Commentary

WHEN VISITING Trinidad, where I was born and raised, I sometimes meet people who ask me "how do you survive in Jamaica, especially as you still have a bit of your Trinidadian accent?" They are incredulous because they assure me that they know for a fact...

THE IMMINENT clash between Peter Bunting of the opposition People's National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) Danville Walker in the constituency of Manchester Central has already begun to attract national attention and stimulate much...

Between trying to keep up with the electioneering at home and in the United States, I have not been able to focus on much else these days. Given the rhetoric that has started to flow from the main political streams, it is a fair bet...

The Jamaican electorate must be wary of the slithery tongues of the pedlars of snake oil. Their products cure nothing. Which, in the case of Jamaica, is the larger point to be taken from John Rapley's column in this newspaper Monday, reflecting on the collapse...

Persistent reports of Ocho Rios' cruise ship arrivals decline evoke memories. Wykeham McNeill says projected arrivals are 490,000, down from a 2006 "high" of 800,000. There's much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth...

Justice David Fraser could hardly have been taken aback at the public outrage at the seemingly extreme leniency in his sentencing, more than a week ago, of a man who pleaded guilty to abducting, raping and strangling a 12-year-old girl, whom he left ...

Approval ratings in the basement couldn't do it. Nor could lurid sex scandals, outraging foreign allies with crude and offensive statements about their leaders, or being chased by magistrates throughout the country...

So you've become sick and tired of being sick and tired of Jamaica's political parties...

It is difficult to understand how a black dog could be considered a substitute for a monkey, but the Jamaican maxim is epitomised in the current statistical dead heat between the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) in the recently conducted polls by Professor Ian Boxill and his team.

Last week, we saw the fall of governments in Greece and Italy pushed by the loss of public confidence and turmoil in financial markets, as the debt and financial crisis engulfing the Eurozone intensified. This completed the demise of incumbent regimes in every country of the so-called PIIGS group [Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain]. The PIIGS have fallen!

The frustration of Prime Minister Andrew Holness over the consistent poor performance of some of the country's primary schools in the annual Grade Four Literacy Test was evident as the latest results were unveiled earlier this week.

I have long been in opposition to the principle whereby Jamaicans who possess dual citizenship are not permitted to represent their country in the legislature.