Jamaica Gleaner
DOCTORS JOIN NURSES IN DISTRESS
FOR THE second time in recent months, the medical staff at the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in Montego Bay, St James, has gone public in registering their disgust with the overcrowding and poor working conditions at the Type A facility, which is...
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‘NOT FOR THE GREEDY’
A NEW state programme to assist some of the most vulnerable families who were displaced by Hurricane Melissa is geared towards the needy and “not the greedy”, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness has warned. Holness also appealed to beneficiaries of the...
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POLICE PROBE
THE BOARD of the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) has reported “specific matters” from a report on the procurement activities of the hospital to the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s Fraud Squad and the Jamaica Customs Agency. Following the...
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RISKY ROADS
VICE-CHAIRMAN OF the National Road Safety Council, Dr Lucien Jones, is cautioning that 2026 will be marked by further avoidable tragedy unless decisive action is taken to improve road safety and curb dangerous driving. “[The year] 2026 is going to be...
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No laptop ban
COMMISSIONER OF Corrections Brigadier Radgh Mason has insisted that lawyers have not been barred from entering correctional facilities with electronic devices and says notices will be posted to ensure attorneys are allowed access to consult with their...
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Sykes: Current system simply cannot continue
CHIEF JUSTICE Bryan Sykes has warned that Jamaica cannot “try its way out” of its growing court backlog and that reform of the jury trial system must now be seriously considered. Speaking at King’s House on Monday during a swearing-in ceremony for...
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Chief justice renews call for greater judicial control over capital budget
CHIEF JUSTICE Bryan Sykes has renewed calls for the judiciary to be given control of its capital budget, while questioning the Government’s silence on repairs to courthouses damaged by Hurricane Melissa. “The time has now come for us to be given...
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‘Still shaken’
AN ANXIOUS quiet fell over Venezuela ‘s capital on Sunday as trepidation mixed with joy while a nation waited to see what comes next. People were slow to resume routines in Caracas after President Nicolás Maduro was deposed and captured in a dramatic...
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NEW YEAR TRAGEDY
A NEW Year’s Day outing to the beach ended in tragedy for a Portmore family after a young woman, her teenage brother, and a policeman who was a family friend were swept away by strong currents at Sandhill Beach in Hellshire, St...
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Clerk sought guidance on alleged blackmail of Senate president; officer rejects claim
NEWLY OBTAINED correspondence shows the Clerk to the Houses of Parliament sought disciplinary guidance regarding a former officer’s alleged misconduct and alleged attempt to blackmail Senate President Tom Tavares-finson. Attorney-at-law Anthony...
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INSURANCE PLEA
SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS are urging the Government to introduce special insurance coverage for schools and their most valuable assets to better protect the education sector from future disasters, following the extensive damage caused by Hurricane...
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REINSTATED
THE PUBLIC Service Commission (PSC) has ordered the immediate reinstatement of an officer who was suspended after raising concerns about procurement practices at the Houses of Parliament (HOP), according to the officer’s attorney. The officer was...
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Mixed bag for Kingston vendors as Melissa squeezes Christmas shoppers
WHILE SEVERAL business owners across the Corporate Area have expressed dissatisfaction with their Christmas sales, one downtown Kingston entrepreneur is revelling in the increased profits from the holiday season. The manager of Rockland Furniture...
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SSL ‘EXECS’ FACE COURT JAN 26
LAW-ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS are seeking to quell public criticisms of the near three-year investigation into the alleged multibillion-dollar fraud at collapsed investment firm Stocks & Securities Limited (SSL). Inspector Brenton Williams, head of the...
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SSL EXECS GRILLED
AN ATTORNEY representing Jamaican sprint icon Usain Bolt has warned that it would be a “facade” to proceed with a trial solely against Jean-Ann Panton, the former wealth adviser at Stocks & Securities Limited (SSL), who is facing criminal charges in...
