One of the surprises of this summer, compared to the last, is how little the Jamaican authorities, especially the health ministry, have been warning people about the dangers of extreme heat. They will probably say that unlike 2023, particularly in...
As Prime Minister Holness has been quick to highlight, July 22 was a red letter day. He wasn’t referring to the fact that it was his birthday, but rather to it being the hottest day our planet has experienced since records began. Climate change is...
My impression is that the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) is being viewed unfairly in their effort to restore electricity to all victims of the hurricane. The crews who I have observed work late into the night and, even by Daryl’s impatient...
The government must explain why, after more than a decade, it cannot solve the problem of malfunctioning air-conditioning units in Jamaican courts, especially those at the heart of the judicial system, the Supreme Court, in downtown Kingston....
We take the Government’s word for it that Jamaica’s gross debt in May was J$2.27 trillion, of which J$1.43 trillion was owed to external lenders and J$840 billion to domestic ones. We accept, too, that the debt is on track to fall to 60 per cent of...
The Government of Jamaica’s (GOJ) relief and recovery responses to Hurricane Beryl are well advanced. So why am I still writing about multi-layered disaster risk financing? Because there isn’t a better opportunity to further advance public...
Pure Chaka-Chaka dis ya week. Mi done know seh nuff a unu a go glad fi nuh see nuh Prapa-Prapa. It a come back next month, if life spare. All who still nah try fi read fi wi Jamaican language can go pon mi blog fi ketch di English version:...
‘Give a dog a bad name and hang him’. Not many of us remember this maxim from our Students Companion and Angus McIver’s First Aid in English. Yet, it always rings true. Different from lawyers, we behavioural scientists have our own notion as to...
In 1997, Shiny Entertainment developed a video game for Microsoft Windows. It was about a janitor named Kurt Hectic, who reluctantly tried to save the world from alien invaders referred to as “Minecrawlers”. It was a third-party shooter, action-...
US President Joe Biden surrendered to reality on Sunday when he announced that he would not seek re-election in the 2024 presidential race. He did it with grace, saying he was placing country above ambition. Biden’s long-term dream of serving two...
United States President Joe Biden has officially ended his bid for re-election. This progressive leader had a raft of legislative victories, but it was insufficient to carry him over the line. Even though this chain of events pertains to the...
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the...
Hamilton Brown (1775-1843) was a despicable fellow. He came to Jamaica in 1796 to work as a bookkeeper on Queenhythe Estate in St Ann, and rose to become a large landowner and slaveowner. He represented St Ann in the Jamaica House of Assembly for...
A happy development is that both Fayval Williams, the education minister, and Nigel Clarke, at finance, have listed repairing schools among the priorities in the Government’s post-Beryl recovery efforts. What we have not heard is where educational...
A few weeks ago, one TikTok user who was flying in an airplane, secretly recorded and posted a video of a fellow passenger – a man – who was seated beside a woman and captioned the video with the following message: “If this man is your husband...
By credible accounts, Nayoka Clunis is somewhere in the United States, perhaps practising, if she can stomach it, to participate in the hammer throw at some future athletic event. Rightfully, but for a monumental cock-up by the Jamaica Athletics...
What a whirlwind week this has been in the United States. First, former President Donald Trump survives a assassination attempt and gets elevated to God-like status among the MAGA faithful, then Democratic President Joe Biden calls time on his re-...
The Paris Olympic Games officially begin tomorrow (Friday, July 26). The greatest living athletes of our generation are in the French capital, set to compete in the first post-pandemic Olympics – you have to feel for Japan in 2021, I’m sure the...
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has made a dramatic ruling that Israel’s occupation of Gaza is illegal, and they must get out of Palestine. The world court further demanded that Israel must immediately stop building more settlements and...
This newspaper doesn’t know whether Floyd Green’s conduct in the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) matter rises to the level of contempt of court. A judge of the Supreme Court will decide that question if Larry Robertson’s complaint against Mr...
In my article of November 8, 2023, I wrote about Jamaica’s pending six-yearly trade policy review at the World Trade Organization (WTO). This is a transparency mechanism to see how members are implementing the WTO agreements. In November, Jamaica...
Every government in recent times has highlighted the importance of social-intervention programmes for crime control and reduction outcomes. And they have done so despite the known weaknesses in the existing projects and programmes. They understand...
The image of former American president Donald Trump, standing with a bloodied face and right fist raised in defiance, with the American flag in the background, is iconic. As Mark Zuckerberg remarked, Trump’s fist-pump reaction, in the immediate...
One of the least noted but consequential impacts on Jamaica of Hurricane Beryl was its significant damage to schools. Yet this requires major attention to ensure that the island does not risk a mini version of the COVID-19 pandemic - when schools...
It is not only Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that should have an interest in the financial management of Jamaica’s municipal corporations. So, also, should the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), which, too,...
