Commentary

Houses and vehicles are seen submerged at Gibson Close, off Ward Avenue in Mandeville, following Hurricane Melissa.
December 9, 2025

Editorial | Housing Melissa’s victims

Letter writer, Pastor Daniel Singh’s, suggestion that Jamaica lean on cruise shippers to use their vessels to temporarily accommodate people displaced by Hurricane Melissa is unlikely to gain…
Food For The Poor Jamaica team members arrange packages and emergency supplies to assist those affected by Hurricane Melissa.
December 9, 2025

Peter Espeut | Doing the little we can

Last Wednesday, the same happy crew as last week (with two additions) journeyed to the west with relief supplies for some of those affected by the winds and rain of Category 5 Hurricane Melissa. This…
Residents of Beeston Spring, Westmoreland waiting to get food from World Central Kitchen location.
December 9, 2025

Kristen Gyles | Not doing anything?

Over the weekend, I visited a hospital in Kingston and happened to have a discussion with a doctor who was on duty. The doctor was fully dressed in army gear and was clearly an employee of the JDF.…
Mayor of Kingston, Councillor Andrew Swaby.
December 9, 2025

Editorial | Bolstering local government

Kingston’s mayor, Andrew Swaby, advanced a truism with his call this week for an update of Jamaica’s small building code in the wake of Hurricane Melissa that caused widespread devastation in the…
United Nations Development Resident Representative to Jamaica, Dr Kishan Khoday surveys the damage done in Black River, St Elizabeth in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.
December 9, 2025

Basil Jarrett | The UN during Melissa: Behind the scenes but at the heart of the response

WE ARE now in Week Three since Hurricane Melissa tore through the left end of Jamaica, leaving the island quite literally a tale of two halves. At one end, mosquitoes, tarpaulins, dark nights and dry…
Hurricane Melissa’s violent winds tore through this house.
December 9, 2025

SSP Diaries | Protecting our lifeline in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa

I HAVE seen death and destruction throughout my life but what has been experienced in Western Jamaica because of Hurricane Melissa cannot be described in mere words. The loss of life, the greatest of…
Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis
December 9, 2025

Editorial | Real-time audits warranted

The decision by the auditor general (AuG) to conduct real-time audits of foreign aid to Jamaica in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa is a welcome move that need not add bureaucracy to, or delay, the…
Indigenous peoples perform at a plenary session at the COP30 UN Climate Summit in Belem, Brazil, on November 10.
December 9, 2025

Elizabeth Morgan | Climate Change (COP30) and CARICOM

FROM STUDIES now done, Hurricane Mellissa is being assessed as the third most intense Atlantic/Caribbean hurricane when it made landfall on Jamaica’s southwest coast on Tuesday, October 28. Some…
A banana and plantain field in Elderslie, St Elizabeth, that was wiped out by Hurricane Melissa.
December 9, 2025

Norris R. McDonald | A storm of crises: Hurricane Melissa and IMF budget woes!

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows!” —William Shakespeare, The Tempest SHOULD JAMAICA continue to pay the International Monetary Fund (IMF) while its people starve in the wake of the…