In Focus

There is an unsettling ease with which Jamaica is now being asked to clap for pirates. Port Royal has gained the glitter of UNESCO inscription and, in the heady rush to monetise heritage, marketers seem ready to turn a long season of robbery,...

Most uptown people whose penthouses shield them from violent encounters with the police usually don’t care too much about another policeman’s bullet taking the life of an everyday citizen. Just as long as the story is sanitised and uptown people...

At 20 Belmont Road and a stone’s throw (well, maybe two throws) away, at 89 Old Hope Road, winds of change are blowing. JLP’s focus on change was signalled by dissolution of an ill-advised Legal and Constitutional Affairs Ministry thus returning...

The present White House led by Donald Trump is devouring democracy and doing it with glee and much haste. Here in Jamaica we gave it our special birth, our special nurturing and when it veered off track we developed the skill and patience to pull...

Behind the neat rows of school timetables lies harmful buffoonery, where pools-timetabling locks children’s dreams into cages and wastes national talent. Each new school year, thousands of Jamaican secondary students discover that their academic...

A Constitution is to the building of a nation as a foundation is to the building of a house. A foundation sets the framework within which the house must be built. Then walls and roof are added but always strictly within boundaries set by the...

What is there to celebrate about pirates that Kingston would be allowed to designate an entire week for this? Historians describe a pirate as the lowest grade of seafaring robbers, the scourge of the high seas, and a menace that governments had to...

Prime Minister Holness’ decade-long silence concerning access to final justice ended in a pre-election debate in answering a question on Jamaica transitioning from the Privy Council to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). He projected proposals...

Post election, the loudest public kerfuffle surrounded the query “how cum ‘Action Ann’ lose to ‘Little Youth’ in East Portland?” I was among those pre-election pundits who carelessly placed Portland East in the JLP win column as part of “Vazland.”...

In Jamaica, families are fighting battles that few ever see. These are not the battles of indiscipline or “bad behaviour”, as is too often whispered. They are the daily struggles of parents raising children with neurological and neurodevelopmental...

I praise God for overseas, multicultural, polyglot education Each morning, many Jamaicans tune into a radio segment which promises a generous survey of the region’s astonishing musical variety. One might reasonably expect to hear a cross-...

On Friday, August 29 in New Kingston, hundreds of workers were evacuated from offices and shops following a bomb threat. For over two hours, they stood exposed in the sun — confused, frustrated, and vulnerable. While public safety must always be...