It is said to be free, but don't tell that to the hundreds of parents who will have to dig deep into their pockets to pay the school charges before their children return to school in September.

The Audley Shaw-led finance ministry will soon have its fourth financial secretary in just over five years. Since Friday, reports have circulated that Financial Secretary Sharon Crooks is to be replaced by head of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), Dr Wesley Hughes.

The Standard and Poor's downgrading of Jamaican debt confirms what many have been saying for the past year and more: Jamaica is facing the gravest threat to our economic existence since political independence in 1962. Indeed, it is only during the Great Depression of 1929 that we faced a similar challenge.

FORTY-ONE years ago, one of Jamaica's founding fathers, Norman Manley, outlined the mission of the next generation as being to attain social and economic independence.

WHEN MURDER appeared on the doorsteps of John Oldfield'shome, he was ripped to shreds. Losing his only brother to gun violence, and the grief that followed was natural. But what consumed the young man weeks after he had laid his brother to rest was the longing for revenge.

Music videos with young Jamaicans dropping the latest dance moves are far from unusual and, in that regard, Defend The Truth fits into the mould of the usual.