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We want a proper road not a skating rink, say fuming Moy Hall residents
RESIDENTS OF Moy Hall in St James are now hopping mad, saying infrastructure work to install a water pipeline system and additional work to replace the old asphalt road with concrete surface have left their hillside community with something looking...
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HEAVY-DUTY PAYOUT
THE SUPREME Court has ordered Jamaica North South Highway Company Limited and China Harbour Engineering Company Limited to pay heavy-duty truck driver Leon Mais $4,100,829.23 in damages, after finding them negligent in relation to a 2015 crash on the...
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GRAND MARKET RESET
WHILE THE centuries-old Christmas tradition of Grand Market has evolved over time, this year’s observance may offer a return to the true spirit of the Yuletide season, argues cultural architect and educator Dr Amina Blackwood Meeks. She asserted that...
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No place like home for the holidays
“DON’T LET anything dim yuh spirit.” That was the message echoed by returning Jamaicans at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston on Monday, as travellers arriving for the Christmas holidays said they remain focused on family, gratitude,...
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BATTERED BEANS
MAKING A case for more meaningful support from the Government toward one of the country’s long-standing industries, Donald Salmon, president of the Jamaica Coffee Growers Association, says coffee farmers in the island have been facing a tough time with...
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Reopening concerns
WITH SCHOOLS set to fully reopen in two weeks, anxiety is mounting among the principals of some hurricane-damaged institutions as they grapple with unclear repair timelines, safety concerns, and limited communication from education authorities. Across...
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BLOODLINE BLOODSHED
CONCERNS ARE being raised today for the well-being of children who witnessed the bludgeoning of a family member and had to run for their lives from the killer- another of their relatives who had become enraged. The community of Frazersfield, Rocky...
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‘WORST OF THE WORST’
EIGHTY-FOUR JAMAICANS are among hundreds of “criminal aliens”, described by United States (US) authorities as the “worst of the worst”, who were arrested across several American states last weekend as part of the mass deportation policy of US President...
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HAMISH’S REGRET
IN 2013, the year Hamish Campbell took up the post of assistant commissioner at the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), Jamaica recorded 258 police fatal shootings. Twelve years later, as Campbell gets ready to go off into retirement,...
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‘UNCONSCIONABLE’ Small Business Association head slams 7% rate increase to JPS
PRESIDENT OF the Small Businesses Association of Jamaica (SBAJ) Garnett Reid says Jamaicans should strenuously push back against a seven per cent increase in electricity rate approved by the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) to the Jamaica Public...
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BUILD-BACK BOOSTER
THE GOVERNMENT has committed J$600 million to help displaced tourism workers repair and rebuild homes damaged by Hurricane Melissa as part of a broader public-private recovery programme now expected to exceed J$2 billion. Tourism Minister Edmund...
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OVERREACH
JAMAICA’S COURT of Appeal has quashed a 2019 murder conviction, criticising Chief Justice Bryan Sykes for his conduct during the trial and warning judges about overstepping their role in court. The chief justice is the head of the judiciary. In a...
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CANINE CRISIS
DOZENS OF puppies are being rushed to the Jamaica Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (JSPCA), suffering from severe gastroenteritis, bloody diarrhoea, and agonising pain before many ultimately die. Veterinarians say they are locked in a...
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‘Why we paying for security?’
RESIDENTS OF Phoenix Parkvillage in Phase 3, Portmore, St Catherine, were left shaken yesterday after a reported police operation ended in gunfire, leaving one alleged robber dead and another on the run. The incident, which unfolded along Hellshire...
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EMBRACE ‘ONE HEALTH’
MEDICAL EXPERTS are calling for stronger adherence to the global One Health mandate by Jamaican authorities, citing the outbreak of leptospirosis following Hurricane Melissa a month ago as a clear indication of why such a move is pivotal. One Health,...
