Editorial

Forty years ago, commenting on the contradictions of US foreign policy in Vietnam, Norman Mailer observed that “Bombing a country at the same time you are offering it aid is as morally repulsive as beating up a kid in an alley and stopping to ask for a kiss.”

Last Friday’s Regent Street fire was a grim reminder of the historic vulnerability of a huge section of our commercial capital to disaster.

It is a good thing that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has convened a conference for the heads of Guyana’s 13 diplomatic missions abroad.

As Guyana begins to take its first tottering steps towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) readiness, in its move to eventually implement a Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) international climate change negotiations are not going as well as they should.

The result of the referendum held in Ireland at the beginning of this month has signalled the virtual end to a long campaign in Europe to get the Treaty of Lisbon ratified by all 27 member-states of the European Union.

The wave of grave maritime incidents should have made at least three things clear to the administration.

The irony of the Home Affairs Minister and the fire chief standing proudly in front of gleaming fire-fighting units the day before a devastating fire raced through a section of Regent Street will not escape the attention of many.

The siren song of power is hard to resist. And it is particularly hard to resist for those who have been in office for some period of time.

Earlier this week, after pocketing a US$10 million bonus for winning the Fedex Cup, Tiger Woods became the first billionaire athlete in history, according to Forbes magazine.

There are signs that the steps taken by the Barack Obama administration to relax some restrictions on contact with Cuba and the initiation of quiet, diplomatic dialogue with the government of President Raúl Castro may hold hope for a better bilateral relationship between the United States of America and Cuba.

There are signs that the steps taken by the Barack Obama administration to relax some restrictions on contact with Cuba and the initiation of quiet, diplomatic dialogue with the government of President Raúl Castro may hold hope for a better bilateral relationship between the United States of America and Cuba.

Some years ago, there used to be a blind man begging on Regent Street.

Last week’s editorial on this theme focused on the meetings that took place among the traditional post-war powers and their partners among the emerging economic powers, leading significantly to a reconstitution of the G8 into a G20.

Justice Jainarayan Singh’s public complaint last week seemed to highlight much that has gone wrong with the criminal justice system, law enforcement and human rights in this country.

As we reported in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek, the Guyana Times which was launched in June last year is already receiving 19.5% of state advertisements through the Government Information Agency (GINA).

The tragedy on which we reported last week when a young man threw himself under the wheels of a truck contains elements which say a lot about our society.

Although, by any reasonable measure the situation in Afghanistan is worsening steadily – a corrupt government, rigged elections, a resurgent Taliban – instead of reconsidering its military mission (which costs the American taxpayer almost $4 billion each month) the Obama administration has decided to double down on its military engagement in the country.

Almost two weeks after Manuel Zelaya’s surprise return to Tegucigalpa, it is clear that any hopes that he might have harboured of provoking a rapid dénouement to the Honduran drama that has been playing out since he was deposed on June 28, have had to be put on hold.

In our Tuesday edition this week, we reported on ‘Operation Care’ an ongoing anti-truancy campaign that is carried out at irregular periods by the Ministry of Education’s School’s Welfare Services.

In the last few weeks a series of encounters have taken place at the very top of our international society that indicate a sense of urgency about how to organize, or reorganize, relations among the powers.