KINGSTON, Jamaica - THE recent decision by the South Africa Government to confer on Guyana's late President Forbes Burnham its highest national honour designated for outstanding foreign citizens- — the Oliver Tambo Award (gold) — has drawn strong criticisms from two well-known Jamaican scholars and Pan-Africanists — Dr Rupert Lewis and Dr Horace Campbell.
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KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC - Political activist and social commentator Jomo Thomas has tendered his resignation from the National Heroes Selection Committee in protest against a speech delivered on national; heroes by Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves. “I am convinced that the Prime Minister’s presentation has made our work superfluous,” Thomas wrote in his resignation letter to the chair person of the Committee, Rene Baptiste, a former culture minister here.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - At Wednesday’s consultation with religious bodies on the 2012 draft national policy on gender and development, Leela Ramdeen, chair of the Catholic Commission for Social Justice, raised a curious argument regarding the definition of gender in the document.
ABOARD THE HIGHSPEED VESSEL SWIFT (AP) — Drug smugglers who race across the Caribbean in speedboats will typically jettison their cargo when spotted by surveillance aircraft, hoping any chance of prosecuting them will vanish with the drugs sinking to the bottom of the sea. That may be a less winning tactic in the future. The US Navy last Friday began testing two new aerial tools, borrowed from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, that officials say will make it easier to detect, track and videotape drug smugglers in action.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – The European Union is providing J$2.5 billion (One Jamaica dollar = US$0.01 cents) in grant funding to boost the delivery of maternal and paediatric health care in public health institutions in Jamaica. Health Minister Dr. Fenton Ferguson said the allocation is expected to further advance the government’s efforts to meet the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for significant improvements in these two key areas. Dr.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - WITH the private sector backing the recently announced tourism initiatives it is going to be important to gauge whether the measures will in fact translate into an improvement in the island’s tourism industry.
ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Computer technology expert Yves Ephraim has pointed to growing incidents of cyber attacks in the country as a new report points to its damaging effects on small businesses in particular. Ephraim, managing director of Pegasus Technologies, told OBSERVER Media that in his line of work, he has seen repeated examples of cyber attacks which lead him to the conclusion that the scourge is growing locally. “I think it happens more often than we really like to admit. Some people don’t even know that they are being hacked but we are under attack,” the IT expert said.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - THERE is an unfortunate pride that is linked to owning national airlines in the Caribbean. It is a pride that goes before a fall. Successive Jamaican governments held on to Air Jamaica although the airline bled money and depended heavily on massive financial support from taxpayers. The taxpayers' money could have been used to finance sustainable projects that would have created and maintained employment and generated revenues. But in the minds of decision-makers in successive Jamaican governments, keeping Air Jamaica flying was important for national pride.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – Haiti has launched an ambitious vaccination campaign against tetanus and the rotavirus that causes severe, fatal diarrhea in children under the age of 5. The campaign comes a year after the Michel Martelly administration launched a similar campaign against several childhood diseases, including measles and polio. “To protect children against rotavirus is extremely important, especially in a place like Haiti where we also are seeing not a lot of high access to water and sanitation,” said Dr.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said she was not pressured by any Government minister into accepting the resignation of former minister Jack Warner.
The Prime Minister returned from Canada on Saturday night and said it was in fact the Concacaf findings and report by Sir David Simmons, a former chief justice and attorney general of Barbados, that cemented her decision to accept Warner’s resignation.