Medicinal marijuana markets present a major economic opportunity for Jamaica. Without steps to combat inequities, traditional ganja growers will be left behind.
Blooms of smelly and unsightly sargassum seaweed have impacted the tourism industry across the Caribbean. Now, solutions must balance environmental factors and local livelihoods.
Participants at this week’s Jamaica Cannabis Conference are doing more than just blowing smoke—they are discussing the upcoming stages of a long-overdue and vital transformation of the Caribbean’s regional economy.
The expansion of the Panama Canal is to be completed in 2015. In preparation for this, Jamaica has embarked upon an ambitious program of infrastructure development to position it as a “global transshipment and logistics hub”—joining the likes of Singapore, Dubai, and Rotterdam.
As part of her election campaign, Jamaican prime minister Portia Simpson Miller announced her intention of breaking ties with the British monarchy and becoming an independent republic. While this is no doubt a long overdue and symbolic act, breaking ties with the real neocolonial power in Jamaica—the International Monetary Fund—should be a much higher priority.
In part two, Robert Hill, Professor of Afro-American and Caribbean History at UCLA, who has been deeply involved in the "migrated archives" since their discovery, shares his insights into the release of the archives and what it entails for the Caribbean history.
The killing of 21 people—including a 13-year-old girl and an elderly man—by the Jamaican police in the past six days has highlighted the systemic problem the country is having with controlling the inappropriate use of deadly force.
The prosecutors in the trial of Christopher "Dudus" Coke have asked for a 23-year sentence, to stop the Jamaican criminal kingpin from resuming his criminal activities upon his release from prison. What this saga has shown is that in many ways Coke was indeed more powerful than Jamaican prime minister Bruce Golding.
Canadian Forces have participated in numerous counter-narcotics missions in the Caribbean basin as part of the wider U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force-South. The missions, in combination with the opening of a Canadian military base in Jamaica, raise serious questions about the wider militarization of Canadian relations with the Caribbean.
Two thousand and twelve holds both uncertainty and cautious optimism for the Caribbean. The recent election of new governments in Jamaica and St. Lucia, the controversial re-election of an incumbent in Guyana, and the selection of Michel Martelly out of a flawed election in Haiti has sent mixed signals about the overall direction of the region.
