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Jamaica seeks US$1 billion to fight gangs Recruit police, remove dons and rebuild communities JAMAICA is seeking US$1 billion in loans and grants to help remove dons and rebuild the poor communities they have long dominated, reports Bloomberg News. The money will also be used to raise the complement of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) from its current 8,500 personnel towards its target of 12,000. Government officials have been meeting with donor countries and international lending institutions such as the World Bank and the Inter American Development Bank (IDB). The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administration believes that it has improved...

Daly wants Lennar to apologize after its security guard is cuffed to pole The flap won't die down over an armed security guard working for Lennar Corp. who was handcuffed to a light pole after being kicked out of a community meeting about the developer's project to remake the former Hunters Point naval shipyard.

Murphy acquitted over Omagh bombing COLM MURPHY walked free from the Special Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday after he was cleared at a retrial of a conspiracy charge in relation to the 1998 Omagh bombing which killed 29 people and injured more than 300. Mr Murphy said after being acquitted of the charge: “I am glad to see it’s all over. Find out who was behind it – MI5 agents setting people up.” The three-judge non-jury court ruled that there was no evidence upon which the court could have convicted Mr Murphy after it ruled that all the evidence of...

TYLER, TX (KLTV) - The East Texas church arson investigation continues as federal, state and local law enforcement establish a command center in Tyler, sharing information that could lead to an arrest of the person or persons suspected of lighting six churches on fire. Investigators say that they won't stop the search until the suspects are caught. "It is our community," said Chief Neal Franklin, with the Tyler Fire Department. "We care deeply about this." "We go to churches here," said Clay Alexander, an ATF agent. "We have friends that go to churches here." "We're very serious about catching any...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CNN) -- The International Criminal Court at the Hague issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for a five-year campaign of violence in Darfur. Bashir is charged with seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The warrant does not mention genocide, but the court may issue an amended warrant to include that charge later, ICC spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said. Five counts are for crimes against humanity and include murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, and rape, Blairon said. The other two are for war crimes, for intentionally directing attacks against civilians and...

PELHAM — The Massachusetts police chief who is facing involuntary manslaughter charges in connection with the accidental shooting death of an 8-year-old boy at a gun show has resigned. Pelham Chief Edward Fleury’s resignation was accepted on Monday by the Board of Selectmen, three months after 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj shot himself in the head with an Uzi during a Westfield gun fair. Fleury’s company, COP Firearms & Training, sponsored the event. He has pleaded not guilty.

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MIAMI - A judge yesterday berated former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. for tarnishing his badge and slapped him with a 40-year sentence that would keep him in prison until 2021 for his role in the 1982 killing of a Boston businessman in Florida.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday issued a "last-minute" appeal to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to reject their Hamas rulers and stop rocket fire at Israel, warning them he would not hesitate to use force.

A suspected pilotless American drone has fired two missiles in a border area of Pakistan, killing seven people, Pakistani officials have said. Reports say the missile destroyed a house in South Waziristan. The identity of those killed is not known.

The Fall of Athens The Greek government loses the battle of ideas, and then it loses control. When Greece's conservative New Democracy party came to power in March 2004 it promised three things: to "reinvent" the state, to eliminate corruption and to initiate much-needed educational reform. Four years later, the situation remains unchanged: The state is still a tool for bestowing benefits and favors, corruption in the public sector is still rampant, and all attempts at educational reform have quickly fizzled out.

On October 31st 1999 EgyptAir Flight 990 struck the ocean with the loss of all on board. The end of the NTSB's final summary reads thusly "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the EgyptAir flight 990 accident is the airplane's departure from normal cruise flight and subsequent impact with the Atlantic Ocean as a result of the relief first officer's flight control inputs. The reason for the relief first officer's actions was not determined."

KHAR, Pakistan — Security forces backed by helicopter gunships and artillery killed more than 60 insurgents in northwest Pakistan in offensives aimed at denying Al Qaeda and Taliban militants safe havens, officials said Tuesday. The attacks come amid intense U.S. pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militants blamed for attacks both at home and on coalition forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

BABAKOT, Pakistan – In a tangle of bushes and trees outside a remote village in southwest Pakistan, six close male relatives of three teenage girls dug a 4-foot wide by 6-foot deep ditch, on a sweltering night in mid-July, and allegedly buried the girls alive. The girls' crime: they dared to defy the will of their fathers and the customs of their tribe and choose their own husbands. The mother of one of the girls and the aunt of another were shot and killed while begging for the girls’ lives, according to local media reports.

SRINAGAR, India-Controlled Kashmir (CNN) -- At least six people were killed and 55 hurt Tuesday in clashes between Indian police and villagers protesting in three communities in India-controlled Kashmir, police said.

HONOLULU -- The Marine Corps has yet to charge anyone after two months of investigating a video that reportedly depicts a Marine from Monroe throwing a puppy into a ravine in Iraq. A press release today from Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Oahu states that the investigation is ongoing and that the Corps deplores the apparent act of animal cruelty. The investigation may be concluded soon, according to Maj. Chris Perrine, base spokesman. The puppy video gained international attention and local interest when people on the Internet identified the Marine in the video as a Monroe man. The man’s family...

Roberto "Kiko'' Pulido, the rogue Boston police officer who enlisted two fellow patrolman in a brazen scheme to escort trucks bringing cocaine into the city, was sentenced today to 26 years in federal prison by a judge who said the defendant had disgraced his badge. "The people who wear that badge have a sense of honor,'' US District Judge William G. Young said, staring at Pulido, the ringleader of one of the most notorious police corruption scandals in recent Boston history. "You are ... dead to that sense of honor.''

A Queens livery driver who had become something of a hero, after he took to a firehouse a baby girl that he said had been abandoned in his cab, was arrested on Saturday after his story unraveled, the police said. A man and a woman were also arrested.

It emerged last night that a laptop containing close to 175,000 patient records belonging to the Irish Blood Transfusion Service was stolen in New York. The news comes within weeks of Labour TD Ruairi Quinn warning that data protection in Irish government departments needed better controls. He revealed nearly 100 notebook and desktop PCs have been lost or stolen from Irish government departments over the past five years, along with 14 BlackBerry smartphones and 11 portable media devices. In recent weeks, Pat Moran of Ernst & Young’s Risk Advisory Services practice told Siliconrepublic.com that the prevalence of laptop theft was...

The three men accused of painting symbols of hate on a Columbia mosque and then setting it on fire face federal charges Tuesday. Eric Baker, Michael Golden and Jonathan Stone are charged with unlawful possession of a destructive device. They are not charged with committing a hate crime. Investigators said the three used Molotov cocktails to set the Islamic Center of Columbia on fire early Saturday morning. The U.S. Attorney said the investigation is ongoing and at least one of the men belongs to a dangerous organization, aimed at spreading hate. Stone told investigators he's a member of the Christian...