Editorial

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.

President Barack Obama’s commitment to what he called the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, given during the Fifth Summit of the Americas in April this year in Trinidad and Tobago, comes at an interesting time.

During an interview in August with Stabroek News, the Chairman of the Private Sector Commis-sion, Mr Gerry Gouveia called for tighter restrictions on the wildlife trade given what was described as its “rampant rape” for commercial purposes.

Recording The week before last a recording was released purporting to implicate a public official in impropriety, namely, the solicitation of a minor.

News that trials of an HIV vaccine have produced encouraging results offer a small glimmer of hope that the AIDS epidemic may eventually be brought under control.

There is usually a fine line dividing overwhelming folly from extreme courage.

UNICEF estimates that some 300 million children around the world are subjected to violence, exploitation and abuse; all forms of abuse.

In a previous editorial we have commented on some aspects of the controversy on West Indies  cricket and, in particular on characterizations of the functioning of the West Indies Cricket Board.

Feverish meetings over the past two months have reinforced UNASUR’s importance to the security of the South American continent.

Senator Ted Kennedy’s passing last month occasioned introspection and reflection on the role that he and other influential American legislators played in the staging of free and fair elections here in 1992.

So finally the President has shown the ruling party’s hand.  The citizens of Georgetown have to endure the piles of refuse and the serious health hazard that these represent, because the denizens of Freedom House or the Office of the President or both want an excuse to impose an Interim Management Committee on the capital.

When the US Federal Reserve decided, a year ago, not to save Lehman Brothers, it did so mainly on the principle that governments should never interfere with the financial markets.

President Barack Obama has maintained the US trade embargo on Cuba by extending the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act for another year.

Towards the end of next month, Korea will play host to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Third World Forum, which among other things will seek to find ways to measure economic development and social progress in OECD member countries and the world at large.

Last week an incident took place far from us in the Caribbean, which would have been of deep interest to some Caribbean states, though of minimal concern to others.

A more serendipitous encounter than the one that occurred last month in the middle of Guyana in Mahdia, the administrative centre of the Potaro-Siparuni Region, is unlikely to have happened anywhere else in the western hemisphere.