Editorial

One in every ten persons in the world, according to statistics, has a disability.

It would not be an overstatement to say that in the view of the governments of these West Indian islands, the use of referenda or special majorities of their parliaments required to change particular articles of their countries’ constitutions, is faced with trepidation.

Hardly a month goes by that there is not some fresh outrage in the Guyana Police Force to appal the public.

It is unsurprising that the 2009 Transparency International report was a mirror image of the 2008 version.

At his annual press briefing last year, Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee told the media that road fatalities for 2008 had declined dramatically in comparison with the previous year – in fact, by an extraordinary 54.6%.

This newspaper reported yesterday that a woman of Shieldstown, West Bank Berbice is to appear in court next week charged with abusing the eight-year-old son of her deceased brother.

Juan Bautista Alberdi, the 19th century Argentine liberal intellectual, based a fair bit of his thinking on the political and economic development of Argentina on the dictum, “to govern is to populate.” 

More than a week after France defeated Ireland in a qualifying match for the 2010 World Cup, thanks to a controversial late goal by captain Thierry Henry, sports fans and commentators all over the world are still arguing over what should be done to prevent cheating in professional sports.

President Obama completed his series of visits to the East with a final visit to South Korea, a country of which the United States has been a protector and patron since the end of the war between the North and the South that ended in stalemate in July of 1953.

Since September when schools reopened for the new academic year, there have been several serious acts of hooliganism.

Secrecy and unaccountability are so boundless in the day-to-day business of this country and its officials that an eyebrow is hardly lifted when outrages fly under the radar.

Nothing illustrates better the foolishness that goes on in the corridors of power in this country than the dispute between the city council and GPL.

A few weeks ago, addressing the Queen’s College anniversary celebrations (in a blackout), Dr Roopnaraine asked his audience (and by extension all Guyanese) to “embrace the idea that the quality of our life is dependent on the quality of life of others.”

It is a pity that Dr Rupert Roopnaraine’s feature address delivered at the special assembly of the Queen’s College reunion a few weeks ago, was heard only by the QC faithful.

Twenty years ago, the member states of the United Nations agreed to a binding treaty of international law which would allow all children in all countries and of all ethnicities and cultures to live in a world in which their human rights would be respected and adhered to.

A somewhat surprising hiatus in the governance of Haiti, the removal of Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis by the country’s Senate in October, gave cause for concern as to the progress which the country had been making in terms of its political stability.

Within weeks of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal of its projected Security Sector Reform Action Plan, a gang of bandits staged an assault on several state properties in the heart of Georgetown and escaped.

It must have gladdened the hearts of all Guyanese here and in the diaspora to absorb the news of the munificent Norwegian decision to support this country’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) to the tune of US$250M over a five-year period.

Last week came the unexpected announcement from the President that taxis were all to have the same colour by August 2010.

In 1988, Freedom House, a group which monitors liberty around the world, estimated that in political terms 36 per cent of the globe’s 167 independent nations were free, 23 per cent partly free and the rest not free at all.