Commentary
This newspaper is grateful that there hasn’t been a serious fire at any of Jamaica’s growing number of high-rise buildings, so as to test the integrity of their construction, or the capacity of the island’s firefighters to adequately respond to...
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This World AIDS Day reminds us that we have the power to transform lives and futures, and end the AIDS epidemic once and for all. The progress we have made is undeniable. Since 2010, new infections have fallen by 40 per cent. AIDS-...
Today, as we observe World AIDS Day, we are called to embrace the powerful theme of “Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response”. This call resonates deeply across our Caribbean region, not as a mere slogan, but as a...
The United Nations Population Fund states that the Caribbean has the highest incidence rate of reported AIDS cases in the Americas. With between 350,000 and 590,000 Caribbean people living with HIV/AIDS, the region has an adult HIV prevalence...
This is not a time to spar with the major supplier and monopoly distributor of electric power. The company says they need at least US$350 million to fast-track restoration. That’s double what the Cabinet has agreed to lend. Government expects...
My visit to Jamaica this week comes just over a month after Hurricane Melissa – the strongest storm ever recorded here – swept across the island, leaving devastation in its wake. I will be visiting the western parishes that bore the brunt of the...
The aftermath of Hurricane Melissa has revealed more than just infrastructural damage – it has uncovered a dangerous pattern of preventable household tragedies. In the weeks following the storm, the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) reported that about...
The current geopolitical environment is arguably not conducive to pursuing reparations for slavery and colonialism. But Africa and its diaspora in the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe continue to make headway, with a focus not only on seeking...
While her Cabinet colleagues have hogged the show, talking about everything – from its economic impact to plans for recovery, Fayval Williams, the finance minister, has been peculiarly quiet in the month since Hurricane Melissa devastated western...
We are in an era of overlapping crises – global financial instability, widening inequalities, and escalating climate shocks, among others, which compound the challenges faced by people living with and most affected by HIV globally. The devastation...
Ignorance can be fatal. Panicked demagogues drew attention to a pond teeming with tadpoles. In a viral video, thousands of little black creatures wriggling and darkening the water. They were so plentiful that J$100 for each single animated dot...
With the omission of five small words, “transition away from fossil fuels”, from its final Declaration, COP30 sentenced Jamaica and other small islands and low-lying coastal states (SIDS) to an early and costly demise. The headline out of COP28 in...
Over the years, human beings have been extremely inventive and creative in discovering, inventing, or improving / developing things that are extremely useful to us as a race. Although we (collectively) bask in our scientific achievements, and lord...
When Hurricane Melissa struck last month, the natural expectation would have been for the island’s local government authorities to be quickly on the frontline, among the first responders, providing relief to people in their jurisdictions. They...
I was at university in Canada hanging out with some of my colleagues in one of the lounges when one of them, looking at me, shouted loudly, “Doggone it, Tony.” I was upset and made it clear, “Listen man, I never saw your dog. If it gone somewhere,...
This commentary is dedicated to Patrick Cozier of Barbados, whose probing occasioned its writing. In my article last week, ‘Hunger and war: The oldest crime the world still permits’, I argued that global hunger is not caused by a lack of food but...
