Editorial

Given the now customary absence of budgetary measures and announcements of new initiatives in the annual budget speech one could reasonably question the wisdom of having the Finance Minister use up the precious time of the legislature retracing developments during the year.

The cabinet has never been discomfitted by accusations of philistinism. It is perhaps the mark of a true philistine if the members of an official body do not suffer even a little pique when they are so described.

On June 9, 2006, three high-value terrorist suspects in Alpha Block, Guantánamo Bay, were found hanged in their cells.

The year has not begun well for President Hugo Chávez and Venezuela, although the latest news from Caracas would indicate a positive shift in his government’s policy towards investment in the petroleum industry.

It was Charran ‘Sanjay’ Sahadeo’s battered face with eyes swollen shut that first gripped the attention when it appeared on the front page of this newspaper on February 1 this year, followed by the news that this horror had been perpetrated on the three-year-old boy allegedly by his stepfather, supposedly in the presence of his mother and that he had subsequently been evicted from his home.

Every so often China chooses to remind the rest of the world of its insistence that Taiwan is an integral part of the People’s Republic and that it will tolerate no other designation from the international community.

It is easy to blame the inspectors and sergeants for all of the problems of the Guyana Police Force.

In a television programme on NCN on February 1, Prime Minister Sam Hinds, who has responsibility for mining, launched a thoroughly misplaced attack on the Stabroek News in relation to its coverage of the dissent in the mining sector.

Bartica gave the government a jolt. The revolt against the proposed six-months’ notification rule before mining can commence was unexpected for a number of reasons.

The recent death of JD Salinger, at the age of 91, has brought to a close one of the strangest chapters in modern American letters.

There are some important lessons to be drawn from Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s historic election to the post of political leader of the United National Congress (UNC) in Trinidad and Tobago.

In May last year, local nurses met at a two-day summit where they sought to evaluate themselves and the profession generally and look at strategies to improve the sector – not the health sector, but their particular area.

Amidst the turmoil caused by the earthquake and extensive destruction and loss of life in Haiti, and the focus of the international community on rescue and recuperation efforts, there has been little time to pay too much attention to the unfolding of  events in the Central American republic of Honduras.

Twenty-year-old Monelle Alexis’s eloquent but unexpected rebuke ruffled the easygoing pro forma proceedings of the Caribbean Community heads of government ‘Special Summit on Youth Development’ in Paramaribo last week.

Last Monday’s edition of this newspaper reported residents of Mon Repos as doubting the claimed success of a mangrove replanting project which had been hyped by the sea defence division of the Ministry of Public Works and Communications.

Following his trip to the Middle East, where he visited Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, President Jagdeo told the media that there would be likely investments in the health, housing and mining sectors, and that this country would continue to pursue an independent foreign policy.

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Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s landslide victory over Basdeo Panday for the leadership of Trinidad and Tobago’s main opposition party, the United National Congress (UNC), has sent journalists, observers and citizens into a frenzy of superlatives and hype that is typically Trinidadian.

Early Monday morning, Ms Alexis Felix a 30-year-old mother of three, picked up her youngest child – a three-week-old boy – walked to a nearby canal and threw him in.

As we reported in this paper on Monday, Ms Kamla Persad-Bissessar won a decisive victory over longstanding Leader of the UNC Basdeo Panday in the party’s leadership elections.