Editorial

If the old political hands feel that we have suddenly entered an unfamiliar new world, they might have some justification.

A new report on the 2002 abduction and murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl offers several dismaying insights into the tactical failures and strategic misconceptions which have continually undermined the US war on terror.

Yesterday’s editorial provided a vivid snapshot of the brutal and kleptocratic excesses inflicted upon Haiti from 1957 to 1986 by the dictatorial duo, Dr François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier and his venal and bumbling son, Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier.

Despot, Jean-Claude Duvalier, flew back into Haiti after living for nearly 25 years in France where he had retreated in 1986 under threat of a revolt by the Haitian people.

It will not be surprising if in many parts of the developing world that are feeling the pressures of the economic recession emanating from the Western world economies, political protests and riots over unemployment, high food prices and a consequent inability of citizens to purchase food and everyday commodities, proliferate.

The first thing that crosses your mind when you see the massive mountain of garbage encroaching on the resting places of the departed in Le Repentir Cemetery is not which agency should be held responsible but how on earth such an unpardonable environmental atrocity could occur in a country aspiring to become a global advocate for a cleaner environment.

At his press conference last Monday, President Jagdeo sought to address concerns over land at Plaisance which had been set aside for housing for him and senior government officials.

The Vandals have been a bit unfortunate in history; they have lent their name to gratuitous and purposeless destruction.

The Arizona shootings which claimed six lives and left a member of Congress seriously wounded have provoked a heated debate in America about the consequences of intemperate political rhetoric.

“All politics is local,” said former US Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, but a recent excess of rhetoric in Barbados prompted by domestic politicking is making waves across the region.

In September 2003, two years after they began surveillance of a cocaine operation, officers of the United Kingdom’s Scotland Yard swept through some 20-odd residences in various sections of London and made several arrests.

As the United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited China over the weekend for what was intended to be a continuation of a discourse between the two powers on the implications of their statuses as major military powers, the atmosphere between them preceding Gates’s visit has been one of uncertainty and mutual concern about the other’s intentions.

It appears very likely that Mr Robert Corbin will be the first Leader of the People’s National Congress (PNC) not to hold the office of President of Guyana.

If there is one single event last year which signposted neatly all of the failings of the police force it was the hair-raising slaughter in September of five persons – including a child – at Cummings Lodge.

It is too early to know the full context in which the grenade explosion took place in Stabroek Market on Wednesday.

The most famous Dead White Male author since Shakespeare has been in the headlines ever since Oprah Winfrey, host of what is arguably the world’s most influential book club, announced plans for “a date with Dickens” over the Christmas season.

Some would say that President Hugo Chávez took off the gloves in Venezuela a while ago but now his many detractors are suggesting that his democratic mask has been definitively removed.

Mrs Mara Thompson, the widow of the prime minister of Barbados David Thompson, announced last week that she was contesting the January 20, 2011 by-election for the St John parish seat which became vacant on the death of her husband in October last year.

As the second decade of the new century rolls in, it would appear that even the major powers of the world, including the United States of America cannot, with confidence, set a path of movement in international politics and economics which they feel will proceed relatively smoothly.

Towards the end of last year the Commissioner of Police publicly declared that the extent of the attendance at the annual Police Gymkhana could be taken to mean that the Police Force still had many friends among the Guyanese people.