Sam Champion tried to return to ABC News when it became clear that his Weather Channel morn­ing show was a fail­ure, but his for­mer “Good Morning America” boss­es told him there was no room for him at the net­work any­more, sources tell Confidenti@l. “He thought he’d be show­ered with mon­ey, pow­er and pres­tige” when he ditched “GMA” at the height of its pop­u­lar­i­ty for the Weather Channel in 2013, a TV indus­try insid­er told us. “Instead, he’s been left high and dry.”

“We love Sam and he’ll always be part of the ABC fam­i­ly, but we’ve got the best weath­er team in the busi­ness already in place,” said an ABC rep. The Weather Channel, which is part-owned by NBC and two large equi­ty funds — Blackstone Group and Bain Capital — has been mak­ing major changes as it seeks to cut costs in the wake of reports that the funds are try­ing to sell their stakes. Among the most vis­i­ble moves in recent days: a plan to focus more on weath­er and less on lifestyle and real­i­ty pro­gram­ming. That includes clos­ing the company’s New York City stu­dio, can­cel­ing Al Roker’s ear­ly-morn­ing show and remov­ing Champion from the low-rat­ed “AMHQ.”

Champion, who is said to be paid around $2 mil­lion a year, will now focus on prime-time weath­er report­ing and “dig­i­tal prod­ucts,” accord­ing to a Weather Channel staff memo. His final “AMHQ” tele­cast is Oct. 30. Fifty staffers will lose their jobs as a result of the changes. “He is pissed!” says a source close to Champion. According to our insid­er, “He left ‘GMA’ for this job with tons of promis­es, includ­ing get­ting a per­cent­age of mer­chan­dise sold with his name on it — umbrel­las, boots, hats, etc. None of it hap­pened.” The chan­nel very pub­licly lured him away in December 2013. “Brand Champion” was promised more mon­ey and influ­ence as well as the right to mar­ket mer­chan­dise under his own name, which his con­tract at ABC pro­hib­it­ed. “This is not true,” said a Weather Channel rep. “There is no such lan­guage (about mer­chan­dis­ing) in his contract.”

Though Champion will remain with the Weather Channel “to cre­ate reg­u­lar prime-time shows that high­light the inter­sec­tion of new tech­nolo­gies and weath­er,” accord­ing to the chan­nel, it is clear that his chance to become “the face of the net­work” — as he was promised — has passed.

“They’d love to get rid of him and his big salary,” a source said, but right now they’re stuck with each oth­er. We’re also told Champion remains close to his for­mer “GMA” col­league Josh Elliott, who left ABC short­ly after Champion to work for NBC Sports. “They are both start­ing to think they were played,” a source told Confidenti@l. “NBC want­ed to destroy the ‘GMA’ fam­i­ly. They didn’t care about Sam or Josh.”

NBC and ABC have been locked in a morn­ing-show rat­ings war that saw ABC take a lead in May 2013 that it hasn’t relin­quished. NBC has nar­rowed that gap since Champion and Elliott’s depar­tures. But Elliott’s future at NBC has become uncer­tain, and he’s rarely been seen on air. Worse, he got a luke­warm endorse­ment from his boss, NBC Sports chiefMark Lazarus, in an inter­view Thursday with The Wrap. “Josh is still at this point a part of the com­pa­ny and we’re work­ing to see what kind of sched­ules can work,” Lazarus said. Asked if there was a “good chance” Elliott won’t be part of NBC in the near future, Lazarus respond­ed, “Don’t know.”

TV insid­ers not­ed there were many com­mon denom­i­na­tors between Champion and Elliott, includ­ing both being rep­re­sent­ed by pow­er agents at CAA likeOlivia Metzger and Alan Berger, who “played to Sam and Josh’s big egos” and talked both men into leav­ing “Good Morning America” for lucra­tive deals “that have since gone nowhere.” Read more here :Sam Champion, his Weather Channel show tank­ing, tried to go back to ABC

Ocho Rios, St Ann:

Faced with an increase in mur­ders in St Ann, over last year, recent­ly installed com­man­der for the parish, Superintendent Wayne Cameron, has appealed to cit­i­zens to coöper­ate with the police to reduce the mur­der rate. Speaking with The Gleaner at a wel­come recep­tion for 23 new police per­son­nel, host­ed by the St Ann Justices of the Peace Association, at the John McDowell Conference Centre at the St Ann Chamber of Commerce com­plex at Pineapple, Ocho Rios, Cameron high­light­ed three areas in which res­i­dents could assist. “I am say­ing to the cit­i­zens of the parish that, one, where they have domes­tic issues call upon the police to assist them to work­ing through it. We have had too many domes­tic sit­u­a­tions that have esca­lat­ed into mur­ders, so the police are will­ing to work with you. “Two, where you have observed that strange peo­ple are enter­ing and leav­ing your com­mu­ni­ties, call the police.

Gun Campaign

“And, final­ly, we are on a get-the-gun cam­paign, so if you know where ille­gal guns are kept, or of peo­ple who are car­ry­ing ille­gal guns, please let me have the infor­ma­tion. You have my full con­fi­dence.” Turning to the new offi­cers, Cameron said where­as they have to be prop­er­ly super­vised, they are expect­ed to per­form well and main­tain a high lev­el of dis­ci­pline. “And we ask cit­i­zens of the parish to coöper­ate with us,” he urged. Meanwhile, chair­man of the asso­ci­a­tion, Pixley Irons, used the oppor­tu­ni­ty to encour­age the police. He pre­dict­ed that one of them would, one day, rise to become com­mis­sion­er of police. “We would like to get a suc­cess sto­ry from this group,” he encour­aged them. “I might not (be around to) know, but you can men­tion it in your inau­gur­al speech, if a com­mis­sion­er comes from this group.” Irons described the meet­ing as being “good”. “We decid­ed to meet with them, to intro­duce them and let them know what we expect of them; to tell them some of the con­cerns that we are hav­ing, and what we are look­ing for­ward to from them in the future.” “We hope we can do anoth­er ses­sion like this lat­er on, to guide them along Read more here :St Ann Justices Of The Peace Welcome New Cops To St Ann: Superintendent Urges Citizens To Coöperate With Police

WASHINGTON — Sen. Marco Rubio (R‑Fla.) would be will­ing to risk going to war with Russia in order to enforce a no-fly zone in Syria.

In a Monday inter­view with CNBC’s John Harwood, the pres­i­den­tial can­di­date argued that doing noth­ing would only embold­en ter­ror groups like the Islamic State and increase the num­ber of refugees com­ing out of Syria.

“I am con­fi­dent the Air Force can enforce that,” Rubio said of a hypo­thet­i­cal safe zone in Syria. “I believe the Russians would not test that. I don’t think it’s in the Russians’ inter­est to engage in an armed con­flict with the United States.”

Asked what he would do if Russian forces decid­ed to enter the safe zone any­way, Rubio respond­ed, “Well, then you’re going to have a prob­lem. But that would be no dif­fer­ent than any oth­er adversary.”

Imposing a uni­lat­er­al no-fly zone at a time when Russian air­craft are already present in the sky over Syria would sub­stan­tial­ly increase the risk of armed con­flict, mil­i­tary experts told the Christian Science Monitor last week.

But Rubio, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was will­ing to accept the con­se­quences of armed con­flict with Russia and President Vladimir Putin because the alter­na­tive, in his view, “is worse.”

“The alter­na­tive is [Syrian President Bashar] Assad will remain in pow­er but nev­er con­trol the whole of Syria again,” he said. “The alter­na­tive is the con­tin­ued growth of non-ISIS ter­ror­ist groups in addi­tion to ISIS itself.

“That being said, we can­not say, well, if Putin is going to test us, we can’t do any­thing. You basi­cal­ly at that point ced­ed to him as becom­ing the most influ­en­tial geopo­lit­i­cal bro­ker in the region,” he added.

Rubio isn’t the only GOP pres­i­den­tial con­tender to voice sup­port for estab­lish­ing a no-fly zone in Syria. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, for­mer Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R‑S.C.) have done so as well.

