapers last year.

Nobody who visited New York or Washington in the aftermath of 9/11 will forget the shock and horror of that day. 

On Monday, a Honduran special appeals court panel annulled two charges of corruption brought against former President Manuel Zelaya after the coup that deposed him in June 2009.

A world population report released this past Tuesday by the United Nations, predicts that the world’s population will reach 10 billion around 2081; that’s in another 70 years.

Discussion seems to be growing in Trinidad & Tobago about what is perceived as an unwelcome degree of instability in decision-making in Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s People’s Partnership Government.

At the risk, perhaps, of provoking yet another of Mr. Khurshid Sattaur’s now familiar tirades against the Stabroek News, we again enquire into the status of his promised enquiry into the Vega Azurit cocaine trafficking incident made more than a month ago.

What exactly political advisors to the President do is a bit of a mystery – at least in this country.

No one would have noticed, but April 18 was the International Day for Monuments and Sites.

Nothing has been seen or heard of the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei since his detention at Beijing Airport early this month for unspecified “economic crimes.”

For many it would probably have been one great yawn but this morning would also have found many Guyanese and West Indians, probably older rather than younger, glued to their television screens, watching the nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

According to World Bank estimates more than $1 trillion are paid in bribes each year out of an annual world economy of $30 trillion.

Hopes that the presidential and parliamentary elections in the Federal Republic of Nigeria would have passed off relatively peacefully, were dashed almost immediately after the announcement of the results in favour of incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

Few people who are familiar with the Guyanese political culture would have attached any substantive significance to the recent announcement that Messrs.