Editorial

News that domestic violence survivors are finding temporary refuge at the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security’s first White Zone in Berbice is welcome and the programme as outlined by its Coordinator Nalini Katryan provides a measure of hope.

The eruption of a virtual civil war in the Ivory Coast is really a long-delayed effect of the character of political rule which this country has experienced since its independence in 1960, in particular the long period of rule (1960-1993) under former President Félix Houphouët-Boigny.

Some of us are still trying to get our minds around last Tuesday’s incident allegedly involving seventeen students from two city schools who, reportedly armed with knives, travelled several miles from Georgetown to Leonora, reportedly to settle a score with a student at the Leonora Secondary School.

At his press conference on March 31, Head of the Presidential Secretariat , Dr Roger Luncheon accused Stabroek News of “reckless hostility” towards the One Laptop Per Family project. 

Only now that the country is on the brink of an election has President Jagdeo seen fit to dispense with the services of his Minister of Local Government, Mr Kellawan Lall.

The bewildering pace at which information technology is evolving has begun to affect old fashioned politics with unsettling speed.

On this day in history, in 1953, at Sabina Park, Jamaica, Clyde Walcott completed a century against India to become the third of the three Ws, along with Frank Worrell and Everton Weekes, to hit a hundred each in the same innings.

This newspaper reported yesterday that some 17 students –all in their early teens—from two city secondary schools had been held by the police and were giving statements after they marched into the Leonora Secondary School armed with knives, to settle a score.

It would not be at all surprising if individuals and officials in various parts of the world with whom Caricom countries do business, are asking themselves this question about our region, concerning what they have been led to think is a regional institution, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

It would, perhaps, be precipitate to suggest, at this stage, that the hurdles that appear to be springing up following GRA Commissioner General Kurshid Sattaur’s publicly stated commitment to a full and transparent investigation into the Vega Azurit cocaine incident could end up derailing a major drug bust.

There has been much parsing of President Jagdeo’s Babu John address this month as in the past his presentations at this hallowed site have set the scene for what is to follow both politically and in terms of policies at the national level.

The Government of Guyana, normally so garrulous on the subject of democracy and human rights, has been quite quiet on the matter of Libya and the violence visited by Muammar Gaddafi on his citizens.

Sometimes it is worth stating the obvious. In Guyana we are trapped in a mirthless tautology.

No one should have been surprised by the West Indies’ departure from the quarterfinals of the Cricket World Cup on Wednesday.

“Water in Guyana can be also deemed as a liability instead of an asset,” Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud said on Tuesday in an address at an event held to mark International World Water and Meteorological Day.

President Obama, having achieved a resolution at the United Nations satisfactory to what appeared to be his preliminary hesitations, finally tip-toed into a limited intervention in Libya, on the basis of ensuring that the country is made a ‘no fly zone.’

There appeared to be a hint of contriteness in some of the comments made to this newspaper by Commissioner General of the Guyana Revenue Authority Khurshid Sattaur, and reported in our Friday edition, in the matter of the recent Vega Azurit cocaine bust in Jamaica.

Twice last year, in August and October, Stabroek News editorialized on the likelihood that the engineering calamity at the Supenaam Stelling would see the government playing for time and eventually holding no one blameable or financially liable for it.

Earlier this month we reported on Vice-Chancellor Lawrence Carrington’s concerns about UG’s finances.

Katharine Birbalsingh is a bright young Englishwoman, a teacher by profession and of Guyanese extraction.