Democratic pres­i­den­tial con­tenders are split on the mat­ter. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that she sup­port­ed cre­at­ing “a no-fly zone and human­i­tar­i­an cor­ri­dors to try to stop the car­nage on the ground and from the air.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.), her chief rival for the nom­i­na­tion, said he oppos­es the impo­si­tion of a no-fly zone because it could get America “deeply involved in that hor­ri­ble civ­il war and lead to a nev­er-end­ing U.S. entan­gle­ment in that region.“Story orig­i­nat­ed here: http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​e​n​t​r​y​/​m​a​r​c​o​-​r​u​b​i​o​-​r​u​s​s​i​a​-​n​o​-​f​l​y​-​z​o​n​e​_​5​6​1​2​e​3​8​a​e​4​b​0​3​6​8​a​1​a​6​0​a​d06

FORMER PRIME Minister Bruce Golding says he is “uncom­fort­able” with the Government’s accep­tance of pro­posed arrange­ments by British Prime Minister David Cameron for the con­struc­tion of a new prison, on terms which he says are not in Jamaica’s best interest.

Speaking dur­ing the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) South West St Elizabeth Constituency Awards Banquet in Black River on Saturday night, Golding said the terms for the pris­on’s con­struc­tion in Jamaica will ulti­mate­ly place a severe strain on the coun­try’s finances.

He cau­tioned the Government against bur­den­ing the coun­try with respon­si­bil­i­ties which should be borne by Britain.

“I told the British prime min­is­ter (Gordon Brown) — in 2008 I think it was — when the idea was raised, I said, ‘Prime Minister, these are your pris­on­ers, you know, not mine. Look, I can’t take that on’ … . I said, ‘If one of your peo­ple come to Jamaica and com­mit a crime and he is found guilty, we have to lock him up in our prison; we can’t put him on a plane and send him back …,” Golding said.

“You mean, there is nobody in the Government who can say to the prime min­is­ter of Britain, ‘Sorry, we can’t work with that.’ Or if we gonna work it, this is how it has to work? Where is that mon­ey to come from?” he added.

Gov’t Taking On A Burden

Golding said since the £25 mil­lion in assis­tance from the United Kingdom would account for approx­i­mate­ly 40 per cent of the cost to con­struct the prison, Jamaica would have to find the remain­ing 60 per cent, as well as under­take the bur­den of hous­ing and feed­ing the pro­posed 300 pris­on­ers to be repa­tri­at­ed, as pro­posed by British Prime Minister David Cameron.

“So, why can’t some­one say to Prime Minister Cameron: ‘All right, fine. We’re glad for the £25 mil­lion. Now, how much a month you going pay for the board­ing of these pris­on­ers that you send … ? Because they did­n’t com­mit no crime in Jamaica; they weren’t con­vict­ed in Jamaica. So what you are real­ly doing is you’re con­tract­ing us to man­age a prison for you, but to man­age it in Jamaica. And if they enter into that kind of con­tract, they must pay for it. You mean we so ‘fraid a dem?” he questioned.

“This is a poor coun­try; we don’t have no mon­ey; we can­not fix roads. Our pris­ons are over­crowd­ed. We don’t have any emp­ty space in Tower Street or St Catherine (cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties). The British gov­ern­ment has more than 2,000 emp­ty cells in their pris­ons. Britain has a whole heap of mon­ey that we don’t .; Britain is a rich coun­try; we are a poor coun­try,” he continued.

He said under Cameron’s cur­rent pro­pos­al, the Government of Jamaica would have to source the funds for con­struct­ing the prison upfront and that by the time the prison is com­plet­ed, the pro­posed allo­ca­tion from the British would have already been exhausted.

“That prison is not like a two-bed­room house, you know,” he said. “That (prison) going take you two and a half years to build at least. And the prime min­is­ter of Britain said he going send back dem guys here by 2020. The point I am mak­ing is that that mon­ey going have to be found fair­ly quick­ly, and I ask the ques­tion: At what expense are you going to find that money?
Read more here :Are We Afraid Of Britain?’ — Golding Questions Unwillingness To Negotiate Better Prison Deal

THERE were tense moments at yes­ter­day’s St Andrew East Rural can­di­date selec­tion exer­cise at the People’s National Party (PNP) head­quar­ters in St Andrew, as busi­ness­man Peter Blake defeat­ed incum­bent Member of Parliament Damion Crawford to secure the right to rep­re­sent the par­ty in the next gen­er­al election.

The selec­tion exer­cise teetered on the brink of a firestorm after it was announced by PNP Deputy General Secretary Julian Robinson that Blake polled 217 votes to Crawford’s 166, which flat-lined the young MP’s polit­i­cal career. Just over 500 del­e­gates were eli­gi­ble to vote. One bal­lot was spoilt.

Heading into yes­ter­day’s run-off, which began at 10:00 am and end­ed at 3:00pm, an embat­tled Crawford told the Jamaica Observer that he was “pret­ty con­fi­dent, hav­ing done the work”.

“Our peo­ple are com­ing out ear­ly; we knew the rain was going to fall, so we had to ensure that we had the Xs in the box­es. We are con­fi­dent… I think there are more peo­ple who are sat­is­fied than dis­sat­is­fied,” he said at that time, not­ing that it was an inter­nal elec­tion and imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing would be the process of get­ting “all PNP” on board.

Singing to the same tune, Blake, who was the 2011 stan­dard-bear­er for the par­ty before being replaced by Crawford, said: “We feel fair­ly con­fi­dent enuh… the peo­ple are about to speak, or have spo­ken already.”

At the same time, he rub­bished rumours that the par­ty would defy the del­e­gates and replace him for the high­ly antic­i­pat­ed gen­er­al elec­tion if he emerged the win­ner, insist­ing that the par­ty would not put the con­stituen­cy through the “trau­ma of a selec­tion” and not use him.

“It is being repeat­ed­ly report­ed to me by del­e­gates and con­stituents that my oppo­nent and his agent have been telling them that should I be suc­cess­ful in the upcom­ing selec­tion, that it is the inten­tion of the par­ty not to rat­i­fy me as the can­di­date,” Blake said in a let­ter to General Secretary Paul Burke.

In respond­ing to his con­cern, Burke said: “…My own opin­ion, based on your con­cerns about a neg­a­tive cam­paign being waged against you, is that they would have to be new con­cerns as the unsub­stan­ti­at­ed con­cerns of the past, I believe, could not hold any mer­it what­so­ev­er at this time.”

Orange-clad par­ty faith­ful in sup­port of Crawford con­verged just out­side the gates of the par­ty’s head­quar­ters, at times obstruct­ing traf­fic, eat­ing, drink­ing and smok­ing, while sup­port­ers of Blake stood on the oppo­site side of the road look­ing on tentatively.

Several tents set up by the MP housed sup­port­ers and mem­bers of his cam­paign team, who went through lists ensur­ing their del­e­gates had turned up to vote. In the mean­time, chal­lenger Blake, who oper­at­ed from a house on Bougainvillea Avenue in Mona, con­duct­ed a roll-call him­self before del­e­gates were trans­port­ed to the par­ty head­quar­ters where they cast their ballots.

Shortly after 3:00 pm, when Robinson announced the results, tem­pers flared as dis­grun­tled Crawford sup­port­ers became bois­ter­ous, hurl­ing objects at times and even threat­en­ing to fight.

“No Crawford, no vote!” sup­port­ers of the first-time MP shouted.

“East Rural St Andrew a go to Labourite since Crawford nuh get it!” one sup­port­er said, argu­ing that Crawford pro­motes edu­ca­tion and devel­op­ment of the constituents.

“This man is not about hand­outs and that is why them fight­ing him. Him build road, cen­tre, and edu­cate wi. Who is this Blake? Mi nev­er see him yet,” said anoth­er Comrade.

But the major­i­ty of the del­e­gates who vot­ed showed their approval for Blake, with one insist­ing that the busi­ness­man was who he saw work­ing in the con­stituen­cy for most of Crawford’s stewardship.

“Damion stand up and seh him nuh inna cur­ry goat pol­i­tics, but a nuh suh di ting guh. You can’t just change the ting suh; it’s a process,” Clifton Findley, a Blake sup­port­er said.

“Him dis wi — call wi all ply-board Comrades and cur­ry goat Comrades. Him seh him naah come nuh funer­al. Well, wi naah vote fi him,” Carlene Whyte, anoth­er Blake sup­port­er, said.

Blake, after learn­ing he had tri­umphed, said: “The peo­ple have spo­ken. The peo­ple are the pow­er and the peo­ple were over on this side.”

Asked what would be his next move, Blake respond­ed: “Whole heap of work, and we’re going to win the con­stituen­cy for the People’s National Party.”

He denied that there was any form of dis­uni­ty with­in the con­stituen­cy and extend­ed an olive branch to Crawford.

“Just work with me, just like how I worked with you and build the com­mu­ni­ty as one,” urged Blake.

