Editorial

In Archibald Leonard Luker’s lyrics to our national anthem, we proclaimed ourselves at the birth of our new nation, proudly and perhaps still in a state of relative innocence, “one land of six peoples, united and free.”

The minute US President Barack Obama opened his mouth last week and said that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting someone when there was already proof that the person was in his own home, hundreds of anti-Democrat and anti-Obama bloggers and commentators put their feet in it along with his.

In concluding our editorial on regional integration last week, we suggested that there was a tendency to suggest that our own experience is sui generis, and not to be compared with other experiences in today’s world.

One of Mr Clement Rohee’s earliest and most commendable initiatives after being appointed Minister of Home Affairs was to re-establish the Fire Advisory Board in October 2006.

There is a familiar theme to the story as told by Mr Troy Small who was “questioned” in relation to the Ministry of Health fire: rogue elements in the joint services, with or without official sanction, continue to run amok. 

Events in the Co-operative Republic are taking a sinister turn. If it wasn’t bad enough that the Ministry of Health was destroyed by arsonists, we now have the mysterious death of David Leander, called ‘Biscuit’ in a public hospital, and the torture of Mr Troy Small by a group of persons unknown, one of whom he alleges, was in GDF uniform.

Earlier this week, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested for ‘tumultuous’  behaviour by a police officer responding to a neighbour’s 911 call about a break and enter attempt that was allegedly in progress.

One thing is clear about the coup d’état in Honduras, President Manuel Zelaya was illegally overthrown by the Honduran Congress and military, backed by elements within the business class and landowning oligarchy.

Of all the reports of violence against women that have come to light in recent times, the incident at Enterprise, East Coast Demerara is the worst.

As the Caribbean Community’s main conference, the annual Conference of Heads of Government, has come and gone this month, there have been a variety of expressions of concern that the heads have not done enough to keep our integration process on track.

The fatal crash of a Yemenia Airways Airbus in the Indian Ocean last month has renewed calls for stricter scrutiny of the safety standards of developing nations and their airlines.

Hours after the inferno that demolished the Ministry of Health, President Jagdeo announced that there would be a reward of $25M for information leading to the apprehension of those who might have been responsible for the dastardly arson. 

What a disaster – for the health sector, for our material heritage, for the political environment and most of all for the people of Guyana.

Forty years ago today three American astronauts were drifting purposefully towards the moon, on the verge of making history.

It’s not a big story, certainly not one to hit the international pages of newspapers around the world.

Has no one in the Guyana Police Force noticed the annoying, dangerous and not-so-new development of begging on the road at intersections with stop signs and at traffic lights?

Strong diplomatic, and in some cases, financial pressure placed on the regime established in Honduras by the military, has not succeeded in finding an avenue for the return of exiled President Manuel Zelaya.

The influx of illegal Brazilian miners into Guyana’s hinterland, their involvement in the mining industry, its impact on the environment and the incidence of trans-border crimes have been security concerns for the last two decades.

If there was a single area in which Caricom could have partially shielded itself from the global onslaught of collapsing financial markets, depressed commodity prices, harsher terms of trade, spiralling budgetary deficits  and the ever diminishing pools of cheaper financing it was the diminution of its annual food import bill.

In a letter in our edition of July 7, captioned ‘UG should emphasize teaching, not research,’ Mr Sherwood Lowe said that nowadays universities tended to be either research oriented, or teaching focused.