Free Republic

Justice system going to the dogs published: Tuesday | April 24, 2007 Residents protesting outside the Mandeville Courthouse in Manchester last year. - Norman Grindley/Deputy Chief Photographer Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterJAMAICA'S JUSTICE system is deteriorating fast; indeed, some would say it's almost in a shambles. Problems prevail from the Resident Magistrates' Courts to the Circuit Courts, from the Gun Court to the Coroner's Court, to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, from the jury service to essential support services.The system is being hamstrung by backlogs, staff shortages, the lack of up-to-date equipment and technologies and basic resources,...

A London-based Muslim cleric was arrested by anti-terrorist officers on Monday amid allegations that he urged Muslims to kill Jews and non-believers, police sources said. Abdullah el-Faisal, 38, was seized by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch officers in a dawn raid at his home in east London on Monday. Born in Jamaica and a convert to Islam, he had been touring Britain urging followers to kill Jews and non-believers, police said. Members of parliament had called for action to be taken against the cleric after it was reported that video tapes carrying his message were on sale in Islamic bookshops in ...

Home without hope: the deportees blamed for a tropical crimewave They fly in on 'Con Air' to stony stares from officials, but a smile from one woman Rory Carroll in Kingston Monday April 2, 2007 The Guardian )UK) As the plane descended through tropical sky, and Caribbean surf gave way to Kingston's rooftops, lumps formed in the passengers' throats. After years or even decades away, they were back in Jamaica, the land of their birth. But if there were tears as the plane landed at Norman Manley airport, they were not of joy. Few if any of the 31 passengers...

On a plantation just outside the Jamaican capital, Kingston, we watched workers with long machetes slice down towering stalks of sugar cane with industrial precision. Sugar is still harvested by hand, when it is too wet for machines The crop is only harvested by hand on modern plantations when it rains and today there is a steady drizzle. Usually machines do the graft. But for more than 300 years until the early 19th century the machines were African slaves. Men, women and children were overworked and brutalised. Cruelty and torture meant as many as a third of all slaves...

The Miami terror plot is among several terror plots and attacks with links to the Caribbean – and Jamaica in particular. The British have “Londonistan.” Americans have a jihad hotspot of their own – the island-nations dotting their Caribbean backyard. Call it “Caribbeanistan.” In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the Middle East was widely presumed to be the main incubator for Islamic-inspired jihad. However, the Caribbean has emerged often enough in terrorism-related cases to suggest the region may have some pathologies of its own. The most recent example was the foiled Miami terror plot. Its seven plotters...

Blind cricketers secure historic victory for Jamaica - Beat Barbados to win first ever regional tournament published: Monday | July 10, 2006 BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC): JAMAICA GOT an unbeaten half-century from Iroy Johnson and defeated hosts Barbados by five wickets to win the first ever West Indies Blind Cricket tournament yesterday.Playing at the Carlton Sports Club, Jamaica made 196 for five from 27.1 overs in reply to the Barbados total of 192 for seven from their allotted 35 overs. "It was worked out, it was planned, we just did to Barbados what had to be done to make us...

"?DEAR MARGO: I am a 38-year-old successful female who is emotionally and financially secure. I have been told that I am very attractive and intimidate men. I would like to get married but am thought to be too independent"

Newcomers to Hell's Kitchen, who pay top dollar to live in the hot neighborhood, are having a devil of a time dealing with a resurgence in some of the area's longtime inhabitants - prostitutes. The in-your-face, scantily clad night crawlers, who for years discreetly plied their wares from pimp-owned cars, are back to their pre-Giuliani days of streetwalking, traffic-stopping parades in front of flesh-hungry motorists, according to residents and community leaders. The Post recently spotted about a dozen of the hard-working, high-heeled hookers strutting up and down West 47th and 48th streets between Ninth and 11th avenues - not far...

Call for repeal of homosexual, prostitution laws published: Sunday | June 25, 2006 Dionne Rose, Parliamentary Reporter Nicholson (left) and Johnson (right)  PROFESSOR PETER Figueroa, vice-chairman of the National AIDS Committee wants laws on the books that criminalise prostitution and homosexual acts to be repealed. Dr. Figueroa made the recommendation while addressing the Joint Select Committee of Parliament considering the proposed Charter of Rights bill in Gordon House on Wednesday. "Criminal law prohibiting sexual acts including adultery, sodomy, fornication and commercial sexual encounters between consenting adults in private should be reviewed with the aim of repeal," he said. INTERNATIONAL...

Jamaica's Portia Simpson-Miller WEDNESDAY APRIL 5, 2006 AFRICAN ANCESTRAL ISLAND MAKES HEADS-UP HISTORY WITH WOMAN HEAD OF STATE By Carolyn Bennett As Bush’s lead woman was bowing to boos last week in Britain, a former British slave colony was cheering its history-making head of state. The BBC reported the new head of state saying “Jamaica should stop worrying about her gender and concentrate on the island’s problems.” A point well taken. But in the name of history and in light of “our” America’s backward trend, I need to think about Jamaica’s history-making woman Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller. During the...