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Kingston Tech principal suspended
PRINCIPAL OF Kingston Technical High School Maulton Campbell has been suspended from the institution following an audit report, concerns over a hiring decision, and a formal complaint submitted by a board member. Campbell was suspended effective...
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MARKET MELTDOWN
SAVANNA-LA-MAR’S STORM-RAVAGED market has once again become the centre of public frustration and political attention as residents and vendors plead for urgent repairs and clarity on its future. The facility, badly damaged during Hurricane Melissa, has...
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NO VOTE ON BLESSING GAY UNIONS
BOULEVARD BAPTIST Church membership last month voted down a proposal from its pastor, Reverend Devon Dick, to add to the agenda of its monthly business meeting a discussion and vote on whether same-sex unions could receive “blessings” at the...
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Government urged to present plan for bankable reconstruction projects
OPPOSITION SENATOR Ramon Small-Ferguson says the US$2.4 billion in private capital that is to be mobilised from external sources for Jamaica’s reconstruction efforts is contingent on the country’s ability to present bankable and competitive...
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WRECKED TOO SOON
LOCAL GOVERNMENT Minister Desmond Mckenzie says he is “deeply disappointed” with the construction quality of the relatively new Savanna-la-mar Infirmary in Westmoreland, which sustained major damage during Hurricane Melissa, and has ordered urgent...
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REBUKED
THE JAMAICA Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (JAMU) has moved to dismiss claims being circulated on social media that it has received funding from the Government or acted on its behalf to collect personal information from individuals during...
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CHARGES LOOM
MINISTER OF State and St Ann South Western Member of Parliament Zavia Mayne is to be charged for breaching Section 43(1)(b) of the Integrity Commission Act (ICA). The Integrity Commission’s (IC) director of corruption prosecution, acting on a...
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$120M IMPASSE
A LEGAL squabble is brewing over the $120 million the Supreme Court ordered the Government to pay George Williams, the mentally disabled man who languished in prison for nearly 50 years – or his entire working life – awaiting a trial. The...
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‘ABSOLUTELYNOT’
SENIOR FIGURES within Jamaica’s media landscape have strongly rejected a call from a government lawmaker to reinstate criminal libel, arguing that such a move would roll back hard-won press freedoms secured under the Defamation Act of 2013. Former...
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NOWHERE FOR THE LIVING, NOWHERE FOR THE DEAD!
A WESTMORELAND family is caught between grief and survival in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa. On Friday, as they gathered to lay their brother, Cleveland Wayne – affectionately called “Gramps”— to rest, they faced the agonizing reality that they...
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Mckenzie: New building code coming next fiscal year
LOCAL GOVERNMENT and Community Development Minister Desmond Mckenzie has said that the country’s new building code, which has been in gestation for nearly two decades, is scheduled for implementation in the upcoming fiscal year. As Jamaica deals with...
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Five perish in bus crash
FIVE PEOPLE – three males and two females (including a twoyear-old child) – were killed in a single-vehicle crash along the P. J. Patterson Highway in St Catherine on Wednesday. The accident, which involved a minibus operating as a public passenger...
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CUSTODY BATTLE
RELATIVES OF 65-year-old US Army veteran Godfreywade are fighting desperately to stop his deportation to Jamaica as he remains detained in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Georgia. More than 70 days have passed since a routine...
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JIMMY CLIFF CROSSES LAST RIVER
THE DARK clouds that hung over Somerton on Monday and the rains that soaked the quiet St James community felt like nature itself mourning the passing of its beloved son – reggae icon James ‘Jimmy Cliff’ Chambers. Somerton has pro- duced national...
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BIKES TO THE RESCUE
IN THE best of times, the drive to Halls Delight in the hills of rural St Andrew is not for the faint of heart. Now, three weeks after Hurricane Melissa dumped several inches of rain on the pictur- esque community, turning already poor roads into...
