Editorial

A generation ago the New York Times was for most Americans, and for a large foreign readership, the final arbiter of the news that was “fit to print.”

In response to our editorial last Sunday on our country’s latest confrontation with Venezuela, one blogger opined that “diplomacy is nothing without the backing of a credible military option.”

Harry Ramsaroop, who for decades ran the Dharm Shala Home of Benevolence for all races died recently at the age of 97.

Over the last few weeks Trinidad & Tobago has been at fever pitch, with campaigning for local government elections, now over, and a parliamentary bye-election  due  on November 4th in the constituency of Barataria.

From the controversy and protests that attended the outcome of the April 19 general elections that won him the country’s presidency, to the current consumer goods shortages that have brought his administration the kind of domestic and international criticism that it could have done without so early in its tenure, Nicolas Maduro’s six-month old political administration has been experiencing a bumpy ride.

In a matter of days, the National Assembly will again be faced with the Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill and taking a final vote on it.

Whether or not the latest confrontation with Venezuela is a purely maritime issue hinges on one thing alone, namely, where the maritime border begins.

News that US intelligence has monitored vast quantities of French telecommunications data and may even have tapped the phone of German chancellor Angela Merkel, prompted a rare admission from the White House this week that the disclosures “raised legitimate questions for our friends and allies.”

Following the interception of the Teknik Perdana, by a Venezuelan warship on October 10 last and prior to the meeting of the Guyanese and Venezuelan foreign ministers in Port of Spain on October 17, our October 13 editorial (Venezuelan arrest), in attempting to give some context to the incident – Venezuela’s economic woes, President Nicolás Maduro’s political weakness, nationalist sentiment in the opposition and military with regard to Essequibo – asked whether Mr Maduro himself was responsible for approving the less than good neighbourly action or whether his hand was forced by the navy.

A new series of advertisements intended to spark constructive dialogue globally on the twin issues of women’s empowerment and equality has taken on proportions that possibly were never envisaged when the concept was floated.

The Caricom Community Secretariat has recently reacted to the decision of the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court on September 23rd that annuls a standing rule that had granted citizenship to anyone born in that country after 1929.

Last week’s  official launch of the Micro and Small Business Development Project (the full title of the Project is twice as long) under the watch of the Small Business Bureau is deserving of some measure of commendation if only because of the potential which the project has to enhance the fortunes of the local small business sector.

The long-awaited strategic plan for the Guyana Sugar Corporation for 2013-2017 is now in circulation.

On Monday, October 7, Mr Clement Rohee, in his capacity as General Secretary of the PPP informed the media corps dutifully assembled in Freedom House, that his party wanted to regulate the local press.

A week after Canadian author Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for literature ‒ a mild surprise to the literary world, and to the British bookmakers who picked Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami as a 5-2 favourite ‒ her short story collections are reportedly selling faster than most local booksellers can re-stock them.

In echoing St Lucia Prime Minister Kenny Anthony’s call for a “big conversation” on the regional integration movement “to chart a new paradigm for growth, review the role and performance of our regional institutions to determine how they can help in these times and better assist us to restore growth to our economies,” Caricom Secretary-General Irwin LaRocque, in his October 3 lecture at St Augustine, also declared that the “big conversation” had already begun.

Once in a while, someone born into wealth and power manages to make a mess of things and ends up on the other side of the tracks.

Those with long memories will recall the British-French intervention in the Suez Canal in October 1956, following the Egyptian nationalization of the canal ‒ in effect the Suez Canal company in which stockholders from those countries had major shares.

There was something almost surreal about the sight of Libyan Prime Minister, a matter of hours after he was abducted then released by militiamen, conceding in a television interview that occurrences like his seizure from a hotel in Tripoli last Thursday were to be expected given the chronic weakness of the state and the inability of the government to protect itself and its high officials.

More than 10 months into a new security initiative dramatically announced on the final day of last year by the Minister of Home Affairs, the citizens of this country remain besieged by all sorts of vicious and frightening crime and are unable to see even slivers of light.