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Portal:Jamaica

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The Jamaica Portal

Jamaica
Location of Jamaica
LocationCaribbean

Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At 10,990 square kilometres (4,240 sq mi), it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about 145 km (78 nmi) south of Cuba, 191 km (103 nmi) west of Hispaniola (the island containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and 215 km (116 nmi) southeast of the Cayman Islands (a British Overseas Territory). With 2.8 million people,0 Jamaica is the third most populous Anglophone country in the Americas and the fourth most populous country in the Caribbean. Kingston is the country's capital and largest city.

Jamaica is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, with power vested in the bicameral Parliament of Jamaica, consisting of an appointed Senate and a directly elected House of Representatives. Andrew Holness has served as Prime Minister of Jamaica since March 2016. Jamaica is a Commonwealth realm, with Charles III as its king; the appointed representative of the Crown is the Governor-General of Jamaica, the office having been held by Patrick Allen since 2009. 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. Most Jamaicans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, with significant European, East Asian (primarily Chinese), Indian, Lebanese, and mixed-race minorities. (Full article...)

Dwayne Jones was a Jamaican 16-year-old boy who was killed by a violent mob in Montego Bay in 2013, after he attended a dance party dressed in women's clothing. The incident attracted national and international media attention and brought increased scrutiny to the status of LGBT rights in Jamaica.

Perceived as effeminate, Jones was bullied in school and, at the age of 14, was forced out of his family home by his father. He moved into a derelict house in Montego Bay with transgender friends. On the evening of 21 July 2013, they went to the Irwin area of the city and attended a dance party. When some men at the party discovered that the cross-dressing Jones was not a woman, they confronted and attacked him. Jones was beaten, stabbed, shot, and run over with a car; he died in the early hours of the morning. Police investigated the murder but did not arrest or charge anyone for the crime, which remains unsolved. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto-generated)

  • ... that Gloria Cameron was the first native Jamaican in the UK to appear on the British television programme This Is Your Life?
  • ... that Antoinette Tidjani Alou wrote a work of autofiction that traces the journey of a Jamaican woman who moved to Niger for love?
  • ... that at 107 years old, Stanley Stair of Jamaica was at the time of his death the last surviving Caribbean veteran of World War I?
  • ... that footballer Kameron Simmonds, who plays for Jamaica, only took up the sport after a gymnastics injury?
  • ... that Swedish naval officer Axel Lagerbielke was imprisoned in Lima for over a year, held in Callao and eventually escaped from Panama on an English packet boat to Jamaica?

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Michael Lee-Chin OJ OOnt (born 3 January 1951) is a Jamaican-Canadian billionaire businessman, philanthropist and the chairman and CEO of Portland Holdings Inc, a privately held investment company in Ontario, Canada.

Lee-Chin was appointed to the Order of Ontario in 2017. (Full article...)

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This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

Brian Williamson (4 September 1945 – 9 June 2004) was a Jamaican gay rights activist who co-founded the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG). He was known for being one of the earliest openly gay men in Jamaican society and one of its best known gay rights activists.

Born to an upper-middle-class family in Saint Ann Parish, Williamson initially considered a life in the Roman Catholic clergy before deciding to devote himself to the cause of gay rights in Jamaica. In the 1990s, he purchased an apartment building in the New Kingston area of Kingston, in which he established a gay nightclub, which remained open for two years despite opposition from police. In 1998, he co-founded J-FLAG with other lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights activists, soon becoming the public face of the organisation. As J-FLAG's representative, he argued in favour of LGBT rights during appearances on Jamaican television and radio programs. This attracted great hostility within Jamaica – a country with particularly high rates of anti-gay prejudice – with J-FLAG members receiving death threats and Williamson surviving a knife attack. For a time he left Jamaica, living in Canada and England for several years, before returning to Kingston in 2002. (Full article...)

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Bob Marley live in concert in Dalymount Park on 6 July 1980
Bob Marley live in concert in Dalymount Park on 6 July 1980
Credit: Eddie Mallin
Jamaican reggae musician Bob Marley live in concert in Dalymount Park on 6 July 1980

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  • ... that Francis Rose's plantations in Jamaica included Old Works, New Works, and The Decoy?

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