标签： Jamaica

EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — On the eve of the G7 summit hosted in France, U.S. President Donald Trump made a sweeping announcement Monday during opening remarks for bilateral negotiations with French President Emmanuel Macron: the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz will return to full, unrestricted navigation starting Friday, following a landmark agreement between the United States and Iran that brings an end to the regional conflict that had restricted commercial and military passage through the global energy bottleneck.

The narrow waterway, which carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily oil consumption and a large share of global liquefied natural gas trade, has been a flashpoint for regional tension for decades. Trump’s announcement comes after the United Kingdom and France had recently put forward a proposal for a coordinated multinational naval escort mission to secure the strait, a framework the U.S. leader indicated would likely not be necessary moving forward. “I don’t think we are going to need much help” to maintain open access through the passage, Trump told reporters.

Trump added that the strait is already partially open to traffic, with de-mining operations currently underway to clear any unexploded ordnance left from the recent conflict, describing the ongoing work as “hunting” for residual explosive threats.

Central to the new agreement, Trump emphasized, is a core commitment from Iran that it will abandon any pursuit of a nuclear weapons program. “The main thing is Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” he said, hailing the negotiated deal with the Islamic Republic.

The announcement follows a major upheaval in Iran’s leadership: on February 28, the first day of what Trump described as a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, the country’s long-serving Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. In remarks Monday, Trump claimed that Washington now enjoys positive relations with Iran’s new governing establishment. “The first set (of leaders) is gone, the second set is gone, and we found the third set to be very smart… We ended up making a deal,” Trump said, declining to elaborate on which specific leaders he was referencing when describing the successive leadership transitions.

Looking ahead, Trump expressed optimism about the future of the Middle East, saying “I think a lot of great things are going to happen in the Middle East right now.” He confirmed that U.S. Vice President JD Vance will attend the official signing ceremony for the agreement this coming Friday, though he offered no details on the location of the event.

On the opening weekend of the 11th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, a powerful call for interconnected global morality and collective care echoed through the halls of Calvary Baptist Church in Montego Bay, St James. The event, held under the overarching conference theme *Diaspora Partnerships: Rebuilding a More Resilient Jamaica*, drew senior government officials, diplomatic representatives, and hundreds of diaspora delegates from across the world, all gathered for the conference’s official opening church service.

The keynote address was delivered by the Right Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Bishop of Dover and Canterbury, a trailblazing religious leader who made history as the first Black woman appointed as a bishop in the Church of England, and previously served as personal chaplain to the late Queen Elizabeth II. In her remarks, Bishop Hudson-Wilkin challenged Jamaicans both on the island and in the global diaspora to retain their strong moral voice on the world stage, even as they work to strengthen domestic resilience and national development.

She emphasized that building a more resilient Jamaica is rooted in collective uplift, particularly for the most marginalized members of society. “At the core of this work will always be how we lift each other up, and how we care for those who are most vulnerable,” she told the congregation. Extending this logic beyond Jamaica’s borders, she argued that shared humanity demands attention to injustices unfolding across the globe, from the long-standing economic blockade of Cuba to ongoing instability in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and the Middle East.

Rejecting the common stance that distant crises are “none of our business,” Bishop Hudson-Wilkin used a well-known folk parable of a mousetrap to illustrate the danger of disengagement. She recounted how a rat, facing a set mousetrap, begged for help from the farm’s chicken, pig, and cow, all of whom dismissed the threat as unrelated to their own lives. When the trap snapped on a snake instead of the rat, the snake bit the farmer’s wife. To feed the visitors who came to care for her, the farmer killed the chicken for soup; when her condition worsened and she died, he slaughtered the pig to feed mourners, and butchered the cow for the large funeral gathering. In the end, every animal that claimed the crisis was “nothing to do with me” paid the ultimate price. “We are involved because we are part of the one human race,” she told the congregation, drawing on the South African concept of Ubuntu to frame her argument: “I am because you are. I am because we are. All our lives are inextricably linked together. We must speak out against injustices wherever we see it.”

