Editorial

Communication problem in Gov't growing worse

Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Anthony Hylton

WE are intrigued by Observer parliamentary specialist Mr Balford Henry's latest commentary, 'Inside Parliament', in yesterday's Sunday Observer. It seems that among the benefits likely to flow from the current borrowing arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be greater speed an ... Read More

From left: General manger of Victoria Mutual Wealth Management, Devon Barnett engages in a discussion with the general manager of JSE Marlene Street Forrest and Carube’s Jeff Ackert. Life would be harder without the Junior Stock Exchange
LAST week, the Jamaica Stock Exchange, under the dynamic leadership of Mrs Marlene Street-Forrest, h ... Read More

Sulieman Benn of the West Indies (left) and teammate and captain Jason Holder appear to ponder their next move as their team’s batting took a battering during the third One-Day International (ODI) at the East London cricket ground in East London, South Africa, yesterday. (PHOTO: AFP) Lack of pride hobbling West Indies cricket
The two Jamaica Observer headlines accompanying our report of the West Indies' humiliating defeat to ... Read More

South Africa President Jacob Zuma Mr Mandela must be rolling in his grave...
Politicians are indeed a rare breed. Thankfully, though, not all of them are given to contradictions ... Read More

Oh for the National Consumers League of old

Thursday, January 22, 2015    

CONVENTIONAL wisdom posits that the cost of energy, especially from oil, works itself through every item of goods on planet Earth. Simple logic, therefore, is that if the price of energy, especially oil, drops, then the cost of nearly every good should drop too, if not proportionately, at least by some measure. The massive drop in international oil prices - from over US$100 to under US$50 a barrel - suggests that consumers should be seeing a widescale fall in prices across almost every good pr ... Read More

Mr Barack Obama's impressive scorecard

Wednesday, January 21, 2015    

US President Barack Obama

EVEN primary school children in the remotest parts of our country are aware of the importance of a strong, prosperous United States to the well-being of Jamaica. As our most important trading partner, the greatest source of remittances sent from the large number of Jamaicans living there, and our biggest tourist market, we have a vested interest in the progress and advancement made by the US. For all these reasons and more, we were extremely heartened by the content of President Barack Obama's ... Read More

Race relations in America — The struggle continues

Tuesday, January 20, 2015    

Martin Luther King Jr

AMERICA'S reflection yesterday on the life and work of the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr came at a most fortuitous and important time, given recent events in that country. Over the past few months, the United States -- among the world's most democratic countries and a proud defender of free speech -- has been rocked by demonstrations against the killings of black, unarmed men by white police officers. The most recent is the revelation that North Miami Beach cops were using pictures of actua ... Read More

Congrats, Miss Atkinson and Mr Walters

Monday, January 19, 2015    

Swimmer Alia Atkinson and boxer Nicholas ‘Axeman’ Walters, the 2014 RJR Sports Foundation's National sportsman and sportswoman of the year pose with their awards Friday night during the award ceremony. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)

TO truly appreciate the achievements of 2014 Sportswoman of the year Miss Alia Atkinson and Sportsman of the year Mr Nicholas Walters, Jamaicans need to recognise that the nation's track and field athletes actually did extremely well last year. Although it wasn't an Olympic or World Championship year, the nation's track and field representatives were dominant at the Commonwealth Games, a leader on the international events calendar. Yet there was never any doubt that Miss Atkinson who is being ... Read More

Encouraging statistics on missing children

Sunday, January 18, 2015    

Registrar at the Office of the Children’s Registry, Greig Smith

While we still fret about the number of children being reported missing in Jamaica, we are encouraged by news from the Office of the Children’s Registry (OCR) that there has been a 10 per cent decline in the number of children reported missing in 2014, compared with 2013. The number is based on preliminary statistics from the Missing Person Monitoring Unit (MPMU) of the Jamaica Constabulary  Force (JCF), which show that between January and December last year, 1,984 children were rep ... Read More

Rethink needed for Jamaica's age-group football

Saturday, January 17, 2015    

Jamaica’s Roberto Johnson (foreground) shields the ball from Guatemala’s Jose Andres Ruiz Rumph during their Group A game of the CONCACAF Under-20 Championnship at the National Stadium on Sunday. Guatemala won 1-0. (PHOTO: GARFIELD ROBINSON)

JUST two months ago, this newspaper had reason to hail Jamaica's senior national football coaching staff and the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) for a thoroughly efficient show in winning the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Caribbean Cup on home soil. Sadly, inefficiency has marked the campaign by the national Under-20s in the CONCACAF Under-20 Championship currently being held here. It's not only that at press time Friday evening Jamaica had just one point from three games. Truthfully, the q ... Read More

How China can really help Jamaica and the Caribbean

Friday, January 16, 2015    

BEIJING, China — Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) walks with Costa Rica’s President Luis Guillermo Solis as they arrive last Thursday at the opening ceremony of a two-day meeting between China and Latin American and Caribbean countries held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. President Xi hailed burgeoning ties with Latin America, pledging to use his country’s economic clout to support billions of dollars in regional projects and almost double two-way trade to US$500 billion over the next 10 years. (PHOTO: AP)

In June of last year, at his meeting with Caribbean heads of government in Trinidad, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced US$3 billion in concessional financing for countries in the Caricom region. Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Suriname, Montserrat, Guyana, Barbados, The Bahamas, Grenada, Dominica, and Antigua and Barbuda were eligible as countries that support the 'one China' policy. Half of the US$3 billion was to be for infrastructure projects, with another US$1.5 billion for other kinds o ... Read More

Name them and shame them; what Roger Clarke would do

Thursday, January 15, 2015    

Roger Clarke

Ms Moveta Munroe, director of the CDF Unit, told Parliament's CDF Committee rather casually: "We are massaging the process at this time to get them (projects) in." She also informed the committee that a few projects had been returned to MPs for additional information. And equally as casually, she told reporters who asked about the extent of the missing information: "...That's internal (and) the financial year hasn't ended, so they still have time." How is it that in a country with such levels ... Read More

Oil price crunch and looming elections in T&T

Wednesday, January 14, 2015    

Kamla Persad-Bissessar

The unexpected and precipitate drop in the price of oil, from over US$100 to under US$50, will have a major impact on the economy of our sister island of Trinidad and Tobago whose current budget assumed a price of US$80 a barrel. Bearing in mind that a general election is due before the end of 2015, the necessary budget-cutting exercise will be more than usually difficult. Last week, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar in a nationwide broadcast announced that the Government would calculate it ... Read More

Painfully slow recovery in Haiti, but...

Tuesday, January 13, 2015    

The presidential palace, one of the buildings destroyed by the deadly quake which devastated Haiti in 2010. (OBSERVER FILE PHOTO)

YESTERDAY marked the fifth anniversary of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, the capital of our sister Caribbean country, Haiti. Lest we forget, that earthquake — recorded as one of world's worst natural disasters -- took the lives of an estimated 300,000 people and resulted in damage or total destruction to more than 300,000 buildings. In fact, the toll on the city's infrastructure basically paralysed the Government as the majority of its ministries were housed ... Read More



ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Poll

Do you expect to see a drop in your electricity bill from the JPS 9% reduction?
Yes
No


View Results »

ADVERTISEMENT

Today's Cartoon

Click image to view full size editorial cartoon
ADVERTISEMENT