In his contribution to the 2010-11 Sectoral Debate in Parliament today, Opposition Spokesman on National Security, Peter Bunting, levelled a stinging broadside against the government. This only a day after the Prime Minister admitted in Gordon House that he sanctioned the hiring of a U.S. lobby law firm to represent the JLP in US-Jamaica treaty matters.

Mr. Bunting pulled no punches in calling out the government on its lack of credibility and moral authority, in declaring the PNP’s readiness to lead the country.

Read the full presentation here:

http://www.bunting.org.jm/sites/default/files/PB_Sect_Debate_Nat_Secur_2…

Contribution on National Security to the 2010-11 Sectoral Debate.pdf

AMID mounting criticisms over the Government’s credibility, Prime Minister Bruce Golding yesterday admitted in Parliament that he had given the green light for the ruling party to engage the services of US law firm Manatt Phelps and Phillips.

Golding confessed that he had “sanctioned” persons in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) to approach Manatt Phelps and Phillips to lobby the United States administration to drop its extradition request for Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke to face drug and gun-running charges there.

(Read the full presentation here:)
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Golding-confesses-manatt_7605025

  Statement in Parliament on Extradition and Manatt firm, by the Hon Bruce Golding, Prime Minister

The tempo of the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips controversy – in which the United States law firm was asked to help resolve an extradition matter between Jamaica and the US – is set to increase this week, even as the Government maintains it has not received any official statement from the Obama administration.

Industry, Investment and Com-merce Minister Karl Samuda, the Golding administration’s point man on the matter, told The Gleaner yesterday that as far as he knew, no word had been forthcoming from US authorities.

Source: The Daily Gleaner

Read more here : http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100510/lead/lead3.html

The vulnerabilities of Jamaican children make them easy pickings for exploitation by extremists, similar to the radicalism found in the Arab world, a study by university lecturer Dr Claudette Crawford-Brown has revealed.

Crawford-Brown’s claim comes with the recognition that many of the island’s children, some as young as four, are being trained by gunmen to carry out crime.

“They are watching drug shipments go off, they are watching criminal activities that are inappropriate for their age. This provides a breeding ground for later criminal activities,” said Crawford-Brown, a Fulbright research scholar and lecturer/coordinator of the Violence Prevention Programme at the University of the West Indies, Mona.

(Source: The Gleaner

Read full article here:
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100503/lead/lead4.html

THE police have seen significant jumps in the number of illegal firearms and ammunition taken off the streets for the first quarter of 2010, as they report increases in operational outputs in all the major categories when compared to the same period last year.

(Source: The Gleaner

Read full article here:
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/-p-Cops-recover-more-guns–ammo-in-2…

Multimillion-dollar trade said more lucrative than cocaine, holds lower risk

ORGANISED criminal gangs and drug dealers are behind the growing multimillion-dollar trade in illicit cigarettes locally, the Sunday Observer has learnt.

According to the authorities, the drug lords’ transition is driven by their desire to avoid the harsh penalties associated with narcotics trafficking, even though breaches of the Trade Marks Act can attract huge fines and prison time.

Read full story here:

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Drug-dons-take-up-illicit-cigarette-…

DETECTIVES from the Montego Bay CIB are probing the circumstances surrounding the killing of five people in the second city this morning.

Dead are 20 year-old Cornel Brown and Elton Hines, 23, both of Bird Hill, Salt Spring in the parish; Damion Brooks and 20-year-old Byron Powell, whose addresses are not known; and a fifth person who is yet to be identified.

Information received from the police is that about 5:30 am, residents called them to Bird Hill district after discovering the bodies of Brown and Hines. Investigators who went to the area inspected the bodies and realised they had gunshot wounds. About 500 metres from that location, the charred remains of Brooks, Powell and the unidentified person were found among the rubble of a burnt house.

THEIR TONGUES have been muted by years of fear and terror, so now, the silent cries of the people of Waterhouse in St Andrew for an end to bloodshed and violence go unheard. Sad eyes tell their stories.

They have seen it all – the ghastly effects of gang warfare – for more than 40 years. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives snuffed out by the gun; families shattered; a community splintered into factions.

Today, the scars are there for all to see, in a terrible culture of violence that has become entrenched in the community.

In a bitterly divided community, the people of the area continue to fall by the bullet, while others look on helplessly, as gangsters from one section of a street continue to be engaged in bitter combat with the other section.

(Source: The Sunday Gleaner.) Read full story here:
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100425/lead/lead2.html

Opposition In The Dark – Davies, Bunting Say Information Out Of Government Not Detailed Enough

HE PARLIAMENTARY Opposition yesterday said it refrained from offering a more detailed package of solutions when it contributed to the Budget Debate because it was in the dark about the country’s macroeconomic situation.

At the same time, Dr Omar Davies, who is the opposition spokesman on finance, has said the People’s National Party (PNP) is not impressed with the cherry-picking of proposals the Government made in the Budget Debate last year.

“There was a sort of selective way in which it was treated. The only thing that was taken from it was related to the TEF, and we certainly don’t like the way in which it was adopted,” Davies said yesterday.

Read full article here : http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100420/lead/lead5.html

THE United States White House and State Department declined yesterday to confirm or deny reports out of Washington that a career diplomat has been identified as ambassador-designate to Kingston.

But impeccable Observer sources insisted that the person had been identified, though not announced, and that a career diplomat was deemed to be more desirable than a political appointee, in the frosty environment caused by the stand-off over Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

Read full story here :
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/US-Dudus-continues_7529858