Editorial

Last Friday, we observed that Kamla Persad-Bissessar had created history in Trinidad and Tobago by becoming the country’s first female prime minister.

Late last month, as preparations for the observance of World No Tobacco Day heightened, the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper ran a feature—complete with photographs—on a two-year-old Indonesian boy, who smokes 40 cigarettes a day.

The return of the United National Congress, as the core of the People’s Partnership (PP) coalition, to power in Trinidad and Tobago must naturally give rise to the question of the extent of continuity that there is likely to be in the country’s relationships and policies towards first, the Caricom sub-region itself and then to the wider Caribbean Basin and Latin American arenas.

The results of last Tuesday’s elections in Suriname have provoked predictable reactions from interested parties.

There could hardly have been a more searing critique of the protagonists in the continuing and demoralizing decline of West Indian cricket than that issued by the Chief Executive Officer of the West Indies Cricket Board, Mr Ernest Hilaire.

Last week was not a good week for freedom of expression in this country.

Last Monday, President Obama signed The Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Reconstruction Act, landmark legislation which prepares the way for coordinated diplomatic, humanitarian and military initiatives to confront one of Africa’s most brutal insurgencies.

Kamla Persad-Bissessar has created history in Trinidad and Tobago by becoming the country’s first female prime minister.

Many of the shires (counties) in the UK have web portals which begin with the words ‘This is,’ and what they do is provide a wealth of information on the area.

Not too long ago the Government of Mexico was host to Latin American and Caribbean heads of states and governments at a meeting which resulted in agreement to establish a Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

The Guyana government’s record on human rights and public security collided with the reality of its international obligations and the vigilance of the developed democracies a fortnight ago in Geneva.

It is no secret that the Guyana Police Force has been hard-pressed to continuously prove to its critics that it is capable of rebuffing political interference in its work.

Infrastructural failures in this country have almost entered the realm of myth.

For those of us who live elsewhere, the frequency with which mature democracies make questionable, ambiguous or downright foolish choices can either  be read as an encouragement – that every country has  bouts of political myopia – or as proof that democracy teaches by trial and error and that mistakes are a necessary part of the electorate’s education.

The past week or so has not been good for at least three Caricom prime ministers, for different reasons.

The ‘global economic crisis’ was the top buzz phrase for most of last year and only began to be overtaken somewhat by ‘climate change’ towards the end of the year, when some economies began to turn around and it was clear that despite the global predicament of a warming planet there would be no clear consensus at the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen in December – if ever there is total agreement; but that’s another story.

Over the last two decades or so, various Caricom, and indeed Caribbean governments generally, have come under pressure from the United States authorities to extradite individuals deemed by the US to be involved in the trans-Caribbean drug trade.

Last week’s forum – “In Harm’s Way: Girls in Settings of Endemic Armed Violence” – that was organized to observe the ‘Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence’ by the International Action Network against Small Arms was cause for both controversy and concern.

There would likely have been many cake shop owners and patrons who would have been bemused and taken some offence at President Jagdeo’s recent description of reportage on the controversial Amaila Falls deal as cake shop journalism.  

Public adulation, extravagant receptions, congratulatory advertisements, laudatory billboards – what head of state could ask for more?