Published:Saturday | September 14, 2024 | 12:06 AM
My face in the mirror isn’t wrinkled or drawn, My house isn’t dirty. The cobwebs are gone. My garden looks lovely and so does my lawn. I think I might never put my glasses back on. Men and women have a lot in common, but according to...
I find that we Jamaicans spend an awfully large amount of time talking about the coming elections in the United States of America (USA). Maybe some of us just love politics, and there just isn’t enough cass-cass locally. Ha! If I were American...
Upon contemplation of the recently announced 2024 pass rates for some CSEC subjects, it is hard not to wonder how exactly it is that some students manage to pass their exams with flying colours while other students, some belonging to the same...
Like Christopher Tufton, the health minister, this newspaper is concerned about the sensibilities of the family of Leroy Smith with respect to a public, tit-for-tat litigation of his death earlier this month at Sangster International Airport, as he...
THE SUPREME Court, in Virgo v Board of Management of Kensington Primary School, initially ruled that a policy prohibiting dreadlocks, of which the parents were aware of prior to the claim, did not violate constitutional rights, including the right...
Published:Thursday | September 12, 2024 | 12:09 AM
We’d wish it were merely a routine development: the appointment of a head teacher at a high school. Sian-Mahay Wilson’s accession as principal of Calabar High, the Baptist boys’ school in Kingston, is significant on two fronts. She is the first...
AS JAMAICA prepares to deploy a small team of soldiers and police officers to Haiti today, as part of the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), it’s natural that questions, doubts, and even concerns are surfacing among the public. After all...
Published:Wednesday | September 11, 2024 | 6:21 AM
On the eve of the new school year, in a speech at the annual conference of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association, the education minister, Fayval Williams, extolled her ministry’s initiatives to combat antisocial behaviour, especially violence, in...
Published:Wednesday | September 11, 2024 | 12:07 AM
China has pledged US$50 billion to help African countries develop their economies. This is one outcome of the 9th China-Africa Forum recently held in Beijing. This money will be spent on poverty eradication programmes and methods of creating...
Published:Wednesday | September 11, 2024 | 12:05 AM
Since the death of Sir Shridath Surendranath ‘Sonny’ Ramphal, at age 95, on Friday, August 30, in Barbados, there have been many tributes from across the Caribbean and the world. He will be accorded an official funeral in Guyana, the country of his...
There is a clear gap that exists when the recommended exclusive breastfeeding period is six months, yet, according to the International Labour Office (ILO), the recommended minimum maternity leave is 12 weeks. The gap is the one between the mother...
Psychotherapy, usually referred to simply as ‘therapy’, is the use of psychological methods to treat mental conditions by helping a person to change their behaviour to overcome problems and improve their mental well-being. Therapy has helped...
This newspaper has long been on record in support of mechanisms for the impeachment and/or recall of Jamaica’s legislators who, while in office, engage in wantonly egregious behaviour. Indeed, it remains our position, as articulated last month,...
Jamaicans concerned with the state of the island’s education system will welcome Mark Smith’s latest intervention into the debate on the issue, hoping it marks the start of a serious and sustained effort by the teachers’ union to the crisis, or...
Everyone is busy saying goodbye to Finance Minister Nigel Clarke and hurrying him on to his date with destiny. I share in the good wishes and the enormous pride that Jamaicans have in this appointment. In my memory, which stretches back quite a...
My Yute, who is entering Grade 8 (second form) at a non-traditional high school, has been told that his class will be doing 17 subjects this academic year. His book and materials list exceed in size, weight and cost the load which university...
Every minute, a person dies of AIDS somewhere in the world. It’s unsurprising then that the recently published 2024 Global AIDS Report, titled The Urgency of Now: AIDS at the Crossroads, highlighted a grim reality: that the world continues to be...
Forgive my naivete, but I honestly believed that given that the concert is titled ‘Freedom Street’, then just as the ‘World Boss’ himself is free, so should be all other ‘bleachers’. At US$125 per person, these cheapest seats are J$4,000 higher...
On the morning of September 4, Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, received an anonymous ominous phone call informing them that there would be shootings at five schools and that Apalachee would be the first. Mid-morning, 14-year-old Colt Gray...
The appointment of Dr Nigel Clarke as a deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a signal achievement by, and honour for, him. Dr Clarke skilfully continued an IMF programme forced on Dr Peter Phillips, who took the...
David Riley, the technical leader for Jamaica’s team at the World Under-20 championships in Lima, Peru, wants “some tweaking” in how athletes are prepared for these kinds of games. “We have to look at it and see how we get our training programmes...
Mere weeks after Ugandan Rebecca Cheptegei exhibited her athletic prowess and grit at the Paris Olympics, the 33-year-old marathon runner is dead. She was doused with gasolene and ignited by a former boyfriend. The tragic event unfolded in...
One of my colleagues on Facebook posted, “Kamamega woman sent away after eating chicken part meant for husband”. The story was that of a 32 year-old woman in Matungu which is (wait for this) in Kakamega County, Kenya. My first thought was asking, “...
In the 1970s, as newly independent nations in the Caribbean, Africa, and the Pacific sought to shape their economic futures, the world they confronted was still very much dominated by their former colonial powers in Europe, and the global reach of...
This newspaper is happy for the people who live in North East St Ann. We are not so for the constituents of South Trelawny. On September 21 they will have been without a member of parliament for a year, since the resignation of their MP, Marisa...