In the mean­time, Crawford strug­gled to tem­per the reac­tion of his sup­port­ers who lev­elled accu­sa­tions of foul play against the par­ty Secretariat.

“I am as sur­prised as you are. But at the end of the day, the par­ty has pro­ce­dures and we entered, so there­fore, the results we have to accept,” he said to loud boos and shouts of “no”.

“I knew what I was risk­ing when I decid­ed to do what I did. I risked my career for chil­dren who I don’t even know their names. I spent $600,000 to do diag­nos­tic tests; I could have eas­i­ly done it for fer­tilis­er. So if you risk and don’t get the return, accept the risk,” the MP said to more boos from his supporters.

“I was a PNP before I was a can­di­date. I will remain a PNP, even if I am not a candidate.”

He down­played talk of foul play in the selec­tion, instead stat­ing that he had every con­fi­dence in the par­ty’s sec­re­tari­at. “There were 400 del­e­gates and the major­i­ty felt that what I did was­n’t sat­is­fac­to­ry, and I will sup­port the vic­tor 100 per cent,” said Crawford.

Crawford is the last among sev­er­al PNP mem­bers of par­lia­ment who have been chal­lenged for their candidacy.

The rum­blings with­in the con­stituen­cy emerged after Crawford announced that he would not be seek­ing re-elec­tion. He admit­ted that he was not con­vinced at the time of his announce­ment that the style of pol­i­tics he brought to the con­stituen­cy would pro­pel him to vic­to­ry at the polls. He lat­er made an about-turn, say­ing that his ear­li­er announce­ment was a trick. sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed here VIDEO: PNP dis­cards Crawford

Tanzania and United Nations launched the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the coun­try pledg­ing to trans­late the glob­al pro­grammes into its nation­al plans of action. On its part, the UN hailed Tanzania for hav­ing already trans­lat­ed the glob­al goals into the coun­try’s devel­op­ment pro­grammes. Speaking at the launch in Dar es Salaam, the UN Tanzania Resident Coördinator, Mr Alvaro Rodriguez, said that for the first time, gov­ern­ments of all coun­tries have agreed on a set of goals for every­one. “These goals will help all nations and all peo­ple share pros­per­i­ty, reduce pover­ty and pro­tect the plan­et from cli­mate change. They will address the inter­con­nect­ed ele­ments of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, which includes eco­nom­ic growth, social inclu­sion and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion,” he noted.

A com­mis­sion­er at the President’s Planning Commission, Mr Paul Kessy, pledged the gov­ern­men­t’s readi­ness to imple­ment the 15-year goals. He not­ed that President Jakaya Kikwete and his team were in New York to endorse the glob­al goals with oth­er mem­ber states, which was an illus­tra­tion of Tanzania’s com­mit­ment to work­ing with part­ners such as the UN towards erad­i­cat­ing pover­ty. He added that this time round, strength­en­ing the means of imple­men­ta­tion and revi­tal­is­ing the glob­al part­ner­ship for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment has been accord­ed more empha­sis. A com­mis­sion­er from the Zanzibar Planning Commission, Mr Ahmed Makame, said that as he looks at the 17 SDGs, he feels proud that the coun­try has been part of the glob­al ini­tia­tive. “I feel opti­mistic that Tanzania is start­ing the road to meet the SDGs on the right foot. As we have learnt to the Millennium Development Goals, we saw how impor­tant it was to align the nation­al devel­op­ment strat­e­gy to the glob­al goals,” Mr Makame point­ed out. He added that Zanzibar was in the process of for­mu­lat­ing its nation­al devel­op­ment strat­e­gy and we have placed meet­ing the SDGs at the core of the for­mu­la­tion process,” he said. The Ambassador of Ireland to Tanzania, Ms Fionnuala Gilsenan, assured her coun­try’s sup­port for the SDGs, not­ing that the glob­al goals build on the MDGs but that they are more ambi­tious and they deal with new dimen­sions of old prob­lems. “They aim to tack­le the com­plex nature of pover­ty and inequal­i­ty. The SDGs can­not be con­tem­plat­ed in iso­la­tion from issues such as cli­mate change, gen­der equal­i­ty, human rights and tack­ling under­ling struc­tur­al inequal­i­ty,” she not­ed. Speaking on behalf of Project Everyone Partners, the CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, Ms Liz Lloyd, assert­ed the impor­tance of the pri­vate sec­tor part­ner­ing with the United Nations and the gov­ern­ment in spread­ing the mes­sage of the glob­al goals.

“As a bank, we often talk about the impor­tance of being here for good. This is not just a promise but an ethos that we try to live by every day,” she said. Ms Lloyd added that the glob­al goals offer a unique chance to col­lab­o­rate with oth­er world lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions, putting into prac­tice Goal 17 which aims to revi­tal­ize the glob­al part­ner­ship for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. The sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals (SDGs) are a new, uni­ver­sal set of goals, tar­gets and indi­ca­tors that UN mem­ber states will be expect­ed to use to frame their agen­das and polit­i­cal poli­cies over the next 15 years. The SDGs fol­low and expand on the mil­len­ni­um devel­op­ment goals (MDGs), which were agreed by gov­ern­ments in 2001 and are due to expire at the end of this year. The SDGs are to end pover­ty in all its forms every­where; end hunger, achieve food secu­ri­ty and improved nutri­tion, and pro­mote sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture; ensure healthy lives and pro­mote well-being for all at all ages, ensure inclu­sive and equi­table qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion and pro­mote life­long learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for all; and achieve gen­der equal­i­ty and empow­er all women and girls. Others are to ensure avail­abil­i­ty and sus­tain­able man­age­ment of water and san­i­ta­tion for all; ensure access to afford­able, reli­able, sus­tain­able and mod­ern ener­gy for all; pro­mote sus­tained, inclu­sive and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth, and full and pro­duc­tive employment.

They fur­ther seek decent work for all; and build resilient infra­struc­ture, pro­mote inclu­sive and sus­tain­able indus­tri­al­iza­tion, and fos­ter inno­va­tion. Other goals are to reduce inequal­i­ty with­in and among coun­tries; make cities and human set­tle­ments inclu­sive, safe, resilient and sus­tain­able; ensure sus­tain­able con­sump­tion and pro­duc­tion pat­terns; take urgent action to com­bat cli­mate change and its impacts (tak­ing note of agree­ments made by the UNFCCC forum) ; and con­serve and sus­tain­ably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sus­tain­able development.

The remain­ing SDGs are to pro­tect, restore and pro­mote sus­tain­able use of ter­res­tri­al ecosys­tems, sus­tain­ably man­age forests, com­bat deser­ti­fi­ca­tion and halt and reverse land degra­da­tion, and halt bio­di­ver­si­ty loss; and pro­mote peace­ful and inclu­sive soci­eties for sus­tain­able development.

Others are to pro­vide access to jus­tice for all and build effec­tive, account­able and inclu­sive insti­tu­tions at all lev­els; and strength­en the means of imple­men­ta­tion and revi­talise the glob­al part­ner­ship for sus­tain­able development.

David Cameron has ruled out mak­ing repa­ra­tions for Britain’s role in the his­toric slave trade and urged Caribbean coun­tries to “move on”. The prime min­is­ter acknowl­edged that “these wounds run very deep” dur­ing his vis­it to Jamaica, where he faced calls to apol­o­gise from cam­paign­ers. He said Britain’s role in wip­ing slav­ery “off the face of our plan­et” should be remem­bered. Jamaican PM Portia Simpson Miller said she had raised the issue in talks.

‘Obvious sensitivities’

Addressing MPs in Jamaica’s par­lia­ment, Mr Cameron said slav­ery was “abhor­rent in all its forms”. He added: “I do hope that, as friends who have gone through so much togeth­er since those dark­est of times, we can move on from this painful lega­cy and con­tin­ue to build for the future.” Mr Cameron also announced £25m in British aid for a new Jamaican prison and a £300 mil­lion devel­op­ment pack­age for the Caribbean which will pro­vide grants for infra­struc­ture projects, includ­ing roads and bridges. He said his vis­it — the first by a British prime min­is­ter in 14 years — was to “rein­vig­o­rate” ties between the coun­tries, and that he want­ed to con­cen­trate on future rela­tions rather than cen­turies-old issues. Mrs Simpson Miller said while she was “aware of the obvi­ous sen­si­tiv­i­ties”, Jamaica was “involved in a process under the aus­pices of the Caribbean Community [Caricom] to engage the UK on the mat­ter”. During Mr Cameron’s speech, a small group of pro­test­ers with plac­ards that read “repa­ra­tions now” gath­ered out­side parliament.

