Published:Wednesday | November 17, 2021 | 12:06 AM
By the standards of his last two predecessors, the speed of Joe Biden’s nomination of Nick Perry to be the US ambassador to Jamaica was lightning fast. It took 16 months, after his inauguration in January 2009, for President Barack Obama to name...
In a hurriedly called Sunday morning press conference, Prime Minister Andrew Holness seemed to suggest that the current crime wave has finally rattled the Government. This is understandable because the Holness Administration set as one of its “...
In June, MPs fought over George Wright’s seating arrangements like church members or primary school students. The Speaker, again seemingly suffering from political anxiety, overruled Mark Golding’s appropriate objections and ordered the Opposition...
Next month will make it two years since COVID-19 was first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO). Unfortunately, we are still being plagued by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the infection, as surges continue to occur. Widespread...
Unkind folks and cynics might be tempted to cast Duane Smith as a Rip Van Winkle of sorts: jumping awake to notice that the world has changed around him. And much of what he awakes to, he does not think is good. Except that Mr Smith was not asleep...
Our frequent macabre and brazen murders are causing many citizens to crave the return of capital punishment in Jamaica. We used to hang some convicted murderers, but that came to an indefinite pause when, in November of 1993, the Privy Council...
I just wish Edwin Leopold Allen could be reincarnated right now. His straight-thinking, rasping spirit would see through the folly of the unenforceable and unaffordable sixth-form mandate which is being forced on us. ‘Teacher’s’ own life and...
Private sector developers can afford to sell housing units that cost an arm and a leg. Their business is profit, pure and simple. As long as they can find buyers, they will continue to keep their prices sky high. I wonder, though, who is shelling...
For those who have repeatedly spurned and ridiculed doctors who have promoted the use of repurposed drugs for the treatment of COVID-19, I hope you have been following the news of late. Blockbuster company Moderna has seen its share price slump by...
Bold and starting out like a ‘hero’, he makes us ask ‘Y’ at the end. Member of Parliament for St James Central Heroy Clarke stunned the country with a knee-jerk delivery, influenced by the research of my brother and colleague, anthropologist Dr...
FW de Klerk left what might have been his morally most consequential act until after his death: an unequivocal apology for the immorality of apartheid and the “pain and the hurt and the indignity and the damage” it caused “to black, brown, and...
Twelve years ago, a policymaker called me and suggested that the situation of paternity fraud (giving ‘jackets’) was an embarrassment to Jamaicans and that we might need to fund paternity testing at birth. I told him that the idea was callous, and...
Public transportation has been called the great artery from which a society’s lifeblood flows. The majority of city dwellers rely on public transport to move them efficiently and safely to transact business, for work, for school, for recreational...
Small island states are experiencing global warming in ways that most of us can barely imagine. From the Pacific to the Caribbean, these tiny nations, already highly vulnerable, are being battered by hurricanes and rising sea levels; their...
There are very few days when the English language does not speak to me in tongues, and in Trinidad you will often hear the explanation for any issue that “Is tong say so”. Pronounced this way, 'tong' is 'Town', which is short for the capital city...
There would be few who would disagree that Jamaica’s education system is in urgent need of reform. The evidence is clear: • A 2015 study in Westmoreland by the Early Childhood Commission identified 43 per cent of children in basic/infant...
Gear up, boys and girls! Mandatory sixth form is here. Many of you, like me, are suffering from a type of psychological fatigue from the excessive use of the word ‘mandatory’, since we have been hearing it very often lately and in some very...
It is inexplicable why politicians so often leave obvious infractions to fester until they become gangrenous, as was the case, until lately, with the Holness administration’s handling of the share-buying scandal at the Airports Authority of Jamaica...
THE IDEA of keeping Jamaican students in secondary education for an additional two years has ebbed and flowed for decades, since Edward Seaga, the former Jamaica Labour Party prime minister, opened the discussion in the 1980s. Ronnie Thwaites...
MY RECENT suggestion that in light of the reported gruesome saga at that church in Paradise, Montego Bay, Church and State need to work together at a list of minimum criteria for any religious group within the country, no doubt shocked many. The...
IN A recent tribute that I wrote for the late Dr William Foster, I received a number of comments from readers who were not only familiar with the good doctor’s good work, but were also very familiar with the story I shared about that historic 1991...
Published:Wednesday | November 10, 2021 | 12:06 AM
If the Integrity Commission (IC) acts on Phillip Paulwell’s suggestion – as it should – and drafts guidelines for the conduct of paid lobbyists, those recommendations should be broadened to cover legislators who promote private commercial interests...
Following the recent demise of Pastor Kevin Smith, comparisons have been drawn between him and Alexander Bedward. But are such comparisons relevant or valid? Some people argue that Smith should not be compared to Bedward, for the latter didn’t...
Published:Wednesday | November 10, 2021 | 12:06 AM
There seems to be a view that not much is happening at the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), which includes the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM), and in their relationship with the European Union (EU). That would be wrong....
The Old Ball and Chain found another bee lodged in her extensive bonnet. Old BC: I can’t believe Old Grey Balls allowed National Water Commission (NWC) to get away with trying to cover up its irresponsibility without comment. He’s rabbiting on...
