I GAVE up drinking, smoking, gambling, and wild women ... .Those were the worst five minutes of my life. Then, just over a month ago, I stopped biting my nails, a habit I could not break for more than 70 years. Unfortunately, there was absolutely...
A common assertion by some Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) activists; radio and television commentators; and newspaper columnists, led by one Mark Wignall, is that the JLP has already won the upcoming general election. It is a narrative he and other...
It is clear that not all the members of Jamaica’s Cabinet are in agreement with the move by Prime Minister Andrew Holness to open our borders to foreign tourists without them undergoing tests for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Just after...
TODAY IS World Environment Day and this year’s theme is ‘Biodiversity’. We are also looking ahead to the 26th session of the UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP26), the UN Climate Change Conference, to be hosted by the United Kingdom (UK) with...
THERE ARE times when circumstances demand that people, and even nations, override inhibition and fear and do what decency demands and is morally right. Jamaica has in the past responded to these imperatives, like our leadership, even as a colony,...
THE EXIGENCIES of COVID-19 may now make it more difficult for the Government to afford body cameras for the police force. But that can’t be the reason why the constabulary, or some of its key formations, hasn’t been kitted out with them. Indeed,...
In the passing of the Honourable Oliver Clarke, our nation has once again lost a strong son who was dedicated to promoting all things Jamaican. Having experienced the personal loss of a national public figure almost a year ago, my heart goes out to...
Kittitians woke up this morning to the unmistakable noise of a rumbling. But it wasn’t an earthquake. It was a noise that is about to shake the very foundation of its democracy. That violent noise was coming from Timothy Harris, a leader who has...
TWO YEARS ago, Richard Byles’ highlighting of the need for upskilling, to ensure better-paying jobs in call centres, upset a lot of people in the industry. But in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the sector’s bosses should, though not necessarily...
THE COVID-19 experience certainly serves to emphasise the need for educators to be flexible, dynamic, innovative, and have personalities that captivate students’ interests. In the context of designing plans to ensure the education system does not...
AFRICAN, CARIBBEAN and Pacific (ACP) Day is customarily commemorated on June 6, which is the date on which the Georgetown Agreement establishing the group was signed in 1975. This year, the 45th anniversary, the day will be official observed on...
“Scrap it” is the demand … and then what? Lately, many persons have been advocating for this year’s CXC exams to be cancelled. What many have not said is what should happen after that. Is the idea that we lump this year’s fifth form with next...
LAST WEEK felt different in race relations in America. It felt like a tipping point. We have been living in a state of chaos and overt racism ever since Donald Trump descended the gold escalator at Trump Towers in Manhattan in June 2015. As he...
LAST SEPTEMBER, with the wounds in the People’s National Party (PNP) still raw and in the early stages of haemostasis after Peter Bunting’s challenge for the presidency of the party, we warned that the sores wouldn’t be easily healed. Much would...
A few weeks ago, a woman visited my office for assistance in dealing with a chaotic menstrual cycle. It was her first consultation with me, and during such a visit it is appropriate to enquire about a person’s family history. At that point in the...
The effort being led by Minister J.C. Hutchinson of the Ministry of Agriculture to consolidate and purchase farm produce, have it transported to urban locations and sold at reasonable prices, is a commendable response to the collapse of the hotel...
SEVERAL MONTHS ago, I saw a group of workers, mostly young to middle-age men, whose jobs involve intense labour on construction projects. In spite of their hardiness, I found that several of them had no idea that they were hypertensive and two...
LAST WEEK’S United Nations (UN)-backed “high-level event”, aimed at mobilising global financial support and debt relief for developing countries, was an important initiative, which this newspaper hopes will lead to concrete action. For, as Antonio...
I know Peter Phillips to be an exceptionally decent man with expansive ideas about and for Jamaica. So when he assumed financial direction of the nation in 2012, despite the extraordinarily difficult circumstances, I expected great things. He...
Two Saturdays ago, Beenie Man and Bounty Killer displayed the megawattage brilliance of dancehall culture. Hundreds of thousands of fans from across the globe logged on to witness the stellar clash on the Verzuz stage created by the African...
It is unsurprising that the Government of Jamaica returned to the Parliament with a recast Budget for 2020-2021 fiscal year. The developments since March 10, 2020, when Jamaica recorded its first case of the highly contagious COVID-19, are...
All lives matter, and that includes the police officer who killed George Floyd, kneeling into his neck as he cried, “I can’t breathe,” while the cop, still putting his full weight on him, seemed to be taunting him to get up. Floyd’s brother,...
In the face of the recession caused by COVID-19, sensible people would hardly demur to the need for the Government to relax its fiscal targets, including the 2026 timeline for lowering the national debt to 60 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP...
It is easy to romanticise about the good old days of Air Jamaica as a letter writer did recently while calling for a rebirth of the “little piece of Jamaica that flies”. Indeed, this little airline brokered a pride in its citizenry that is hard to...
THIS YEAR marks 15 years since Jamaica acceded in 2005 to the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the only global health treaty. Since its formation on World No Tobacco Day, May 31, 2002, the Jamaica...