For more than 200 years Britain was at the heart of a lucra­tive transat­lantic trade in mil­lions of enslaved Africans. According to ship records it is esti­mat­ed about 12.5 mil­lion peo­ple were trans­port­ed as slaves from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean — to work in often bru­tal con­di­tions on plan­ta­tions — from the 16^th cen­tu­ry until the trade was banned in 1807. In 1833, Britain eman­ci­pat­ed its enslaved peo­ple and raised the equiv­a­lent of £17bn in com­pen­sa­tion mon­ey to be paid to 46,000 of Britain’s slave-own­ers for “loss of human prop­er­ty”. University College London has com­piled a data­base of those com­pen­sat­ed. Among those list­ed is General Sir James Duff, who it is claimed is a first cousin six times removed of David Cameron. He was award­ed com­pen­sa­tion worth around £3 mil­lion in today’s terms. Others who received com­pen­sa­tion include the ances­tors of nov­el­ists George Orwell and Graham Greene, as well as dis­tant rel­a­tives of Arts Council chair­man Sir Peter Bazalgette and celebri­ty chef Ainsley Harriott.

The issue of for­mer slave-own­ing nations com­pen­sat­ing for­mer colonies is a con­tentious one in the Caribbean, where nation­al com­mis­sions have cal­cu­lat­ed the sums could run into tril­lions of dol­lars. One sug­ges­tion has been that the mon­ey could be pro­vid­ed in the form of debt relief. BBC News cor­re­spon­dent Elaine Dunkley, who spe­cialis­es in African Caribbean social affairs, said: “There real­ly has been an issue with repa­ra­tion in Jamaica, we can’t say that the recep­tion there [to Mr Cameron’s vis­it] has been uni­ver­sal­ly warm. “Correcting the wrongs of the past is not only cost­ly but com­pli­cat­ed and David Cameron has said that he does­n’t feel repa­ra­tion is the way for­ward in this case.” Mrs Simpson Miller told the United Nations in 2013 there should be “an inter­na­tion­al dis­cus­sion in a non-con­fronta­tion­al man­ner” and its par­lia­ment had passed a motion back­ing repa­ra­tions. One Jamaican MP, Mike Henry, threat­ened to boy­cott Mr Cameron’s speech at the coun­try’s par­lia­ment if he did not engage on the issue.

Campaigners also called on Mr Cameron to make a per­son­al apol­o­gy, say­ing one of his own ances­tors was paid com­pen­sa­tion for the loss of his slaves in 1834. Bert Samuels, a mem­ber of Jamaica’s National Commission on Reparations, told Television Jamaica “he needs to atone, to apol­o­gise per­son­al­ly and on behalf of his coun­try”. Sir Hilary Beckles, chair­man of Caricom’s repa­ra­tions com­mis­sion, wrote in an open let­ter in the Jamaica Observer that the UK must “play its part in clean­ing up this mon­u­men­tal mess of Empire”. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who lived in Jamaica for two years in his youth, said that, as prime min­is­ter, he would be ready to apol­o­gise for the slave trade. Speaking at Labour’s annu­al con­fer­ence in Brighton, Mr Corbyn said it was “the most bru­tal part of our his­to­ry and the his­to­ry of Jamaica”.

During his two-day vis­it, Mr Cameron revealed the UK will spend £25m on build­ing a prison in Jamaica so that for­eign crim­i­nals in the UK can be sent home to serve sen­tences in the Caribbean. More than 600 Jamaican nation­als are in UK jails but can­not be deport­ed because of Jamaica’s poor prison con­di­tions. Officials say the for­eign aid-fund­ed deal could save tax­pay­ers £10m a year when trans­fers begin in 2020. The Howard League for Penal Reform crit­i­cised the plan, say­ing it was “the wrong use of for­eign aid” and would fail to address the real issue of over­crowd­ing in British prisons.See sto­ry here : David Cameron rules out slav­ery repa­ra­tion dur­ing Jamaica visit

Russia has begun car­ry­ing out airstrikes in Syria against oppo­nents of President Bashar al-Assad.

The strikes report­ed­ly hit rebel-con­trolled areas of Homs and Hama provinces, caus­ing casu­al­ties. The US says it was informed an hour before they took place. Russian defence offi­cials say air­craft car­ried out about 20 mis­sions tar­get­ing Islamic State, but US offi­cials said that so far they did not appear to be tar­get­ing IS-held territory.

Syria’s civ­il war has raged for four years, with an array of armed groups fight­ing to over­throw the gov­ern­ment. The US and its allies have insist­ed that President Assad should leave office, while Russia has backed its ally remain­ing in pow­er. The upper house of the Russian par­lia­ment ear­li­er grant­ed President Vladimir Putin per­mis­sion to deploy the Russian air force in Syria.

The Russian defence min­istry said the coun­try’s air force had tar­get­ed IS mil­i­tary equip­ment, com­mu­ni­ca­tion facil­i­ties, arms depots, ammu­ni­tion and fuel sup­plies — and did not hit civil­ian infra­struc­ture or areas nearby.

Syrian oppo­si­tion activists said Russian war­planes had hit towns includ­ing Zafaraneh, Rastan and Talbiseh, result­ing in the deaths of 36 peo­ple, a num­ber of them chil­dren. None of the areas tar­get­ed were con­trolled by IS, activists said. US Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States was pre­pared to wel­come Russian mil­i­tary action in Syria — but only as long as it was direct­ed against IS and al-Qaeda-linked groups. Speaking at the United Nations Security Council, Mr Kerry said the US would have “grave con­cerns” if Russia con­duct­ed strikes against oth­er groups. He said the US-led coali­tion against IS would “dra­mat­i­cal­ly accel­er­ate our efforts” and that the US was pre­pared to hold talks with Russia about avoid­ing acci­den­tal con­flicts between the two air strike cam­paigns “as ear­ly as possible”.

Analysis: Jonathan Marcus, defence and diplomatic correspondent

Russia’s deci­sion to inter­vene with its air pow­er great­ly com­pli­cates the Syrian cri­sis while prob­a­bly offer­ing lit­tle addi­tion­al chance of a diplo­mat­ic res­o­lu­tion. Russian sources indi­cate that Sukhoi Su-24 war­planes were involved, oper­at­ing out of an air­base near Latakia. There are seri­ous ques­tions about who exact­ly the Russian air­craft are tar­get­ing. US offi­cials believe that the ini­tial Russian strikes are not in IS-held ter­ri­to­ry, rais­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Russian air pow­er is being utilised more in the form of close air sup­port for Syrian gov­ern­ment forces against the mul­ti­ple ene­mies of the Assad régime. Of course, many of these ene­mies are sup­port­ed by the West’s Arab allies or Turkey. The warn­ing time giv­en by the Russians to the Americans announc­ing the start of their oper­a­tions may also raise some eye­brows, sug­gest­ing that much more detailed co-ordi­na­tion may be need­ed in future to avoid inci­dents in Syrian airspace.

In a tele­vised address, Mr Putin said the air strikes were tar­get­ing Islamist mil­i­tants — includ­ing Russian cit­i­zens — who have tak­en over large parts of Syria and Iraq. “If they [mil­i­tants] suc­ceed in Syria, they will return to their home coun­try, and they will come to Russia, too,” he said. He added that Russia was not going to send ground troops to Syria, and that its role in Syrian army oper­a­tions would be limited.

“We cer­tain­ly are not going to plunge head-on into this con­flict… we will be sup­port­ing the Syrian army pure­ly in its legit­i­mate fight with ter­ror­ist groups.” Mr Putin also said he expect­ed President Assad to talk with the Syrian oppo­si­tion about a polit­i­cal set­tle­ment, but clar­i­fied that he was refer­ring to what he described as “healthy” oppo­si­tion groups. A US defence offi­cial said: “A Russian offi­cial in Baghdad this morn­ing informed US embassy per­son­nel that Russian mil­i­tary air­craft would begin fly­ing anti-Isil [IS] mis­sions today over Syria. He fur­ther request­ed that US air­craft avoid Syrian air­space dur­ing these mis­sions.” US state depart­ment spokesman John Kirby told reporters: “The US-led coali­tion will con­tin­ue to fly mis­sions over Iraq and Syria as planned and in sup­port of our inter­na­tion­al mis­sion to degrade and destroy Isil [IS].”

