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...
Michael Belnavis touched several of the right notes last week at his swearing-in as chairman of the council of the St Ann Municipal Corporation (SAMC) and mayor of St Ann’s Bay, the parish’s capital. Unfortunately, he failed to avoid the...
Today, March 11, some 2.5 billion of us will come together to celebrate the Commonwealth family. Seventy-five years after the London Declaration, I will join this family’s many nations, faiths and communities at a service at Westminster Abbey. I...
Last week our elected representatives undertook the annual irresponsible sprint through the Estimates of Expenditure in the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament. In a few hours of largely superficial oversight, they justified spending $1,300...
It is good that the Jamaican Government is ready for a serious discussion about the future of the jury system, whether it should, or can be rehabilitated, or abandoned, as proposed by Chief Justice Bryan Sykes. This newspaper is in favour of a bit...
Now that the councils are mostly in place after last month’s municipal elections, they must get about their jobs with a sense of urgency and new levels of transparency if they are keen on salvaging respect and support for the system of local...
Does the 70 per cent of Jamaica’s electorate not voting on February 26 means “voter apathy”… that the 70 per cent don’t care? Among the many who believe that the 70 per cent don’t care, I am not one; nor is Prime Minister Holness among that number...
I couldn’t believe it. On the Saturday after local government elections, the Papine Market dump was as disgusting as ever. The gate was partially open and garbage was overflowing on to the sidewalk. The headline of my column two weeks ago, “...
We really are not doing too badly as a country and despite having the highest homicide rate of English-speaking democracies, there is a lot of progress in equality and transparency. We have had three female speakers of the House of Representatives...
Someone sent this humorous post to a WhatsApp chat group. “PNP win Monday, JLP win Tuesday, PNP win Wednesday, PNP win Thursday, JLP win Friday. Now who ago win Saturday?” I want to ask another, more relevant question, when will the citizens of...
There is a growing level of anguish in Jamaica about the United States Department of State’s February level-3 travel advisory which urges Americans to reconsider travel to the island. An estimated 2.1 million Americans visited Jamaica in 2023,...
Some people might say, “For almost all my many years of living, I’ve danced with the sun, twirling in its golden embrace.” Not me. I take things as they come or, as one of my female friends looking directly at me pointed out, “Even if they don’t...
