Editorial

Last week, in an episode that could have come straight out of a magical realist novel,  Lasantha Wickramatunge, a successful lawyer-turned-newspaper-editor, composed a moving retropsective of the years he had struggled to maintain an independent newspaper in the midst of Sri Lanka’s long civil war.

The observation has been made that much more than is normal with presidents of the only superpower, the world’s citizens would appear to have virtually invested their hopes in the future in the incoming President Obama.

Is this country addicted to drugs and drug trafficking? Hardly a week passes without fresh revelations of some ingenious initiative by inventive local entrepreneurs to send drugs to destinations somewhere in the western hemisphere.

Around this time three years ago, the floodwater from the January rains had begun to swamp all in its wake and citizens began to learn much more about the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) and terms like the full supply level and Georgetown Datum.

Mr Robert Corbin must have been a bit nonplussed when President Jagdeo took his side in his dispute with certain members of his own PNCR.

The long overdue bill to establish a Childcare and Protection Agency was passed in the National Assembly on Thursday last.

In the preface to his magisterial account of the formation of the modern Middle East, Robert Fisk observes that when the “war to end all wars” was over in less than two years “the victors divided up the lands of their former enemies [and] they created the borders of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and most of the Middle East.”

Professor Norman Girvan’s speech, on receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Havana last month, tells us lot about the enduring appeal of the Cuban Revolution, now 50.

On the face of it, 2009 arrives clouded with the grim realities of international disorder.

Choosing the commissioner of police in this country can be a complicated matter.

In whole page advertisements last week, the government has sought to defend its performance in relation to the floods that have rolled up and down the coast since the start of December.

No one could pretend that 2008 was a good year, and we would be fooling ourselves if we indulged the hope that 2009 would be very much better.

These are troubled times. Environmentalists and scientists around the world have for at least the past decade been issuing warnings about climate change and the devastating effects it would have/has been having on the world.

For many years, the late editor-in-Chief of this newspaper used to celebrate his birthday, which fell on Old Year’s Day, with an open house for his friends and acquaintances.

As this year slips into the next, few persons pondering the state of the globe and Caricom’s place in it, will admit that among the events that might have occurred would be a global economic recession being compared, in terms of its potential, to the Great Depression that started in 1929, and never really disappeared until well into World War II.

The most memorable images of crime in 2008 were the massacres in Lusignan, Bartica and Lindo Creek which altogether claimed 31 human lives.

When the definitive history of this period is written, the floating bridge spanning the Berbice River will be hailed as one of the outstanding achievements of PPP/Civic governance and one that President Jagdeo will be credited with.

Guest Editorial The birth of a child Christmas babies always arouse an extra special feeling of wonder at the miracle of birth, given the meaning of Christmas and the celebration by Christians of the birth of Jesus Christ.

“The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense.“

For most Guyanese, at home and abroad, this Christmas is one of great uncertainty.