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FOR GLORY, FOR COUNTRY
JAMAICA’S REGGAE Boyz are shooting to uplift their nation when they tackle Trinidad and Tobago’s Soca Warriors today in a football match deemed among their most important World Cup Qualifying contests ever. As the country grapples with the...
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'HE WAS A HERO'
THE CARIBBEAN relief com- munity is hailing the Cayman Islands-based missionary Alexander Wurm as a true hero, a man whose final flight embodied selfless love and service to Jamaica. The pastor and his 22-year-old daughter, Serena, died on Monday...
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RELIEF TRAGEDY
A SMALL turboprop plane on a hurricane relief mission to Jamaica crashed Monday morning into a pond in a gated residential neighbourhood of the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs, killing two people shortly after takeoff and narrowly missing...
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HOSPITAL NIGHTMARE
AS THE after effects of Hurricane Melissa continues to take a heavy toll on the lives of residents in western Jamaica, nurses at the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in Montego Bay, St James, are complaining of hellish conditions on the job, saying...
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DREAM HOMES TO NIGHTMARES
A CHORUS of fury has erupted among homeowners of Edmund Ridge Estates in St James after Hurricane Melissa tore through the three-year-old housing scheme, ripping off roofs and flattening structures, leaving several families in distress. After paying...
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LAND OF WOOD, WATER, AND DEBRIS
HURRICANE MELISSA has left more than 4.8 million tons of debris strewn across Jamaica, blocking roads and cutting off access to schools, hospitals, farms and markets, according to satellite-based analysis from the United Nations Development Programme...
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I hear the cry of every baby, says PM
THE OFFICIAL number of communities marooned a week after the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa has moved up to 27 even as the Government says it has intensified its efforts to reach people desperately in need of aid. On Monday, there were 25...
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HURRICANE FARE HIKE
TAXI OPERATORS between Santa Cruz and several hurricane-ravaged communities in northern St Elizabeth have hiked their fares by more than 400 per cent, angry residents have complained. Instead of the $350 fare that existed before the passage of...
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‘God is good and we still have life’
AN OPEN cellar beneath the ruins of her house is where Juliet Clarke now lives with her three-year-old granddaughter and a mentallydisabled man she cares for, but that has not shaken her faith. The cellar is all that is left of her house, perched on a...
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Lucea residents battle isolation as networks remain down
ON SUNDAY, in Lucea, Hanover, residents gathered in small groups outside shops and supermarkets, heads bowed to phones with fading bars, hoping for a message that would tell them family and friends were safe. They, too, wanted to update concerned...
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Hurricane gridlock
UNLESS IT is necessary, Jamaicans are urged not to venture into western parishes hit hard by Hurricane Melissa as the influx is causing heavy traffic, which has been slowing down official emergency response. St Elizabeth, Trelawny, Westmoreland, St...
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SURVIVAL MODE
HURRICANE MELISSA has shattered hundreds of Jamaica’s churches, from wooden chapels tucked in sugarbelt villages to grand cathedrals that survived slavery and emancipation. The storm has shaken the very heart of a nation famed for having the most...
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FIRST STEPS TO RELIEF
THREE SEPARATE vehicles carrying food, water and other basic supplies drew long lines of residents desperate to get anything as night fell over the hurricane-ravaged town of Black River, St Elizabeth, on Friday. The town remains without electricity,...
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24HRS STUCK IN HOLLAND BAMBOO
DOZENS OF motorists and emergency responders were stranded for more than 24 hours along the Holland Bamboo main road in St Elizabeth since Wednesday, surviving on fallen coconuts after Hurricane Melissa devastated the popular stretch, cutting off ac-...
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LONG ROAD TO RECOVERY
THERE WAS a pall of gloom hanging over Black River, St Elizabeth, yesterday, as four bodies, three men and a woman, were discovered after being washed up by floodwaters generated by the fury of Category 5 Hurricane Melissa. Many people were trapped in...
