Editorial

Last week the United States Treasury announced the lifting of a number of travel, monetary and telecommunications restrictions on Cuba.

The shooting to death of a common burglar − Mark Heywood called Mark King − by the police a fortnight ago has once again raised the question of the use of minimum force in everyday law enforcement.

Romanex’s application to the state for permission to conduct alluvial mining in the Marudi Mountain, Region Nine jars for three reasons.

‘Life is a cabaret, old chum,’ runs the song, and nowhere is that more true than in GT.

A human rights group recently released footage of what appeared to be summary executions carried out by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) during the endgame of the country’s 26-year civil war.

The standoff in Honduras continues. It is now just over two months since President Manuel Zelaya was removed from office and ejected from the country still wearing his pyjamas.

The global financial crisis has seen stock markets dip, economies slow down and many people lose their jobs and homes, but the food, drink and entertainment industries seem to have been the least affected so far.

Context is everything.  In social relations, a statement uttered in times of calm and good relations among groups of people may be taken as harmless and allowed to pass.

Describing the recent robbery and murder by members of the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard  in the Essequibo River as “reprehensible,” President Bharrat Jagdeo added that it was worse because it was reportedly committed by “members of the security forces − people who are supposed to protect and serve our country with integrity.”

In its simplest form, good governance is responsive to the basic, legitimate and essential needs of the governed.

It is as if the current leadership of the PNCR is trapped in a proverbial time warp, far removed from the current realities.

Any West Indian reading the history of modern Africa will find a depressing number of echoes in the failure of its nationalist dreams.

PJ Patterson, has rejected in forthright terms any “attempt to portray the notion that the WICB has accepted and is proceeding in accordance” with the report that bears his name and which was submitted almost two years ago, on improving the governance of West Indian cricket (SN, August 22, 2009, ‘Wanted: A new governance for West Indies Cricket Board’).

Three members of the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard appeared in the Georgetown Magistrate Court this week charged with murdering Bartica gold dealer Dweive Kant Ramdass whose body was found at Caiman Hole, East Bank Essequibo after he had been reported missing.

The British political system has been thrown into turmoil by the decision of the Scottish Minister of Justice to release the Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi,  convicted of the bombing of the Pan Am aircraft in 1999 with 270 persons on board, over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Three events – the outbreak of the Black Sigatoka leaf spot disease allegedly affecting Guyanese banana plants, the contraband ‘backtrack’ trade in assorted commodities and the continuing controversy over jurisdiction of the Corentyne River – intersected last week.

In their ruling in the case of Trinidad Cement Limited and TCL Guyana Incorporated versus the State of Guyana, the justices of the CCJ said it was important that a coercive order be issued against Georgetown for the re-imposition of the CET on cement in the interest of the rule of law in the single market.

Amid all the gloom in Georgetown last week, there was one little ray of comedy in the form of some bashful protestors in front of Mr Khemraj Ramjattan’s office.

Usain Bolt’s sprint double at the World Championships in Berlin has established him, unquestionably, as the greatest sprinter of all time.

It is generally accepted that the current global financial crisis was brought about by a toxic combination of greed and gullibility.