Another Guyanese cop murdered

GEORGETOWN — Another Guyanese cop has been murdered, the tenth for the year and the highest ever in any one year in the 162-year history of the Guyana Police Force.

The latest victim is 20 year-old Criminal Investigation Department officer, Feroze Bashir, shot to death in front of his girlfriend’s home at Buxton on Tuesday night.

Bashir’s murder followed that, at the weekend, of the execution-style killing of acting head of the Customs Narcotics Unit (CANU) Vibert Innis in his car, also at Buxton, where he had stopped to purchase the day’s newspapers from a vendor, as he normally did.

The shooting deaths of Bashir and Innis have further traumatised the police force having earlier suffered the loss of seven other law enforcement colleagues in the line of duty as the rampage of criminals continue to affect Guyanese communities.

So far no one has been apprehended in connection with the deaths of the policemen, among them that of Superintendent Leon Fraser who headed the anti-crime special squad.

The crime situation in Guyana has worsened considerably following the escape from the Georgetown Prison on February 23 of five dangerous criminals who were facing numerous charges, including murder, armed robberies and possession of illegal drugs.

One of the escapees, Andrew Douglas, was found dead on Monday night, his bullet-riddled body wrapped in a sheet and lying on the back seat of an abandoned hijacked car.

Several number plates of vehicles were among items found in the car.

The circumstances of his death are still to be established by the police who said that the discovery of Douglas’ body followed a shooting incident reported to them on Sheriff Street in Georgetown.

Reporters Network in ‘needs study’

BRIDGETOWN — The Barbados-based Caribbean Environmental Reporters Network (CERN) has launched a study to assess the needs of the region’s journalists and media in the coverage of environmental and sustainable development news.

CERN, formed in 1993 by journalists of the Caribbean, is a non-profit non-governmental organisation with a stated commitment to improve environmental reporting and communication in the Caribbean.

It has explained that its current study is intended to help the network build a new programme of training, networking and information assistance for reporters in the Caribbean in collaboration with the Panos Institute, an international non-profit information and communication NGO, and Loyola University in New Orleans, USA.

The programme is being funded by the United States Agency for International Development.

Manning talks of ‘back-to-back’ elections

PORT-OF-SPAIN — Speaking ahead of yesterday’s second attempt by his government to secure Parliament’s election of a Speaker, Prime Minister Patrick Manning has signalled his intention to have “back-to-back” elections shortly in Trinidad and Tobago.

Although there seemed to be no hope for success in the hung elected 36-member House of Representatives electing a Speaker for an approved agenda to be considered, Manning told reporters at a public ceremony in San Fernando that both national and local government elections would be held “soon”.

A new general election is now expected by mid-October. Manning was expected to disclose the precise date once it became clear that, as happened when the Seventh Parliament first met from April 6-7, no agreement could be reached at yesterday’s meeting.

The Trinidad Guardian in an editorial yesterday commented that “despite the excitement surrounding it, today’s sitting of the House of Representatives is likely to be a little more than a formality, the last rites before the end of the Seventh Parliament and the calling of a general election…”.