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RAVAGED
HURRICANE MELISSA tore through Jamaica’s western parishes on Tuesday, leaving behind widespread destruction, catastrophic flooding, and crippling infrastructure damage in what officials are calling the most powerful storm ever to hit the...
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Port Royal caught between tradition and danger
FOR MANY residents of flood-prone communities, weathering a hurricane at home is considered foolhardy. However, for residents of Port Royal in Kingston – one of several communities ordered to evacuate by the Government due to Hurricane Melissa – doing...
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‘HOPING FOR THE BEST’
AS DARK clouds gathered over Bull Bay, St Andrew, several residents in floodprone communities refused to evacu- ate ahead of Hurricane Melissa, insisting they would weather the storm from their homes despite government warnings. On Saturday, Local...
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MAJOR THREAT
HAUNTED BY the devastation left by Hurricane Beryl last year – which flattened homes and ripped off roofs – residents of Compound Alligator Pond in Manchester have spent the last few days securing their houses and belongings in preparation for the...
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‘WE’RE NOT READY’
AS DARK clouds gather once again over Jamaica’s southern plains, a sense of dread hangs heavy over the farming community of Flagaman, in St Elizabeth, as many residents who barely survived the fury of Hurricane Beryl say they remain defence- less. They...
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CLOSE WATCH
THE APPROACHING Tropical Storm Melissa has forced coffee farmers in Mount Airy, St Andrew, to speed up the harvesting of their coffee cherries in an attempt to minimise potential damage from the weather system. “We pick off what we can pick off for...
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Sandy Gully race against time
A MAJOR de-silting of sections of the Sandy Gully in St Andrew got under way yesterday morning in a race against time as Tropical Storm Melissa meanders towards Jamaica. Works Minister Robert Morgan, Member of Parliament (MP) for St Andrew Western...
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POLITICAL STORM
TENSIONS FLARED in Parliament on Tuesday after Speaker of the House Juliet Holness muted the microphone of Opposition Leader Mark Golding during a heated exchange over questions posed to a government minister. The incident led to a dramatic walkout by...
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SERVICE OVER SELF
JAMAICANS ARE being encouraged to place greater emphasis on service to country as a vital part of nationbuilding. The call comes from Lloyd Carney, who was one of more than 140 Jamaicans honoured yesterday during the annual National Honours and Awards...
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‘A REALLY SERIOUS TIME’
AS TENSIONS between the United States (US) and Venezuela build, a senior retired diplomat is cautioning that if it escalates into open conflict, trade in the region and tourism, on which most CARICOM states, including Jamaica, depend heavily would be...
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WRONGFUL ARREST
J.D. BROWN* visited the Oracabessa Police Station in St Mary on the night of July 8, 2016, to deliver food for a relative in custody. He chatted with the cops on duty at the time and described them as “friendly” during the 15 minutes he spent at the...
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ROAD RAGE
DESPITE A promise that repairs to the Montpelier main road, in St James, will begin before the end of the year, residents continue to express anger and frustration over the existing conditions. Among the vexing issues is a pothole-riddled road surface,...
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BACK TO TALKS
CONSULTATIONS ARE set to resume on the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) bill next month in a bid to advance the legislation, which stalled earlier this year because of objections from certain groups. Education Minister Senator Dana Morris Dixon said the...
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‘DANGEROUS AND HORRIBLE’
FORMER PRIME Minister P.J. Patterson is describing the United States (US) drone attacks on vessels in Caribbean waters as “fundamentally dangerous and a horrible erosion of regional leaders’ commitment to sovereignty in the region”. Since September 2,...
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YES... WE DID IT AGAIN!
Thank you to all our clients and well-wishers who have made us #1 in Jamaica and the Caribbean as:
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TRAUMA OVERLOAD
DR DELROY Fray, the clinical coordinator at the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA), is raising concern about the alarming number of victims of motor vehicle accidents who were admitted to the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in Montego Bay, St...
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