Syria’s civil war

What’s the human cost?

More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed and a mil­lion injured in four-and-a-half years of armed con­flict, which began with anti-gov­ern­ment protests before esca­lat­ing into a full-scale civ­il war.

And the survivors?

More than 11 mil­lion oth­ers have been forced from their homes, four mil­lion of them abroad, as forces loy­al to President Assad and those opposed to his rule bat­tle each oth­er — as well as jihadist mil­i­tants from IS and oth­er groups. Growing num­bers of refugees are going to Europe.

How has the world reacted?

Regional and world pow­ers have also been drawn into the con­flict. Iran and Russia, along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah move­ment, are prop­ping up the Alawite-led gov­ern­ment. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are back­ing the Sunni-dom­i­nat­ed oppo­si­tion, along with the US, UK and France.
See sto­ry here : http://​www​.bbc​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​w​o​r​l​d​-​m​i​d​d​l​e​-​e​a​s​t​-​3​4​3​9​9​164

MANCHESTER, Jamaica – The Jamaica Constabulary Force yes­ter­day wel­comed a new chief chap­lain at an affir­ma­tion ser­vice on the grounds of the Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville, Manchester.

He is Pastor Gary Buddoo-Fletcher, Assistant Commissioner of Police.

The new chap­lain takes over from Bishop Gary Welsh, who now heads the Community Safety and Security Branch.

According to a release from the police’s Corporate Communication Unit (CCU), Buddoo-Fletcher enrolled as a vol­un­teer Chaplain in 2012 and there­after became a cer­ti­fied mem­ber of the JCF. In 2014 he was asked to fill the posi­tion of Acting Assistant Chaplain for the Area One Division. His out­stand­ing work and ded­i­ca­tion to the force led to him being appoint­ed chief force chap­lain, the release added.

The chief chap­lain will now take up his post and serve the Force along with the eight oth­er Force Chaplains under his com­mand. “I am hon­ored to serve God, my com­mu­ni­ty and the JCF in this capac­i­ty. I will do my best to give eth­i­cal, moral and spir­i­tu­al sup­port to the men and women of the JCF and their fam­i­lies and who serve, pro­tect and reas­sure cit­i­zens of our coun­try,’’ said the ACP.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here: JCF wel­comes new chief chaplain

PUBLISHER’S NOTE.
This Article is not exact­ly clear !!!
Despite the crit­i­cal need for coun­selling of the high­est cal­i­bre for police offi­cers I do not believe that it has to be wrapped in the pack­ag­ing of an Assistant Commissioner of police.
One does not have to be a mem­ber of the Police Department to be a part of the sup­port struc­ture. There are to the best of rec­ol­lec­tion 12 Assistant Commissioners of Police . It makes sense that those ranks be made avail­able to police offi­cers who have paid their dues to aspire to.
Those few ranks ought to be pre­served for Career Police offi­cers who have toiled for years and paid their dues show­ing com­pe­ten­cy and commitment.

The JCF present­ly has a force of over 14,000 offi­cers if the num­ber of 12 assis­tant com­mis­sion­ers is still cor­rect it means that it is incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to reach those ranks. If these posi­tions are hand­ed out as tro­phies, regard­less of the val­ue oth­ers offer to the ser­vice it does a tremen­dous dis­ser­vice to the hard work­ing peo­ple who take the risks and brave the bullets.
Daily we hear about doing things in new ways one thing I recall learn­ing is that you nev­er throw out the baby with the bath water, you don’t fix what’s not broken.
Some of the com­plaints I have heard from mem­bers of the force is dis­en­fran­chise­ment, nepo­tism, demor­al­iza­tion, and a gen­er­al lack of con­fi­dence that the Force cares about officers.
This may be evi­denced by the sui­cide rates we are wit­ness­ing in the force.
The JCF should be mind­ful that in the quest to adopt things new, sim­ply for the sake of doing so,that it does not adopt a fix which is actu­al­ly con­tribut­ing to the problem.

EMBATTLED Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern Lisa Hanna was yes­ter­day select­ed by del­e­gates to return as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the People’s National Party (PNP) in upcom­ing par­lia­men­tary elec­tions as the chal­lenge mount­ed to her lead­er­ship fiz­zled amidst a quar­rel over the vot­ers’ list.

Hanna, whose stew­ard­ship of the con­stituen­cy came under heavy scruti­ny in recent months, was chal­lenged by Councillor Lydia Richards (Bensonton Division).

Of the 484 del­e­gates who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the selec­tion exer­cise, 468 vot­ed for Hanna, 10 vot­ed for Richards, while six votes were spoilt. A total of 1,056 del­e­gates were eli­gi­ble to vote.

Richards, who had expressed con­cerns over the vot­ers’ list, was a no-show. She told the Jamaica Observer by phone yes­ter­day that she had indi­cat­ed to the par­ty’s Secretariat that she was not com­fort­able with the list.

“There are too many inac­cu­ra­cies and I have been writ­ing to the gen­er­al sec­re­tary back and forth about this. When he gave me the list on Friday, noth­ing was changed. He did not even look into one of the things that I men­tioned,” Richards argued.

“I could not con­test with that, but I’m still there. So I’m hop­ing that they will come to their sens­es and realise that you can­not move for­ward with lies,” she said.

Richards charged that, even with her con­cerns, the par­ty’s Secretariat had not con­tact­ed her, but decid­ed to move for­ward with the voting.

“I am not com­ing,” she said.

Chief among her con­cerns was the argu­ment that peo­ple were list­ed as being mem­bers of groups to which they had no knowl­edge. It was fur­ther alleged that peo­ple’s sig­na­tures were also forged to indi­cate that they were mem­bers of these groups.

The Jamaica Observer sought clar­i­ty on the mat­ter and was told by PNP Deputy General Secretary Julian Robinson that up to Saturday Richards had indi­cat­ed that she would participate.

“You can­not oper­ate in a flux. Up to yes­ter­day (Saturday) Lydia indi­cat­ed that she would be par­tic­i­pat­ing, which is why there are two names on the bal­lot,” Robinson said.

“I am here to con­duct a selec­tion exer­cise and that is what I am here to do today,” an obvi­ous­ly annoyed Robinson added.

Voting began prompt­ly at 10:00 am and pro­gressed steadi­ly and with­out inci­dent until three min­utes to 4 o’clock when the gates were offi­cial­ly closed.

Scores of Hanna sup­port­ers streamed into Ferncourt High School in Claremont in the parish, while there was no notice­able sup­port for the coun­cil­lor, with some Hanna sup­port­ers insist­ing that Richards was hiding.

“You can’t swap black dog fi mon­key,” said Donna Thomas, a Hanna supporter.

“Ah town mi come all di way from fi sup­port Lisa. Ah she fi win. She a beau­ty, and she is for young peo­ple,” said one woman who gave her name as Lilith.

Other Hanna sup­port­ers echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, insist­ing that she was doing “a good” job in the constituency.

“Weh Lydia she come from? She si pow­er and want pow­er, but she haf­fi wait her turn,” anoth­er Hanna sup­port­er shouted.

Several par­ty stal­warts were also present, includ­ing vet­er­an Senator K D Knight, John Junor, Member of Parliament for St Catherine Eastern Denise Daley, Region Six Chairman Ian Hayles, for­mer trea­sur­er of the par­ty Norman Horne, and Member of Parliament for St Mary Western Joylan Silvera.

In the mean­time, Hanna, who is not enjoy­ing the sup­port of three of four coun­cil­lors, yes­ter­day told the Observer she was con­fi­dent of vic­to­ry at the polls.

Following the announce­ment, Hanna said: “I am just very grate­ful. I am thank­ful to every­one who par­tic­i­pat­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly those group mem­bers and Comrades in South East St Ann who came out today, and [I am] thank­ing my team mem­bers and the PNP on the whole.

“It has been a very hum­bling and sober­ing expe­ri­ence, but at the same time a great expe­ri­ence. It has recon­firmed and bol­stered my love and sup­port for my peo­ple in St Ann,” Hanna said to loud chants of “Lisa, Lisa, Lisa!”

As to how the two-term mem­ber of par­lia­ment plans to address the obvi­ous divide with­in the con­stituen­cy? Hanna remains mum.

“We’ll tell you a lit­tle more about that, but right now we’re just thank­ful and we’re just going to set­tle down and go and enjoy our­selves a lit­tle bit,” she told the Observer.

