“If you di Marcus; you must bite the dust; equal rights and justice, that what he taught us…” A powerful lyric from 31 years ago, Capleton’s Don’t Dis the Trinity is still relevant today. Other parts of the song, an affirmation of his Rastafarian...
When then US President Obama was in the White House, I penned a piece expressing my hope that he would pardon our National Hero, Marcus Garvey. Like many others, I erroneously conflated pardon and exoneration. However, the two are very different....
The Gleaner welcomes the appointment of Dale Webber as Jamaica’s climate envoy, assuming that the assignment isn’t window dressing and that Professor Webber is appropriately mandated to do the job. The announcement of Professor Webber’s assignment...
Within hours of his second inauguration as president of the United States on January 20, Donald Trump issued a sweeping series of executive orders (EOs). Several of them will affect the Caribbean but two are of immediate interest to people of the...
We hear about Gone With The Wind, but ‘Don’ with the wind is no Clark Gable. This is why a few of my readers demanded that I must go after Donald ‘Don’ Trump today. At the same time, I had promised men who follow my column to learn more about...
Phillip Paulwell’s promise of more than 60 per cent reduction in electricity rates should the People’s National Party (PNP) come to office in this year’s election is a tantalising prospect, which demands further particulars and serious debate. For...
The Government of Prime Minister (PM) Andrew Holness is trying to ram through amendments to deeply entrenched sections of Jamaica’s Constitution without consensus with the Opposition. Without the cooperation of the Opposition such efforts are...
A few years ago, before the 2020 general election, two pollsters opined that Jamaica’s high perception of corruption would not play a significant role in swinging voters either towards the green side of the spectrum or towards the orange. They...
This newspaper is in the habit of quoting the maxim of the late Anguillan-Antiguan attorney, Bernice Lake, on what aspiring politicians must be willing to accept when they seek citizens’ votes in their bid for public office. They cannot, and...
LET’S GET one thing clear. I am not a fan of TikTok. Come to think of it, I’m not a big fan of social media, period. I think I’ve stated that repeatedly in these pages. It’s the devil’s playground, I tell my students, just before I tell them that...
CUBA’S RECENT inclusion in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) alliance marks a historic turning point. Cuba’s BRIC membership was championed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and was finalised during Cuba President Miguel Diaz...
IN PREVIOUS articles in this column, it was pointed out that the relationship between the USA and countries in this Western Hemisphere has been historically strained in spite of the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS),...
While Donald Trump has predictably begun his second stint as America’s president with actions that pose existential threats to the Caribbean, The Gleaner remains nonplussed by the seeming absence of a coordinated effort by regional governments to...
AFTER 55 years, our Parliament repealed and replaced The Firearms Act of 1967, with a new law called The Firearms (Prohibition, Restriction and Regulation) Act of 2022. This new law consists of 132 pages, 117 sections, and seven schedules. The...
Could a Trump presidency spark a Jamaican brain gain? The global landscape is shifting, and, with it, the flow of talent. Jamaica stands at a crossroads, poised to capitalise on the potential return of its educators. But, will it seize the...
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that impacts how a person perceives and learns, and socialises, interacts and communicates with others. The word ‘spectrum’ relates to the fact that the disorder encompasses a wide...
Joe Biden did not – which this newspaper felt was required, and suggested he should do – offer a full-throated and unequivocal acknowledgement that, a century ago, Marcus Garvey was railroaded into jail by the American state because it felt...
We miss the deeper problem behind the Walkerswood tragedy and so many similar child deaths. Of course we are sorry about the absence of electricity and the poor state of the house. And yes, we need to make fire drills habitual in schools and...
International tourism trends are showing an increasing strengthening of community tourism, and Jamaica has seized the opportunity to shift the island’s tourist industry from being exclusively a sun, sea and sand, and large-hotel destination...
Recently, there has been an outcry from Jamaica’s business community over the slow response of commercial banks to policy rate by the central bank. For while the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) has taken decisive steps on this front – it lowered its policy...
Jamaica’s local government councils are notorious for their periodic declarations of intent to improve the efficiency of the services they provide and the transparency with which they do so. It usually comes to naught. So, few people will be...
The tabling of the Constitution (Amendment) (Republic) Act 2024 and the establishment of a Joint Select Committee to consider and report on the bill is an important step forward. However, unless the Government is willing at this late stage to make...
In a move that has left many energy experts scratching their heads, the Jamaican government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with two Canadian entities, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL)....
Politics are about perceptions and impressions, and my beloved Elder Taylor and Miss Ivy always reminded me of Romans 14:16, “Let not then your good be evil spoken of.” Inasmuch as I do not burden myself with the unsupportable notion that the...
No society can exist without some form of leadership. And in our society, leaders ascend to their positions by way of the democratic election of representatives. The political process (… the activities associated with the governance of a country or...
