News

MPs argue over backhoe purchase at House committee

James Robertson

THE usual routine sitting of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) committee was yesterday morning disrupted after St Thomas Western Member of Parliament (MP) James Robertson brought up a decade-old issue involving the purchase of a backhoe for the constituency of St Andrew West Rural. Robertson ... Read More

Police Commissioner Dr Carl Williams (centre) is greeted by Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) President Paul B Scott just before the start of the PSOJ’s President’s Forum yesterday morning at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel. Lookin on is CEO of the PSOJ Dennis Chung. (Photo: Garfield Robinson) Police unease
Police on front-line duty are increasingly declining to engage criminals as they fear being prosecut ... Read More

A woman who helped in encouraging the policeman to come down from atop the building in Mandeville hugs him after the bucket of this truck was lowered. Firefighters, the police and members of the public look on. (Photos: Gregory Bennett) ‘Suicidal’ cop not fit for policing, says superintendent
MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Superintendent of the Manchester Police Division Vendolyn Cameron-Pow ... Read More

Former National Security Minister Peter Bunting Bunting says Montague ‘not fully engaged’ with security portfolio
FORMER Minister of National Security and People’s National Party (PNP) spokesman for the portf ... Read More

Penwood students to get new CSEC results in October

Wednesday, September 28, 2016    

The numbers game with high school CSEC rankings.

THE more than 40 Penwood High school students who received “ungraded” scores from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) for six subjects because of the non-submission of their School Based Assessment (SBA) in this year’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examinations should know their new results by the end of October. CXC decided to accept the late SBAs following various intervention, including that of the Ministry of Education, after the St Andrew school had faile ... Read More

Man accused of killing former JUTC boss freed

Wednesday, September 28, 2016    

Gavel

THE man accused of murdering former Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) Chairman Douglas Chambers was yesterday acquitted in the Home Circuit Court, six years after the matter was brought before the court. Andre Bryan, who was on trial for the murder of Chambers in 2008, was found not guilty by six of the seven jurors. Allegations are that on June 27, 2008, Chambers was shot dead at the JUTC depot in Spanish Town, St Catherine, after he had left a meeting to smoke a cigarette. According to p ... Read More

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres dies

Wednesday, September 28, 2016    

PERES... was the last surviving link to Israel’s founding fathers (Sebastian Scheiner)

JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) – Former Israeli President Shimon Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and elder statesman of Israeli politics, has died, the Israeli news website YNet reported last night. He was 93. Peres’ condition worsened following a major stroke two weeks ago. He was one of the country’s most admired leaders at home and abroad and the last surviving link to Israel’s founding fathers. He filled nearly every position in Israeli public life in an unpreceden ... Read More

Five more judges for Court of Appeal

Wednesday, September 28, 2016    

CHUCK… the problem that we are having is that we have nowhere to accommodate them

JUSTICE Minister Delroy Chuck has announced that five more judges will be appointed to the Court of Appeal to bring the full complement of judges to 12. The additional judges, he said, would reduce the backlog of cases in the appellate court. He was speaking at a recent town hall meeting with 120 justices of the peace at the Cruise Shipping Pier in Ocho Rios, St Ann. “The problem that we are having is that we have nowhere to accommodate them [so] I hope that the refurbishment and renovati ... Read More

Obasanjo visits his Jamaican ‘brother’

BY VERNON DAVIDSON Executive editor – publications davidsonv@jamaicaobserver.com | Wednesday, September 28, 2016    

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo (left) is greeted by his good friend, former Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson, as Professor Verene Shepherd looks on at a reception hosted by Ambassador Carlton Masters at his St Andrew home last Friday. (Photos: Michael Gordon)

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s easy smile last Friday left no doubt that he was among friends. Indeed, the former Nigerian president was a guest at the St Andrew home of Ambassador Carlton Masters, Jamaica’s first representative to the African Union, who described Obasanjo as “my brother”. Naturally, the reception hosted by Masters would not have been the same had the guest list not included his good friend and former Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson, who has known Obasa ... Read More

Absentee voting for US citizens

Ask the US EMBASSY | Wednesday, September 28, 2016    

A woman signs up to vote last Friday in Bloomington, Minnesota. Friday marked the beginning of the state’s early voting period, which makes Minnesota among the first to open up voting. A 2014 law allowed residents to cast an absentee ballot for no reason, but the 2016 election is the state’s first to feature early voting as an option for a presidential contest. (Photo: AP)

It’s Absentee Voting Week from September 26 – October 3, and states and territories have started sending out ballots to overseas voters. Have you requested and received your State absentee ballot? It’s not too late to go online to the website of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, fvap.gov, and register to vote in the upcoming U.S. general election to be held on November 8. What are absentee ballots? Do they only count in close elections? Many absentee ballots are cast b ... Read More

Chuck laments shortage of JPs

Wednesday, September 28, 2016    

CHUCK... we need more hands on deck

MINISTER of Justice Delroy Chuck has called on pastors and teachers and other people of integrity to make themselves available to serve their country through the office of Justice of the Peace (JP). Addressing a sensitisation session on justice services last Friday at Sandals Whitehouse Hotel in Westmoreland, Chuck pointed to a shortage of JPs as well as a backlog of cases in the court system. “I am hoping that most of the pastors and teachers present here today will make themselves av ... Read More

Gov’t official preaches innovation to attract agri investor

Wednesday, September 28, 2016    

BUDHAN... the perception of serious lending risk and high cost of service delivery, among other limitations, are well known barriers to the financing of smallholders.(Observer)

PERMANENT secretary in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Reginald Budhan, says innovative ways must to be found to secure financing and attract investors in agriculture. He said the perception of serious lending risk and the high cost of service delivery, among other limitations, are well known barriers to the financing of smallholders (small family farms). “These barriers make it difficult and sometimes impossible for farmers to get a loan, therefore denying ... Read More

Canada’s immigration officers are trained to assess the integrity of marriages

Jamaica to Canada | Wednesday, September 28, 2016    

Immigration officers are not only trained to make such assessments, they are given the task of assessing the genuineness of a marriage pursuant to spousal sponsorship applications. (Photo: Observer file)

Dear Mr Brown: I understand that it is not a guarantee that an application will be successful when a Canadian sponsors a spouse from overseas. Some people fall in love and get married quickly. Some people have arranged marriages. Some people fall in love with a partner who is much older/younger. My question is: How can an immigration officer truly determine if a marriage is genuine? -NG Dear NG: Immigration officers are not only trained to make such assessments, they are given the task o ... Read More

FLOW Foundation fetes children with cancer

Wednesday, September 28, 2016    

(Standing from left) Shelly-Ann O’Connor, executive assistant at the FLOW Foundation; Dr Michelle-Ann Richards-Dawson, senior medical officer at the Bustamante Hospital for Children; Nurse Sonia Phillips; and FLOW employee volunteers Akeem Howe and Renee Clayton (partially hidden) get ready to push the merry-go-round with some of the cancer survivors feted by the FLOW Foundation last Friday.

THE FLOW Foundation, in collaboration with parents and the Bustamante Hospital for Children, last Friday treated more than 30 young patients of the hospital who are at different stages of their battle with cancer. FLOW said that in observance of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in September, the foundation made efforts to recognise and bring awareness to the plight faced by families stricken by the life-changing disease. The group consisted of children who were either recovered or are curren ... Read More



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