In recent years, more and more Jamaicans have been lured to participate in the work-and-travel programme in the United States. While there is no doubt that it has yielded financial benefits for some, there is another more sinister aspect of the...
Nearly two months in, the Atlantic hurricane season has not yet churned up a killer storm to wreak the Caribbean. And so far, the region has not suffered the scorching summer temperatures and prolonged droughts that have occurred in recent decades...
In a world where people compete for fame, celebrity, and notoriety like how newborns struggle for their first breath, Allan George Kirton’s life offered us an alternative to the dominant obsessive, individualised, material paradigm. He was a...
While living overseas in the early 2000s I kept up to date with issues in my Jamaican homeland by listening to the daily radio shows, in particular Wilmot ‘Mutty’ Perkins. It was while hearing his response to one of his many callers that I was...
Prime Minister Andrew Holness is right that no child should be excluded from school because of the failure of a parent to pay any fee, tuition or otherwise, imposed by the institution – if there is indeed such a plan by head teachers. But the fact...
“By 2030, the youth population is set to increase by more than 78 million. At a time when the world of education and work is undergoing fundamental changes, we must reimagine our education systems and position the learner at the core of the...
In times of trouble, leadership can’t afford the luxury of fatigue. Unless it is that Jamaica’s health officials believe the crisis and troubles of the COVID-19 pandemic are over and well past. Either way, it is not an unreasonable inference of the...
The Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), in its relationship with the Caribbean, engages in the context of the OACPS Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM), which includes Cuba and the Dominican Republic. CARIFORUM operates out of...
It was a crime most heinous. A woman, Kemesha Wright, and her four children, comprising three girls and one boy, were found with their throats slashed at their home in the New Road community in Clarendon. The news sent waves of shock and horror...
It is not unreasonable that the People’s National Party (PNP) wants to know the full cost of, and who paid the bill for, Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith’s failed bid, including its slick, American-style campaign, to become the secretary...
Jamaica’s politics seems to be descending into a crass contest among spokespersons saying the dumbest things in the dumbest ways. It gets worse. Hardcore followers, brainwashed to see and blind, hear and deaf, and speak only in worshipful tones,...
There is a most fundamental question that many persons who are exposed to Christianity seem to gloss over, and yet their answer to it, if they should consider it, reveals a lot about their concept of the God of the Bible, whether they perceive God to be loving or cruel.
After the World Athletics Championships ends in the United States city of Eugene, Oregon, on Sunday, among the things that must be urgently on the agenda of the sport’s governing body, World Athletics, is a serious consideration about whether the...
Dr Adrian Stokes, chairman of the Education Transformation Oversight Committee, which is to monitor the implementation of the Education Transformation Report (conveniently referred to as the Patterson Report), offers a very conservative view of...
Despite the Internet and our ability to have many forms of telecommuting, banking, marketing, teaching/learning, consultations, meetings and medicine, modern society demands great mobility. Many of our major roadways that link large areas of our...
The Government should be especially mindful of the danger of an irretrievable lack of trust in their constitutional reform agenda by putting forward an embryonic plan with the peculiar proposal for a ‘review’ of the new and improved Charter of...
At their summit in Suriname earlier this month, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders promised to pursue energy security for the community by, among other things, “utilising and harnessing hydrocarbon resources in the region towards reducing...
My last two columns on language provoked so much contention on the Gleaner’s website. In response to “Language lessons at the pharmacy”, this is what ‘Words 100’ posted: “I understand that you have retired or been retired as a teacher at UWI. If...
My child would have been 31 years old now had the Government decided to implement some of the recommendations I made regarding the importance of paternity leave. It is uncertain if Minister of Finance and Public Service Dr Nigel Clarke had...
Put away your COVID-19 decorations, it’s monkeypox season! Despite the jokes made in poor taste, and the memes that are actually funny, monkeypox is no joke – it has been around for decades. It was over 40 years ago when it was first identified in...
The increase of maternity leave and the introduction of paternity leave for public sector workers are laudable policy directions indicative of a desire to improve development outcomes, particularly in relation to health and economic benefits to...
The fight for the post of leader of the ruling Conservative Party in Britain and for the presidency of the United States is bringing the question of women and race into sharp focus. The fact that women – and non-white women – are strong contenders...
In October 2014, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History in which he detailed the life of the former prime minister, Sir Winston Churchill. The review in the Daily Telegraph was, “Johnson is...
Daryl Vaz, the energy minister, owes Jamaicans a fuller, and more compelling, case for pulling the plug, temporarily he said, on a parliamentary committee that was reviewing the Electricity Act and the likelihood that it will further delay the...
In last week’s column, There is a feminism without abortion, I began to share the interview given to New York Times columnist Ezra Klein by feminist and legal scholar Dr. Erika Bachiochi. She argues in her 2021 book, The Rights of Women:...
