Thu | Jul 9, 2026

Commentary

Elizabeth Morgan | Widening trade deficit in 2018

Published:Tuesday | January 8, 2019 | 12:00 AM

A trade deficit or negative balance of trade occurs when the value of imports of goods and services (amount being spent) exceeds the value of exports of goods and services (income earned). This excess expenditure has to be met from other resources (...

Richard Delapenha | NIDS is liberation

Published:Tuesday | January 8, 2019 | 12:00 AM

This is an open response to a letter published on Saturday, January 5, 2019 in The Gleaner, written by Marvin Forbes and titled 'NIDS a reflection of slavery'. The letter showed a great lack of understanding for the National Identification System (...

Jeanette Calder | Andrew, do the right thing!

Published:Monday | January 7, 2019 | 12:00 AM

Dr Andrew Wheatley, who has demonstrably shown next to no regard for the use of public resources entrusted to his oversight, has been appointed by the prime minister (PM) to sit on a panel to look into poverty alleviation. The PM has not done the...

Patria-Kaye Aarons | Ignorance: yaad-man ting

Published:Monday | January 7, 2019 | 12:00 AM

Trash TV still floats my boat. My must-watch line-up on a Sunday night includes Real Housewives of Atlanta on Bravo and 90 Day FiancÈ on TLC. I've written about 90 Day FiancÈ before.Essentially, each season, the show follows foreigners in search of...

Editorial | No place to go

Published:Monday | January 7, 2019 | 12:00 AM

The rapid development of Jamaican towns and cities has not been matched by the availability of public sanitary facilities. It's easy to find new outlets for consumer items such as clothing and food but not so convenient to find a bathroom.The result...

Gwynne Dyer | Target: Taiwan

Published:Monday | January 7, 2019 | 12:00 AM

"Independence for Taiwan would only bring profound disaster to Taiwan," said China's President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Wednesday, and he ought to know. He is the one who would make sure the disaster happened.Speaking on the 40th anniversary of US...

Michael Abrahams | Why ban plastic bags?

Published:Monday | January 7, 2019 | 12:00 AM

As of January 1, 2019, single-use plastic bags have been banned in Jamaica. Our government made the announcement in September 2018, and some are finding the transition to be a major inconvenience. The government should be applauded for making the...

Garth Rattray | Respect goes a long way

Published:Sunday | January 6, 2019 | 12:00 AM

The other day, I was using a somewhat unorthodox method to transport two long metal poles to St Mary. They were needed for an extremely important community project.They were securely strapped to the top of the pickup because they would have stuck...

Editorial | Fighting dengue on all fronts

Published:Sunday | January 6, 2019 | 12:00 AM

As tempting as it might be for politicians from both the Government and Opposition to score points on the dengue outbreak sweeping swathes of southeast Jamaica and other sections of the island, we urge the narcissists to be mature in seeking...

Ronald Thwaites | Fixing education together

Published:Sunday | January 6, 2019 | 12:00 AM

Some weeks ago, Minister Ruel Reid invited members of the People's National Party's (PNP) Education Task Force and me to share information on, and discuss collaboration regarding, the introduction of the Primary Exit Profile (PEP). This was a good...

Emile Grant | Music an agent of positive change

Published:Sunday | January 6, 2019 | 12:00 AM

A few years ago, after watching a movie on one of Jamaica's TV stations, a music video came on. The theme of the music video, on national television, was 'Man haffi breed sup'm'. As expected, there were the bright faces of women happily taking part...

Hylton Dennis | The elusive search for justice

Published:Friday | January 4, 2019 | 12:00 AM

The Equal Rights and Justice anthem of Peter Tosh echoed in my mind last week, again, as I heard in a newscast that defence attorney Valerie Neita-Robertson QC vilified the Independent Investigative Commission (INDECOM) for bringing murder charges...

