Banks should be vilified, not vindicated. For four decades, they facilitated the fiscal irresponsibility of successive political administrations of the Government of Jamaica (GOJ).Public debt swelled beyond the country's sustainable capacity from...
The honchos of the business processing outsourcing (BPO) sector have worked themselves into a hot lather over Richard Byles' recent remarks about the need to lift the quality of the jobs in the economy, and the pay therefrom, without, it appears, a...
In an article published by The Gleaner on Sunday, a learned professor made an egregious statement that "Jamaicans don't kill themselves, but they kill each other".While I understand and appreciate that Jamaica does, in fact, have a low suicide...
No, this isn't about the adventures of a US president in a Russian hotel.It's about me. I'm obsolete. The modern world has passed this grumpy old man by.What's the matter with the world?Has the world gone mad?Nothin's wrong with the world,it's the...
So here we go again. The annual quarrel over the value of the Jamaican dollar, relative to its US counterpart, is on in earnest. This event is such a staple that it reminds me of hearing the voice of Allan Magnus in the background, inviting us to...
I could have sworn the government trumpeted the abolition of auxillary fees in all schools in 2016. But now public servants have been given remission of something which does not exist as a feature of their equally trumpeted wage settlement. What a...
Depression is a word we hear often, but many of us do not understand what it is. Even more disturbing is the fact that many who are afflicted are undiagnosed and unaware that they have the disorder. Hence, they...
I am grateful for the enormous advances in information and communications technology. I vividly recall the days when even landlines were a very scarce commodity. Unfortunately, I also vividly remember, back in 1984, when I began practising medicine...
Nigel Clarke, the finance minister, has made an initial but, this newspaper believes, significant step towards a more rational discourse on monetary policy, including how the actions of the central bank affect the foreign exchange market.He...
It was Christopher Columbus who named the beautiful bay Puerto Seco. He didn’t see any rivers, so he assumed the port (puerto) was dry (seco). He didn’t know about the freshwater streams underground. When Columbus went along...
Published:Sunday | August 26, 2018 | 12:00 AMDaniel Thwaites
We regret to announce the passing of five-in-four. Five-in-four, late of Jamaica House, St Andrew, died under tragicomic circumstances, leaving behind parents, Andrew and Audley, 2.7 million children, grandchildren, other relatives and...
No one expects, or wants, Antony Anderson to turn up at every crime scene to recycle platitudes, or offer banalities and cliches about unturned stones in solving cases. Who people expect to see in those circumstances are professional scene-of-crime...
There is so much road-improvement work happening in Kingston and St Andrew. Yes, I shudder at the thought of school reopening in a few days' time and what alternative routes and bumpy surfaces through literal road-construction zones will mean for...
The Gleaner story of a nameless official of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) declaring that the option of vendors of the Constant Spring Market being allowed to use the empty space to the rear has been considered and...
Politics has had its run, and it is now time for tough economic choices and strategies if 2030 is to have the kind of relevance envisaged by businessman Johnny Gourzong, Ambassador Audrey Marks, and many other Jamaicans.Montego Bay businessman...
The plight of the Constant Spring Market vendors has forced us to think once more about the top-down development strategy that is a common feature of the management of our cities and towns.About 70 vendors who, in all likelihood, are breadwinners of...
Because I grew up tough, rough and tumble, going to school in one of the more violent parts of Trinidad, living for many years in another that I still call home, and not just selling, but spending considerable time in bars, gambling clubs, and just...
Jamaica is in a serious predicament. We talk about politics and the work being done by elected representatives every day but hardly want to vote in an election.Most of us resign in hopelessness about elections and the 'system' rather than committing...
Published:Friday | August 24, 2018 | 12:00 AMDaniel Thwaites
We regret to announce the passing of five-in-four. Five-in-four, late of Jamaica House, St Andrew, died under tragicomic circumstances, leaving behind parents, Andrew and Audley, 2.7 million children, grandchildren, other relatives and...
Managing democracy, whether in a national government or public or private institution, is no easy business. It often requires reconciling, and building consensus out of, contrary and sometimes contrarian views. That's hard work.Hopefully, Garth...
There's nothing like a new law to embolden municipal authorities to tread with elephantine swagger and swing a twig to compensate for a small ego. Delroy Williams knows that too well.Williams, mayor of Jamaica's piss-soaked capital, must understand...
It was reported on Thursday, August 16, 2018, that the PM had dismissed as "political argument" the concerns raised at the recent town hall meeting organised by the RJRGLEANER Communications Group, to discuss the Government's proposals to develop...
Opinion polls in the United States show that as of three days ago - August 21, 2018 - President Donald Trump had an approval rating of 41.8 per cent and a disapproval rating of 52.8 per cent. The approval ratings of some former presidents at the...
In my article, 'What Orville Taylor Got Wrong' (Gleaner, July 22, 2018), I stated that Taylor's views about West Africans "is clearly lacking in context and a true understanding of historical facts". My views have not changed. In fact, having read...
Although it can be accepted as believable that sexual abuse has its highest concentration among the tales of powerful men taking sexual advantage of poorer, underaged and oftentimes, voiceless women, the strong allegations that Asia Argento, actress...
