Editorial

The continuing struggle in Libya, with its dual character – between Colonel Gaddafi’s government and opposition forces largely centred in Benghazi, and between Libya and the NATO forces under UN Resolution General Assembly Resolution 1973, forces us to return to this issue.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is correct in its pronouncement that the bellyaching by the Indian cricket Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni over what he felt were flawed decisions made by Umpire Daryl Harper in the first Test of the current three-Test West Indies vs India series has deprived Mr Harper “of the opportunity to sign off as a Test umpire in a manner befitting someone who has served the game so well since making his debut back in 1994.”

In the fullness of time, the PPP/C’s version of access to information legislation will come under careful scrutiny however urgency is not required at the moment as it is clear to all breathing individuals that no functioning system will be in place before the general elections.

While for once politics on the home front could hardly be described as lacking in diversion, our small-scale drama pales into insignificance in comparison to the one being played out to our west.

A fortnight ago, Pope Benedict held a timely audience with 2,000 representatives of the Roma – arguably the most vulnerable ethnic minority in Europe – at which he spoke frankly about their “complex and sometimes painful” recent history.

Let us not fool ourselves: the expectations surrounding this weekend’s 32nd regular meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community in St Kitts and Nevis are not great, given the recent record of procrastination and prevarication by our regional leaders.

When women in Saudi Arabia decided to buck the convention that women drivers are an aberration and launched a protest on June 17, there were, according to news reports, just dozens of them instead of the thousands that international organizations had predicted would have joined the protest.

After her People’s Partnership government’s recent celebration of one year in office, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has undertaken a reshuffle of her Cabinet, in the midst of pressures from various sides of the political and economic arenas.

Last week, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) José Miguel Insulza used his opening address at the Second Conference on the Progress and Challenges in Hemispheric Cooperation against Corruption to reflect on the role that corruption continues to play in retarding development and disfiguring democracy, particularly in developing countries.

While it may not be the final word on the horrendous 2009 torture of a 14-year-old in a police station, the ruling last week by Justice Roxane George in the civil matter brought by the boy’s mother emphatically underlined the gross violations of fundamental human rights and exposed the culpability of too many agents of the state.

There have never been many elements underlying Guyana’s modern political drama.

Earlier this month, a noisy passenger on one of New York’s busy commuter trains was approached by a female conductor.

Jack Warner, the beleaguered football supremo from Trinidad and Tobago, who had been suspended by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) pending the outcome of a bribery enquiry, appears to have thrown in the towel.

Globally, a basket of basic food—meat, grain, vegetables and fruit—the bare necessities for a balanced diet so to speak, is 37 per cent more expensive than it was this same time last year.

Many observers will have noticed the embarrassment with which Europe as a whole has observed the fall of Managing Director of the IMF, Mr Strauss-Kahn, an individual destined to carry the French Socialist Party’s banner at the next French presidential elections, in the face of the declining popularity of President Sarkozy.

In a letter published in last Friday’s issue of this newspaper, the letter-writer angrily dismisses the alleged ruling that henceforth the various Divisional Commanders of the Guyana Police Force must defer to Police Commissioner Henry Greene in the Force’s interaction with the media as “sheer stupidity.”

Former Jamaican Police Commissioner Mr Francis Forbes recently took over as the Interim Executive Director of the troubled Caricom Implementation Agency for Crime and Security.

What is the matter with the Anglican Church, one wonders.  How can it put up one of its older places of worship for sale without exploring the possibilities for how it could be saved?

Accountability is the new buzzword in international development circles, the World Bank says in a new book it launched earlier this week.

Though the United States intervention in Pakistan to obliterate Osama bin Laden dominated news of the continuing UN cum NATO other intervention in Libya, the situation in that country has maintained its prominence.