Editorial

Washington has spent the last week debating the government’s decision to publicise the Bush White House’s torture memoranda.

The Fifth Summit of the Americas last weekend was a big deal for Trinidad and Tobago.

Anyone who has ever experienced thirst, not the urge to drink water that is readily available, but true thirst like that which occurs when one has been dehydrated as a result of illness or has no access to sources of clean water, knows the truth of the slogan ‘water is life.’

The appearance of President Nelson Mandela at the election rally of the African National Congress last Sunday, a few days before the country’s general elections, suggests that the ANC is taking no chances.

Two weeks after Commissioner of Police Henry Greene passed the normal age of retirement and celebrated his thirty-fifth year in the Guyana Police Force, he remains on the job.

President Jagdeo’s insistence on the linking of a probe of CLICO (Guyana) to one of Globe Trust is unacceptable and reveals the most cynical application of political manoeuvring.

We have already noted the amount of controversy characterizing the Summit of the Americas to its very end.

On the day the attempt was made on Ms Maria van Beek’s life, the airways were full of the suggestion that this was intended to send a message.

Twenty years ago on Valentine’s Day the British writer Salman Rushdie was placed under a death sentence by a foreign government for writing an “offensive” novel.

There has been some debate in our letters column about the wisdom of including $184M in the budget for the purpose of constructing airstrips on Leguan and Wakenaam.

In a presentation at its first roundtable held towards the end of March, the Pickney Project reported that cases encountered were  “interesting and deep” and that all forms of abuse had been found.

A perusal of the Trinidad & Tobago press during the last month or so indicates a mounting, and somewhat surprising, crescendo of mostly negative comment, on the decision of the Government of Trinidad & Tobago to host the forthcoming Summit of the Americas.

The killing of a parent by a student at the Richard Ishmael Secondary School in Georgetown in November 2005, and of a schoolboy by a classmate at the Queenstown Community High School the previous year, perhaps, were the most egregious examples of school-based aggression and violence in recent years.

After swift court proceedings, CLICO (Bahamas) is now being wound up.

Last week local politics took on a tincture of absurdity. It was all due to the efforts of Mr Clinton Collymore, the Co-Chair of the local government reform task force.

Whilst much attention across the hemisphere is focused on whether Cuba will dominate the discussions at the forthcoming Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, on April 17-19, Fidel Castro has described his encounter on Tuesday with three members of the US Congressional Black Caucus, as “un magnífico encuentro − a magnificent meeting.”

Even as the global financial crisis began to brew last year, donors in developed countries were delving deep into their collective pockets and doling out aid at unprecedented levels.

The series of meetings held in Europe last week, and in which President Barack Obama was obviously the star participant, mark his debut in international affairs, and an early attempt to put his, and America’s, imprint on the future course of world affairs.

The most remarkable aspects of the incident at Arimu in the Mazaruni-Cuyuni last February when a police and army squad killed three wanted men were the small size of the gang, their modest weaponry and the limited scale of their alleged crimes.

In recent years, the judiciary has come under frequent scrutiny over the High Court case backlog that continues to beset it.