Hanna will now await rat­i­fi­ca­tion from the par­ty’s exec­u­tive coun­cil, which is the high­est deci­sion-mak­ing body out­side of its annu­al con­fer­ence, before she can be put for­ward as the candidate.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here :Lisa pre­vails

Yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner was his usu­al weepy self as Pope Francis spoke to a joint meet­ing of Congress. Boehner, a Catholic, had invit­ed three popes to address Congress, and Francis final­ly took him up on the offer — a first in U.S. his­to­ry. So it wasn’t that sur­pris­ing to see Boehner, in the back­ground, leak­ing like a water faucet in dis­re­pair. Only now, we can see those tears in a dif­fer­ent light, as Boehner announced his stun­ning res­ig­na­tion from Congress, effec­tive at the end of October.

But it’s equal­ly clear the push to oust Boehner has bub­bling for some time, though char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly not with much method or dis­ci­pline. In late July, North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows sur­prised every­one with a motion to vacate the chair, which Politico described as “an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly rare pro­ce­dur­al move that rep­re­sents the most seri­ous expres­sion of oppo­si­tion to Boehner’s speak­er­ship,” going on to note:

GOP lead­ers were tak­en com­plete­ly by sur­prise. Meadows, a sec­ond-term Republican, hadn’t even asked for a meet­ing with Boehner or oth­er top Republicans to air his gripes.

Boehner had faced a chal­lenge to his lead­er­ship before, but not in his most recent elec­tion. So the ebbs and flows of oppo­si­tion have remained rel­a­tive­ly opaque, aid­ed by a gen­er­al­ly incu­ri­ous press. Rachel Maddow rep­re­sents a dis­tinct­ly dis­cor­dant view, hav­ing repeat­ed­ly run seg­ments argu­ing that “John Boehner is bad at his job.”But it can be argued that Maddow is wrong to blame Boehner for prob­lems that are much big­ger than the office he holds, or even the GOP House caucus.

Indeed, viewed through an insti­tu­tion­al lens, Boehner’s trou­bles go back much fur­ther, encom­pass­ing the all three of his GOP pre­de­ces­sors. In 1998, Newt Gingrich resigned as Speaker, and from Congress, after the GOP lost seats in mid-term elec­tions after intense­ly pur­su­ing a Clinton impeach­ment agen­da. Just days after the elec­tion, CNN report­ed, “Faced with a brew­ing rebel­lion with­in the Republican Party over the dis­ap­point­ing midterm elec­tion, House Speaker Newt Gingrich made the stun­ning deci­sion Friday to step down not just from the speak­er­ship but also from Congress.”

Gingrich’s replace­ment, Louisiana’s Bob Livingston, resigned just over a month lat­er [video], before even tak­ing office, after his own extra-mar­i­tal affairs were revealed by Hustler pub­lish­er Larry Flynt. Amazingly, Livingston, who had been part of Gingrich’s lead­er­ship team devot­ed to hound­ing Clinton from office, said in his remarks, “I want so very much to paci­fy and cool our rag­ing tem­pers and return to an era when dif­fer­ences were con­fined to the debate, and not a per­son­al attack or assas­si­na­tion of character.”

Livingston’s delib­er­ate­ly low-key suc­ces­sor, Dennis Hastert, had some trou­bles in office, but man­aged to sur­vive with dig­ni­ty and rep­u­ta­tion rea­son­ably intact through eight years of lead­er­ship — the longest tenure ever for a Republican — until Democrats retook the House in the 2006 mid-terms. It was only this year that he was crim­i­nal­ly charged for lying to fed­er­al agents and evad­ing finan­cial report­ing require­ments, report­ed­ly as part of an attempt to con­ceal sex­u­al mis­con­duct with a minor, which in turn raised new doubts about his han­dling of sim­i­lar prob­lems in the Mark Foley affair, just pri­or to the 2006 election.

At one lev­el, this record speaks to a lack of per­son­al moral­i­ty — a key GOP hob­by horse for at least the past half cen­tu­ry, if not vir­tu­al­ly for­ev­er. But more deeply, it high­lights the inher­ent dan­gers stirred up by run­ning polit­i­cal cam­paigns as moral cru­sades, which sim­ply can­not be sus­tained as a means of gov­ern­ment in a sec­u­lar, plu­ral­is­tic sys­tem. The attempt to demo­nize Planned Parenthood as evil incar­nate involves spec­tac­u­lar lev­els of fraud and decep­tion. Such decep­tion may be sus­tain­able with­in the bub­ble of the GOP base, dri­ving the lat­est mania which appears to have exhaust­ed Boehner’s endurance, but it can­not pre­vail in the poli­ty at large, unless the élite media are ful­ly on board — as they were in attack­ing ACORN, orsell­ing the Iraq War—but not for this fight.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here : http://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​5​/​0​9​/​2​5​/​j​o​h​n​_​b​o​e​h​n​e​r​_​w​a​s​_​r​e​a​l​l​y​_​b​a​d​_​a​t​_​h​i​s​_​j​o​b​_​n​o​w​_​t​h​i​n​g​s​_​a​r​e​_​a​b​o​u​t​_​t​o​_​g​e​t​_​e​p​i​c​a​l​l​y​_​w​o​r​se/

MIT Professor Noam Chomsky recent­ly gave his assess­ment of the Republican race for the White House with for­mer real­i­ty-TV star Donald Trump lead­ing the pack after a speech at New York’s The New School this week­end and the renowned polit­i­cal thinker sur­mised that the Grand Olé Party has become too extreme to still be con­sid­ered a legit­i­mate American polit­i­cal party.

Noting the remark­ably sim­i­lar hawk­ish blus­ter against the Iran nuclear deal from sup­pos­ed­ly “seri­ous” can­di­date Jeb Bush and recent­ly depart­ed (from the cam­paign trail, not life) hope­ful Scott Walker, Chomsky said the Republican 2016 field is “off the spec­trum of not only inter­na­tion­al opin­ion, but even rel­a­tive sanity.”

“I think we should rec­og­nize that the oth­er can­di­dates are not that dif­fer­ent,” from Trump, Chomsky offered. “If you take a look at — just take a look at their views. You know, they tell you their views, and they’re astonishing.”

Chomsky went on to cite a 2013 essay by con­ser­v­a­tive Norm Ornstein and Brooking’s fel­low Thomas Mann decry­ing the devo­lu­tion of the Republican Party to a “rad­i­cal insurgency”:

You can tell that even by the votes. I mean, any issue of any com­plex­i­ty is going to have some diver­si­ty of opin­ion. But when you get a unan­i­mous vote to kill the Iranian deal or the Affordable Care Act or what­ev­er the next thing may be, you know you’re not deal­ing with a polit­i­cal party.

In a recent inter­view with Indian mag­a­zine, Frontline, Chomsky iden­ti­fied the GOP’s race-bait­ing and big­ot­ed pan­der­ing to cap­ture an ever shrink­ing nativist elec­torate as the cause for why the Republican pres­i­den­tial pri­maries have become “spec­ta­cles remote from the main­stream of mod­ern society”:

It is impor­tant to bear in mind that the Republicans have long aban­doned the pre­tense of func­tion­ing as a nor­mal par­lia­men­tary par­ty. Rather, they have become a “rad­i­cal insur­gency” that scarce­ly seeks to par­tic­i­pate in nor­mal par­lia­men­tary pol­i­tics, as observed by the respect­ed con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor Norman Ornstein of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. Since Ronald Reagan, the lead­er­ship has plunged so far into the pock­ets of the very rich and the cor­po­rate sec­tor that they can attract votes only by mobi­liz­ing sec­tors of the pop­u­la­tion that have not pre­vi­ous­ly been an orga­nized polit­i­cal force, among them extrem­ist evan­gel­i­cal Christians, now prob­a­bly the major­i­ty of Republican vot­ers; rem­nants of the for­mer slave-hold­ing States; nativists who are ter­ri­fied that “they” are tak­ing our white Christian Anglo-Saxon coun­try away from us; and oth­ers who turn the Republican pri­maries into spec­ta­cles remote from the main­stream of mod­ern soci­ety — though not the main­stream of the most pow­er­ful coun­try in world history.

Story orig­i­nat­ed here : Noam Chomsky: The GOP is a rad­i­cal insur­gency; it’s not a polit­i­cal party

Russia is ship­ping mas­sive quan­ti­ties of offen­sive weapons, matériel and sol­diers to Syria.

