The year 2011 may be called a make-or-break year for those countries still reeling under the lingering impact of the global economic recession which started in 2008. This recession has been rightly dubbed the worst since the Great Depression which commenced in 1929.
The story titled 'Four vying to replace PNP's Harris' in The Gleaner dated December 29, 2010 initially made very interesting reading, then ended up with some glaring errors which clearly exposed your political reporter's lack of proper research as well as a lack of general knowledge of the political history of North Trelawny.
Clovis had a cartoon on Monday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez energetically chopping away at private-sector infrastructure using an implement called 'socialism', while Brazil's just-departed President Lula was smilingly pushing a wheelbarrow titled 'Brazil's wealth' with one item included titled '20 million pulled from poverty', an obvious reflection of the latest Brazilian 'Miracle'.
Much of what we have witnessed in our politics over the last year comes down to one principle: power first. This is the fundamental principle popularly associated with Machiavellian politics.
In a recent Jamaica Observer editorial, "Where have our Caribbean economists been?" the writer took Caribbean economists to task for what was alleged to be a dereliction…
The research reveals that, apart from St Vincent and the Grenadines' recent venture into that arena, no former British colony has held a referendum to sever its ties with the 19th century-created Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. That is a matter which those who advocate for that exercise to take place in Jamaica must contemplate.
As the year ended, a number of revelations this past December exposed the dangerous course destined for Jamaica's politics over the year ahead. These revelations take us inside Jamaica's politics of violence, specifically the relationship between the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), the JLP government and the infamous Shower Posse.
We need new modes of thought for this new year. The old ways of thinking which got us in this mess are unable to get us out. One of the deficits in Jamaica today is the deficit of ideas - of alternative ways of thinking. We have lots of ideas as Jamaicans. But most of them are variations on the same bourgeois themes.
Our top athletes run faster than anybody else in the world, not just because of their excellent physical endowments and training discipline, but also because of the efficiency with which all their organs and muscles work together in a coordinated and sequenced way, to achieve the outcome of maximising speed over a given distance.
On Friday, December 3, a day that began like any other, I was made a criminal. After my morning routine, I headed to the FedEx office on Half-Way Tree Road, St Andrew, to post the contract for an academic article on freedom....
For reasons and developments that I shall discuss in this two-part series, deve-lopments in nuclear-energy technology have made it possible that it can play a central role in Jamaica's sustainable...
Raul Castro addressed the Cuban National Assembly on December 18. He cited the commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness" (lie). This ninth commandment is well-known. What is a politician doing quoting it...
A fundamental precondition for sustained economic growth in a capitalist society is that a modern class of capitalists should come to power whose very reproduction and development requires capital...
I am at that time of life when prostate concerns loom large. Prostate cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among Jamaican men. It is a horrible and painful death. And the treatments for late-stage prostate cancer are almost equally horrible.
Since May, at least 400 children have died in the Nigerian state of Zamfara, and thousands of children and adults have been hospitalised in the worst case of acute lead poisoning ever reported. The tragedy came to light when visiting teams, who were checking on a vaccination programme, noted the remarkable absence of children in several villages.
Before I continue the discussion, let me remind readers that what I am talking about is the problem of how to grow income faster than planned expenditures in order to improve the living standards of the people of Jamaica and stabilise its exchange rate. The online comments of several individuals on Part II appeared to have confused this problem with that of merely growing income.
The best proof that all points of view are given free rein in Jamaica are the contrasting outlooks of two doyens of local journalism, Wilmot 'Mutty' Perkins and John Maxwell. While Maxwell remains a more or less unreformed leftist, Perkins has become somewhat of a right-wing anarchist.
Following the recent internal elections in the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Mike Henry has been elevated to the chairmanship of the party. The new general secretary, Aundré Franklyn, has said that his priority is completing the selection of candidates for the next general elections so Government can be ready to call an election as soon as it wants to.
For almost a decade, Jamaica has been one of the most heavily-indebted countries in the world. The ratio of debt to (nominal) gross domestic product (GDP) exceeded 140 per cent in 2003, and after a slow decline and a favourable data revision, we are getting back to that peak again.
I was enjoying the early Saturday afternoon ride when I was jolted by a headline glimpsed on a newspaper rack: 'John Maxwell is dead'. "Maxwell dead!" I exclaimed to my wife. As she continued driving, I felt as though I had left a whole chunk of my life behind.
On Thursday when Jamaica for the first time marked International Anti-Corruption Day, Professor Trevor Munroe, director of the National Integrity Action Forum brought together Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Opposition spokesman on security, Peter Bunting (deputising for the leader of the Opposition) to speak...
