分类： politics

For the first time since the outbreak of the latest Gaza war, Palestinian voters across the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the central Gaza district of Deir el-Balah are casting ballots Saturday in long-awaited municipal elections, a vote shaped by a limited political landscape and broad public apathy toward the ability of the process to deliver meaningful change.

Figures from the Ramallah-headquartered Central Elections Commission (CEC) show roughly 1.5 million registered voters will participate across the West Bank, joined by an additional 70,000 registered voters in Deir el-Balah. Unlike broader national elections, the vast majority of competing candidate lists are either aligned with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular nationalist Fatah party or running as independent candidates. Notably, no lists are fielded by Hamas, Fatah’s long-standing political rival that controls roughly half of the Gaza Strip.

Across most West Bank municipalities, Fatah-backed tickets face off against independent slates led by candidates from smaller opposition factions, including the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In dozens of districts, however, the lack of competition has already preordained results: in major population centers including Nablus and Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA), only one candidate list was submitted, allowing that ticket to claim victory automatically without any voter turnout.

Many voters echo deep skepticism about the election’s ability to improve daily life under Israeli occupation. Mahmud Bader, a private business owner from the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, where two adjacent refugee camps have been under full Israeli military control for more than a year, said he planned to cast a ballot despite expecting no tangible improvements. “Whether candidates are independent or partisan, it has no effect and will have no benefit for the city,” Bader told AFP. “The Israeli occupation is the one that rules Tulkarem. This vote is just an image shown to international media — to pretend we have functioning elections, a state, or independence.”

Logistical challenges also shape the vote in war-ravaged Gaza. The CEC confirmed polling stations in the West Bank will operate from 7:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) through 7:00 p.m., but stations in Deir al-Balah will close two hours earlier at 5:00 p.m. The adjustment is designed to allow vote counting to finish before sundown, a necessary workaround given chronic widespread power outages across the war-damaged strip.

International observers have framed the vote as a rare step forward for democratic engagement amid ongoing conflict. UN Middle East coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov praised the CEC for pulling off a “credible process” under extreme constraints. “Saturday’s elections represent an important opportunity for Palestinians to exercise their democratic rights during an exceptionally challenging period,” Alakbarov said in an official statement.

This vote marks the first electoral contest held in Gaza since the 2006 legislative elections, which were won by Hamas. The Islamist group has controlled most of Gaza since 2007, splitting Palestinian governance between the Hamas-led strip and the Fatah-governed West Bank. Jamal al-Fadi, a political scientist based at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, told AFP the PA’s decision to limit Gaza balloting exclusively to Deir el-Balah is a deliberate pilot test to assess public opinion in the post-war context, when no comprehensive public opinion polling has been conducted.

The selection of Deir el-Balah was also rooted in practicality: the district is one of the few areas of Gaza where a large majority of the original population has not been displaced by the more than two-year-long conflict between Hamas and Israel, al-Fadi explained. The 90-year-old Abbas, who has held the Palestinian presidency for more than two decades without holding a new presidential election, has repeatedly promised to hold national legislative and presidential votes that have yet to be organized.

For some first-time voters, the election carries symbolic weight even amid its limitations. Farah Shaath, 25, said she was eager to cast her first ever ballot Saturday. “Although it is unlike any election in the world, it is a confirmation of our continued existence in the Gaza Strip despite everything,” Shaath said.

Organizing the Gaza vote has also required navigating competing security claims. CEC spokesman Fareed Taamallah told AFP that the commission has recruited polling staff from local Palestinian civil society groups and contracted a private security firm to guard the 12 polling centers in Deir el-Balah. But an anonymous CEC source based in Gaza told AFP that Hamas police have insisted on taking responsibility for securing the electoral process, planning to deploy unarmed plainclothes security personnel around all polling sites.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — As the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) marks its 58th year of operations, the national development agency has formalized the appointment of a fresh board of directors, set to steer the organization through a three-year term running from February 23, 2026, to February 22, 2029. This leadership shakeup comes as the UDC leans into expanding its institutional footprint and advancing national development priorities across the island.

