Commentary

Residents of Beeston Spring, Westmoreland waiting to get food from World Central Kitchen location.
December 9, 2025

Kristen Gyles | Not doing anything?

Over the weekend, I visited a hospital in Kingston and happened to have a discussion with a doctor who was on duty. The doctor was fully dressed in army gear and was clearly an employee of the JDF.…
Mayor of Kingston, Councillor Andrew Swaby.
December 9, 2025

Editorial | Bolstering local government

Kingston’s mayor, Andrew Swaby, advanced a truism with his call this week for an update of Jamaica’s small building code in the wake of Hurricane Melissa that caused widespread devastation in the…
United Nations Development Resident Representative to Jamaica, Dr Kishan Khoday surveys the damage done in Black River, St Elizabeth in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.
December 9, 2025

Basil Jarrett | The UN during Melissa: Behind the scenes but at the heart of the response

WE ARE now in Week Three since Hurricane Melissa tore through the left end of Jamaica, leaving the island quite literally a tale of two halves. At one end, mosquitoes, tarpaulins, dark nights and dry…
Hurricane Melissa’s violent winds tore through this house.
December 9, 2025

SSP Diaries | Protecting our lifeline in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa

I HAVE seen death and destruction throughout my life but what has been experienced in Western Jamaica because of Hurricane Melissa cannot be described in mere words. The loss of life, the greatest of…
Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis
December 9, 2025

Editorial | Real-time audits warranted

The decision by the auditor general (AuG) to conduct real-time audits of foreign aid to Jamaica in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa is a welcome move that need not add bureaucracy to, or delay, the…
Indigenous peoples perform at a plenary session at the COP30 UN Climate Summit in Belem, Brazil, on November 10.
December 9, 2025

Elizabeth Morgan | Climate Change (COP30) and CARICOM

FROM STUDIES now done, Hurricane Mellissa is being assessed as the third most intense Atlantic/Caribbean hurricane when it made landfall on Jamaica’s southwest coast on Tuesday, October 28. Some…
A banana and plantain field in Elderslie, St Elizabeth, that was wiped out by Hurricane Melissa.
December 9, 2025

Norris R. McDonald | A storm of crises: Hurricane Melissa and IMF budget woes!

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows!” —William Shakespeare, The Tempest SHOULD JAMAICA continue to pay the International Monetary Fund (IMF) while its people starve in the wake of the…
The United Nations Climate Change Conference COP30 in Belém, Brazil.
December 9, 2025

Editorial | Looking towards Belém

As Jamaicans continue to dig their way out of the massive disaster left by Hurricane Melissa, this newspaper is also paying attention to the COP30 climate conference in Belém, Brazil. For what happens…
This photo shows a part Oxford community in St Elizabeth ravaged by Hurricane Melissa.
December 9, 2025

Michael Abrahams | Why we need to follow the money

Last week, the presidents of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association (JMEA) and the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) wrote a letter to…