Editorial

In our editorial last week on ‘The OAS in the hemisphere,’ we observed that our Caricom states, in attending the Mexico conference that established the new Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CALC), had given little notice beforehand that they were committed to this Mexican initiative.

The crime situation and the justice system in this country were brought into focus when the Inter-American Development Bank celebrated its 50th anniversary with a party at the Pegasus Hotel last December.

Nowhere, has the risk of stagnation and political paralysis in local government been greater than in the area of financial probity.

It was Ms Shaffeek and Ms Collymore in a letter to this newspaper published on Friday who asked the question where the water was going to come from to fill the water cannon included among the purchases announced in the last budget.

Long after the logistical snafus, accidents, lack of snow and other let-downs have been forgotten, the Vancouver Olympics will be remembered – at least by Canadians – for a spectacular overtime goal in the final of the men’s ice hockey. 

President Bharrat Jagdeo, Minister of Culture, Dr Frank Anthony, the Government of Guyana and Professor David Dabydeen are to be heartily congratulated on the establishment of the Caribbean Publishing House and the recent launching of the Guyana Classics Series.

Boys will be boys but would Akeem Denny have drowned in the Guyana Water Incorporated’s Central Ruimveldt Iron Removal Treatment Plant’s “backwash lagoon” on Monday if the area, which the GWI deemed dangerous, had been properly secured?

The recent decision, taken on February 23 by most of the countries of Latin American and the Caribbean, to transform the Rio Group and the Latin American and Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development (CALC) into a formal institution, the Community of Latin American States, is being advanced by them as another stage in a process of regional integration to which they have formally committed themselves at various times. 

Will the arraignment last week of four male adults from Enmore Village on the East Coast − on charges of “carnally knowing” a nine-year-old girl − have any effect on the administration’s human security and public safety policies?

In the backdrop of the daily diet of crimes, El Nino, the bottomless woes of the Windies, the plight of key industries like sugar and an imminent elections season it gladdens the heart to read of triumphs which trump the bad and hold out hope for the future of entrepreneurship and the country.

Latin American and Caribbean leaders must surely get the award for being the most dedicated summiteers on the planet.

President Obama’s healthcare summit, broadcast live to a national and international audience,  must have puzzled anyone who does not grasp the importance of his proposed reforms to the economic future of the United States, and to the political prospects of his own party and administration.  

As we go to press, reports of the two-day summit attended by 32 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean, held earlier this week in Cancún, Mexico, are still filtering in.

A few days prior to Tuesday’s Mashramani Day Float Parade, sanitization workers were out in their numbers.

The earthquake in Haiti and its aftermath, coming not too long before the country’s anticipated assumption of the chairmanship of the Caribbean Community, has thrown into clear relief the changing dimensions of the country’s relationships with her Caricom and hemispheric neighbours.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett’s presentation to the National Assembly during the budget debate last Thursday was remarkable for what she did not say. 

The Speaker of the National Assembly Mr Ralph Ramkarran in his column in the Weekend Mirror and on his blog www.conversationtree.gy

Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett was reported in our Wednesday edition as criticizing the current Surinamese administration in the National Assembly for its silence on a plan by a previous government to invade this country’s New River Triangle.

Less than a fortnight ago, in the middle of a national drought in which parts of the country were “enduring days, and sometimes weeks of no water,” readers of the of the Trinidad Express learned that “clear water [was gushing] from more than four plant sprinklers over the lawn grass at Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s residence…” This scoop ran beneath a damning photograph, courtesy of an anonymous “citizen journalist,” of a gardener monitoring the extravagant watering.

A few weeks ago, we commented on the victory of conservative businessman, Sebastián Piñera, and his “Coalición del Cambio” or “Alliance for Change” in Chile’s recent presidential election.