As Jamaican Dancehall fraternity/sorority celebrated the Lizard Williams murder convictions’ quashing, shouts of “Free World Boss” reverberated from Gaza to Tower Street. Legal defence teams did “victory” laps before nearby cameras. Eminent King’s...
Recently, a friend sent me a video she thought would interest me. In the clip, a young woman with a European accent is seen giving what appears to be a TED Talk to a live audience. During her monologue, she said, “It is our responsibility to...
Don Robotham, the anthropologist and public intellectual who comments frequently on Jamaica’s political economy, delivered what ought not to have been a surprising, yet still deeply disturbing, anecdote in a column in this newspaper on Sunday. An...
One of my objectives when serving in the Ministry of Education was to extend and transform the school feeding programme. There would be several advantages. Foremost would be to improve the attendance, behaviour and performance of the 200,000...
Every two years, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) holds its Regional Ministerial Conference in Latin America and the Caribbean, bringing together its 33 members in the region to monitor progress and address the...
Even as it examines the future of jury trials in Jamaica, the Holness administration must urgently bring to Parliament legislation to close a loophole for the cynical contamination of juries, deliberately aimed and the undermining of cases – the...
Recently, announcing plans for municipal elections, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, not for the first time, stridently declared: “When I say that I love the poor but I hate poverty, you know what I mean”. Who am I to doubt him? I can claim no...
The Police Services Commission (PSC) didn’t follow this newspaper’s suggestion for transparency in selecting the new head of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). But it seems that the PSC’s choice of Kevin Blake, one of the four deputies to the...
CHAKA-CHAKA SPELLING Isat Buchanan must did lik im head. Last year, im mek mistake tek Vybz Kartel lyrics cuss Paula Llewellyn, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Inna “The Menace,” Kartel seh, “Mi too cocky fi ah cooperate wid corporate...
Yes! Some elements of the presentation from the Minister of Finance Dr Nigel Clarke’s opening Budget presentation last week are similar to contents of the manifesto of the Peoples National Party (PNP). Others can be found elsewhere as well. However...
The recent local government elections spoke volumes, albeit with the major contribution coming from the ‘silent majority’. More than 70 per cent of registered voters decided not to exercise their right to choose their local government...
Welcome change is ahead for poor, ambitious students in search of funds for higher education. The announcement by Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke that the Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB) will no longer require borrowers to provide guarantors could...
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have sparked discussions across many industries, with the education sector experiencing the most significant impact, according to extensive research. This industry has been plagued by students using AI...
For many of us, it does not seem to have been a very long time between our children getting deeply into their school’s ‘ABC’ and almost suddenly reaching the higher level of ‘Always Be Creating (or communicating)’. In between those early days and...
Many – even some schooled political watchers – were surprised at how much ground the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) lost to the People’s National Party (PNP) in last month’s local government elections. Either they give little credence to scientific...
Ever realised how that annoying group of Manchester United football fans seem more devoted to trash talking Arsenal players when they are all together in the same room, as opposed to when they are alone? The phenomenon of group polarisation is an...
After last year’s manoeuvrings by its political parties to win the votes of CARICOM nationals living there, the decision by Antigua and Barbuda’s government to opt out of fully free movement of labour in the community is surprising. Hopefully,...
Andrew Swaby’s pledge to run an open, transparent and inclusive local government in the joint administrative region of Kingston and St Andrew has a welcome, if familiar, ring to it. It is what new government leaders tend to say, having displaced...
IN JAMAICA, the outcry against corruption typically takes the form of complaints about government officials dipping into the public till. The familiar echoes of frustration and discontent at the vast sums of money being diverted from the public...
OUR CAPITAL Kingston and the metropolitan area are undergoing massive environmental changes, rendering certain places almost unrecognisable, or totally transformed. This is also true of our Second City, Montego Bay, and certain towns in other...
The devil, as they say, is always in the details. Which is why the assembly of the many critical moving parts to the stability regime for Haiti, which was announced by Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders on Monday, will be closely monitored. But...
Despite the multifaceted and varied assessments of the final result of the recently concluded 2024 local government elections, there is every expectation that Mark Golding’s mass-based re-energised People’s National Party’s (PNP) will be advancing...
The 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, February 26 to March 2, 2024, actually marked the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the organisation. MC13 concluded with the...
Sudan has had a very violent and unstable history. Since gaining independence in 1956, the country has experienced more than 15 military coups and other conflicts, including two civil wars between the Arab-dominated government and the Christian and...
The sameness of local media offerings has the potential to trigger a book reading revival. I belong to the age of rotary phones and horse drawn carriages so, when I use the word “media”, I really mean radio. Radio used to be entertaining starting...
