In Focus

In an unprecedented march on Washington to demand stricter gun-control laws, last Saturday thousands of Americans converged on the United States Capitol. They brought signs with provocative slogans like 'Protect children, not guns', 'We are Sandy Hook', 'Ban assault rifles now', 'What would Jesus pack?', 'Love, not guns' and '(N)o (R)ational (A)rgument'.

Recently, the story about the breaching of Digicel's security systems by locally based hackers dominated the headlines. What was frightening about the entire scenario was the apparent ease with which the purported mastermind hacked the Digicel network and the alleged motivation behind the enterprise.

It is rather interesting that one of the first questions that we are grappling with as we march to our 51st anniversary is that of transparency on the part of government. This issue has dominated the current discourse on the role and function of the contractor general (CG).

Late afternoon, on January 24, 2013, I was thoroughly enjoying the salubrious and healing climate of the Santa Cruz Mountains. I was sitting alone, cross-legged, under the 'arched brows' of the poinciana tree which serves as a natural roof over a patch of grass where I find peace as I communicate with my ancestral spirits.

As United States President Barack Obama took the oath of office in a public ceremony on Martin Luther King Jr Day last Monday, Klaus Schwab, the Swiss economist who founded and directs the World Economic Forum (WEF), on the eve of its annual meeting in...

The Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI), an economic policy think tank based at the University of the West Indies, launched its Education Scorecard Report this past week, drawing a number of conclusions and recommendations on the state and prospects of education in Jamaica.

It was a glitzy and glorious Second Coming witnessed by millions around the world, with a price tag of a staggering US$124.3 million, dwarfing the $50 million raised for his First Coming inauguration.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is currently in "delicate" condition in a Havana hospital, receiving intensive recuperative care after a fourth operation for cancer of the pelvic region.

The demands had been insistent, persistent and potent: Tell us more about this International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal; tell us what it will entail, what it will demand and, most important, when we will finally have it.

A popular view held is that as soon as an International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement is signed, and there is no doubt now that it will be, the funds due from the multilateral institutions will begin to flow.

I read with interest an article ('It's the Church that needs salvation') carried in the In Focus section of The Sunday Gleaner of November 25, 2012 written by Gordon Robinson, where he cited that he lost faith in the Church, a man-made organisation, and then he sought to define its purpose.

The provision to secure the protection of law for every person charged with a criminal offence is at Section 20 of the Constitution, where there is no provision in the section for a law as an exception to the protection or to limit the right, the right unrestricted.