The thing about a man like Ruel Reid, who was once the active principal of Jamaica College (JC) and honourable minister of government, is that it was too easy to shred the honour and yield to expediency. Let’s back up. JC ‘loaned’ on secondment to...
Public Enemy Number One in all “Developing Nations” is corruption. EVERY national failing and social evil stems from that root. Jamaica’s economy is stagnant because fiscal and monetary policy is often corruptly implemented. Government contracts...
This is the fifth in a series of eight articles looking at the ways that the world will change between now and 2050 and analysing the implications for Jamaica’s future. It will be a much hotter and more crowded world in 2050. There will be...
The 1692 ‘Plan of Kingston’ laid out by John Goffe was an economic enterprise and business venture established by the Monarchy of England, Jamaica’s governor, privateers, pirates, buccaneers, and planters. As merchants, many of these persons held...
For those wondering what all the fuss was about, here are the 21 questions laid in Parliament by Julian Robinson (on behalf of Mikael Phillips) addressed to Transport Minister Robert Montague: 1. Does the minister retain confidence in the board of...
At the end of enslavement, most Africans on plantations in the Caribbean and North and South America were illiterate. Europeans used slave codes to make it a criminal offence for Africans to acquire this skill. This ensured that Africans would be...
The Alligator Pond shoreline has undergone as much erosion as Hellshire Beach, and without intervention, nothing will stop the damage. The much-loved experience at Little Ochie Sea Food and Oswald Sea Food restaurants remains under threat, and with...
This is the fourth in a series of eight articles looking at the ways that the world will change between now and 2050 and analysing the implications for Jamaica’s future. The world’s vehicle fleet is about to be transformed by two simultaneous...
A November 9 article in the Jamaica Observer reported that there would be no mining or any other related activity that could harm the environment in the Cockpit Country Area Proposed for Protection. That proviso was given as a follow-up to JISCO...
The agriculture sector plays a pivotal role in economic activity in Jamaica as it employs thousands of individuals and forms a major pillar of the island’s economy although some of the industry’s challenges include low productivity, lack of...
This week’s Reparation Conversations, a collaborative initiative between The Gleaner and the Centre for Reparation Research at The University of the West Indies, presents a summary of a Lecture “Reparation and Diversity: Building an Inclusive...
Jamaica has always been the paradise that promises to make the next step into Heaven. But it has never successfully outdistanced itself from its dark side. I once sat with a small group of elders who grew up in West Kingston at one of its worst...
On October 14, I was among those who welcomed Edmund Bartlett convening the long-overdue meeting of Jamaica’s Parliament’s Integrity Commission Oversight Committee. This meeting began review of the work of the Integrity Commission, and in so doing...
I suspect I’ve lost 95 per cent of female readers over the past two weeks during the first two of my gender-relations trilogy. In Part I, I blew the lid off chauvinists’ cookie jar containing a fetid, flaccid fantasy called “what men want in a...
Jamaicans across the board welcome development on the built environment. However, development should be non-partisan, belonging to political leaders on both sides of the Houses of Parliament, owned by government workers at both central and local...
This is the third in a series of eight articles looking at the ways that the world will change between now and 2050 and analysing the implications for Jamaica’s future. The world’s buildings require huge amounts of energy to construct and...
South African cricketer Quinton de Kock’s politically inept decision not to “take the knee” as an anti-racism gesture during the Men’s T20 World Cup game against the West Indies forces us to recall a golden age of West Indian dominance of the sport...
The first part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP15, was successfully held in Kunming, China, in mid-October 2021. The meeting adopted the Kunming Declaration and called upon...
In the months leading up to COP26, the terms accessibility and financing have become mantras that from a Caribbean perspective, threaten to fall on deaf ears. World leaders have been calling for a faster shift towards sustainable development, yet...
Never before had the nation witnessed a somewhat live tragedy played out so publicly. In Albion, St James. Pastor Kevin Smith and his embellishments - bishop, excellency, doctor - tried to live out his psychopathy in one final burst of egomaniacal...
This is the second in a series of eight articles looking at the ways that the world will change between now and 2050 and analysing the implications for Jamaica’s future. The first article in this series looked at some of the devastating impacts...
Ten months after the first vaccine for COVID-19 was authorised for use by the WHO, most people in the Americas remain at risk. We must face the daunting reality that the overreliance on imported health products – including lifesaving COVID-19...
A good friend of mine, now married, doesn’t wear a wedding ring. She didn’t get one and didn’t want one. She doesn’t think she should wear a wedding ring because she is repulsed by the pagan origins of wedding rings. You could ask me to what...
The recent bloodletting at the Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries (PIKRM) sent shock waves throughout Jamaica. People are jostling on WhatsApp and YouTube to retrieve records of the church members who were terrorised by their...
Last week, I tried to tell home truths to men who foolishly believe that they are in charge of a male/female relationship system called “The Patriarchy”. There’s no such thing. It’s an illusion created by women so they can embarrass men into...
