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Haiti’s Latest MiseryPublished: October 26, 2010 The cholera outbreak in Haiti — the first in 50 years — has layered fresh anxiety atop long-standing misery. By Tuesday the disease had sickened more than 3,000 people and killed more than 250. While the authorities have expressed cautious hope that the outbreak might soon stabilize and remain largely confined to the rural Artibonite region, there is still fear that the disease could overwhelm the shattered capital, Port-au-Prince. **SNIP** More than 1.3 million Haitians were left homeless by the quake, and more than 1.3 million remain homeless today. Thousands of people live in...

Jamaicans who have for long eyed the United States (US) as a frontier for economic advancement would be concerned about immediate job prospects for those planning to migrate based on recent reports showing a weakening of the recovery. Specifically, the job report confirmed that the US economy con-tinues to shed jobs while employers are exercising unusual caution about hiring. With unemployment remaining stubbornly high at 9.6 per cent and the number of long-term unemployed at record levels, the US is now a less favourable outlet for people from our unskilled, semi-skilled, and professional ranks. Just how important the US has...

Leonardo Thompson now has a swollen face and stitches to his left eye and thumbs, but he is thankful to be alive after he was attacked by a crocodile in Hell-shire, St Catherine, on Sunday morning. Thompson told THE STAR that "honestly, I thought I was going to die", after the crocodile, measuring about seven feet attacked him suddenly from behind, took aim at his head and pulled him with force under the water. As he recounted the incident, Thompson said initially, he thought he was attacked by a shark, but later realised that it was a crocodile. He said...

Washington - A former US State Department official has been sentenced to life in prison for spying, while his wife was ordered to spend nearly seven years behind bars for helping to pass highly classified information to Cuba, the Justice Department said Friday. Walter Kendall Myers, 73, and wife Gwendolyn, 71, pleaded guilty in November to espionage charges and acting as agents for the Cuban government. Myers had also admitted to passing top secret information in a conversation with an undercover FBI agent, the Justice Department said.

July 9, 2010 NOTE The following text is a quote: Three-Time Armed Bank Robber Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison; Deportation Hearing to Follow Prison Term Dwayne, K. Lewis, 28, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was sentenced Friday to 120 months in federal prison on armed bank robbery charges. Lewis pleaded guilty February 1, 2010 to armed bank robberies in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York in which nearly $269,000 was taken. Lewis, a Jamaican national, faces a deportation hearing after completing his prison sentence. United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha announced the sentence, which was imposed by U.S. District Court Chief...

GREECE, N.Y. -- One of three suspects in a triple slaying at an apartment complex near Rochester was charged with first-degree murder Friday, a day after pleading not guilty to helping distribute at least 2,200 pounds of marijuana in western New York. The suspects, all three Jamaican natives, were tracked to a house in Arizona on March 18, nine days after three other Jamaican men were found shot to death in an apartment in the Rochester suburb of Greece.On Friday, Richard Anderson, 45, an illegal immigrant who had twice been deported to his home country, pleaded not guilty at an...

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...

At least 73 people died this week as Jamaican security forces stormed a Kingston slum and battled armed supporters of an alleged drug lord wanted for extradition to the United States, police said on Thursday. Residents complained of abuse and rights groups questioned whether police and soldiers had used excessive and indiscriminate force.

SNIPPET: "Over the past few weeks, in the aftermath of the Anwar al-Awlaki’s rise to mainstream media prominence, I’ve been asked by several journalists to identify and discuss the role of the influential ‘online celebrity shaykhs.’ At the top of my list of Western jihadist clerics has been a guy known as Shaykh Abdullah al-Faisal. Well, turns out, he’s not just at the top of my list. This Jamaican-born fire-breathing jihadist cleric whose spent time in UK prison for incitement to terrorism was just arrested in Mombasa, Kenya for preaching in Kenyan mosques."

SNIPPET: "Young Muslims in the U.S. are becoming radicalized in a new way: on the Internet. Radical clerics such as Abdullah Faisal are directing young Muslim men to take up violent jihad. Faisal, who recently set up shop in Jamaica, has alleged ties to terrorist plots around the world." SNIPPET: "Faisal is one of the best known radical clerics on the Internet today." SNIPPET: "Faisal, 46, is a Jamaican convert to Islam..." SNIPPET: "We met him at an American hotel in Montego Bay. It became clear later that the Jamaican staff all knew exactly who he was and were rattled...

