Looking at the economy through rose-coloured lenses, we see the success of the Jamaica Debt Exchange (JDX) in easing the burden of debt servicing by stretching out maturities and lowering interest rates on a restructured domestic...
Geographically and culturally, the perspective of Puerto Rico is rather singular because our islands are at the crossroads of the Americas - where Latin America and the United States come together and where the United States becomes a Caribbean nation.
Now here is something that the departed John Maxwell and I could actually agree on. Almost exactly a year before his death, John wrote on Sunday, December 13, 2009 one of those classic Maxwellian bashers.
The commission of enquiry into the Manatt, Phelps and Phillips engagement by the Government of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has begun its hearing. The issues being investigated are important in their own right. They can tell us much about how our Government works or has been working.
If you want to tempt the Jamaican media with irrationality and unreason, mention the issue of libel reform. They have absolutely no resistance in that regard. The Media Association Jamaica (MAJ) Ltd and the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) are unabashed and unrestrained in the defence of their special interests.
"... till I die, I will not put away my integrity from me. My uprightness and my right standing with God I hold fast and will not let them go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days and it shall not reproach me as long as I live." Job 27:5-6
Haiti is often called a failed state. But what if it is the international system of states that is failing Haiti and it is their failed state policies towards Haiti that are the real problem?
Many senior public servants are hopping mad over G2K President Delano Seiveright's Sunday Gleaner article urging the prime minister to rethink civil-service appointments.
As promised at the end of Part One, I will now bring the analysis to the present and provide some definite answers as to 'where have our Caribbean economists been' and why they have returned with very little of practical value to offer either the emerging modern bourgeoisie or the working class of the region.
The prophet Jeremiah, agonising over the difficulty of trying to liberate a person's mind rather than his body, asked in the 13th chapter of his book: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" Two thousand years later, the question remains relevant; and it is made current by those unwise Jamaicans bleaching in quest of a lighter shade of skin.
I'm back. Popular scholar and fellow columnist Kevin O'Brien Chang and Ian Randle Publishers (IRP) have just published a delightful book, Jamaica Fi Real: Beauty, Vibes and Culture.
The year 2011 may be called a make-or-break year for those countries still reeling under the lingering impact of the global economic recession which started in 2008. This recession has been rightly dubbed the worst since the Great Depression which commenced in 1929.
The story titled 'Four vying to replace PNP's Harris' in The Gleaner dated December 29, 2010 initially made very interesting reading, then ended up with some glaring errors which clearly exposed your political reporter's lack of proper research as well as a lack of general knowledge of the political history of North Trelawny.
Clovis had a cartoon on Monday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez energetically chopping away at private-sector infrastructure using an implement called 'socialism', while Brazil's just-departed President Lula was smilingly pushing a wheelbarrow titled 'Brazil's wealth' with one item included titled '20 million pulled from poverty', an obvious reflection of the latest Brazilian 'Miracle'.
Much of what we have witnessed in our politics over the last year comes down to one principle: power first. This is the fundamental principle popularly associated with Machiavellian politics.
In a recent Jamaica Observer editorial, "Where have our Caribbean economists been?" the writer took Caribbean economists to task for what was alleged to be a dereliction…
The research reveals that, apart from St Vincent and the Grenadines' recent venture into that arena, no former British colony has held a referendum to sever its ties with the 19th century-created Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. That is a matter which those who advocate for that exercise to take place in Jamaica must contemplate.
As the year ended, a number of revelations this past December exposed the dangerous course destined for Jamaica's politics over the year ahead. These revelations take us inside Jamaica's politics of violence, specifically the relationship between the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), the JLP government and the infamous Shower Posse.
We need new modes of thought for this new year. The old ways of thinking which got us in this mess are unable to get us out. One of the deficits in Jamaica today is the deficit of ideas - of alternative ways of thinking. We have lots of ideas as Jamaicans. But most of them are variations on the same bourgeois themes.
