In Focus

Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Fayval Williams, addressing the House of Representatives.
February 22, 2026

Gordon Robinson | Can government collect?

So the “no new taxes” chorus has ended with Government projected to earn approximately $29.4 billion in fiscal year 2026/27 from new taxes. Surprise! NOT!! Last October 28, Jamaica suffered the most devastating assault on its infrastructure, business activity, individual livelihoods and wellbeing in history. The estimated damage assessment is US$8.8 billion - 41 per cent of GDP.

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Displaced members of the Al-Zamli family break their fast on the first day of Ramadan inside their tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, February 18.
February 22, 2026

Jalil Dabdboub | Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” sang Kris Kristofferson. In conflict zones from Palestine to Sudan and the Congo, these words are a lived reality. When a people are…
In this 2021 photo dead fish are seen in the Rio Cobre river.
February 22, 2026

Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie | NEPA doesn’t have an image problem, but performance problem

The Jamaica Environment Trust (JET), along with other environmental advocates, was invited by the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) to attend a focus group meeting on January 27. The…
In this January 2024 photo people are seen taking photos near a John Harvard statue, left, on the Harvard University campus, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
February 22, 2026

Dennis Minott | Study first: Navigating America’s campus culture wars

This year, hundreds of Caribbean students will board flights to the United States with scholarships secured, visas stamped, ambitions sharpened. They will go to study engineering, medicine, physics,…
Tourists travel in a classic American car next to a line of drivers waiting to buy fuel for their cars in Havana, Cuba.
February 22, 2026

Mark Wignall | A smile, a giggle, the cruelty

“The Trump administration is deliberately plunging Cuba into a national and humanitarian crisis, and the US-imposed blockade of oil imports is wreaking havoc on daily life for Cubans,” was the general…
February 15, 2026

Dennis Minott | Leaders that despise accountability harm people

In the months following Hurricane Melissa, one word has echoed across Jamaica: accountability. It is spoken in taxis, at cookshops, on talk radio, in staff rooms, and in the corridors of Parliament.…
In this file photo JCF personnel are seen checking documents during a spot check.
February 15, 2026

Mark Shields | How Jamaica transformed the investigation of serious crime

The recent announcement by the Jamaica Constabulary Force of the creation of a Specialised Investigation Branch (SIB) is more than a routine organisational change. It represents the latest step in a…
This satellite image provided by NASA, shows icebergs that formed through an ice shelf collapse. Dozens of Antarctica’s ice shelves, floating extensions of glaciers, showed significant shrinking between 1997 and 2021.
February 15, 2026

Qu Dongyu | As glaciers melt, world’s hidden water banks are at risk

Glaciers – the world’s hidden water banks - are a source of life for billions. The seasonal melt from mountains and glaciers sustains some of the world’s most important rivers such as the Indus, the…
Ronald Thwaites writes: Failure or haste to properly examine public expenditure, which includes a huge mortgage in the form of debt to be redeemed by our children, requires the greatest care.
February 15, 2026

Gordon Robinson | Cover up by legislation?

The latest affront to Constitutional governance was conducted in the Senate on Friday February 6 when a proposed Bill to amend the Financial Investigation Division Act (FIDA) was passed into law. The…
University Hospital of the West Indies
February 15, 2026

Mark Wignall | Transformation in patient care needed now

The doctor wears on her sleeves her need to see and experience the sort of cultural transformation needed at the The University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) “... it [UHWI] must remain steadfast…