Do gun bans really stop criminals from getting guns? Americans need not look no further than the massive gun battle with armed gangs fighting police and soldiers that took place in Kingston, Jamaica today. At least 30 people were killed in the fighting. It is a huge number for a small island nation of fewer than 3 million people, but unfortunately murder is so common in Jamaica that these murders won't even be noticed in the annual crime numbers. With Chicago's Mayor Daley again claiming that a gun ban is necessary to keep Chicagoans safe, Jamaica and other countries with...

KINGSTON, Jamaica,The Jamaican government Sunday declared a state of public emergency in the parishes of Kingston and St. Andrew in response to gang attacks on police stations. The attacks were carried out by supporters of Christopher Coke, a gang leader who is in hiding from authorities as he faces weapons and narcotics charges in the United States, The New York Times reported. Prime Minister Bruce Golding summoned an emergency meeting of the Cabinet Sunday afternoon on the advice of Jamaican security forces, and the Cabinet decided to declare the state of emergency, the government said in a statement posted on...

Jamaican authorities placed Kingston under a state of emergency and urged people to leave the city’s roughest neighbourhoods overnight, as police clashed with armed gangs over the possible extradition of a drug suspect to the United States. A police officer and a civilian were wounded by gunfire in street clashes and three police stations came under attack in the city, while women and children were told to evacuate. One police station was set ablaze after police abandoned it ran out of bullets, police said. Authorities alleged that gunmen from various communities across the Caribbean country of 2.8 million had joined...

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaica's government declared a state of emergency in parts of its capital city Kingston Sunday after shooting and firebomb attacks on police stations by supporters of an alleged drug lord who faces extradition to the United States. The emergency covered the West Kingston and St. Andrews districts of the capital where gunmen fired on two police stations and set fire to another. At least one policeman was injured. Kingston police on Sunday urged Christopher "Dudus" Coke, who the government is seeking under a U.S. extradition request, even as tension grew behind barricades erected by his supporters to...

AWFUL GULLY, St James — The St James division of the Jamaica Fire Brigade has approached the St James police for forensic assistance to determine the cause of mysterious, sporadic outbreaks of fire, which have, since last Wednesday, been torching houses and furniture belonging to members of a family located here on a parcel of land. “We have not been able to determine the cause of the fires. We have asked the police to assist with their forensic technology,” a resident said. According to the man, who identified himself as Mr Doeman, firefighters have been summoned to battle the strange...

Note: The following text is a quote: March 10, 2010 Queens MS-13 gang leader sentenced to life in prison for racketeering and murder NEW YORK - The leader of a Queens chapter of the international street gang La Mara Salvatrucha, more commonly known as "MS-13," was sentenced March 10 to life imprisonment for racketeering conspiracy, including the acts of murder and attempted murder; murder in-aid-of-racketeering; and using a firearm in connection with a crime of violence. A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Amilcar Gomez, 26, on April 3, 2009, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with...

(AP) — SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Caribbean islands battling drug-fueled crime had one of their bloodiest years on record in 2009, with Jamaica, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico hitting or coming close to all-time highs for homicides. The violence reflects the drug trade's deep entrenchment in the region, with high murder rates becoming a fact of life at tourist havens that traffickers use as transit points for South American drugs bound for Europe and the United States. In countries including the Bahamas, which set a record with more than 82 slayings, officials say they are contending with turf battles...

FORT WORTH, Texas, Dec. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- On Tuesday, December 22, 2009, American Airlines Flight 331, a Boeing 737-800 aircraft, overran the runway on landing at Kingston, Jamaica's Norman Manley International Airport. The flight originated out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, operated into Miami International Airport, and then operated into Kingston's Norman Manley International Airport. Preliminary reports indicate there are no critical injuries. The aircraft was carrying 148 passengers and a crew of six. "The care of our passengers and crew members is our highest priority and we will offer all the assistance necessary," said Gerard Arpey, American's Chairman...

Forty passengers were reported injured when an American Airlines plane crashed and broke in two after landing at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston shortly after 10:00 last night. "The injured passengers have been taken to the Kingston Public Hospital," Information Minister Daryl Vaz told the Observer. "There are no reports of fatalities." Vaz, Transport and Works Minister Mike Henry and National Security Minister Dwight Nelson were quick on the scene and engaged in a head count from the passenger manifest to determine if anyone was missing. An injured American Airlines flight 331 passenger is being pushed in a...

An American Airlines plane crashed and broke in two after landing at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to local reports. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Details were not immediately available, however, passengers on the plane told local media that flight 331 had just arrived from Miami in pouring rain when the accident occurred. The flight apparently originated in Washington, D.C.