Editorial

History is replete with examples of inventions that ought to have been used specifically for the betterment of mankind being hijacked, misused and abused.

Jamaica celebrated its 49th anniversary of independence on August 6 with much public, and generally critical, comment on the state of the society and economy as the country approaches a half century of sovereign independence.

Media accounts of the recent shocking episode of the bullying and intimidation of a team of NIS officers by a prominent businessman and his employees suggest that the act was as crude as it was barefaced,   One of the more disturbing things about the incident is that it appeared to matter little to the perpetrators that they were unlawfully and forcefully menacing and impeding public servants pursuing their legitimate duties as officials of the state.

That 29 tonnes of building material was shipped to State House in 2009 in the name of President Jagdeo should not be a problem in ordinary circumstances.

President Jagdeo was holding forth on one of his favourite topics on Thursday – post-independence Guyanese history.

The widespread anarchy in England last week seems to have surprised only the politicians who were forced to interrupt their summer vacations in order to deal with the crisis.

As Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, Caricom’s new secretary general, assumes office next Monday, he could do no worse than read, if he has not done so already, Sir Shridath Ramphal’s magisterial lecture, delivered at the Bank of Jamaica, on July 22 last.

Handing a sort of indefinable victory to women in what may yet prove to be a major skirmish in the age-old battle for gender equity, recent research has proven that companies with women directors tend to do better than those with executive teams made up entirely of men.

We refer to global economic jitters as we watch the difficulties that both the European Union authorities and the United States government have been having in recent weeks, with various stops and starts in dealing with the management of various economic issues, as reflected mainly in financial gyrations.

One of the surprises of the so-called Arab Spring that has witnessed widespread popular uprising against the most entrenched political regimes in the Middle East, has been the speed with which some of them have collapsed – a matter of weeks in the cases of both the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia and, even more surprisingly, in the case of the Mubarak government in Egypt.

When the contestants for the presidency mount the platform in the city, Black Bush Polder or Waramadong they are likely to utter many of the platitudes that proliferate at times like this.

Timehri, or the CJIA as it is now known, has been fortunate in that it never had a major air crash prior to last Saturday morning.

Six months into the Arab Spring, the ongoing carnage in Syria is a tragic reminder of how far parts of the Middle East have yet to travel on their putative journey to democracy.

Elections are coming and politicians from all parties are beginning to warm up.

It is estimated that today more than 1.5 billion of the world’s 7 billion people still live without electricity and are basically denied access to the 21st century with all its new and evolving technology.

The appointment of Mr Irwin LaRocque as Secretary General of the Caricom Secretariat has been generally welcomed, and we join others in that regard.

NIS inspection visits create considerable unease among some business houses. Such visits can lead to the disclosure of irregularities in the management of NIS registers and the unearthing of evidence of evasion of employee remittances.

In the wake of the stunning allegation that eight presidential guards spearheaded an enforcer operation on behalf of a Brazilian businessman that involved vandalism and a series of other crimes, one would expect the immediate standing down of the Head of the Presidential Guard, an instant shake-up of arrangements for presidential security, a risk assessment and an inquiry into exactly what transpired.

It is impossible at this distance in time to fully grasp the extraordinary brutality of the eighteenth century slave system and the extent of the suffering both physical and mental which it inflicted.

Police in Norway have yet to determine whether Anders Behring Breivik acted alone when planning and carrying out the bombing and shooting spree that claimed at least 77 lives in Oslo last week.