Editorial

Those who have said Mrs Janet Jagan’s passing marks the end of an era are not mistaken, although that does not mean there will be any fundamental realignments in the political firmament in the immediate term.

A few days ago a little known legislator in Alaska earned himself a special place in the blogosphere’s hall of shame by outing the hitherto anonymous local pundit ‘Mudflats.’

The loss of a loved one, a friend or even a mere acquaintance is usually a time for reflection on the transience of things, an assessment of the accomplishments of the departed and the impact he or she may have had on one’s life.

New Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali is showing an aptitude for getting things done that only a few of his colleagues have displayed.

The indication from Prime Minister Patrick Manning, following this month’s Caricom Interssessional Meeting of Heads of Government in Belize, that the heads had decided that the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) would henceforth be reporting to the Caricom Secretariat, and through the secretariat to heads, had an aura of suddenness about it.

In a sobering moment during the recent officers’ conference, Commissioner of Police Mr Henry Greene admitted that the force had a severe personnel shortage of about 785 persons, or 20 per cent of the establishment strength.

Mrs Janet Jagan’s passing will undoubtedly evoke a broad range of opinions and analyses on her role in this country since setting foot here in December 1943.

Last Saturday a section of New Garden Street was renamed ‘Shiv Chanderpaul Drive.’

A generation ago, every child growing up in Guyana knew, long before they could spell them, what the words ‘lawless’ and ‘watless’ (‘worthless’) meant.

Responding to our editorial of February 13, 2009 (‘The Grand Old Men of Guyanese diplomacy’), Mr Frank Fyffe, one of SN’s regular correspondents, seems to suggest that our praise for the intellect and accomplishments of Sir Shridath Ramphal, Rashleigh Jackson and other luminaries of the foreign service was perhaps misplaced.

The shocking news that two young children had died after being dosed with senna pods’ tea, followed by some sort of herbal tea and then an anti-diarrhoeal has revealed the continuing laxity with which drugs are administered, the lack of standards governing their importation and sale as well as the lack of technical ability to seriously investigate such a case.

The March 12 elections in Antigua and Barbuda ended more or less as expected by the pollsters and analysts, with Mr Baldwin Spencer’s United Progressive Party (UPP) gaining a slender 9-7 majority at the polls on their first appeal to the electorate since they gained their first victory five years ago.

Telling police officers attending their annual conference at Eve Leary last week that he was “tired of lectures” President Bharrat Jagdeo, and his Minister of Home Affairs Mr Clement Rohee, then proceeded to deliver long lectures of their own.

As much as the Windies coach John Dyson has accepted responsibility for the embarrassing loss of Friday’s one-day match at the Providence Stadium one can’t help but ask where was the captain, Christopher Gayle?

Amid all the excitement about the Roger Khan case and the Clico fiasco, one item of news slipped by virtually unnoticed.

Although politics has always been the art of the possible, one of the sadder aspects of modern life has been the gradual narrowing of our ambitions for public policy, a resignation to the idea that governments can only do so much to help their citizens.

Writing in the Spanish newspaper, El País, on Wednesday – the same day as our own editorial on ‘Political changes in Cuba’ – about Sunday’s electoral victory in El Salvador by the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, which has close ties to Cuba,  Jorge Castañeda, the former Foreign Minister of Mexico and now Professor of Latin American Studies at New York University, inserts, almost in parenthesis, an extended monologue about the significance of the political defenestration in Cuba of the ex-Vice President and economic czar, Carlos Lage, and the ex-Foreign Minister, Felipe Pérez Roque, among other former senior figures of the regime.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has reported that remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean will decline this year based on data collected by its Multilateral Investment Fund.

The recent dismissals from the Cuban government of Vice President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque have caught observers by surprise.

The thirtieth anniversary of the only coup d’état in the anglophone Caribbean passed quietly on Friday, March 13.