In 24 hours, the prime minister moved from being a target of anti-corruption advocates to becoming a victim of overzealous or spiteful actions, depending on who you ask. It is interesting to see the flux of outrage and noise in the marketplace. If...
How come no one missed her for three days on the plantation on which I work, The University of the West Indies (UWI)? As I said last week, in my discussion of the obligation attorneys now have to report their clients’ breach of the Proceeds of...
While we reject accusations that the Integrity Commission (IC) behaved with deliberate malice against Prime Minister (PM) Andrew Holness, there is little doubt that it bungled the handling of a ruling by its prosecutor exculpating the PM from...
Recent incidents of criminals robbing automated teller machines (ATMs) are cause for concern for the banking sector and its customers who perceive that they could also become targets when they try to use the service. In one daring incident, a...
Rape, and other forms of sexual violence against women in war and conflict, represent one of the great silences and suppressed issues in modern-day history. Yet, women remain the greatest victims of war and other forms of conflict in many parts of...
If my Uncle Jacket had a big stone in his hand, or my father a shotgun, they would have destroyed both the radio and the BBC when it announced that people everywhere were celebrating Valentine’s Day. They were in the rum shop and the radio was on...
Having been exculpated by the prosecutor at the Integrity Commission (IC) of unethically facilitating the award of contracts to a colleague and friend while he was education minister, Prime Minister Andrew Holness should be even more cognisant of...
I wrote my first regular column for this newspaper on February 17, 1993, which makes today my 30th anniversary as a Gleaner opinion writer. I began on Wednesdays, taking over the space (I never attempted to fill the shoes) of Professor Carl Stone...
The Caribbean was a major global innovator in 2022. From our politicians and diplomats steering international policy in New York during the UN General Assembly and UN climate conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, to the development of key...
WHEN THE news broke two weeks ago that Jamaica had improved its Transparency International Corruption Perception Index score, there was an initial reaction of buoyant optimism that we were beginning to turn the corner. That optimism was quickly...
It is a pity that Paula Llewellyn did not carefully take stock before going off half-cocked over Dennis Mundell’s seemingly light jail sentence for the unauthorised possession of a firearm and ammunition. Because Ms Llewellyn, on the face of it,...
IT IS estimated that 1.4 billion students worldwide were affected by school closures during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and 1.8 million-plus hours of learning were lost during the same period. In Jamaica, these global figures manifested in...
Published:Wednesday | February 15, 2023 | 12:54 AM
Jamaica is joining the USA and Canada in observing February as Black History Month and I am addressing Haiti again. As usual, we will talk about the Haitian Revolution, 1791-1804, making it the first black independent republic, and we will...
Published:Wednesday | February 15, 2023 | 12:25 AM
The National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) has in limited circulation a presentation titled ‘Review of the Draft Noise Planning Policy Guidelines (NPPG)’. The presentation contains suggestions for consideration and decision by the Town and...
Published:Wednesday | February 15, 2023 | 12:21 AM
As this newspaper reported on Sunday, officials at Jamaica’s tertiary institutions, like their counterparts around the world, are grappling with how to respond to ChatGPT, the chatbot that produces artificial intelligence-generated, high-quality...
Jamaica’s past decade of often painful but disciplined fiscal reform is proving its worth. Although badly stressed by the COVID-19 pandemic (it declined 11 per cent in the 2020-2021 fiscal year) the economy, cushioned by lower debt ratios and...
Over in Apocrypha, that fantasyland in a faraway Galaxy, R.U. Shaw seemed to be spending more time in old friend Oma D’unn’s office than ever. It was only recently Oma advised R.U. to reduce road fatalities by buying a physics book (January 10; T...
The death of the popular American hip-hop dancer, actor, and television personality Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss late last year surprised and shocked many, and over the past few weeks in Jamaica, I have heard of three men taking their own lives. Both...
That the administration is finally about to acquire body-worn cameras for police officers, in sufficient numbers to make a difference to operational transparency, is a positive development. But the 600 bodycams the government plans to buy over the...
This is Budget week. The big yellow book and the smaller one detailing how the public bodies are going to spend your money are sacred documents. Sacred! Why so? Because every line of expenditure reflects a principle of governance, evidence of how...
The numerous and chronic fraudulent activities (thefts) at Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL) have affected Jamaica in several ways. Some were directly impacted, while others (including the diaspora who support relatives and/or invest here) were...
Just over a decade ago, Michael ‘Freestylee’ Thompson, one of Jamaica’s most accomplished graphic designers, had an absolutely brilliant idea. He conceived an international poster contest that would celebrate the global influence of Jamaican...
Thomas Jennings was an American inventor, abolitionist and entrepreneur. He was born a free man in 1791 and became the first black patent holder in history. Jennings was a tailor by profession who later developed a dry-cleaning process called dry...
When entering the school, children are almost guaranteed to walk down an aisle, greeted with bright colours, enticing smells and vendors competing for their attention to purchase something, anything, from their stalls. Your child has already...
The yawning wage gap between Jamaica’s men and women, highlighted last week by the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI), is a profoundly moral, economic and, this newspaper believes, constitutional issue that requires urgent action by the...