The mas­sive Condor flights car­ry­ing all kinds of sup­plies now arrive twice a day through Iran and Iraq into Bassel Al-Assad International Airport out­side the port city of Latakia. The car­go is for Russian sol­diers, not Syrian gov­ern­ment forces, but is seen as a build-up to aid Bashar Assad’s embat­tled régime.

The defense offi­cial, briefed on the lat­est satel­lite pho­tos of the Syrian coast­line, said: “This is the largest deploy­ment of Russian forces out­side the for­mer Soviet Union since the col­lapse of the USSR.”

The only thing sur­pris­ing about this is that it took so long.

Syria has been a Russian client state since the 1970s. The rea­son for its orig­i­nal alliance with Soviet Russia is obvi­ous enough. The Arab Socialist Baath Party was a nat­ur­al ally of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Syria’s take on sec­u­lar­ism and social­ism isn’t as severe as Soviet Russia’s, but Syria was ide­o­log­i­cal­ly much clos­er to Russia than to, say, Sweden. That was for damn sure.

And Russia want­ed prox­ies and influ­ence wher­ev­er it could get them even if the ide­o­log­i­cal over­lap was just par­tial. It still does. All great pow­ers and aspir­ing great pow­ers and used-to-be great pow­ers are inter­est­ed in prox­ies and influ­ence wher­ev­er they can get them.

Russia has what is some­times referred to as its only Mediterranean naval base in Syria’s medi­um-sized city of Tartus, but it’s not much more than a gas sta­tion and repair shop. Russia’s big war­ships won’t even fit there. It’s not par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant. What mat­ters far more to Russia is its influ­ence in the world, which is still dras­ti­cal­ly down from the great and ter­ri­ble days of the Soviet Union.

Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, of course, wants all the help he can get at this late date. He has been get­ting it from Iran and Hezbollah all along, and from Russia at least diplo­mat­i­cal­ly. He’d cer­tain­ly take help from the United States at this point. He want­ed help from the United States at the very begin­ning. That’s why he char­ac­ter­ized the upheaval in Syria as a war against ter­ror­ism long before a sin­gle ISIS or Nusra fight­er fired a shot, back when it was just him against unarmed pro­test­ers demand­ing some kind of polit­i­cal reform.

Assad might even take help from the Israelis at this point. Not that the Israelis would lift a fin­ger to assist Hezbollah’s co-patron and co-armor­er. That won’t hap­pen under any circumstances.

So here comes dad­dy Russia, rid­ing to the res­cue of its old total­i­tar­i­an client.

Maybe the Russians will go ahead and smash ISIS. Maybe they’ll do the dirty work that has the West so fatigued. Maybe they’ll do every­body a favor.

The result won’t be pret­ty, how­ev­er. Soviet Russia did every­body a favor when it smashed through the east­ern front of Hitler’s Nazi régime, but Poland sure paid the price. As did a lot of oth­er coun­tries in Europe.

The Wall Street Journal isn’t hap­py about this at all.

For 70 years American Presidents from both par­ties have sought to thwart Russian influ­ence in the Middle East. Harry Truman forced the Red Army to with­draw from north­ern Iran in 1946. Richard Nixon raised a nuclear alert to deter Moscow from resup­ply­ing its Arab clients dur­ing the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Even Jimmy Carter threat­ened mil­i­tary force to pro­tect the Persian Gulf after the 1979 Soviet inva­sion of Afghanistan.

America wasn’t quite as burned out then.

We’re all tired of try­ing to fix a part of the world that refused to be fixed, but nature abhors a vacuum.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here: Russia moves into syria

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Police offi­cers con­tin­ue to strength­en their oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties under the ‘Get the Guns’ cam­paign, which has led to the seizure of 10 firearms, 159 rounds of ammu­ni­tion and the arrest of eight peo­ple in the last 24 hours.

Police attached to the Hope Bay sta­tion have report­ed that at about 5:00 pm on Tuesday, an oper­a­tion was car­ried out at premis­es in Shrewsbury dis­trict, Portland, which result­ed in the seizure of a 12-gauge Remington shot­gun. No one was arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the find.

In Westmoreland, about 5:30 pm, law­men in Cornwall Mountain seized a Smith and Wesson 9mm pis­tol and 31 rounds of ammu­ni­tion dur­ing an oper­a­tion, while a shot­gun was seized in Wedderburn dis­trict, Bethel Town, after law­men respond­ed to a dis­pute. One man was arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the find in Cornwall Mountain.

On Wednesday, offi­cers in the Green Island area of Hanover car­ried out a tar­get­ed oper­a­tion in River Head Road, Logwood between 4:30 am and 8:30 am. During this oper­a­tion, a Mossberg 12-gauge shot­gun, a Taurus 9mm pis­tol and 90 assort­ed rounds of ammu­ni­tion were seized.

Five males along with a female were sub­se­quent­ly tak­en into custody.

Then an oper­a­tion was con­duct­ed in Salt Spring, St James, which led to the seizure of two Browning 9mm pis­tols, one Arcus 9mm pis­tol, three mag­a­zines, 14 9mm rounds, and a note­book con­tain­ing iden­ti­ty infor­ma­tion of peo­ple liv­ing in the United States of America.

One man was tak­en into cus­tody in con­nec­tion with that find.

Over in Trelawny, law­men con­tin­ued to make head­way in remov­ing ille­gal weapons from our streets, with the seizure of two Astra 9mm pis­tols and 24 9mm rounds while on oper­a­tion in Litchfield.

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has renewed their appeal to cit­i­zens to col­lab­o­rate with the police on the ‘Get the Guns’ ini­tia­tive, which is geared towards remov­ing ille­gal weapons from the hands of crim­i­nals in Jamaica.

The JCF said that rewards will be offered to peo­ple who pro­vide infor­ma­tion that lead to the seizure of ille­gal guns and ammunition.

The pub­lic is also being asked to call Crime Stop at 311 or 811, police 119 emer­gency num­ber or the near­est police sta­tion to report ille­gal activ­i­ties in their com­mu­ni­ties. The police say cit­i­zens may also sub­mit tips and infor­ma­tion using the Stay Alert App from Google play store. Story orig­i­nat­ed here: 10 guns seized, 8 arrest­ed in 24 hours – Police

OUGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — In the ear­ly hours of a night in 1987, one of Africa’s youngest lead­ers, Thomas Sankara, was mur­dered and qui­et­ly and quick­ly buried in a shal­low grave.

Now, the man wide­ly believed to be behind it, Burkina Faso’s pres­i­dent, has watched as his par­lia­ment was set ablaze by furi­ous pro­test­ers who want him gone.

Many of the pro­test­ers say the his­to­ry of the slain 1980s leader part­ly inspired them to rise against Blaise Compaore, who has been in pow­er for 27 years and was try­ing, by a vote in par­lia­ment, for anoth­er five.

Though some see Sankara as an auto­crat who came to office by the pow­er of the gun, and who ignored basic human rights in pur­suit of his ideals, in recent years he has been cit­ed as a rev­o­lu­tion­ary inspi­ra­tion not only in Burkina Faso but in oth­er coun­tries across Africa.

In the weeks before the cur­rent chaos, Al Jazeera spoke to peo­ple in the cap­i­tal, Ouagadougou, and found many who pre­dict­ed that Sankara’s mem­o­ry, and Compaore’s attempt to seek anoth­er five-year term, may soon spark an uprising.

Burkina Faso inter­im pres­i­dent Michel Kafando, who was tak­en hostage dur­ing a coup last week, said on Wednesday he was back in pow­er and had restored a civil­ian tran­si­tion­al gov­ern­ment. However, it was unclear who was real­ly in charge after the rebellion’s leader attend­ed a state function.

“I have returned to work,” Kafando told jour­nal­ists at the for­eign min­istry in Ouagadougou.“The tran­si­tion is back and at this very minute is exer­cis­ing the pow­er of the state.”

At about the same time, around 3 miles away, coup leader General Gilbert Diendere appeared at the air­port, backed by a con­tin­gent of his pres­i­den­tial guard, to wel­come region­al lead­ers arriv­ing to try to nego­ti­ate an end to the crisis.

Burkina Faso’s mil­i­tary stepped up pres­sure on Diendere and his sol­diers in recent days to cede pow­er, threat­en­ing to dis­arm them by force if nec­es­sary. It said it had reached an agree­ment with mem­bers of Diendere’s force overnight.

While troops loy­al to the gov­ern­ment were not vis­i­ble on the streets of Ouagadougou Wednesday, pres­i­den­tial guard sol­diers back­ing Diendere main­tained their posi­tions at the nation­al tele­vi­sion head­quar­ters, despite the deal that required them to be con­fined to bar­racks to avoid clashes.

