Columns

What will become of the missing children?

When 14-year-old Santoya Campbell joined the list of missing children, no one in her community could have imagined such a bitter end.

IN last Sunday's Observer, a headline and accompanying photos introduced us to one young man and seven girls who were listed as missing children. The youngest listed was 12 years old, another 13, two others 14, two 15 and one 16. The oldest was the young man at age 17. The photos and the text reve ... Read More

Greece and Jamaica should have too many differences to be come kindred spirits. Can Greece or Jamaica avoid austerity and 'run wid it'?
NEWS that the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) platform may challenge International Monetary Fund (IMF) ... Read More

HOLNESS... if I have done something wrong, or my actions have been declared wrong, then I have a duty to apologise Should we applaud or boo you off the stage, Holness?
AS Opposition Leader Andrew Holness strode through a door of the Boulevard Baptist Church on Sunday, ... Read More

Rev Glen Archer Glen Archer, celibacy and service
REVEREND Glen Archer died as a dry martyr. The term is used to describe those who were not murdered ... Read More

Principles: Choose wisely and soon

Thursday, February 26, 2015    

Principles: Choose wisely and soon

THERE are two terms that have been bandied about in this society for quite some time now without sufficient attempts at careful definition of either, and seemingly without realisation of certain implications arising from these terms. The terms are ethics and integrity. And whether we are dealing with the old Parliamentary Integrity Commission or the later proposed Ethics Commission, or the very recent call for ethics in business, I maintain that more careful thought is needed. The rough real ... Read More

(Social) justice is a complete circle

Jephthah FORD | Wednesday, February 25, 2015    

(Social) justice is a complete circle

I read with great distress an article under the banner Covering the Courts in the Sunday Observer edition of December 28, 2014 in which the learned Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey sentenced a mother to 30 days in prison for rubbing faeces on a child, splashing some on a school building, and causing some to catch a guidance counsellor. Perhaps your reporter could not write the full story, for you did not give the expected other remarks from the fearless Judge Pusey, she with the deserved reputa ... Read More

The other side of scamming

Lloyd B SMITH | Wednesday, February 25, 2015    

Alleged scammers being led away by security forces.

SCAMMING is big money. It has made many ordinary, impoverished, uneducated Jamaicans very rich. Students still in high school have been known to become multimillionaires overnight. In Western Jamaica, moreso St James, which has been regarded as the "capital of scamming", raw cash, United States dollars changed out into Jamaican dollars, has helped to transform the parish's socio-economic landscape which has seen many hillsides, upscale residential areas, as well as some inner-city areas, become ... Read More

A doggone shame!

Grace Virtue | Tuesday, February 24, 2015    

Manley Fritz, 71, looks out from the structure he calls home.

DURING Barack Obama's first term as president of the United States, he was forced to produce his birth certificate to prove that he was born in Hawaii and not Kenya. No matter how many times he asserted citizenship, bigots insisted otherwise. When he released the certificate, they dismissed it as a fake. They believed that, in 1961, when America was a hotbed of racism, the Hawaiian registrar of births envisioned that decades later, the child born to 18-year-old Stanley Ann Dunham and her 23-yea ... Read More

As the Tivoli Commission takes a break...

COLONEL ALLAN DOUGLAS | Tuesday, February 24, 2015    

Former Jamaica Constabulary Force’s Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington testifying to the Tivoli Commission of Enquiry.

THE testimony of the former Jamaica Constabulary Force's (JCF) Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington to the Tivoli Commission of Enquiry (COE), last week, has left me astonished and puzzled. However, I am grateful for the seven-week break the commission will be taking before resuming testimony in April, as it certainly must give us time to fully digest and analyse the commisioner's evidence. It might also provide the commission's chairman, a Barbadian, the opportunity to have a long laugh at wh ... Read More

Mistranslating scripture, misquoting God re divorce

Tuesday, February 24, 2015    

Mistranslating scripture, misquoting God re divorce

At the risk of being called liberal, apostate or a 'tun back parson', I confess that I do not share the puzzlement of most people concerning the divorce rate, even among Christians. If anything, I am puzzled that so many married people stay married given the known vagaries of marriage if we are honest with ourselves. The alleged scriptural quotation has become so popular that you may wonder about my eyesight or sanity when I assert that God, nowhere in scripture says "I hate divorce". I know yo ... Read More

Paving the way for sustainability

Jean LOWRIE-CHIN | Monday, February 23, 2015    

A section of the 1,500-square-foot greenhouse at Manning’s School, facilitated by Digicel Foundation and Food for the Poor

AS we examined the healthy vegetables grown by students in the greenhouse at Manning's School in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, last Tuesday, as we listened to the young singers and dramatists; we saw the bright promise of Jamaica. With their fine tradition of excellence and discipline, Jamaica's first high school has produced brilliant graduates who have been making their mark on their country and beyond. These include Food for the Poor board director, attorney-at-law Debbie-Ann Gordon Crawford ... Read More

Exploitation of mineral resources remains critical policy objective

Allan BROOKS | Monday, February 23, 2015    

PAULWELL... remains committed to the sustainable exploitation of Jamaica’s mineral resources

JAMAICA'S desire to gain maximum advantage from the sustainable exploitation of its mineral resources remains a critical policy objective of the Government of Jamaica. This commitment has been reiterated on many occasions by Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining Phillip Paulwell, particularly since the recent decision to suspend the red mud beneficiation-based (rare-earth elements) project in Jamaica. A state-of-the-art pilot plant, totally financed by a US$5-million (approximately ... Read More

Just as I thought I understood the Constitution, they changed it

Frank PHIPPS | Monday, February 23, 2015    

Frank Phipps

This parody on the Jamaican Constitution may be timely as we fumble about what to do with a double appointment of senators. IN the year 2011 I was at the age — and long past it — for enjoying the "Whereas" in the constitution, as I understood them. But that was the year they interrupted my reverie and changed whereas. Whereas is now hidden in an arrangement for future generations, children and their education, the environment, my passport, and my vote, and other accommodations as ... Read More

Denbigh High School: A demonstration of excellence

BY Winston Donald | Monday, February 23, 2015    

Denbigh High School students share a proud moment. (SOURCE: DENBIGH HIGH FACEBOOK PAGE)

Competition and excellence are the hallmark of a successful school. In a hard-to-please society and nation, non-traditional schools have traditionally been bombarded by texts and innuendos. Prejudices are rife and many of our parents take pre-emptive measures in bolstering academic knowledge to ensure their students gain a pass for the traditional high schools. In a country where status is a norm, non-traditional high schools are for the most part avoided. Non-traditional high schools, however, ... Read More



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