On February 9, Children of Shanghai was screened in partnership with Care for Children, the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA), and the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information (MOESYI) as part of Foster Care Week. The...
Thousands of Jamaicans are going to be affected by the end of the 50-year-old programme of assistance, whereby medical professionals from Cuba come to this country and give yeoman service. A legacy of our strong fraternal relations from the 1970s...
Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, in seeking to justify a clear departure from established CARICOM practice and align with President Donald Trump, has raised the issue of CARICOM’s support for Guyana in relation to...
Recently, there has been a lot of talk and concern about Jamaica’s falling fertility rate. Things have certainly changed. Several decades ago, we were experiencing a population boom. Our people were so productive that, sometime between 1973 and...
The risk of rising seas gobbling up more of Jamaica may be closer than previously thought, which should further concentrate the minds of policymakers who deal with these problems. A study by Wageningen University in the Netherlands, recently...
It is a mistake to believe that the war in Iran and the retaliatory actions in the Gulf are too far away to matter to the Caribbean. The fallout is already reaching the region, pushing up the costs of fuel, freight, and everyday goods across the...
I was trying to understand where we are now in March 2026. More importantly, considering what this world is coming to, where do we go from here? I was looking at a column about people and it scared me in terms of how bad, tough and scary things are...
Last week’s announcement by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) of a two-thirds increase in its financing cap for the Caribbean – to US$5 billion over the next four years – was important. But also of significance was the disclosure by the...
The Christians are in Lent, the Muslims are in Ramadan, and the United States (US) is at war. The Catholic hierarchy in the US largely supported Donald Trump in the last US presidential election because of his pro-life (i.e. anti-abortion) stance...
“He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.” A few years ago, in response to an article I wrote expressing discomfort with the concept of capital punishment, someone quoted this verse to me as support for his view that...
January 2006 marked the official start of the CARICOM Single Market (CSM) after its launch in Kingston, Jamaica. Then, we were hopeful that the Caribbean would see the benefits of the free movement of goods, labour, capital and services across the...
The US attack on Iran on 28 February 2026 comes as no surprise to many and continues to be indicative of a very dangerous, undemocratic trend. The fact that Israel is a wilful partner in these operations is also to be expected. There isn’t much...
As was the case when the United States and Israel went to war with Iran 14 months ago, the renewed – and expanded – fighting in the Middle East has underlined why Jamaica must accelerate its programme for renewable energy. Indeed, the logic is...
The Middle East is on fire again. Following America and Israel’s attack on Iran and the killing of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the backlash has already started. Iran attacks American military bases, embassies in...
Although over this past weekend the United States and Israel attacked Iran and launched what could cause another global crisis, this column will address a matter which came up at the opening ceremony of the 50th CARICOM Heads of Government...
As the effects of Hurricane Melissa passed through Jamaica, the destruction was clearly visible: uprooted trees, destroyed homes, flooded roads, and interrupted utilities. However, beyond the physical destruction, another level of healing must be...
The outbreak of war in the Middle East after Israel and the United States bombed Iran at the weekend is bad for the Caribbean as a whole. But it holds potentially greater risks for Jamaica as the island pivots to rebuilding after Hurricane Melissa...
In dominoes, as in life, how we begin anything is all important. If you get it wrong from the get-go, you’ll likely always need to catch up. You only get one start. If you botch it there’s no starting over Starting all over again is gonna be rough...
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that nearly one in every seven people (1.1 billion) around the world are living with a mental disorder. Unfortunately, it has been estimated that more than half of the people with mental illness do not...
INTRODUCTION: AN UNFINISHED STRUCTURAL CONVERSATION The Caribbean does not lack talent. It lacks coordinated architecture. Across CARICOM states, outward migration to the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom remains structurally...
As the economist John Keynes observed, in a different context, a century ago: “In the long run we are all dead.” In the current context, a month is distressingly close to the long run. In that time, an awful lot of Cubans, especially vulnerable...
My client Mr. X thought of himself as an electric linesman. He lived with a very miserable woman who he thought was the source of his many problems. One day he got entangled in some live high tension wires and both arms had to be amputated....
In the previous article in this series, I highlighted several defects in the substantive provisions of the Golding Impeachment Bill which was tabled in Parliament. In this article I will deal with several serious defects in the procedural...
Eradicating hunger is an ethical imperative and an essential condition for the development of countries. Every step forward in reducing hunger is therefore not only an encouraging statistic; it is a clear sign that, with strong political commitment...
The Government unveiled a significant shift in tax policy, one which the country has not seen in over a decade. New levies have been introduced on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), cigarettes, and alcoholic drinks as part of the 2026/27 fiscal...
