Editorial

Significant sectors of Venezuelan society, including the combined opposition, civil society, academia, non-state media and the Episcopalian Church, have reacted strongly to the package of laws, including the Enabling Law granting the President special powers to rule by decree for 18 months, passed last December by what was effectively a lame-duck National Assembly.

On Monday last, the first day of the 2011 budget debates, Alliance For Change Chairman, Mr Khemraj Ramjattan MP, provoked a strident outburst in Parliament when he referred to a lack of transparency and accountability by the government and drew a parallel between that and Minister of Housing Mr Irfaan Ali being hauled before the House Privileges Committee last year over a $4 billion supplementary allocation for work in the housing sector that was sought in 2010, after it would have been already spent the previous year.

There must be very few people, diplomats, politicians or journalists, who were not taken by surprise at ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier’s sudden appearance in Haiti,  and there can only be speculation as to whether the Government of France, in which Duvalier had been residing, itself knew.

We appear once again in one of those familiar and deeply discomfitting periods in which armed bandits demonstrate their ability to strike anywhere and at will.

When the case against two policemen accused in the torturing of a 15-year-old collapsed ignominiously in court last week it didn’t erase the stain from the country of this heinous act.

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.