Editorial

The police merger and related legislation

Police Commissioner Owen Ellington (left) talks with a vendor during a tour of the busy downtown Kingston market district recently.

AS we have said previously, key to the success of a raft of anti-crime legislation now being pushed through will be execution. In that respect we applaud the approval by Cabinet to merge the accessory Island Special Constabulary Force with the regular Jamaica Constabulary Force. No doubt there was ... Read More

BUSTAMANTE... reluctant to abide by rules, unless he made them himself Bustamante was a pragmatist, not the simpleton he's perceived to be
WE find the discussions about National Hero Sir Alexander Bustamante's role in the early national mo ... Read More

Carlton Fraser, former Reggae Boyz doctor. If only we had heeded Dr Fraser's warning...
The tragic passing of St Jago High School student/athlete Mr Cavahn McKenzie has once again sparked ... Read More

Velma Hylton A compromise over Ms Velma Hylton
OUTRAGE over the appointment of Ms Velma Hylton to the Commission of Enquiry into the May 2010 secur ... Read More

Joint call by leaders against crime falls flat

Thursday, March 06, 2014    

WE have been digging furiously in our archives — but without success — to find out if there has been any precedent to the joint call for unity against crime by our governor general, prime minister and Opposition leader. Incredibly, this historic development last week Friday apparently took place under the radar. While it was reported by the media, the news release which originated at King's House, failed to get any serious traction on the national agenda. We, admittedly, have been ... Read More

Has Mr Pickersgill been sidelined on Goat Islands?

Wednesday, March 05, 2014    

AS the discussion about the building of a port at Goat Islands heats up, we note that the minister with responsibility for environment and climate change, Mr Robert Pickersgill, has been silent on the subject. Minister Pickersgill's absence from the debate is especially glaring because it was he, while on a five-day visit to China with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and her team last August, who brought the matter into the public domain when he told representatives of China Harbour Engine ... Read More

Nurturing good political leadership

Tuesday, March 04, 2014    

It is arguable that what differentiates countries — in terms of political, social and economic development — is the quality of political leadership. If we accept that, we need to examine the question of whether good political leadership can be created or is it a rare talent, like artistic creativity or entrepreneurship. Leadership, we hold, is the ability to get others to voluntarily follow and individually or collectively accomplish objectives they did not think were possible. Rea ... Read More

Our leaders must match their words with action

Monday, March 03, 2014    

THIS newspaper has consistently appealed for a truly bipartisan approach to the fight against crime. For that reason we feel real satisfaction at the focused approach, evident in recent weeks, to the passage of the anti-gang legislation, formally known as the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Bill. We sense that the desire by the two political parties and their representatives in Parliament to play their part in bringing criminals to heel has trumped the ever-present kne ... Read More

Economic confidence returning, but...

Sunday, March 02, 2014    

Economic growth depends on real factors such as interest rates, and psychological factors, the most important of which is confidence. Confidence, in turn, is an intangible which cannot be quantified but is a vital determinant of economic decisions which affect critical economic variables like savings, investment, production, inventories, imports and whether to hold US dollars or Jamaican dollars. Nobody knows for sure what influences confidence among entrepreneurs, consumers, foreign investors ... Read More

Welcome back Mrs Campbell Brown

Saturday, March 01, 2014    

We are at one with that most experienced of sports administrators, Mr Mike Fennell, the long-serving head of the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA). We all should await the formal submission of the Court of Arbitration for Sport before seeking to comment directly on their decision to clear Mrs Veronica Campbell Brown of doping charges. Meantime though, we believe it appropriate to join in welcoming the return of Mrs Campbell Brown to competition. She has established herself among the very best ... Read More

Keeping our fingers crossed that PetroCaribe won't be scuttled

Friday, February 28, 2014    

PRESIDENT Nicolas Maduro is no Hugo Chávez. However, based on news coming out of Venezuela yesterday, it is clear that Mr Maduro is being buoyed by the popularity that the late President Chávez enjoyed among the masses. An Associated Press report tells us that, while it is difficult to find toilet paper or flour in Venezuela these days, and inflation is among the highest worldwide, the political Opposition is frequently outmanoeuvred and "hasn't united behind a single strategy or ... Read More

Simpson Miller-Obama administrations should start talking about ganja

Thursday, February 27, 2014    

WE think that the Jamaican public, including the political Opposition, is at a heightened state of readiness for the decriminalisation, if not the legalisation of ganja and that the Government should now be more definitive about its policy on the issue. Mr Phillip Paulwell's message to the Cannabis Commercial and Medicinal Research Taskforce (CCMRT) meeting last week was quietly delivered. He then left it to the task force, still a private entity, to make the announcement. Even then, he merely ... Read More

Welcome foreign investors but beware the fly-by-night operators

Wednesday, February 26, 2014    

Last Sunday, we addressed the issue of foreign direct investment (FDI) and their impact, for good or bad, on our natural investment. Today we return to the issue of FDI, given its overriding importance to our prospects for growth. Foreign direct investment, like all investments, private or public — and this is a point that we hardly need belabour — comes with benefits and costs alike. The task of the Government is to create a business environment that encourages the maximum private ... Read More

DR must implement IACHR recommendations

Tuesday, February 25, 2014    

WE hope that the Dominican Republic takes Jamaica's advice to implement recommendations made by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in relation to that controversial Constitutional Court ruling made last September. The ruling, readers will recall, arbitrarily rendered stateless more than 200,000 Haitians human beings who either migrated to the Dominican Republic many years ago or were born there. Consistent criticism of the ruling by this newspaper resulted in the Dominican R ... Read More



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