The head of pro­to­col for the pres­i­den­cy, present at the air­port, told Reuters that an offi­cial cer­e­mo­ny dur­ing which pow­er would be hand­ed back to the tran­si­tion­al author­i­ties was sched­uled for lat­er on Wednesday. Until then, he said Diendere would remain in charge.

Leaders from Nigeria, Senegal, Niger, Togo, Benin and Ghana were due to arrive, under­lin­ing region­al con­cern for a coun­try that was less that a month away from Oct. 11 elec­tions when the rebelling sol­diers raid­ed the cabinet.

They were due to meet the coup lead­ers and tran­si­tion­al author­i­ties to nego­ti­ate a final set­tle­ment to restore the civil­ian government.

One by one, Diendere extend­ed a full state wel­come to each arriv­ing leader, greet­ing them on a red car­pet and stand­ing beside them as a mil­i­tary band played their nation­al anthems.

The October elec­tion was meant to restore Burkina Faso to democ­ra­cy after last year’s over­throw of long­time ruler Blaise Compaore by massed crowds protest­ing against his plans to extend his rule.

Diendere is the for­mer spy chief and right-hand man of Compaore.

Compaore’s over­throw had made Burkina Faso a bea­con for demo­c­ra­t­ic aspi­ra­tions in Africa, where vet­er­an rulers in coun­tries from Rwanda to Congo Republic are seek­ing to scrap con­sti­tu­tion­al term limits.:Read more here :Burkina pres­i­dent says he’s back in charge

It’s no won­der that this video clip went viral ear­li­er this month. It shows a masked Israeli sol­dier throw­ing a sob­bing Palestinian child to the ground, hold­ing him in a head­lock, squash­ing him, and then grap­pling with an assort­ment of women and girls as he tries — and ulti­mate­ly fails — to wrest the ter­ri­fied boy away from his mother.

Those few moments of footage revealed for all the world to see the sor­did real­i­ty of Israel’s every­day war against the Palestinian peo­ple. An army that is equipped and osten­si­bly pre­pared to take on oth­er armies — but that was last test­ed against a real army over four decades ago — con­tin­ues to be unleashed against a large­ly defense­less civil­ian pop­u­la­tion. And it con­tin­ues to fail abysmal­ly at its assigned task of bring­ing that pop­u­la­tion under con­trol and break­ing its will to resist. Indeed, in polit­i­cal terms, the end­ing of the video is as instruc­tive as the begin­ning: as the child is final­ly freed, the Israeli sol­dier, stripped of his coward’s face­mask, is forced igno­min­ious­ly to slink away, defeat­ed — though not before sul­len­ly and gra­tu­itous­ly fling­ing a part­ing stun-grenade into the faces of the child and his fam­i­ly, hav­ing, for all his bru­tal­i­ty, accom­plished pre­cise­ly nothing.

The scene sums up on a small scale the past decades of Israeli vio­lence, and it cap­tures the les­son that the Israelis seem inca­pable of get­ting into their heads once and for all: that the sheer capac­i­ty for brute force — at which they admit­ted­ly excel — does not, in itself, trans­late into polit­i­cal gain, and can, indeed, back­fire polit­i­cal­ly to pro­duce the oppo­site result from what was intend­ed: courage instead of fear; stead­fast­ness instead of col­lapse; defi­ance instead of submission.

One would have thought that the video would have occa­sioned some cir­cum­spec­tion, or at least awk­ward silence, among Israelis and what remains of their rapid­ly thin­ning fan club in the U.S., but no — of course not. Israel’s min­is­ter of cul­ture took to the media to declare that the army’s open-fire reg­u­la­tions ought to be changed to offi­cial­ly per­mit shoot­ing unarmed Palestinians in order “to put an end to the humil­i­a­tion.” Better, then, for the sol­dier to have gunned the fam­i­ly down in cold blood than to have failed to snatch their 12-year-old. Such are the choic­es to which Israel now finds itself reduced.

Meanwhile, the usu­al sus­pects on lone­ly late-night blogs and scarce­ly read third- and fourth-rate web­sites tried to recu­per­ate the tat­tered rem­nants of Israel’s dig­ni­ty by trot­ting out their cus­tom­ary clum­sy attempts at char­ac­ter assas­si­na­tion, in this case accus­ing the child’s father, Bassem Tamimi — a com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er at the fore­front of Nabi Saleh’s week­ly demon­stra­tions — of run­ning a “mas­ter­class” on polit­i­cal manip­u­la­tion and even a “media empire.” How, they ask in feigned shock, could a father put his chil­dren at such risk? (Note that they are, as always, more inter­est­ed in the rep­re­sen­ta­tion than in the real­i­ty, about which they have noth­ing to say.)

The answer, of course, is that Bassem did not choose the risk; the risk came to him and to his fam­i­ly. They did not choose to live under occu­pa­tion; the occu­pa­tion was imposed on them. They did not choose to have their vil­lage, Nabi Saleh in the West Bank, encir­cled by Jewish colonies implant­ed there in defi­ance of inter­na­tion­al law. They did not choose to lose more than half of their village’s land to decades of fur­ther ille­gal land-grabs by those colonies in pur­suit of a naked­ly racist project of colo­nial appro­pri­a­tion. They did not choose to be sur­round­ed by heav­i­ly armed for­eign fan­ta­sists who, claim­ing to be in direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion with their god, reg­u­lar­ly wreak hav­oc on Palestinian lives. They did not choose to be encir­cled and cut off from the world by a net­work of ditch­es, gates, walls, road­blocks and check­points manned by the Israeli army in order to pro­tect the very same fan­ta­sists who steal their land, defile their water wells and burn their olive groves to the ground.

I asked Bassem Tamimi about the choic­es that he felt were avail­able to him and his fam­i­ly. He summed it up very sim­ply: When you live under this kind of trans-gen­er­a­tional mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion, he said, the only choice you have is whether to sub­mit to the occu­pa­tion, yield­ing to it your land, your home, your lib­er­ty, your con­science — or to refuse its arbi­trary dic­tates, its end­less lita­nies of thou-shalt-nots, and to resist it by what­ev­er means are avail­able to you. Like the over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of Palestinians, Bassem and his fel­low vil­lagers choose to resist non­vi­o­lent­ly, by protest­ing and by doc­u­ment­ing the nature of their every­day lives to a world that is final­ly begin­ning to sit up and pay atten­tion on a large scale (as the viral spread of this video demon­strates). And above all by per­sist­ing, refus­ing to give up and dis­ap­pear into the obliv­ion of cold anony­mous silence to which the Israelis would con­sign the entire Palestinian peo­ple as they go on col­o­niz­ing their land.

As for chil­dren, not only does the occu­pa­tion not spare them, it tar­gets them direct­ly on a dai­ly basis: if not at protest march­es then at check­points; if not at check­points then at school; if not at school then in their beds at home. And so they too, Bassem points out, have to learn to be strong, or be rolled over by the occu­pa­tion before they are even able to walk.

Clearly, indeed, this isn’t just about Bassem and his fam­i­ly. Throughout the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries, Israel’s war on the Palestinians has inevitably meant a war on Palestinian chil­dren. Sometimes this takes the form of out­right vio­lence, as in last summer’s assault on Gaza, when, through its utter­ly indis­crim­i­nate bom­bard­ment of dense­ly packed neigh­bor­hoods, Israel killed 2,205 Palestinians, the vast major­i­ty of them civil­ians, among them 521 chil­dren. Such episodes of out­right vio­lence are not the norm, how­ev­er, and Israel’s war pri­mar­i­ly takes the form of its sys­tem­at­ic occu­pa­tion and suf­fo­ca­tion of every­day life — its impo­si­tion of an array of rules, per­mits, cur­fews, road­blocks, check­points, walls, tun­nels and gates hem­ming in and par­a­lyz­ing the Palestinian pop­u­la­tion in order to facil­i­tate the growth and devel­op­ment of Jewish colonies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Accompanying this rigid array of pro­hi­bi­tions and restric­tions are mid­night raids into Palestinian towns — the Israeli army burst­ing into fam­i­ly homes in the mid­dle of the night and snatch­ing sleep­ing peo­ple from their beds. According to the United Nations Office for the Coördination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), the Israeli army con­ducts an aver­age of 79 such raids a week: 11 each night.
Read more here :Cowardly bru­tal­i­ty exposed: The viral video that should change the Israel/​Palestine debate forever