Every day there are incidents which remind us of how dangerous it is to live in parts of Jamaica these days. Kidnappings and murders help to create mayhem in the society. The regularity with which these horrific crimes are happening in urban and...
Every major prediction leading up to the 109th edition of the Issa/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships had one projection in common: The top three schools on the boys’ side would be Calabar, Kingston College (KC) and Jamaica...
Growing up in the country, I frequently heard about people who had ‘sugar’. These references were generally muttered with a sad shake of the head and a sympathetic softening of the voice. For a long time, I never understood, and found it hard to...
Prime Minister Andrew Holness must be adept at deciphering the short-hand of organisations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF). So, when the IMF talks about matters about public sector governance that are in need of urgent attention and...
What do Brexit, ‘Obamacare’ and NIDS have in common? All three were championed by persons with good intentions. The persons who believe that the United Kingdom (UK) should leave the European Union make a solid case that the citizens of the UK...
I strongly disagree with The Gleaner’s editorial of April 2, 2019, ‘Genius design, but better on King’s House land’, in which it was suggested that King’s House land would be a better site for the proposed new Parliament building. Let me state my...
If there is one thing that the Donald Trump presidency of the United States is teaching the rest of the world is that effective checks and balances must be in place to guard against despotic political leaders. The Jamaican Constitution has several...
Audley Shaw either misapprehends the arguments this newspaper, and others, have made against the Government’s planned new city at Bernard Lodge, St Catherine, or he has feigned ignorance. Either is bad. Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Mr Shaw,...
On Saturday, TVJ’s hosts Sakina Deer and Dwayne Extol interviewed a prophetess, a minister and a young Christian about United States ministers of religion wearing sneakers costing up to US$5,000. Many of these ministers have adopted a more casual...
People habitually disregard the law and disenfranchise others because they reasonably believe they can do so and get away with it, and the players in the local private security industry are no different. Owing to a lack of effective policing within...
Our home-grown gang leaders and hitmen are not necessarily the fools we would prefer they be, as in the image of a schoolboy not quite grasping his schoolwork and instead making himself more attractive to a life of criminality. A significant number...
I think I speak for all executives when I say that it would be impossible for us to function without the capabilities of a strong middle management core. They are extremely vital to the success of any organisation and are essential to the proper...
In my article on the role of Jamaica’s and the Caribbean’s private sector in international trade published in February, I pointed to the need for the regional private sector to be strengthened and to be more engaged in promoting intra-regional and...
It has the ring of cliché, but is profoundly true. Alister McIntyre, who died on Saturday, age 87, was of a passing breed of West Indian nationalists who placed their prodigious intellects in the service of the Caribbean. In Sir Alister’s case,...
Observing Jamaica’s foreign exchange market and its management by the now “independent” Bank of Jamaica, brings to mind the 1993 Hollywood movie, ‘Groundhog Day’ staring Bill Murray. It featured a cynical TV weatherman who finds himself reliving...
Though we saw the photos confirming the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Jamaica and China in April 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Kamina Johnson Smith is still to furnish the Jamaican public with the actual details of this...
Primary school was where I learned the expression ‘raper man’. I never understood the term rape or the attendant abhorrent profession before then. For my seven-year-old classmates, their fears were greatest, not for rolling calf or duppy or the...
Legal legend and sports administrator supreme, Pat Rousseau, died last Tuesday. This is a very sad time. He was one of two private sector businessmen who were the architects of the 1970s’ bauxite levy, but had to sit and watch successive...
I did not know Shantae Skyers. But I grieve for her. The little girl left for school one morning and never returned home. Her body was found five days later, dumped among rubble in bushes. The news left me numb, and she has been on my mind every...
Don’t take at face value Peter Clarke’s declamation about a “moratorium” on new abstraction of water from the aquifers and rivers in the Rio Cobre Basin. It hides more than it reveals. And what is hidden is injurious to Jamaica’s agriculture. Mr...
My earliest memories are filled with trying to understand the purpose of my existence and the mystery of the hereafter. As I became older and saw cruelty, violence, suffering and death, I wondered how it was that a (supposedly) loving God could...
I once thought Parliament was the forum where there would be ideas about all aspects of governance for Jamaica, where stories about people’s aspirations would be told, debate sharp, reasoned and sometimes light-hearted, difficult issues contested...
I was unsure if The Gleaner was going to produce an Easter Sunday newspaper, so that, coupled with a demanding travel schedule, had left me nursing hopes of taking another week off. No such luck. Still, there is lots of news to comment on, so I...
Jamaica is full of churches but short of Christians. Vex all you want, but we have one of the highest densities of churches per square mile in the world, 80 per cent of our population self-declaring that we are members of a denomination and...
Last week Sunday, mi get a email from one vendor weh sell a Pearnel Charles Arcade. So mi get it, so mi gi it: “Good day Ms Cooper, I read your article in Gleaner (14/4/19) amongst other things, about the state of the Papine Market roof that was...
