Editorial

For the better part of a half-century after the French ceded independence to most of their colonies in the 1960s, the relationship between the newly sovereign states and the ex-mother country was relatively benign and uneventful.

Over time, North Korea has become highly effective at the craft of drawing periodic international attention to itself.

Now that 10 persons have been confirmed dead in the horrendous January 22nd, 2013 collision of boats in the Mazaruni River, the Ministry of Public Works and the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD) have an uphill battle to convince the public that there is effective regulation of riverain traffic.

The general population has no idea what is going on with all these parliamentary motions with no outcome, followed by recourse to the courts and judges’ decisions whose implications the political parties then dispute among themselves.

This is about the time of year when the fallout from the frenzied ritual of Christmas shopping and consumption is evident; our waistlines have expanded and our wallets have shrunk.

Live strong and live the lie – that is what disgraced American cyclist Lance Armstrong effectively did for more than a decade.

Two men, who had been charged with murdering two women in 2006 and 2007, were on Monday allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter and will be sentenced early next month following the presentation of probation reports to the two judges before whom they appeared.

Over the last year at least, the British government of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has been faced with calls for decisions on the political character of the United Kingdom.

This past week or so, two foreign investors, one Canadian, the other Chinese, made public some of the pertinent details of what would appear to be pretty impressive plans to invest in the country’s gold mining and forest products sectors.

When FIFA and CONCACAF swooped into Guyana two weeks ago to attempt to settle the  fractious state of affairs in football, it must have dawned upon many citizens that the public disputation on any and every issue here is causing enormous damage to the inherent trust between individuals and groups and to the country’s prospects.

Anyone who has any feeling for the architectural heritage of Georgetown must be in despair every time they pass City Hall – if they can bear to look at it at all, that is.

In 2006, the year before he died, Arthur Schlesinger Jr was asked what he thought of President Bush’s policy on torture.

On the human level, there is a lot of sympathy for Hugo Chávez in his battle against an unspecified cancer in a Cuban hospital.

A very serious allegation has been made that, if true, points to a major deficiency in a sector that should be serving/protecting our young and vulnerable.

As the year turned and Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller addressed the people of Jamaica, their main concerns seem to have been to hear from her some indication of when, and on what basis, the now prolonged discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would be concluded.

Last weekend’s announcement by the Chinese company Bai Shan Lin that it is seeking to recruit 700 workers with various types of skills to work in areas associated with its multi-sectoral investment in Guyana got the attention of most, if not all, of the media houses – and with good reason.

This morning, the Ministry of Agriculture is convening a conference to move the coconut industry forward and to review a work plan for 2013.

The governing party is never short of rationalizations to explain why something which is required to be done, has not been done.

For Guyanese living abroad there are times when reports from home read like a litany of bad news; a succession of depressing accounts of domestic abuse, violent crime, political wrangling, inefficiency and corruption.

In the movie, The Life of Pi, when the protagonist’s father seeks to reinforce his argument for the family’s move to Canada, he proudly declaims, “We will sail like Columbus!”