With 2.8 million people,0 Jamaica is the third most populous Anglophone country in the Americas (after the United States and Canada), and the fourth most populous country in the Caribbean. Kingston is the country's capital and largest city. Most Jamaicans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, with significant European, East Asian (primarily Chinese), Indian, Lebanese, and mixed-race minorities. Because of a high rate of emigration for work since the 1960s, there is a large Jamaican diaspora, particularly in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The country has a global influence that belies its small size; it was the birthplace of the Rastafari religion, reggae music (and such associated genres as dub, ska and dancehall), and it is internationally prominent in sports, including cricket, sprinting, and athletics. Jamaica has sometimes been considered the world's least populous cultural superpower. (Full article...)
While serving as prime minister, Simpson-Miller retained the positions of Minister of Defence, Development, Information and Sports. She has also served as Minister of Labour, Social Security and Sport, Minister of Tourism and Sports and Minister of Local Government throughout her political career. Following her election win in December 2011, when her party defeated the Jamaica Labour Party, she became the second individual since independence to have served non-consecutive terms as prime minister, the first having been Michael Manley. The People's National Party under her leadership lost the 25 February 2016 general election by only one seat to the Andrew Holness-led Jamaica Labour Party. One political commentator described the poll as "the closest election Jamaica has ever had". Following this defeat, Simpson-Miller stepped down in 2017. (Full article...)
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Lenford "Steve" Harvey was a Jamaican activist who campaigned for the rights of those living with HIV/AIDS in Jamaican society. In November 2005, he was abducted from his home and murdered in a robbery that some commentators believed was also a homophobichate crime. Harvey, an openly gay man, had worked for Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JASL), since 1997 becoming the group's coordinator for Kingston. In this position, he focused on distributing information and services surrounding HIV/AIDS to the most marginalised sectors of Jamaican society, among them prisoners, sex workers, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. In 2005, he was selected as Jamaica's project coordinator for the Latin America and Caribbean Council of AIDS Service Organizations. Harvey was praised for his work. According to Peter Tatchell of the British LGBT rights organisation OutRage!, "It is thanks to the efforts of Steve and his colleagues that many Jamaican men and women - both gay and straight - have not contracted HIV. They have helped save hundreds of lives."
In November 2005, three men carrying guns broke into Harvey's home, removing any valuables they could find. They asked him if he was gay, and when he refused to respond to them, they kidnapped him, later shooting him dead and dumping the body elsewhere. The police subsequently arrested four individuals and charged them with murder in the furtherance of a robbery. The accused remained in police custody for almost ten years before the case came to court. At that point, the police dropped their murder charges against two of the accused. The other two, Dwayne Owen and Andre West, went on trial and were found unanimously guilty of murder by a jury. Although prosecutors had requested capital punishment in the case, the judge instead sentenced them to life in prison with a minimum of thirty years before becoming eligible for parole. They remain in prison, as of 2022. (Full article...)
The art of jerking (or cooking with jerk spice) originated with indigenous peoples in Jamaica from the Arawak and Taíno tribes, and was carried forward by the descendants of 17th century Jamaican Maroons who intermingled with them. (Full article...)
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