“Pick a side,” she said, clearly irritated by my commentaries regarding the management of COVID-19. My friend of many years, whom I love and respect dearly, was taking me to task about my public remarks concerning the pandemic, and accusing me of “...
A news report last week by this newspaper was emblematic of how Jamaica behaves towards its disabled citizens as well as underlined the aggressive leadership role the Government has to take if attitudes that cause people with disabilities to be...
We can only conclude that the police, enabled by the Government, their declarations to the contrary notwithstanding, are resistant or deliberately slow with respect to the introduction and use of body-worn cameras. This matter has been on the...
The violent and confused underbelly of Jamaican culture has been on full display last week with the unfolding assertions about corruption at the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA) and the consideration in Parliament of tougher sentences for illegal...
Our planet, the only home that we have, is in serious trouble. However, to be more accurate, we are in serious trouble. When our kind becomes extinct, we shall have left the planet in an ecological mess; the planet will breathe a deep sigh of...
Monday, February 14, 2022 constituted a critical juncture in Jamaica. It signalled the coming into effect of one of the most far-reaching pieces of social legislation to be implemented in the country since the Child Care and Protection Act of 1998...
There is at least one front on which 2022 has started well for the constabulary, which this newspaper celebrates and hopes it continues. Up to the middle of last week the police, they reported, had seized 226 illegal firearms, an increase of 23 per...
When the first firearms were introduced to Jamaica, they were muskets; to discharge them, you needed not just lots of powder but balls made of iron. This is Jamaica; not the United States. The Second Amendment to their Constitution reads, “A well...
The Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA) is once again in the news over allegations of past and present corruption. It is obvious that Messrs Meadows and Dalling have personal vendettas against each other. Both have traded barbs publicly. Nothing has...
CHAKA-CHAKA SPELLING Pon Bob Marley birthday, February 6, Queen Elizabeth start celebrate fi her 70 year Jubilee. Di two 6 clash inna Reggae Month. She a di first queen or king deh pon di throne fi so long. An party a go keep fi one whole-a year...
There has been a troubling development in relations between the US and the 14 independent nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). In the absence of a clear US government strategy for the Caribbean, on February 7, a bill, ‘The Western...
Jane Austen and her books, Anne Frank with her diary, Maya Angelou, the poet who fought for civil rights, Elizabeth ‘The Virgin Queen’ of England, and Marie Curie, the first female to win a Nobel prize, are among the greatest women of all time....
In retrospect, this newspaper was wrong in 2016 when it supported an online petition for the then United States (US) President Barack Obama to pardon Marcus Garvey, and expressed our deep disappointment that the document fell woefully short of the...
Now that Robert Morgan is full minister and has de facto charge of the information portfolio, he should drive hard for the implementation of the long-outstanding upgrades to the Access to Information (ATI) Act. He mustn’t accept that Parliament...
I don’t think we have taken the time to think about the seemingly more innocuous things that may have been fuelling vaccine hesitancy. Governments and other influencers have used some of the most counterintuitive prodding to get persons to...
Jamaica prides itself as being a Christian country, although there clearly is no consensus on what that means. Not only do we (allegedly) have more church buildings than any other country in the world, but probably more different Christian...
THERE IS opportunity in every crisis. You just need to look at where to find it. Take even this global COVID-19 crisis that just refuses to go away. Now, at the risk of sounding heretic, COVID has actually brought some amount of good that I hope...
URBANISATION BECOMES heightened with the allowances for higher densities and larger buildings in Kingston. How is this linked to improvements in Kingston’s urban infrastructure? High density is generally achieved by building vertically, resulting...
ANDREW HOLNESS is not the first Jamaican prime minister or political person to have either hitched a ride, or been invited to be a guest on the private aircraft of a rich person to attend an occasion outside the island, for which the Jamaican...
Published:Wednesday | February 16, 2022 | 12:06 AM
It is not obvious what is the real mischief that Ian Neita and the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) want to address with the call for the Government to end the practice of establishing a national minimum wage, except to be slaves to an extreme...
Published:Wednesday | February 16, 2022 | 12:06 AM
Jamaica’s economy, adjusted for price changes and inflation, declined by -10.10 per cent in 2020. (See table below.) With this drastic decline, we are seeing the reality of the “bang-belly economy” that Audley Shaw warned of in 2013, a cruel...
Published:Wednesday | February 16, 2022 | 12:05 AM
Foreign ministers of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) travelled to Barranquilla in Colombia for the second CARICOM/Colombia Ministerial Summit on January 28. The first summit was held in June 2019. This second summit was co-chaired by host,...
As usual, Jamaica’s lack of leadership is showing. It’s all rabble rabble, rabble, squabble, squabble. Lawyers representing a traumatised young lady squabble interminably over DPP’s ruling on every available media, instead of challenging it in...
Recently, during a speech at the handover of COVID-19 home test kits to tourism workers, Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton announced that there will be an events calendar for a series of happenings over the next three to four...
If the residents of Portmore, St Catherine, do not pay attention, they will soon be victims of a great travesty. Or, some might claim, a political con, the reason for which remains to be fully understood. Based on a resolution passed by Parliament...
