Editorial

Boys will be boys but would Akeem Denny have drowned in the Guyana Water Incorporated’s Central Ruimveldt Iron Removal Treatment Plant’s “backwash lagoon” on Monday if the area, which the GWI deemed dangerous, had been properly secured?

The recent decision, taken on February 23 by most of the countries of Latin American and the Caribbean, to transform the Rio Group and the Latin American and Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development (CALC) into a formal institution, the Community of Latin American States, is being advanced by them as another stage in a process of regional integration to which they have formally committed themselves at various times. 

Will the arraignment last week of four male adults from Enmore Village on the East Coast − on charges of “carnally knowing” a nine-year-old girl − have any effect on the administration’s human security and public safety policies?

In the backdrop of the daily diet of crimes, El Nino, the bottomless woes of the Windies, the plight of key industries like sugar and an imminent elections season it gladdens the heart to read of triumphs which trump the bad and hold out hope for the future of entrepreneurship and the country.

Latin American and Caribbean leaders must surely get the award for being the most dedicated summiteers on the planet.

President Obama’s healthcare summit, broadcast live to a national and international audience,  must have puzzled anyone who does not grasp the importance of his proposed reforms to the economic future of the United States, and to the political prospects of his own party and administration.

As we go to press, reports of the two-day summit attended by 32 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean, held earlier this week in Cancún, Mexico, are still filtering in.

A few days prior to Tuesday’s Mashramani Day Float Parade, sanitization workers were out in their numbers.

The earthquake in Haiti and its aftermath, coming not too long before the country’s anticipated assumption of the chairmanship of the Caribbean Community, has thrown into clear relief the changing dimensions of the country’s relationships with her Caricom and hemispheric neighbours.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett’s presentation to the National Assembly during the budget debate last Thursday was remarkable for what she did not say. 

The Speaker of the National Assembly Mr Ralph Ramkarran in his column in the Weekend Mirror and on his blog www.conversationtree.gy

Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett was reported in our Wednesday edition as criticizing the current Surinamese administration in the National Assembly for its silence on a plan by a previous government to invade this country’s New River Triangle.

Less than a fortnight ago, in the middle of a national drought in which parts of the country were “enduring days, and sometimes weeks of no water,” readers of the of the Trinidad Express learned that “clear water [was gushing] from more than four plant sprinklers over the lawn grass at Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s residence…” This scoop ran beneath a damning photograph, courtesy of an anonymous “citizen journalist,” of a gardener monitoring the extravagant watering.

A few weeks ago, we commented on the victory of conservative businessman, Sebastián Piñera, and his “Coalición del Cambio” or “Alliance for Change” in Chile’s recent presidential election.

Last Saturday, the Ministry of Health issued a press release in which it revealed that for the first four weeks this year over 11,000 cases of diarrhoeal disease had been reported, representing a slight increase in the numbers reported for the corresponding period in 2009.

The Obama administration seems to be moving towards a more rigid stance in its attitude to Iran, induced by at least four factors that would not have seemed so intractable when he assumed office a little over a year ago.

President Bharrat Jagdeo, Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee and Commissioner of Police Henry Greene all took time to talk about the country’s war on drugs in their respective addresses to the Guyana Police Force’s Annual Officers Conference last week.

Given the now customary absence of budgetary measures and announcements of new initiatives in the annual budget speech one could reasonably question the wisdom of having the Finance Minister use up the precious time of the legislature retracing developments during the year.

The cabinet has never been discomfitted by accusations of philistinism. It is perhaps the mark of a true philistine if the members of an official body do not suffer even a little pique when they are so described.

On June 9, 2006, three high-value terrorist suspects in Alpha Block, Guantánamo Bay, were found hanged in their cells.