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Commentary

Published:Friday | January 20, 2012 | 12:00 AM

THE EDITOR, Sir:I am compelled to respond to a letter titled 'Don't tarnish rookies' published in your paper on Wednesday, January 18, in relation to an interview I conducted with Minister of Science, Technology, Mining and Energy Phillip Paulwell...

Published:Friday | January 20, 2012 | 12:00 AM

Over the last decade, parties in opposition have criticised the party in power for the large size of their Cabinet, and then when the tables are turned, they name an even larger one...

Published:Thursday | January 19, 2012 | 12:00 AM

SOME POLITICAL analysts claimed that the People's National Party (PNP) would lose the general election because its campaign strategy was based on the Golding/Dudus saga and it had no alternative...

Published:Thursday | January 19, 2012 | 12:00 AM

THE DECEMBER 29, 2011 parliamentary general election is now history. Of the 63 seats contested by both major political parties, the People's National Party (PNP) won 42 to the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) 21. It is interesting to note ...

Published:Thursday | January 19, 2012 | 12:00 AM

A RECURRING promise of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller since her election victory last month, repeated during Tuesday's convening of Parliament, is that her Government will be inclusive and transparent.The administration, she told legislators after...

Published:Thursday | January 19, 2012 | 12:00 AM

A DISQUIETING trend is set to continue in the Senate with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller's decision to appoint a pair of novices to rule over proceedings in that chamber.The prime minister's anointment of two parliamentary neophytes to lead the...

Published:Wednesday | January 18, 2012 | 12:00 AM

Unfortunately, the doziness of the legislature was not specially addressed in the few remarks at yesterday's first post-election sitting of Jamaica's Parliament....

Published:Wednesday | January 18, 2012 | 12:00 AM

My dear friend Joyce has just returned home after spending Christmas holidays with her son and his family in South Florida. This has become a ritual for many people as their children settle with their spouses in desirable locations around the world...

Published:Wednesday | January 18, 2012 | 12:00 AM

"If it falls to our luck to be street sweepers, sweep the streets, like Raphael painted pictures, like Michelangelo carved marble, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, and like Beethoven composed music...

Published:Wednesday | January 18, 2012 | 12:00 AM

Should Jamaica's new Parliament find greater energy than the last one, which we hope it does, among the first bills it should pass is the one to regulate political party and election campaign financing. For while Opposition Leader Andrew Holness...

Published:Tuesday | January 17, 2012 | 12:00 AM

Across the universe, in the fairy-tale land of Apocrypha, a general election resulted in a change of government.Suddenly, the two friends from opposite sides of the political fence, Are You Shaw and Oma D'unn, found themselves switching parliamentary...

Published:Tuesday | January 17, 2012 | 12:00 AM

Only the very rich and poor seem able to operate without a cellphone nowadays. So I've determined to put it behind me at the nearest opportunity. Once I ketch de lotto! I've found that like much other technology, the phones only appear to be helping...

Published:Tuesday | January 17, 2012 | 12:00 AM

Given his former service in a People's National Party (PNP) Cabinet and his support of Portia Simpson Miller's 2006 bid for the leadership of the party, Claude Clarke's observations about the prime minister have the ring of authenticity...

Published:Monday | January 16, 2012 | 12:00 AM

This newspaper is shocked that Mr Andrew Holness could vary the terms of the merger of the telecoms Digicel and Claro without telling the Jamaican public...

Published:Monday | January 16, 2012 | 12:00 AM

It all began when a few discrete vendors set up 'businesses' on the vacant land opposite the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) more than 30 years ago. Passers-by found the cool beverages and little snacks a convenient...

Published:Monday | January 16, 2012 | 12:00 AM

The need to consider proportional representation as the format for Jamaican elections was never so emphasised as in the recent elections in which the winning party got just under 53 per cent of the votes cast but 66.66 per cent of the seats...

Published:Monday | January 16, 2012 | 12:00 AM

We are encouraged by Mr Andrew Holness' media briefing last Friday that neither he nor his party is so badly demoralised by the election defeat more than a fortnight ago to be incapable of being a credible Opposition...

Published:Monday | January 16, 2012 | 12:00 AM

In the last few months, Canadian journalists with long memories have been decrying what they see as an authoritarian tendency in Canada's government....

Published:Sunday | January 15, 2012 | 12:00 AM

“On to the work, now, to your offices, and get the ball rolling!” So charged the lady from Wood Hall who many criticised as not being fit for the job. Never in the history of Jamaica have I heard so stern a charge given to ministers. This charge is a continuation of several positive messages sent by the People’s National Party through its election manifesto...

Published:Sunday | January 15, 2012 | 12:00 AM

Dr Peter Phillips, Jamaica’s finance minister, has at least one thing right about his new job: “The tasks and challenges” he faces are enormous. We would add to that the little time he has to demonstrate real achievements if he is to pull the country out of its economic funk and have a real chance of sustained economic growth and job creation.

Published:Sunday | January 15, 2012 | 12:00 AM

Both the incoming and outgoing administrations have identified the national debt as a major challenge which must be addressed for the economy to grow. That’s true. But debt is a symptom, not a condition. The fundamental condition is that we have been consuming, each year, much more than we have been producing or investing in Jamaica.

Published:Sunday | January 15, 2012 | 12:00 AM

Andrew Holness found himself with an opportunity to lead Jamaica to economic success and he blew it. His inauguration as prime minister generated an outpouring of hope that he might become a new vessel for change from the failed governance that had for too long brought economic decline and social disorder. But in his short tenure as prime minister, he did not give the many that were anxious to see him succeed a reason to give him a mandate.

Published:Sunday | January 15, 2012 | 12:00 AM

I was stupid when I predicted the JLP would win 36 seats in the recently held general election. However, I don’t seem to recall any other commentator pointing out the following interesting statistic

Published:Saturday | January 14, 2012 | 12:00 AM

Once more we hear an important voice lamenting how the paucity of jurors is hampering the administration of justice in the courts. Mr Justice Horace Marsh has added his voice to the loud chorus calling for more Jamaicans to accept their citizenship responsibility and submit to jury duty when they are summoned.

Published:Saturday | January 14, 2012 | 12:00 AM

BIG MAN NUH RIDE WIDOUT CONDOM! With this rousing and direct appeal to us men, big and aspiring-to-be-big men are encouraged to 'ride with caution' to avoid sexually transmitted infections and/or unplanned parenthood!

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