Could it be that Washington is trying to intimidate Venezuela with large-scale naval maneuvers in the Caribbean Sea? According to this article from Venezuela's Cadena Global, President Hugo Chavez said, 'We aren't afraid of the Paper Empire!,' and 'We are preparing ourselves' for America's attempt to 'enslave us.' During his Sunday "Hello President [Alo Presidente]" program, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez maintained that the purpose of the American military presence in the Caribbean is to "intimidate" his Government, and he warned that the "Bolivarian Revolution isn't afraid of the Empire." Chavez also announced that he would push forward a legal reform...

Creeping closer to anarchy published: Thursday | March 9, 2006 THE SEEMINGLY random slaughter of our people, including children in the full bloom of youth; the violent attacks on citizens from all walks of life across the length and breadth of Jamaica, and the apparent inability of the security forces to halt or even retard the rate of killings are raising public anxiety and the feeling that the society is moving closer to anarchy.In response to the various brutal attacks, we have collectively expressed anger and outrage, condemnation and denunciation, but until and unless the justice system is seen...

Where are the voters? - Electorial Office of Jamaica (EOJ) trying to locate 300,000 electors published: Thursday | February 2, 2006 Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter Professor Errol Miller (right), chairman of the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC), talks to journalists during an Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ)/EAC press briefing held yesterday at the EOJ's Old Hope Road office, while Linton Walters (centre), People's National Party representative to the committee, and Tom Tavares-Finson, Jamaica Labour Party representative, look on. - RUDOLPH BROWN/CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER THE ELECTORAL Office of Jamaica (EOJ) is experiencing difficulties in locating approximately 300,000 people on the voters' list...

CORPORAL Richard "Pampers" Simpson tried to swallow the $10,000 bribe he allegedly took from a taxi operator, when he was held in a sting operation last week, the court was told yesterday. The policeman, who was held on Constant Spring Road in Kingston, wrestled with officers from the Professional Standards Branch who had set up the operation to nab him and desperately tried to swallow the money reportedly paid to him by the taxi driver to release his vehicle. In a damning police report to the court yesterday, the investigating officer said while he wrestled with police who were trying...

Mayor Bloomberg wants to take New York City's gun control regulations nationwide. At his swearing in ceremony earlier this month, Mr. Bloomberg announced his top priority for the next four years: a nationwide fight across America for more gun control, from Washington, D.C., to individual statehouses. The current push for more gun control stems from the tragic murders of two New York City police officers last year, following in the wake of two officers killed in 2003 and 2004. Mr. Bloomberg has long supported every gun regulation possible, even banning off-duty or retired police officers carrying guns near city hall....

Ganja and crime published: Sunday | November 27, 2005 The scientific debate in Jamaica about the dangers of marijuana use is often obfuscated by a subtle cultural bias based in part on a support of Rastafarians who claim that the herb is a sacramental part of their religious practice, but also by years of its use in folk medicine. Now comes Dr. Winston De La Haye, director of the detoxification unit at the University Hospital of the West Indies and president of the Psychiatry Association of Jamaica, who believes that the use of ganja may well be a major...

LETTER OF THE DAY - A student who cannot spell 'cat'! published: Thursday | November 24, 2005 THE EDITOR, Sir: I AM writing this letter to you based on my experience. I am a teacher at an upgraded high school in Jamaica and I must say that we are making strides in CSEC passes and the performing arts. However, I am appalled from time to time by the kind of students who are entering the high school system.I met a student recently who could not spell the words, 'mother', 'cat' or her last name, albeit the name is a...

MONTEGO BAY, St James - Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, says as his city rebuilds in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it would be moving to strengthen economic ties with Jamaica. "As we look to rebuild New Orleans, we are also looking to rebuild relationships and the first place that we are looking to rebuild and strengthen relationships is Jamaica," said Nagin. The New Orleans mayor who is vacationing in the island with his wife Seletha and three children, at a private villa owned by Sandals chairman, Gordon 'Butch' Stewart, was speaking to reporters in Montego Bay at a...

Crime - the reason why Jamaicans emigrate published: Sunday | November 13, 2005 - FILE Departing passengers with luggage at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston. Dionne Rose, Staff ReporterWITH MORE than 1,400 persons murdered since the year started, the country's crime problem seems to be emerging as one of the main reasons given by persons who have opted to migrate from Jamaica. Statistics from the Planning Institute of Jamaica's (PIOJ) Economic and Social Survey 2004 indicate a slight increase in the number of persons emigrating to Canada and the United Kingdom for the period 2003-2004. In 2003,...

Three masked men robbed a Catholic priest at gunpoint Wednesday night in the rectory of a Cambria Heights church, police and the priest said Thursday. The robbery occurred shortly after 9 p.m. when three young men -- wearing dark do-rags, hoodies and leather gloves -- rang the bell of the rectory of Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church on 222nd Street, police said. Receptionist Myrtelle Ernest, 17, who was waiting for her mother to pick her up, opened the door slightly and the gunmen forced their way in, police and the priest said. The robbers, who police described as...