Delcy Rodriguez knew her brooch was provocative. That she wore it wasn’t merely a diplomatic faux pas. What is surprising was neither Grenada’s prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, and especially nor Barbados’ Mia Mottley, did not, during Ms Rodriguez’...
“People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people”. - Alan Moore, in V for Vendetta (1989). For democracy to work well, governments should be afraid of the electorate. The people put them in power to...
After some years of muddy communication and mixed signals coming out of parliament on the use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by our police, it is finally becoming clear. Apparently, the issue was never over whether or not the JCF should implement the...
Jamaica is facing a crisis that can no longer be softened with polite language or buried beneath statistics. Violence has moved from the streets into our classrooms, and, in some cases, our schools now mirror the very communities they were meant to...
A recent school incident unsettled the country, not only because a boy was physically assaulted on camera, but because of what the explanation seemed to permit. In the school’s public statement, the assaulted student was said to have admitted...
Delcy Rodríguez’s charm offensive in the Caribbean, and her promotion of a Venezuela-Barbados partnership on renewable energy, highlight the need for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to fashion a coherent framework for its relations with Caracas,...
Those persons who were born before Independence and probably a decade after 1962 will readily understand the acronym PWD which, of course, is the Public Works Department. I thought about the PWD the moment I heard about the National Reconstruction...
In Jamaica, we may have heard the phrase “land a nuh escallion and thyme”. This saying has been handed down through generations as a reminder that land is precious, limited, and should never be taken for granted. Unlike crops that can be replanted...
It is urgent that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) engineer a sensible solution to the impasse over the extension of the mandate of its secretary general, Carla Barnett. At this point, that solution increasingly appears to be Dr Barnett’s...
Dr Eric Williams, in From Columbus to Castro, warned that the Caribbean suffers from a crippling psychological dependence that shapes every aspect of life – economic, cultural, and political. Centuries of colonial subjugation, he argued, left the...
Last week, this column looked at the oil crisis triggered by the US/Israel war with Iran, which started on February 28. This has led to the blockading of the Strait of Hormuz by both the USA and Iran. Even with a ceasefire of some sorts, there is...
…Hurricanes exposed it. The numbers confirm it. The system still hasn’t fixed it. Jamaica does not have a housing problem in the way it is commonly described. It has a risk problem, and that risk is unevenly distributed, structurally embedded,...
There is a quiet discipline that often goes unnoticed at the start of a work week. It is not found in meetings or reports or strategic plans, but in something far more routine. It is found in how one chooses to dress. While many treat clothing as...
Pundits worldwide are speculating on who’s winning the war between USA/Israel and Iran/Lebanon. Donald Dumdum keeps saying he obliterated Iran’s military assets and already won the war. Yet, long after his first of many predictions of war’s end, he...
In September 2020, French police arrested a man named Dominique Pelicot for secretly taking photographs beneath women’s clothing (upskirting) in a supermarket. Unfortunately, that was just the tip of his enormous iceberg of depravity....
There are some people who, intuitively, possess extraordinary insights, emotional intelligence, organisational skills and a capacity to absorb and process information, that make them, despite lack of formal training, excellent managers. Such a...
Despite the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis, the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, and numerous weather-related shocks, Jamaica has achieved what many developing countries still struggle to secure: macroeconomic stability. This...
The recent killing of a young woman near a place of worship in Montego Bay, associated with the New Testament Church of God community, represents more than an isolated criminal episode. Rather, it reflects a widening pattern of violence that now...
On Thursday, April 16, I got a notification that former senator and government minister Hugh C.E. Hart had passed away at age 96. We first met in 2018 and I quickly grew to become very fond of him. I made a habit to stop by to visit Hugh before...
In the discussions respecting constitutional reform, the question of selecting Jamaica’s final appellate court has probably been the most contentious. In fact, it has threatened to frustrate the entire constitutional reform programme. There are...
Senator Sherene Golding Campbell gets it. Her piece titled ‘The personal responsibility revolution needed in the public service’ was brave enough to confront a major cramp of governance and productivity – the inability of every government to get...
Because he knows better, this newspaper is repeatedly taken aback by Horace Chang’s demonisation of civil society and other organisations that insist on accountability by the police, including that they wear cameras on operations, especially those...
The worsening traffic congestion in Kingston has been the focus of much attention recently. The problem results from a combination of factors: • There are four times more vehicles on Jamaican roads today than there were 20 years ago, so the urban...
For motorists across Jamaica, the last few weeks have been horrendous. Gridlock and rising fuel prices from tensions in the Middle East have made commuting both time-consuming and expensive. From Half-Way Tree to Alice Eldemire Drive in Montego Bay...
No one should control my rage! Whenever one gives me instructions, as regards my dead mother or my spouse; I of course ignore it. Nothing should make me the source of my mother’s bones being bleached. Anger is a terrible teacher and an even worse...