Jamaica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Kamina Johnson-Smith, echoed the call for unity in her opening greetings. She noted that the gathering offers a rare opportunity to reflect on the enduring core values that have sustained Jamaica through decades of challenge: faith, perseverance, unity, and mutual service. “As a Government, we strive to apply our God-given talents and wisdom to the service of every Jamaican,” Johnson-Smith said. “We have taken seriously our mission to engender true respect for all and to strengthen our country so that we may care for all, especially the most vulnerable.”

Johnson-Smith highlighted the central role that the Jamaican diaspora plays in driving the nation’s growth and development, noting that even during the most difficult periods in the country’s history, the transnational Jamaican family has demonstrated unwavering love and support for the island. Running from June 14 to 18 at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, the 11th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference aims to rethink and reinvigorate collaborative partnerships between the island and global Jamaican communities to build greater national resilience, while strengthening the shared cultural identity that unites Jamaicans across oceans and continents.

MONTEGO BAY, St James – Against the backdrop of the 11th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, a senior government official has made a forceful case for centering young Jamaicans – both domestic residents and members of the global diaspora – in the island nation’s policy development and growth agendas. Speaking at the opening commencement session held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre on the event’s opening day, Alando Terrelonge, Minister of State in Jamaica’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, laid out a clear vision for expanded youth participation in shaping the country’s future.

Terrelonge opened his remarks by celebrating the strong representation of young professionals, students, and emerging leaders in attendance at the four-day gathering, which runs from June 15 to 18 under the overarching theme “Diaspora Partnerships: Rebuilding a More Climate-Resilient Jamaica”. He referred to these young attendees as Jamaica’s “young kings and queens”, stressing that their active involvement in national efforts is non-negotiable for meaningful progress.

The state minister emphasized that young people bring unique, irreplaceable value to national problem-solving: they carry the creative drive, relentless energy, and unfiltered fresh perspectives required to tackle not only Jamaica’s most urgent domestic challenges, but also pressing shared issues facing the global community. “The future we seek to build belongs to you,” Terrelonge told the young audience. “It belongs to your ideas, your creativity, and energy, which are indispensable to that effort.”

Against the backdrop of an increasingly interconnected and complex global landscape, Terrelonge argued that young Jamaicans must be intentionally empowered to contribute across four critical pillars: policy design, entrepreneurial innovation, technological advancement, and sustainable development initiatives. To unlock this potential, he said, the government and broader stakeholders must consistently build intentional pathways that open doors for youth, regardless of whether they live on the island or abroad as part of the diaspora.

Crucially, Terrelonge pushed beyond the common practice of token youth consultation, noting that genuine engagement requires far more than just hearing young voices. Young people must be integrated directly into decision-making processes, he insisted, so their input directly shapes the policies and initiatives that will define Jamaica’s long-term trajectory. “Your voices must not only be heard but actively incorporated into the decisions that shape our future,” he said.

Terrelonge highlighted the biennial diaspora conference itself as a model of the kind of opportunity that should be expanded for young leaders. The event brings together hundreds of stakeholders, including diaspora members, government policymakers, private sector leaders, global development practitioners, and innovators, creating space for cross-community dialogue that would not otherwise happen. This exposure to a wide range of diverse perspectives and lived experiences, he explained, helps young people build the skills, connections, and professional networks they need to drive impact at both the national and global level.

He urged all attendees – especially young participants – to make the most of the conference’s full slate of programming, including plenary discussions, skills-focused workshops, and structured networking sessions. Meaningful, long-lasting partnerships that drive real change often grow out of intentional dialogue and collaborative problem-solving, he noted, and the conference is designed to foster exactly those kinds of connections.

In closing, Terrelonge framed youth empowerment as a foundational priority for Jamaica’s long-term success. Investing in the next generation of leaders, he argued, is the only way to guarantee that Jamaica remains resilient in the face of emerging challenges, competitive in the global economy, and innovative in its approach to national development.

Hosted this year in St James, the 11th iteration of the conference brings together a diverse cohort of stakeholders united around two core goals: advancing inclusive national development and strengthening Jamaica’s capacity to adapt to and withstand the impacts of climate change. The gathering provides a dedicated space to co-design actionable solutions that leverage the resources, expertise, and connections of the global Jamaican diaspora to support progress on the island.