John McWhorter, who writes a column in The New York Times, tells a story which might help in understanding Russian attitudes towards Ukraine, as well as partially explains Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the neighbouring country. Mr McWhorter had...
Last week, Mrs Fayval Williams, the minister of education, told the nation that her reports indicate a resumption of the pre-COVID-19 average school attendance of 75 per cent of students. That is appalling. It means that upwards of 100,000 children...
It was only recently that I learnt that an indeterminate number of Jamaican men and women were making the run for the [American] border by going through Mexico. They see Jamaica as an unsafe, dangerous, and futureless ‘hell’. They planned to...
Prime Minister Andrew Holness is unlikely to have been erecting straw men against whom to mount attacks. So,Mr Holness needs to clarify his recent remarks about English as Jamaica’s language of work and the context and circumstances of use of...
The 46th annual conference of the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) will be held online from May 30 to June 3. It should have been live and direct here in Kingston. But like so many other events, the conference has been dislocated by the pandemic...
An empire that falls to an external enemy can rise again because it is still whole, but an empire that crumbles from within cannot be rebuilt. This statement aptly describes the vulnerability of the American Empire of today. The divisions within...
A police officer once told a ‘Teflon don’, a man who kept escaping capture and charges, many times by the skin of his protruding front teeth, “You have to be lucky all of the time: I only need to get lucky once.” It is mathematics, if one keeps...
Education is the primary vehicle of social and economic mobility for the vast majority of Jamaicans. Sadly, the longstanding underachievement of our education system continues to stymie the advancement of the very majority who are critical to the...
A week ago, this newspaper noted the clear link between the Patterson Commission’s report on reforming Jamaica’s education system and the proposed law being reviewed by a parliamentary committee for regulating the teaching profession. Yet, it is...
Until that stunning breach of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leadership, it was beyond imagination that any entity within the Commonwealth could even for a moment contemplate assailing their country’s constitutional provisions to compel clinging to...
They may be the most vocal, opinionated and, often, the most stubborn among us, but their choices are limited, or driven, like their lives, in the direction that their parents move. Therein lies the potential for fixing, or heading off, another...
The Agri-Investment Forum, held in Guyana from May 19 to 21, was arguably the most successful engagement by CARICOM leaders in the last 15 years. The forum was held amid an enlarging global calamity that combines high prices for oil with shortages...
American journalist Max Lerner might have been writing this specifically for the present prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago (PMOTT), Keith Rowley, “The politics of surprise leads through the Gates of Astonishment into the Kingdom of Hope.” In...
Maybe they bend to blandishments. Whatever it is, Jamaica’s regulatory agencies fail perennially to fulfil their obligations, reacting only after the horse has bolted and there is a public outcry. The National Environment and Planning Agency (...
In just over two months Jamaica will mark 60 years as a country independent of the shackles of a colonial master. Inevitably, we will look back and assess our progress – or lack thereof – at paddling our own canoe. Our two political tribes rarely...
Fathers must be held to their full responsibility as parents. They are not backup or reserve parents waiting to be called in from the bench. However, I am afraid the society itself which so hypocritically lambastes fathers for not meeting a...
NELSON MANDELA would not give two hoots about the size of a park named in his honour, or if the space is really only “a little median” between two thoroughfares. What Mr Mandela would care about is that the park, any park, or similar public...
A cursory glance at newspaper headlines across the Caribbean paints a grim picture of the impact of gender-based violence (GBV) in the region, particularly violence against women and girls: ‘Woman hacked to death at home’; ‘Cop convicted of raping...
AS A Jamaican who often supports our local tourism industry by taking a break from home and staying in a hotel, I have become concerned with the standard of hospitality displayed post COVID-19 pandemic lock-down period. In the past year, I have...
In confirming Trinidad and Tobago’s support for Jamaica’s Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Senator Kamina Johnson Smith for Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said on Sunday that T...
Jamaica’s policymakers and bureaucrats often have a cockeyed, upside-down way of going about things. Take, for example, last week’s announcement by the education minister, Fayval Williams, that the University Council of Jamaica (UCJ) will soon...
“Workers are indispensable to national development. They make a critical contribution to regional and international trade. Workers need more effective representation.” In the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the month of May focuses...
I’m indebted to The Beast for today’s lesson from the Book of Oma. In Apocrypha, our favourite Fantasyland, where celebrities hold hands with royalty and political opponents are friends, Health Minister Criss Tufftimes’ head was spinning. Not so...
It is so easy to judge women who have had abortions. It is easy to call them careless, irresponsible, cruel, wicked and sinful. You have a right to disapprove of abortion, and you have a right to express your disapproval. If you are one of those...
The least Prime Minister Andrew Holness can do is have Parliament, as Lisa Hanna has called for, debate the 2020 report by its human resource and social development committee (HRSDC) on abortion. Preferably, though, Mr Holness should immediately...