Carolyn Cooper | Big people playing Chinese telephone

Published:Saturday | January 5, 2019 | 12:00 AM

These days, writing a newspaper column is a lot like playing Chinese telephone. What you put out often comes back in a distorted form. In the age of the Internet, rumours go viral in cyberspace. And they become authoritative versions of reality...

Daniel Thwaites | Careful with the Constitution, Andrew

Published:Saturday | January 5, 2019 | 12:00 AM

When we casually refer to Jamaica as a 'democracy' it's at least partly aspirational. That's because in the full-bloodied modern usage of the term we mean more than just the holding of periodic elections when we say that a country is "democratic"....

Editorial | Pushing Jamaica’s growth strategy through science and technology

Published:Saturday | January 5, 2019 | 12:00 AM

Despite the tremendous effort to achieve growth and macroeconomic stability, Jamaica's GDP growth rate has stagnated for the last two decades.The last time the country approached anything close to three per cent growth was in 2007. After a...

Keith Duncan | Let’s resolve to put Jamaica first in 2019

Published:Friday | January 4, 2019 | 12:00 AM

Jamaica's economic programme has had significant successes in recent years. We have achieved a high level of macroeconomic stability and debt to GDP is projected to close 2018-19 fiscal year below 100 per cent. As a result, fiscal space continues to...

Editorial | Think again, Prime Minister

Published:Friday | January 4, 2019 | 12:00 AM

When it comes to politics, perception is often more important than the truth. Because of this, it is perception, not fact, that shapes society’s feeling about matters of public interest. The corruption scandal at the Ministry of Science,...

Gwynne Dyer | Target: Taiwan

Published:Friday | January 4, 2019 | 12:00 AM

"Independence for Taiwan would only bring profound disaster to Taiwan," said China's President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Wednesday, and he ought to know. He is the one who would make sure the disaster happened.Speaking on the 40th anniversary of...

Jaevion Nelson | Let's deal with petty educators

Published:Friday | January 4, 2019 | 12:00 AM

It seems being petty and unruly is a way of life for many principals and other school administrators in primary and secondary schools islandwide. There can be no other reason for their continued disobedience and unwillingness to follow established...

Tony Deya | Tony the psycho

Published:Friday | January 4, 2019 | 12:00 AM

One of my favourite poems, Robert Frost's 'The Road Not Taken' (published in 2016) starts, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood / And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveller ..."It always justified, for me, my constant and stubborn...

Editorial | Boost police presence with outside forces

Published:Thursday | January 3, 2019 | 12:00 AM

Major General Antony Anderson came to the commissionership of the police force with a hefty rÈsumÈ and much public goodwill. Indeed, he also benefits from significant political support, having initially been appointed by Prime Minister Andrew...

Peter Espeut | Epiphany to the Gentiles

Published:Thursday | January 3, 2019 | 12:00 AM

Christmas is not only a day; it is a season of 12 - the 12 days of Christmas. Shakespeare fans will know that his play Twelfth Night was a comedy he wrote as Twelfth Night entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. And so it is still...

Shelly Ann Murphy | Lessons from Rwanda on plastic bag bans

Published:Monday | December 31, 2018 | 12:00 AMShelly Ann Murphy/ Guest Columnist

Rwanda, a small country in East Africa, experienced an ethnic genocide almost 25 years ago. The country was on the brink of economic and cultural ruin and had no tangible incentive to implement a ban on the production, importation, use and sale of...

Horace Levy | Reframe the SOE dialogue to include social interventions

Published:Thursday | January 3, 2019 | 12:00 AM

The state of emergency (SOE) debate has now openly become a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) - People's National Party (PNP) struggle, with an eye to the next general election. For one side, the SOE reduces murders hugely and responds to an emergency,...

Mark Wignall | The politics of the plastics ban

Published:Wednesday | January 2, 2019 | 12:00 AM

At one level, there are those who would want to congratulate the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administration on ploughing ahead to meet its early 2019 deadline on banning the use of specific single-use plastics, while at another level exist people at...

Pages

Subscribe to Commentary