Editorial

In mid-March of this year, the Governor of the British colony of the Turks and Caicos Islands announced that the constitution of the territory would be suspended.

If, as Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon claimed last week “Security Sector Reform will go on with or without the Brits,” why hasn’t it been going on for the last sixteen-and-a-half years that he has been in office?

In its 2009 report, global press freedom watchdog, Freedom House said Guyana had moved up from partly free to free.

It was Dr Winston McGowan writing in ‘History this week’ in our Thursday edition, who finally brought a professional historian’s perspective to the debate in our letter columns on the distinction between slavery and indentureship. 

In what is likely to be one of modern literature’s least memorable scandals, Ruth Padel recently stepped down as Oxford Professor of Poetry after learning that the university was “bitterly divided” over her apparent involvement in a smear campaign against Derek Walcott.

Market vending  comprises a significant part  of the small business sector. 

The political situation in Venezuela is tense and the slide into authoritarian rule appears to be continuing unabated.

At a forum on Monday last to launch what will initially be a year of anti-violence activities targeting men, Dr Marlon Hestick, executive member of Men Empowering Network (MEN), gave a case study of a group of 14 teenagers who had broken into a mall and stolen items.

With the conclusion of counting in India’s general elections last week, the Indian National Congress  confounded many of the electoral pundits in India and abroad by winning, in India’s terms, a major victory at the national polls.

This month marks the fifth anniversary of Justice Ian Chang’s presentation of the report of the Disciplined Forces Commission to Speaker of the National Assembly Mr Ralph Ramkarran on  May 6, 2004.

Just over a year ago, on April 7, President Jagdeo sounded off on what he said was orchestrated fraud at Customs involving Fidelity Inc and employees of the GRA.

On February 26, 1997, this newspaper published an editorial captioned ‘Tell the people.’

Two weeks ago the US Senate began an inquiry into the ‘future of journalism.’

We have had on occasion had to comment before on the opaqueness of official communications emanating from the different organs of Caricom.

When People magazine included Michelle Obama in its recent “most beautiful” list, which usually profiles celebrities no one wondered why.

A series of meetings of ministerial and heads of government is being held in the region at both the Caricom and OECS levels at this time, in preparation for their usual more formal and scheduled  mid-year meetings.

At the end of a week’s worth of wordplay at the 24th annual conference of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police, Barbados Commissioner of Police and current President of the Association Darwin Dottin dealt directly with the philosophy of law enforcement in the region.

Pundits have suggested that the riveting revelations in the UK over the last two weeks about the unconscionable expenses claimed by MPs of all political persuasions seem more applicable to the backwaters of the Third World or assemblies in emerging democracies.

It was a correspondent writing in our edition of October 18, 2007, who alerted the public to the fact that the GPO had joined a number of other agencies in implementing a dress code.

President Obama’s decision earlier this week to withhold evidence of detainee abuse, lest new images of mistreatment and torture “inflame anti-American opinion and [put] our troops in greater danger,” left him sounding eerily like his predecessor.