Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest storms to hit Jamaica, has exposed the vulnerabilities of the country’s disaster preparedness and planning. The storm uncovered gaps in planning, coordination and long-term investment in resilience, which...
Hurricane Melissa’s disastrous effects on people, homes, businesses and communities heighten our awareness of the need for cleaning and sanitisation as an integral part of recovery. Foremost on our minds are health and safety. In this recent...
Jasmine Crockett, a 44-year-old American lawyer, focusing on legislation to improve the lives of everyday working people, said about Trump, the 47th President of the United States (US) made it clear, “I want the American people to know that when...
Last Wednesday, the same happy crew as last week (with two additions) journeyed to the west with relief supplies for some of those affected by the winds and rain of Category 5 Hurricane Melissa. This time we went to the badly affected community of...
Over the weekend, I visited a hospital in Kingston and happened to have a discussion with a doctor who was on duty. The doctor was fully dressed in army gear and was clearly an employee of the JDF. While we spoke, he shared that due to the...
Letter writer, Pastor Daniel Singh’s, suggestion that Jamaica lean on cruise shippers to use their vessels to temporarily accommodate people displaced by Hurricane Melissa is unlikely to gain traction. That’s not because the idea is conceptually...
Kingston’s mayor, Andrew Swaby, advanced a truism with his call this week for an update of Jamaica’s small building code in the wake of Hurricane Melissa that caused widespread devastation in the west of the island. However, this observation ought...
I HAVE seen death and destruction throughout my life but what has been experienced in Western Jamaica because of Hurricane Melissa cannot be described in mere words. The loss of life, the greatest of the tragedies, the destruction of homes,...
WE ARE now in Week Three since Hurricane Melissa tore through the left end of Jamaica, leaving the island quite literally a tale of two halves. At one end, mosquitoes, tarpaulins, dark nights and dry pipes compete to compound the misery of Westend-...
Published:Wednesday | November 12, 2025 | 12:27 AM
The decision by the auditor general (AuG) to conduct real-time audits of foreign aid to Jamaica in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa is a welcome move that need not add bureaucracy to, or delay, the distribution of relief to people in need, as...
Published:Wednesday | November 12, 2025 | 12:11 AM
FROM STUDIES now done, Hurricane Mellissa is being assessed as the third most intense Atlantic/Caribbean hurricane when it made landfall on Jamaica’s southwest coast on Tuesday, October 28. Some analysts are basing their conclusions on the fact...
Published:Wednesday | November 12, 2025 | 12:11 AM
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows!” —William Shakespeare, The Tempest SHOULD JAMAICA continue to pay the International Monetary Fund (IMF) while its people starve in the wake of the severe devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa?...
Bad news comes in threes as Melissa, then her aftermath, were two of the worst but now the Old Ball and Chain is outraged at Digicel. So we’ve no choice but to experience a third storm. Old BC: I don’t know why Old Grey Balls is being so...
Last week, the presidents of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association (JMEA) and the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) wrote a letter to Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness regarding the...
As Jamaicans continue to dig their way out of the massive disaster left by Hurricane Melissa, this newspaper is also paying attention to the COP30 climate conference in Belém, Brazil. For what happens in Belém will help to determine not just how...
Unless the recommended restructuring of the government’s disaster management system was only for a change of its top leader, last week’s shake-up at the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) in the midst of the agency’s...
In these trying times for the environmental movement, it can sometimes feel impossible to find the (solar-powered) light. In September the International Day of Preservation of the Ozone Layer (or World Ozone Day), we remembered one of the world’s...
In the previous articles in this series, I expressed the opinion that at present it appears that Jamaica will change from a monarchical form of Constitution to a republican form but that the parliamentary cabinet system will be retained. Should...
The Minister is right. Each local school board has the practical and legal responsibility to determine how and when to resume school after Melissa.The role of government is to harvest the most urgent needs of each institution and to respond to...
Melissa, the horrendously intense category 5 hurricane that smashed through western Jamaica nearly a fortnight ago, did not simply tear up infrastructure and take lives. Although plenty of that happened. Indeed, so far, 32 people are known to have...
Some of the main aspects of Jamaica’s relationship with the United States of America within the Caribbean Sea are governed by the Agreement Concerning Cooperation in Suppressing Illicit Maritime Drug Trafficking between both countries. This...
Sunday is a day of rest for them, because the popular Jamaican folk song reports; our turkey vultures, “John Crow, say him no wuk pon Sunday.” Her logic might sound as if sucked into the eye of hurricane Melissa. However, during the press briefing...
Category 5 hurricane Melissa was described as “catastrophic” as it approached our shores, and then rapidly transformed from a tropical storm into a monstrous hurricane packing wind gusts of up to 387.85 kph (241 mph). That speed was recorded at a...
Jamaica has been placed in what is, perhaps, the weakest qualification group – Jamaica, Bermuda, Curaçao and Trinidad and Tobago – ever created in the history of the World Cup. If the Reggae Boyz do not qualify from this group, they should be...
The first time I met Jamaicans at Canada Hall of The University of the West Indies (UWI) in Trinidad, initially, it was scary. I had just become the hall chairman when a huge Jamaican youth was coming at me, screaming angrily at the top of his...
