Editorial

Current world trends indicate that, at least in the short to medium term, unemployment levels will continue to rise.

In his most recent ‘The view from Europe,’ David Jessop, one of the more astute external observers of regional affairs, pulls no punches in stating the growing view that a “dysfunctional regional integration process” now prevails in Caricom.

A few days ago Stabroek Business interviewed the Country Representative of the Inter-American Insti-tute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) Ignatius Jean about the work of IICA in Guyana and about the role of the organization in supporting the current regional response to the global food crisis.

The International Criminal Court’s decision to pursue the indictment of President Omar Bashir – a serving head-of-state – for war crimes in Sudan’s brutal civil war has been widely criticised by diplomats and political analysts who fear that the threat of prosecution could derail the country’s fragile peace process.

The European Union and the chief manager of the World Trade Organisation, Mr Pascal Lamy have sought, as one of the measures to facilitate a smooth passage of the Mini-Ministerial talks prior to the larger Doha gathering, to make a further concession to the Latin American banana producers in their case against the EU-ACP agreement on access to the EU market.

Again, last week, Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Clement Rohee was obliged to meet executives of the mining community to explain why recommendations of previous joint meetings remained unimplemented.

It has become increasingly clear that one of this government’s favourite methods of addressing controversies is to pretend as if it is doing something about them and to hope that public interest dies away.

One can only marvel at the government’s predilection for adding to its problems with seeming abandon.

The government on Thursday tabled in Parliament a number of amendment Bills, one of which, once passed into law, would allow the police to “supervise” persons convicted of sex crimes and kidnapping.

The 5th Petrocaribe Summit was held in Venezuela’s oil capital, Maracaibo, last weekend.

Torture, and its attendant euphemisms (‘stress positions,’ ‘sleep deprivation,’ ‘waterboarding,’ ‘enhanced coercive interrogation’), is back in the news.

Last week’s elections in the tri-island state of Grenada, Carriacou and Petit Martinique have added to the governmental changes which have been occurring in the region over the last year and a half.

Does the National Assembly have the capability to exercise effective oversight of the security sector?

It usually takes crises to hammer home the essential truths. As we pointed out in an editorial of June 30 there have been three mass killings in six months that have claimed the lives of 31.

We have not yet heard any kind of analysis from the Ministry of Education in relation to this year’s Grade Six Assessment; so far, all that we’ve learnt concerns the top performers and the top schools.

Since the beginning of this year, the United Kingdom has been gripped with what has now become a serious problem: a string of teen stabbings, which seems to indicate a rise in the recruitment of young people in gangs and a marked callousness in their dealings with rivals.

Our editorial on Tuesday on last week’s Caricom summit clearly raised more questions than answers about the health of our regional integration process.

Political love is a dangerous undertaking, especially in America. The consoling fiction that any candidate’s private virtues will ensure unwavering constancy to their putative ‘core principles’ is tenable only if you don’t read the papers.

On Monday we reported newly appointed Secretary General of the Guyana National Commission for UNESCO Inge Nathoo as saying that she had restarted the process of trying to get sites in Guyana inscribed on the World Heritage List.

The Twenty-Ninth Meeting of the Caricom Heads of State and Government concluded its business at the end of last week and, as is usual, gave the conclusions of its deliberations in its communique.