When Chadwick Boseman of Black Panther fame died of colon cancer, sales of screening tests skyrocketed in the United States. It is a pattern that repeats itself across different countries and with different cancers. For prostate cancer in The...
A new report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on the global cost of eating healthily should add urgency to the initiative by Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders to quickly ramp up the region’s food production. But, as the...
World Obesity Day was observed on March 4 under the theme “Changing Perspectives: Let’s Talk About Obesity”. It is incumbent that we intensify the need for a comprehensive approach to curbing the increasing trends in overweight/obesity in Jamaica...
On February 27, about 100 people gathered at Appleton Estate in St. Elizabeth to witness the unveiling of a monument to the enslaved Africans, claimed as property by various members of the Dickinson family up to 1838 when slavery was finally...
The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) needs to provide a clearer explanation for the trundling national census, which, after more than four months, won’t meet its latest March 31 deadline for completion. And no one seems to know when it...
If developing countries, especially the small and vulnerable states, expected meaningful attention by the G20 to the myriad economic and financial challenges that confront them, their hopes were dashed by failed meetings of finance and foreign...
Reverend Warren J. Keating, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Yuma, Arizona, says that the best prayer he ever heard was, “Lord, please make me the kind of person my dog thinks I am.” Unfortunately, I am allergic to furry dogs, so I have...
Let’s be straight up: always willing to exploit a political advantage, if they thought they would win, they would have called it! Money or no money! Pandemic or no pandemic! Portmore parish or not! My colleague Lloyd B. Smith is absolutely...
It is not apparent that anything fundamental shifted at the recent Vale Royal Talks that caused the Opposition to finally name its two members of the committee that will make recommendations for reforming Jamaica’s Constitution. Indeed, Prime...
It’s heart-warming to see Jamaican culture evolving to embrace its Afrocentric origins and to embrace a greater awareness of black history, generally. Last year May 25, for the first time, Jamaica joined the African Union and the African diaspora...
Given the aspiration of Jamaicans for land and home ownership, it seems paradoxical that a group of residents of Clifton, St Catherine, did not just grab the titles to lots offered by the Government. Yet it happened recently, forcing the Holness...
One of the most enduring lessons coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic was that there is opportunity in every crisis. You just need to look where to find it. And for a crisis as massive as COVID-19 was, the opportunities it brought, ought to be...
THE USE of smartphones has grown exponentially over the last decade. Smartphones have not only revolutionised the ‘infotainment’ industry, but have changed the way we live, learn and do business. According to Statista, the number of smartphones in...
One day last week, this newspaper reported on the efforts of a dedicated group of residents of August Town, St Andrew, to bring peace to their often-volatile community. A football tournament they launched last December is ongoing between teams...
As murder, rape, kidnappings and torture become entrenched in the daily lives of average Haitians, CARICOM leaders descended on The Bahamas last week Thursday for their annual heads of government meeting. The top priority was to devise strategies...
The Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was a special guest at the recent 44th CARICOM Heads of Government Conference in The Bahamas. In my view, her address requires more attention than it has been given...
It’s half a year since Daryl Vaz, the energy minister, shut down a parliamentary cross-party review of Jamaica’s electricity law and, therewith, a debate over the direction of the island’s power sector. Ostensibly, Mr Vaz’s move was to give the...
I’m impressed with young Matthew Samuda’s approach to governance despite restrictions imposed on him by an incompatible Westminster system. Mark you this is based on public appearances only because, like Chris Tufton (with whom I’m equally...
Last week, I witnessed a very disturbing video on social media, where two boys from Denham Town High assaulted a schoolmate in a most vicious manner. Just before that, there was the tragic story of another school stabbing which resulted in the...
The Road Traffic Act, after such a lengthy process before its implementation on February 1, has caused much rumpus. The uproar and subsequent discussions about some of the offences and fines contained in the legislation and regulations are...
One of the many reasons that Jamaica is a beautiful country is because of its varied topography. The forests, however, that hold the soil on the slopes of our ‘land of wood and water’ are being depleted at an alarming rate. This results in...
We are really being taken for fools. How else do you explain a deficit of some $14 billion at the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) for this financial year alone? Something like this will recur every year. Tens of thousands of people who can’t...
Recently, a video recording of a schoolboy being brutally assaulted by two other similarly aged schoolboys was doing the usual rounds on social media. The video was very disturbing, but even more disturbing was another video featuring a young woman...
For more than a decade, Petersfield High School in Westmoreland has been among the best male teams at Jamaica’s febrile annual Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships, ‘Champs’. For instance, last year it placed 11th, having been 12th in 2021. In...
Socio-cultural and religious norms and archaic policies and laws that criminalise and don’t protect the rights of vulnerable populations contribute significantly to the HIV epidemic in the Caribbean. These societal barriers are fault lines that...
