Commentary

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness speaking at a press briefing at Jamaica House.
December 9, 2025

Editorial | National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority a good start

The Government’s concurrence with this newspaper’s call for a legislated special purpose vehicle to undertake the post-Hurricane Melissa reconstruction of western Jamaica is a good start towards the…
December 9, 2025

Peter Espeut | God is not like humanity

Many of us Jamaicans are Old Testament people – which is fine if we follow the Jewish faith tradition. But if we are children of the New Covenant – the New Testament – then we follow a different…
Damage sustained by Sydney Pagon STEM Academy’s agricultural farm during the passage of Hurricane Melissa in Elim district, St Elizabeth.
December 9, 2025

Ohene Blake | Cauterising the adverse economic impacts of Hurricane Melissa

Hurricane Melissa has devastated the western third or more of Jamaica. This is the prime real sector for economic growth. It is the centre of agricultural food production for the entire Jamaican and…
Schools, hospitals and clinics were levelled or badly mangled by the hurricane’s 185 mph winds.
December 9, 2025

Editorial | Specific body for rebuilding

There is no question that Hurricane Melissa severely battered western Jamaica. Indeed, even as the assessment becomes more granular, what is known so far of the impact of the Category 5 storm is…
Olga Isaza (right), representative, UNICEF Jamaica, talks with 12-year-old Antwane from Rocky Hill, St Elizabeth about the impact of Hurricane Melissa.
December 9, 2025

Basil Jarrett | World Children’s Day and a broken Jamaica

IF YOU grew up in the ‘90s, you remember them. Those heart-breaking UNICEF ads that just seemed to ambush your conscience as you settled in for some mindless Fresh Prince of Belair or WWE Smackdown.…
A flooded farm in Bog Hole, Clarendon, days after Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica.
December 9, 2025

Monique Oates | Replanting hope: Feeding Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa

Hurricane Melissa did more than upend lives, destroy the housing stock and sever the road network, she uprooted Jamaica’s food security. The once-fertile parishes of St Elizabeth and Manchester, long…
A work crew clearing downed trees and other debris from a section of the Mandela Highway in St Catherine on October 29, following the passage of Hurricane Melissa the day before.
December 9, 2025

Editorial | Melissa clean-up brigades

The emergence of several cases of leptospirosis and tetanus in western Jamaica since the passage of Hurricane Melissa underlines the need for fast action by the Government to head off a potential…
Businessman Yucheng Tao (right) is seen distributing care packages to residents of Shrewsbury Logwood in Westmoreland.
December 9, 2025

Wang Jinfeng | Standing together in solidarity to overcome difficulties

HURRICANE MELISSA has left a trail of casualties and extensive property losses in Jamaica, a situation that has brought deep concern and sorrow to us all. Sharing Jamaica’s pain, China extended its…
Activists march at a climate protest during the COP30 UN Climate Summit in Belem, Brazil, on November 17.
December 9, 2025

Elizabeth Morgan | Living in troubling times

EVERY CENTURY comes with its cataclysmic events which are recorded in history and will be discussed, written about and studied for generations to come. The 20th century had quite a few of those which…