Across the Caribbean, access is often negotiated through unspoken rules – how one looks, speaks, or is perceived within social hierarchies shaped by class, colour, and privilege. Those who do not appear to “belong” are frequently questioned,...
Cricket West Indies (CWI) – and by extension West Indies cricket – has a problem. CWI is so addicted to obfuscation and opacity that even when it has a credible case to argue, its inclination to spin leads the contortions that confuse its...
Two centuries after emancipation, the case is no longer historical – it is immediate. The setting was formal. The language was careful. But the message carried weight. At the Organization of American States in Washington, Jamaica’s...
In the month since the United States and Israel attacked Iran – and Tehran’s retaliatory closure of the Strait of Hormuz – the world’s attention, including Jamaica’s – has been primarily on its impact on the price of oil. Which is understandable....
An essential requirement of democracy is that the government must be a government by the people. This means that those who govern must truly have been selected by the people. In this connection, there are two basic principles. The first is that...
In this mystical season where it appears that evil and death prevail then life, abundant life, eternal life, is restored, let us pause and re-examine our human purposes. What do Jamaicans really want for our one another? Can an economy grow and...
India and China said “Yes!” Only 330 million live in the US. In Israel there are around 10 million inhabitants. Abstaining is not the same as voting “No!” although in certain elections, it could count as a negative. President of Ghana John Dramani...
The bill to establish the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA), the agency to lead Jamaica’s post-hurricane reconstruction, gets several important things right. But there are many things to fix. Its mandate is too wide, making...
On October 28, 2025, Hurricane Melissa clobbered Jamaica with an uppercut, the ferocity of which has never been measured before. It was as straight as it was clean. There was no doubt about the source of the power. It was the 1.4 degrees Celsius...
Despite the annual carnage on our roads, many drivers are not considering the innumerable ways that they are endangering themselves and other road users. Widely posting macabre images and videos of mangled motor vehicles along with contorted,...
There is no climate justice without social justice. Small island developing states like Jamaica, which emit a negligible fraction of the world’s greenhouse gases, bear a disproportionate brunt of the destruction wrought by rich countries and their...
The Organization of American States (OAS) is approaching a defining test, not of its existence, but of its significance. It continues to meet, to commemorate events, but fails to tackle pressing political issues. At a time of global turmoil,...
Well … maybe. And it depends whom you compare them with, and how you define happiness. Using the yardstick of the World Happiness Report 2026, Jamaicans are the 49th happiest people in the world, from among 149 countries surveyed in 2025. Though...
When I was a young boy, in addition to my parents, I had the attention and affection of a very special, honorary family member – a dog. There were dogs all around me and my family all my life. Whether we were living in Trinidad with our beloved...
In the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, when communities in the Western parishes were cut off, homeless families were sleeping outdoors, and the roads were barely passable, stories of hope and kindness began emerging. One story that really touched...
On this World Theatre Day, we are invited not merely to celebrate theatre, but to interrogate the evolving landscape of storytelling itself. In an era dominated by high-budget cinema and algorithm-driven streaming platforms, a quiet but...
The government’s decision to recalibrate two of the critical tax measures recently announced by Finance Minister Fayval Williams goes to the credit of the administration and is welcomed by this newspaper. The adjustments suggest that the government...
In 2019, a man in the western Indian city of Mumbai threatened to sue his parents for giving birth to him without his consent. He also refused to work because, well, being forced to live in this world was apparently pressuring enough. His name is...
My family has been a beneficiary of the Cuban Medical Brigade. For some years, my wife, Velia, has been a patient of Dr Roberto Mirales, senior ophthalmologist in the Cuban Eye Care Programme at St Joseph’s Hospital. By all accounts he is an...
The world has seen oil shocks before. But what is unfolding now in the Middle East is not merely another spike in energy prices – it is a structural disruption with the potential to ripple through every layer of the global economy. And for small,...
Across Jamaica, we keep describing an inclusion goal while under building the one workforce that can stabilise it daily. We talk about Vision 2030, equity and access. Yet the practical reality inside classrooms is a nervous system crisis wearing a...
The conversation about the sexual offenders’ registry is characterised by the intense contention between the interests of the public good and the rights of perpetrators. This contention seems to be an overcomplicated dilemma. If we were serious...
Shamed by the regional press and ordinary citizens over the lethargy with which it has responded to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Cuba, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) this week announced that it is about to do something specific. The...
March 25 is not merely a date on the United Nations calendar. It is a moral checkpoint; a moment that compels us to confront one of humanity’s most brutal enterprises: the transatlantic slave trade. For over four centuries, millions of Africans...
There is so much happening related to the USA and the Trump administration that we tend to forget that work continues in international relations at the bilateral, regional, and multilateral levels. A significant meeting taking place this week is...
