We expect there to be a fair bit of damage to property and infrastructure from the pummelling eastern Cuba will have taken from Hurricane Matthew. In most other places, as is evidenced by Haiti, the devastation would be far worse. Indeed, barring an...
People keep asking me 'how' and 'why'. Why give it all up? Why live for the last 20 years in relative obscurity? Why share a 13-year-old car with the Old Ball and Chain? Just get a bank 'borrows' and own a criss CR-V! To that last, I remind them...
Haiti is scheduled to have elections this week (October 9). It is a rerun of elections of last year that had been deemed fraudulent. Haitians want leadership to finally reconstruct Haiti after the earthquake...
Minister Bobby Montague's presentation in Parliament last week on the measures taken to stem the violence in western Jamaica was detailed and comprehensive. It seems to have satisfied most people that the minister, the police, the Government are on...
Even before the waters have receded and any debris left by the Hurricane Matthew is cleared, the administration will be concentrating on the impact of the storm on the Jamaican economy. Hopefully, it is negligible.For, as Prime Minister Andrew...
I try to live my life with an attitude of gratitude, and today, I would like to give thanks for the Reverend Merrick ‘Al’ Miller. This man has enriched my life by providing me with hours of entertainment and tons of material. I recall...
Delroy Chuck wouldn't, we expect, be numbered among the know-nothings who lawyer Peter Champagnie accuses of hijacking the ongoing debate about how to improve Jamaica's justice system. Neither, we believe, are Michael Lee-Chin and the members of his...
By the time you're reading this, I'm hoping the storm will have tracked off course. But with the news last Friday that Matthew was skipping up the measures of potential destructiveness and was a strengthening Category 4 hurricane steaming towards Jamaica, I'm in enough of a panic to humbly ask the Rev Al Miller to get back to the...
You have been out of Jamaica for a considerable amount of time and you've chosen not to follow news and current events from the land of your birth. Now you're back in Jamaica.You have made your way into the city of Kingston from Norman Manley...
Published:Thursday | September 29, 2016 | 12:00 AM
Another good, old-fashioned Jamaican storm in a teacup is brewing because a child who applied to join the student body was told by the private prep school to cut his hair to conform to school rules or be rejected.Shrieks of "injustice" and "...
There was a time when many black people from the Caribbean living in the US thought they were superior to black Americans. Some still do. Conveniently forgetting our shared history of enslavement, Caribbean migrants could not identify with the...
Funnily, there are lessons in economic management for Barbados to learn from Jamaica. And that's a reversal.With per-capita income of more than US$15,000, Barbadians, on average, are nearly three times as rich as Jamaicans. Further, Barbados is...
Is axed coach Phil Simmons or captains of contemporary vintage the totality of our failures? Thought we discarded 'Control' from the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) in 1996?If Simmons could atone for poor judgement, even betrayal, in his 2015 run-...
All national disaster-preparedness agencies have been mobilised and placed on high alert as Hurricane Matthew gets closer to Jamaica.This storm is being taken seriously because with all the improved capabilities for advance warning, the likely path...
Published:Friday | September 30, 2016 | 12:00 AMKlive Walker
What if you were asked to name only three of your favourite reggae books? How would you select just three from 50 years of writing about reggae? That's exactly the challenge Toronto literary critic Donna Bailey Nurse asked me to...
Published:Thursday | September 29, 2016 | 12:00 AM
It ought to be a matter of great embarrassment to Jamaica that a petition urging Barack Obama to pardon this country's first national hero, Marcus Garvey, on his trumped-up 1923 conviction for mail fraud, couldn't muster the 100,000 online...
Published:Thursday | September 29, 2016 | 12:00 AM
One of the disadvantages of having elections every five years is that incumbent governments are under pressure to be seen to have done something tangible 'quick-quick' in order to get re-...
Published:Thursday | September 29, 2016 | 12:00 AM
Captain Horace Burrell must be wondering if he has somehow offended the gods. Either that or 'smaddy probably tief him white fowl', as old people would say. How else can one explain the litany of unfortunate events that has befallen him in recent...
Published:Thursday | September 29, 2016 | 12:00 AMPaul Duncan
Your front-page article in The Gleaner dated September 22 and headlined 'Dead voters still haunt electoral process' has left me utterly frustrated. Will someone please put some fire under these agencies' butts!The director of elections, Orrette...
Published:Wednesday | September 28, 2016 | 12:00 AM
The following is a commentary on regulation ahead of the Organization of Caribbean Utility Regulators (OOCUR) 14th annual conference set for Montego Bay, St James, between October 26 and 28 at the Secrets Resorts and Spa.It was not by mere chance...
Published:Wednesday | September 28, 2016 | 12:00 AM
Last week, a 'gunman' visited me. He announced his arrival and presence at the office by stating that he was a 'don' and 'gunman' and wanted to speak to me immediately. The receptionist told him that I was counselling someone and as soon as I was...
Published:Wednesday | September 28, 2016 | 12:00 AM
Like Peter Bunting, the shadow security minister, this newspaper is deeply concerned about the sharply upward spiral in homicides in Jamaica this year, especially in the parish of St James where the brazenness of the bloodletting exacerbates...
This week, several social media brouhahas and aha! moments compete for space in my column. First, in eternal pursuit of the viral scoop, Nationwide's young Abka Fitz-Henley, who revels in his role as the enfant terrible of Jamaican journalism, found...
Published:Tuesday | September 27, 2016 | 12:00 AMKelly McIntosh
This past weekend, a popular talk-show host, in response to the alarming reports of a rapidly increasing murder rate in our Second City, Montego Bay, shared her thoughts of frustration and alarm in a series of tweets. She suggested some crime-...
There are few, if any, recommendations contained in the broad outlines offered by Michael Lee-Chin's group to drive sustainable growth in Jamaica with which reasonable people would disagree.Indeed, Mr Lee-Chin, the billionaire banker, and the...
