As one who has been a staunch campaigner against smoking in public spaces, I wish to congratulate Health Minister Fenton Ferguson, if even after missing a deadline he gave, for finally banning tobacco smoking in public.
The US Supreme Court's ruling striking down America's Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) rightly reinforced the inviolability of principle of equality under the law, no matter the sexual orientation of the person seeking its...
One of the biggest problems affecting Jamaica is our inability to think and act rationally and objectively once we are emotionally connected to a subject matter...
Your writer's piece ('Manley's home repair almost complete'), with photographs, in the Saturday, June 22, 2013 edition, is deeply appreciated, save his apparent lack of basic research.The birth sites of our national...
A lot has been written recently about our failing education system, and the measure of this, for many people, is the poor performance of Jamaican students in assessment examinations like the Grade Six Achievement Test and Caribbean Secondary Education...
Jamaica's decision to ban smoking in public places from July 15 brings the country on board a growing global movement against the consumption of tobacco, for the preservation of health.But the announcement by the health minister, Dr Fenton Ferguson...
Skin bleaching among the poor is a very complex practice and (thankfully?) it is back on the national agenda. The motivation and results vary. Wealthy folks do it too, but their methods are more expensive and accepted. ...
After his plaintive lamentation for 'divine intervention' to arrest crime woes, and his subsequent interactions with entertainer, Queen Ifrika, National Security Minister Peter Bunting has hit another discordant chord that cannot, in any way...
The recent statements by Minister Lisa Hanna concerning a woman's reproductive health has revived my concerns about public ignorance, even among the very educated, on the basics of what constitutes 'a woman's body'.It is pardonable for the layperson...
The term 'critic', first used in the late 1500s, basically refers to a fault-finder, someone burdened with the responsibility of highlighting the flaws in the work of another. The job of the critic is as easy as breathing...
Do you agree with the JLP that the Tivoli Gardens commission of enquiry is a waste of time? Give the millions that is going to pay to the people [at the enquiry to those] who lost houses and family members and stop wasting taxpayer's money, with no...
Ronnie Thwaites seems unconvinced that he has firm backing from either his party or prime minister, Julian Robinson's suggestion to the contrary notwithstanding. So, Mr Thwaites, the education minister, felt compelled to insist to this newspaper that...
He gave me a shy, lopsided smile as our eyes locked while we stood in the supermarket checkout line. He was an elderly, bespectacled man, possibly someone's cherished grandfather, I thought to myself. Even though his shirt had food stains on it...
It seems to me people tend to take this divorce thingy much too seriously. For example, have you noticed how many lawyers make a healthy living from marital break-ups? So much so it could send shivers up one's timbers. In fact, if you follow the Bible on this subject ...
In the absence of a declaration to the contrary, we assume that Major General Stewart Saunders, the retired chief of defence staff, has taken up the post of acting permanent secretary for national...
With good reason, much of this morning's water-cooler talk will no doubt be centred on the ghastly (ghostly?) details of skin-bleaching techniques, presented in TVJ's 'All Angles' programme last week.It was hard to watch that show, but the nationwide...
We are about to construct another prison to incarcerate (punish, keep behind bars and walls, house, feed, maintain and try to rehabilitate) some who run afoul of the law.Jamaica has severe economic problems...
Christopher Tufton, the shadow foreign affairs and foreign trade minister, doesn't seem to get it.So, he is shopping around for more bureaucracy - a mechanism, he says, for public-private sector consultation on trade disputes with Trinidad and Tobago...
We need veracious nation builders, not those voracious for attention and personal gain.We need people who genuinely and honestly desire to restore the nation in a balanced way - not just on an economic level...
It would seem that just about everyone is fanning the flames of the Syrian civil war, a conflict that has left over 70,000 people dead amid savage fighting. Each time the wind seems to blow one way, someone whips up the fan to blow them the other...
