The 12th session of the Ministerial Conference (MC12) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) concluded in the wee hours of the morning on Friday, June 17, after days and sleepless nights of negotiations to stitch together consensus on several key...
Jamaica’s media and their journalists should be deeply disquieted by the decision by Britain’s Home Affairs Minister Priti Patel to extradite Julian Assange, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks, to the United States to face espionage charges. The...
It is good that Jamaicans now know that the finance minister, Dr Nigel Clarke, was “instinctively uncomfortable’’ that the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) could not disclose how much it is paying De La Rue for printing Jamaica’s new currency notes because...
That the Government, in the face of the court’s findings in the Roshaine Clarke case, is further reviewing the regulations governing the state of emergency (SOE) in the parish of St Catherine – announced last Friday – is quite logical. After all...
Over in our favourite fantasyland, Apocrypha, National Security Minister Harris Ch’iang was at his wit’s end. Yes, wit’s not wits’. After all, nobody would ever suggest Harris was anything less than an entire wit. But Apocrypha’s violent crime...
In late 2019, I was asked to address the grade-five and grade-six boys at a popular preparatory school in St Andrew. It was Boys’ Day at the institution, a day when girls stay home (the converse happens on Girls’ Day) and boys gather and interact...
Again last week, the chief justice ‘had to’ slap the minister for the implicit insult to the judiciary by inferring that judges are loose and irresponsible in granting bail. Any practitioner can attest that getting bail for a person on a serious...
The Gleaner headline of Wednesday, June 15, ‘KSAMC, NEPA take flak for building breach chaos’, got my attention because I literally grew up in the Kingston and St. Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC). My father was employed there almost all his...
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries could, as their leaders hope, sharply lift their agricultural output in the next few years. That of itself, however, won’t guarantee success in slashing the region’s food import bill by 25 per cent by...
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail” – Abraham Maslow The Gleaner’s June 14 editorial sometimes argues with itself. On other occasions it creates and then attacks the proverbial...
The turmoil in the world’s oil markets, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Jamaica’s energy minister, Daryl Vaz, observed recently, is causing many countries, including his own, to consider the fast-tracking efforts to expand their use of...
“Where will we go, when di quarantine ting done and everybody touch road?” asked Koffee in her anthem that resonated with so many suffering in the throes of cabin fever during the curfews and lockdowns. Now that the lockdowns are gone and our noses...
CHAKA-CHAKA SPELLING Sunday gone, bashment a Ormsby Hall. Inna 1932, one Gleaner ad did call Ormsby “the coolest entertainment hall in Kingston.” It pop down now. It can build up back. Di online literature magazine PREE keep one show wid nine...
Having had a snack of jackfruit and papaya, then finger food of saltfish and crackers, while sipping two stouts at the Senior Common Room (SCR) Bar, one of my female colleagues gave me a warm embrace, which lasted 30 seconds. A blush of lipstick,...
With reports of cybercriminals targeting local bank networks, customers are understandably feeling vulnerable that they, too, might become targets in the future. Cybercrime, to include online banking, is complicated. There are three critical groups...
When my son asked me for a pair of Reebok basketball shoes costing US $160, I made it clear, “Son, you have the name wrong. At that price, they are not Reebok, they are Reebucks and big bucks at that.” I added, “Your grandfather used to quarrel...
As beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so is success or failure measured by the beneficiary or the overlooked. Summits of the Americas, from the time they were initiated by the administration of the US in 1994, have overlooked the Caribbean....
The bloody saga playing out in Spanish Town has reinforced my conviction not to support the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) or the People’s National Party (PNP). For decades much of the criminal activity in Spanish Town and its environs has been...
A number of prominent dancehall artistes are currently serving prison time for gun-related crimes. One dancehall producer was recently charged in connection with a triple murder in St. James, and, at around the same time, a prominent trap dancehall...
Jamaica has signed on to the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) plan to reduce the community’s food import bill by at least a quarter by 2025. That is only three years hence, which is not a long time. Yet, it is not obvious that the Jamaican...
A simple definition of ‘sovereignty’ is as follows: “A political concept that refers to a dominant power or supreme authority. In a monarchy, supreme power resides in the ‘sovereign’, or king. In modern democracies, sovereign power rests with the...
“In the end, we will only conserve what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” Baba Dioum, 1968 In the early ‘60s, when my father was the president of Rotary, his passion was to improve...
Jamaica owes a debt to the late Sarah Newland-Martin, whose passionate campaign for disability rights has helped in many ways to change attitudes towards persons with disabilities. Her death at age 75, on June 8, has revived memories of her...
There is a place for diversion programmes to steer vulnerable young people away from, or out of, criminal gangs. Such projects have had success in several countries. But that is different from asking key institutions of the State, especially its...
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party is in an angry mood. They want him out. He barely escaped being ousted but there is no guarantee how long he will last. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Johnson rose to power perhaps promising...
