In Focus

Two Thursdays ago, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a statement on Jamaica following its Article IV consultations with local authorities. Everyone should find that statement quite instructive.

With the Budget Debate behind us, what has the State done to our current state of mind? I am guessing it will depend on your perspective.If you are the Government, you are hoping that the Budget holds; that the people will understand your explanation for higher taxes; there will be no unexpected disruptions like hurricanes, a global recession, a sliding dollar or increased interest rates...

Jamaica's Budget has been widely described, including by Finance Minister (MOF) Peter Phillips, as an 'austerity Budget'. Seriously? Ignoring economic mumbo-jumbo used by 'expert' analysts to regularly pollute the discussion, this is what's real. This Budget's recurrent expenditure estimates total $375 billion (7% above 2011-12). Annual inflation for 2011 was 6%. Where's the 'austerity'?

Robbie Earle, the first man to score a goal for Jamaica at the World Cup finals, chronicled how then Minister of Sports Portia Simpson Miller contributed to the Reggae Boyz World Cup experience in France 1998. Earle reported that the night before their first game against Croatia, the entire squad watched in horror a TV documentary by Britain's Channel 4 which painted a very unfair picture of the Boyz's camp in Jamaica.

In recent discussions about the backlog of cases in the Circuit Courts, some persons are blaming the preliminary enquiry for the problem and advocating its abolition. The backlog is caused by delay in disposing of cases, and it has taken many years to get to what is now a veritable crisis.

Common sense must always prevail: in politics, in life, with an acute sensitivity to the distress of the poor, unemployed and working.

The protests that erupted this spring at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona - in which angry students, excluded for their inability to pay fees, forcefully disrupted final examinations - were not unique to Jamaica. They are part of a wider international pattern of student angst about how to manage their immediate finances in the midst of education cutbacks, while also facing bleak long-term employment and loan-repayment prospects.

On Sunday, April 15, a column ('Follow Jesus' map') I'd submitted for Easter Sunday was finally published by the Conservative Old Lady of North Street (COLONS). It was intended to be a controversial but thought-provoking analysis of Christ's message.

Today's foremost scourge; the source of much of the world's violence; and the number one reason we don't have world peace is discrimination.

"The real challenge of our politics is to be able to debate more of the things that are of national interest and subordinate the partisan competition, which just allows everybody to take the easy populist route.

The civil-society group Citizens Action for Principle and Integrity was spot on last Monday as it raked the Simpson Miller administration over the coals for breaking its election promises and engaging in what it described as "barefaced deception".

Last week, a minibus driver, in a desperate attempt to evade the police and Transport Authority (TA), crashed his vehicle laden with passengers. When the dust settled, a teenage boy had his life snuffed out.