Since my return from school in England in 2007, I have research/covered every general election. During this period, three connected characteristics of young voters have fascinated me: growing apathy, growing incidence of vote selling, and an...
The Global Findex database provides more than 200 indicators on topics such as account ownership, payments, saving, credit and financial resilience. The Global Findex database shows that 515 million adults worldwide opened an account at a financial...
Prime Minister Andrew Holness is right. It is easier said than done in enforcing protocols to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But that is not the case only for celebrity parties and other entertainment events. Which, we are sure, was not the case...
The candidates for the post of director general (DG) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are now well into the campaign phase, making themselves known to the members. This two-month phase will end on September 7. The next phase will commence when...
I wear several hats. In recent weeks I have donned another – campaign manager for the People’s National Party (PNP) in St Catherine. Having declared that potential conflict of interest, which resulted in the intentional absence of my articles until...
We are living in some unprecedented times, with COVID-19 disrupting the normal course of our lives. The worst hit in all this are the small businesses, which are facing an uphill task to keep themselves operational. As part of the ongoing American...
Last month marked the 120th anniversary of the first pan-African conference, held 15 years after the partition of Africa had been sealed at the notorious Berlin Conference. Trinidadian lawyer Henry Sylvester Williams – who coined the terms ‘pan-...
With fewer than 10 days before they vote on September 3, Jamaicans, hopefully, will, tonight, begin to hear policy with substance, and clarity, in an election campaign that is likely to cost many dearly with their health, and, possibly, loss of...
Persons worry that the September 3 polls could spell disaster for Jamaica due to the current surge in the highly contagious, sometimes fatal, COVID-19 virus. Elections are constitutionally due by 2021, but it was widely anticipated that Jamaicans...
When COVID-19 first made its appearance in Wuhan, China, late last year, many of us thought it was their problem and it would soon go away. Now it has become a colossal global pain in the ass that does not appear to be going away any time soon. At...
Every expectant Jamaican and ‘Jamerican’ was hoping that Kamala Harris would have affirmed her Caribbean heritage in her acceptance speech last Wednesday. It had been presaged in all the interviews of family and friends in St Ann and the affective...
I am no political analyst, I’m not even an aficionado of politics, but I’ve been observing the political carryings-on for quite some time now. There are diehard (staunch) voters who will vote for ‘their party’ no matter what. They really don’t...
Mi nah goh tell nuh lie, at first I was really puzzled. Confused. Nonplussed. Flummoxed. Baffled. Bewildered. It nuh mek nuh sense. Or so I thought! How is it, I was thinking, that Brogad and Tuffy, who have accepted such plaudits for overall...
The furore fired by the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Jamaica has once again placed front and centre not only how our courts function as one of the gatekeepers of fairness and equality, but has also raised the larger question of social...
It is said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Very few alive today are able to remember the Spanish flu pandemic which occurred between 1918 and 1920. It is reported that approximately 500 million people at the time...
Every election period the same condemnation is heaped upon the heads of those who are bold enough to admit they will not vote. Even without the threats posed by COVID-19, the country would have had to battle some amount of voter apathy this...
It is safe to say that the September 3, 2020, election outcome will, to a very large extent, be determined by which of the party’s candidates are elected in the marginal seats. In the 2016 elections, 18 of the constituencies were each won by under...
When Jamaican commentators wish to highlight the country’s missed economic opportunities, they often draw comparisons with Singapore, the Southeast Asia city state that is about the same size as the parish of St Thomas, with a population of 5.7...
CHAKA-CHAKA-SPELLING Mi nearly dead wid laugh wen mi read wa Fieldgar post pon Gleaner website bout mi column, “Hair Policy Infested With Racism”. It did come out pon August 2: “Is it possible that those wigs that the legislators wear could...
I might not like the fact that his head of State is the same as mine after 58 years of ‘Independence’, but the British high commissioner, Asif Ahmad, certainly lived up to his surname, which means ‘Most Praised and Commendable’ when he said the...
The time draws nigh when students and teachers may possibly return to the classroom despite the new challenges and with some of the old ones unresolved. They now must cope with additional issues with the same resources and little change to the...
The election clock alarmed noisily, and without any snooze control, in Guyana recently and forced many people, including the leaders of that country and many others, regional and international, out of their extremely comfortable Posturepedic beds...
Britain’s high commissioner to Jamaica, Asif Ahmad, has echoed the sentiments of many Jamaicans – if the Government responded to the crime problem with the same zeal with which it initiated measures to stem the spread of coronavirus pandemic...
The threat of a second wave of COVID-19 has the nursing association worried about the shortage of hospital beds and the impending increased workload for their members. While the country is doing a great job of disseminating messages to the...
I stumbled over an article that was sent in an educational chat group that I feel is very thought-provoking at this time, regarding our response to education. The article informs the reader of an activity a teacher did with a group of students....
