In Focus

AP 
People rally as Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado meets with President Donald Trump at the White House on January 15 in Washington DC.
January 25, 2026

Mark Wignall | This is what suits Trump

The reader recently wrote to me on the current situation in Venezuela. “The first time I wrote to you was many years ago when I offered you the chance to compare a verse selection from Kipling that…
Dena Spence Hyatt writes: Even more troubling is how many workplaces respond - or fail to respond - to women’s biological realities.
January 18, 2026

Dena Spence Hyatt | Supporting women beyond career versus motherhood debate

As a society, we repeatedly stress the importance of women bearing children, often warning that “time is running out”. At the same time, recent demographic data show declining fertility rates,…
File photo.
January 18, 2026

Alfred Dawes | University Hospital of the West Indies needs an overhaul

The University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) stands as a beacon of healthcare and medical education for the Caribbean. Yet, a recent performance audit by the Auditor General’s Department has…
January 18, 2026

Dennis Minott | Wealth’s pretence and the academy’s duty

There are moments in history when a civilisation does not collapse noisily but drifts — slowly, comfortably — away from its moral bearings. We may be living through such a moment now. Wealth, greased…
File 
Body-worn cameras on display at the Police Commissioner’s Office in St Andrew.
January 18, 2026

Aubrey Stewart | Body-worn cameras record violence, they do not prevent it

As Jamaica intensifies its crackdown on crime, confrontations between the police and criminal suspects have become more frequent. These encounters, often unfolding in high-risk and highly visible…
Gordon Robinson writes:  Based on Jamaica’s history and current reality, is there another way to reduce murders than police targeting and killing suspected murderers after being “challenged”?
January 18, 2026

Gordon Robinson | What the hell the police can do?

There has been much squabbling over the sharp reduction in murders reported by the police for 2025. The final number, 673, is the lowest in 30 years which, on the face of it, should be universally…
January 18, 2026

Mark Wignall | Pain, aches, and persistent coughs

I was 22 years old and still living with my parents. It was a terrible Sunday afternoon. I had come home with aches in just about muscle group. At the arrival in the doctor’s office, the pain…
In this October 2025 photo a cordon is seen along Whitehall Avenue in St Andrew following a fatal police shooting.
January 11, 2026

Mickel Jackson | Jamaica’s historic crime reduction amid security forces killing surge

As we enter 2026, Jamaica confronts a stark paradox. In 2025, the nation achieved a historic breakthrough: murders fell to a provisional 673, the lowest annual total in over three decades and a…
Palestinians inspect the damage at a displacement camp following an Israeli strike in Gaza City.
January 11, 2026

Jalil Dabdoub | The goat, sheep, and the world order – The fall of principle

Bruce Golding’s recent article in the Jamaica Observer, titled ‘Things fall apart’ in almost every respect, is a truthful and courageous reckoning with the collapse of the post-WWII rules-based…