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In Focus

Published:Friday | August 12, 2016 | 12:00 AM

There is a dark, sooty cloud of controversy hovering over the reopening of the Alpart bauxite plant at Nain. It seems to stem from the fact that the new owners, a Chinese company, plan to use coal-fired processing to generate the...

Published:Friday | August 12, 2016 | 12:00 AM

I have known the Reverend Al Miller for the better part of 40 years. I am distressed, but not entirely surprised by the findings of guilt by the learned magistrate, Simone Wolfe Reece. I was, I suppose, just as stunned by the response to the verdict...

Published:Friday | August 5, 2016 | 12:00 AMGordon Robinson

Last Sunday, I called the justice ministry “unconstitutional”.

Published:Friday | August 5, 2016 | 12:00 AM

For many, if not most, Jamaicans, the only issue worth discussing about Independence is that it was celebrated yesterday and, distressingly, they don?t have a holiday tomorrow.Independence is absolutely meaningless to them. If you insist on engaging...

Published:Friday | August 5, 2016 | 12:00 AM

It might not be as big a contradiction as a woman having prostate cancer, but Brazil is one of the biggest paradoxes in the world. Yes, the XXXI Summer Olympiad began two days ago, and Jamaica has completed its 68th year of participation and winning...

Published:Friday | August 5, 2016 | 12:00 AM

On July 14, 2016, the newly appointed board of the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) was mandated by Prime Minister Andrew Holness to make the creation of Jamaica's third city a priority. Prime Minister Holness is of the view that a new city would...

Published:Friday | July 29, 2016 | 12:00 AMPatrice Whitely, Nekeisha Spencer and Mikhail-Ann Urquhart

A recent study finds evidence to suggest that employers are more likely to respond to job applicants from high-income neighbourhoods and with high-income-sounding names. These findings suggest that class discrimination is present in the Jamaican...

Published:Friday | July 29, 2016 | 12:00 AM

In some developed democracies, she would have been dead. At a minimum, she would have been tased with 50,000 volts from a police 'non-lethal' weapon. And there is nothing shocking about that.Like thousands of conscientious Jamaicans, I saw the video...

Published:Friday | July 29, 2016 | 12:00 AM

Dr Bert van Selm, the senior resident representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to Jamaica, recently urged the Government to make a determination as to its programmatic relationship with the IMF following the end of the current...

Published:Friday | July 29, 2016 | 12:00 AM

If I hear one more person ask what can be done today or short term to reduce crime, I'm likely to commit a non-bailable offence.If I hear one more self-styled defender of the Constitution try to answer these inane questions, I'll have the same...

Published:Friday | July 29, 2016 | 12:00 AM

For most of us, the crime statistics have become unbearable as daily we hear of gruesome murders. Victims are not limited to any particular description. Men, women and children have all been victims of this horrible monster.I recall that after a...

Published:Friday | July 29, 2016 | 12:00 AM

Progress is the attraction that moves humanity.- Marcus GarveyThe Jamaican economy has to be turbocharged, not next week, not next month, and certainly not five years' time when it is forecast by the chairman of the Economic Growth Council, Michael...

Published:Friday | July 29, 2016 | 12:00 AM

Barack Obama's was the speech of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) - poetic, poignant, and profound. It has defined the terms of the United States presidential race and has sharply set out the hope vs fear, optimism vs pessimism divide that...

Published:Friday | July 22, 2016 | 12:00 AMGordon Robinson

Jamaicans are spending too much time obsessing about Donald Trump. They can rest assured Trump doesn’t spend a millisecond thinking about them. Expressions of horror at Trump’s likelihood of becoming POTUS are everywhere. His utterances...

Published:Friday | July 22, 2016 | 12:00 AM

Karl Blythe will be soundly thrashed by Portia Simpson Miller at her party conference in September and sent back as a scapegoat into the political wilderness. But that will be completely beside the point.Take his challenge as comic relief, as fodder...

Published:Friday | July 22, 2016 | 12:00 AMJim Yong Kim

The growing concern over the Zika virus highlights a frightening reality. The world remains ill-prepared for a fast-moving virus. Over the past decade, Ebola, avian flu, swine flu, and other pandemics have shown how vulnerable the world can be when...

Published:Friday | July 22, 2016 | 12:00 AM

Seeing is believing. And a promise, they say, is a comfort to a fool. But I can't resist being heartened by the news that Government plans to redirect "unprecedented" resources to fight crime. Something I have been hammering for some time.The news...

Published:Friday | July 22, 2016 | 12:00 AM

Someone just woke up one morning, decided to get a gun and shoot at police officers. Call him a madman or a misguided youth, but when you are a police officer staring down the barrel of a gun in the hands of a murderer, you don't have time to ponder...

Published:Friday | July 22, 2016 | 12:00 AM

Did you know that there are more than 100,000 domestic workers in Jamaica today? That means that nine per cent of Jamaica's employed labour force have limited protection and sometimes work in demeaning conditions. Some may say that's a small number...

Published:Friday | July 22, 2016 | 12:00 AM

I have a measure of personal regard for the minister of education, Senator Ruel Reid, but I, like so many educators and citizens, have a problem with his approach to policy design and implementation. One of the recent gems of our political culture...

Published:Friday | July 22, 2016 | 12:00 AMShannon V.T. Dumphries

The People's National Party (PNP) either has absolutely no respect for the nation's intelligence or is totally and completely out of touch with reality. And why do I say so? Since the PNP lost the general election of February 25, 2016, the public...

Published:Friday | July 15, 2016 | 12:00 AMIan Boyne

Two parents abandon their three-year-old girl at home to party while she is taken away, allegedly raped and chopped to death. A woman sentenced with her common-law husband for human trafficking said her arrest saved a her life as she herself had...

Published:Friday | July 15, 2016 | 12:00 AM

When Charles James Barton, MD, first came to Jamaica about 50 years ago to take up a post in the university radiology department, he made a point of seeing every stage play in Kingston. He had enjoyed theatre and cabaret in Edinburgh where he had...

Published:Friday | July 15, 2016 | 12:00 AM

She was found in the green bushes in Orange Hill. The coincidence of colours tells you that crime crosses colour lines and all age groups. It is not a body, the carcass of an animal, or remnants of a praedial thief's predation. Nevalesia Campbell...

Published:Friday | July 15, 2016 | 12:00 AMGordon Robinson

I am a terminal nuisance, especially as it relates to the English language. I believe we inherited some good from our colonial slave masters, including the Queen’s English. It’s a challenging mixture of nuance, complexity, contradiction...

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