Ninety miles separates Cuba from the coast of Florida. Less than a hundred miles separates Jamaica from Cuba. As the drumbeat of American political rhetoric grows louder toward Havana, the Government of Jamaica appears to be sleepwalking into one...
Artificial intelligence is moving faster than many of our institutions, laws, and public conversations. It is already influencing how people access information, how governments and businesses make decisions, how students learn, and how societies...
Whenever United Oil and Gas, a UK-based company with exploration rights in Jamaica, announces progress in its offshore exploration, a flurry of excitement ripples through Jamaica’s media and other public commentators. The Minister of Energy,...
Jamaica’s Noise Abatement Act of 1997 is up for review. Although noise is never musical, music can be [very] noisy. Loud music can be extremely invasive, disturbing, intensely unpleasant, blatantly clamorous, conspicuously offensive, and harmful to...
Although he went to Rabalac, Fedrick Dacres is one of the closest athletes to me ever. He and Kai Chang are such decent human beings who love their sport and their country. It was a proud struggle watching them balance their studies, work and...
The decision by World Athletics to block 11 athletes, including four Jamaicans, from changing their allegiance to Türkiye will, if not overturned, place greater pressure on major domestic sports overseers to look after the economic wellbeing of...
There isn’t a handle on the true scale of autism in Jamaica. It is estimated that one in 100 children (one per cent) is diagnosed with the disorder. The absence of hard data is allowing the scale of the issue to be underestimated, but leads to...
In Trinidad, when I was three years old, my aunt taught me to read from her daily English newspaper. Even then, I loved words and the world they opened to me. In my boyish days, I played with the information I learnt in articles, stories and...
As with all my commentaries, this one is strictly in my personal capacity, drawing on more than 50 years of engagement with Caribbean affairs and a lifelong commitment to the cause of regional integration. I do not speak on behalf of any government...
Thousands of Americans will soon gather to celebrate April 20 – or "4/20" – the most important day of the year for cannabis enthusiasts. But this year, a cloud of uncertainty will hang over these celebrations. After years of success, the movement...
Speaking at the inaugural Americas Counter Cartel Conference on March 5, at US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) headquarters in Doral, Florida (Jamaica was among the 17 countries present), Peter Brian “Pete” Hegseth, US Secretary of War, announced that...
Autism in Jamaica is a matter of structural failure across the very systems meant to carry a life from early childhood into adulthood. Because the truth is this: autism does not end in childhood, it grows up. It becomes the 32-year-old woman still...
The disclosure of the University Hospital of the West Indies’ (UHWI) J$18 billion debt to Jamaica’s tax authorities, adds another titillating bit to the tales of impunity and dysfunction the auditor general told in her recent report on the...
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is grappling with a protracted period of regional tensions, tied to the new normal in international politics. In some respects, this moment is the bloc’s toughest test yet. At a time when the unity of...
It is not surprising that many people, including some regional governments, are having second thoughts about the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) endorsement of Trinidad and Tobago for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council....
Let’s get this out of the way early. What is happening in the Middle East is a sad, disheartening and completely regrettable waste of human life and property. Over the past six weeks, the region has looked like a match dropped in a room already...
Sickle cell disease (SCD) affects an estimated 18,000 persons in Jamaica. Common complications include chronic fatigue, frequent infections, severe pain, and damage to vital organs. While many people know about the physical pain, far fewer...
The Gleaner's Editorial on Monday, April 13, made an important intervention as it discussed the ideal role of the financial sector in advancing Jamaica's development prospects. It noted that as the country experienced a structural shift towards a...
For supporters of regional integration, as expressed by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), 2025 was, as Queen Elizabeth II characterised 1992, an annus horribilis. Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, branded CARICOM a...
Smoke curls from a wattle-and-daub, thatched-roof kren-kren in Epsom, St Mary, as the sun rises over terraced hillsides. Descendants of the Coromantee Maroons survive here through discipline, memory, and ingenuity. Crops cling to carefully...
Since January, it seems that the news has been full of war, military action, more than usual. We have had military activities continuing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, the Caribbean, Venezuela, and in Iran. While all this is happening,...
…New NHT incentives and rising costs are changing how Jamaicans must prepare to enter the housing market A long-standing question facing first-time buyers, whether to approach a real estate agent or a lender first, has taken on new urgency in...
Global trends underline the logic of renewed calls for Jamaica to strengthen technical and vocational education and training (TVET). However, it is not clear that policymakers, educators, or other participants in the discourse have found – or...
On February 28, the US and Israel launched an unprovoked bombing attack on Iran. The country was engaged in negotiations regarding its nuclear programme at the time, but the aggressors claimed it was on the verge of manufacturing nuclear weapons,...
In Apocrypha, our favourite fantasyland farther away than Artemis II travelled, political consultant Oma D’unn was having a busy week. Last week, Opposition Party Promises Not Performance (PNP) Leader, Bark Balding, consulted Oma on how to combat...