The new board assumes its post at a pivotal moment, when the UDC is actively delivering on its broad mandate that spans large-scale urban development, public asset management, and community engagement. The leadership transition is designed to build on the agency’s six-decade legacy while advancing a modern, forward-thinking agenda centered on strategic investment, responsible public stewardship, and organizational transformation.

Norman Brown, incoming board chairman, emphasized that the new leadership team shares a core commitment to upholding ethical governance, delivering rigorous strategic oversight, and advancing the UDC’s public mission — particularly as Jamaica prioritizes climate and infrastructural resilience across all national development work.

“For almost 60 years, the UDC has stood as a foundational national institution that shapes growth across Jamaica,” Brown stated in an official press release issued Friday. “This new board fully grasps the weight of the role we must play to guide the organization through its next chapter of progress. We are dedicated to keeping the UDC focused, transparent, and responsive to public needs as it advances projects and manages assets that deliver tangible, lasting value to all Jamaican people.”

As Jamaica’s leading national development agency, the UDC has played an integral role in building connected communities, developing accessible public spaces, attracting domestic and foreign investment, and managing a vast portfolio of public assets that drive broad-based economic and social progress. Its high-profile holdings include some of the country’s most popular tourist and recreational landmarks: the globally renowned Dunn’s River Falls and Park, Reach Falls, Harmony Beach Park, Ocho Rios Bay Beach, and Turtle River Park.

Beyond managing existing recreational assets, the UDC is currently advancing a slate of high-impact strategic initiatives and development programs across the island. Key ongoing projects include the Portmore Resilience Park, the Raintree Commercial Complex, the Kingston Waterfront Improvement Project, and multiple residential development ventures in the Caymanas area. These projects, alongside the agency’s other ongoing work, contribute to widespread urban renewal, job-creating economic activity, and improved quality of life for communities across Jamaica.

Bobby Honeyghan, UDC’s general manager, noted that the new board’s appointment comes at a critical juncture for the agency, and will provide essential strategic support to keep the organization’s mandate on track. “The UDC’s work touches some of the most visible and impactful areas of national development, and a strong, engaged board is non-negotiable for maintaining the momentum we have built,” Honeyghan explained. “We welcome the new directors to the team and are eager to collaborate closely with them as we strengthen the UDC’s project delivery, expand our public impact, and advance the national development goals of Jamaica.”

A recent lethal airstrike carried out by the United States military against a suspected drug-trafficking vessel has pushed the cumulative death toll from Washington’s year-long anti-“narco-terrorist” campaign across Latin America to at least 182, according to official statements and independent counting. The strike, which took place on Friday, left two people dead aboard the targeted boat, US Southern Command — the military body overseeing all American operations in the Latin American and Caribbean region — confirmed in a public post on the social platform X. In its announcement, the command echoed the standardized language it has used to justify dozens of similar lethal operations launched since the campaign launched in September last year, claiming intelligence assessments verified the vessel was traveling along well-documented smuggling corridors in the Eastern Pacific and actively engaged in drug-trafficking activities. According to a tally compiled by Agence France-Presse, this strike marked at least the seventh such lethal operation carried out by US forces in April alone. Despite repeated claims that targeted vessels are linked to drug smuggling networks categorized as terrorist organizations by the US government, the Trump administration has yet to release conclusive, public evidence to back up these assertions. The lack of transparent proof has sparked fierce debate over the legal standing of the cross-border campaign. International legal scholars and global human rights organizations have raised sharp criticism, arguing that most of these strikes qualify as extrajudicial killings. Many of those killed, they contend, were unarmed civilians who did not pose any immediate, active threat to US national security, raising serious questions about the moral and legal legitimacy of the ongoing campaign.

The ongoing high-profile trial of 25 alleged members of the Klansman Gang’s Tesha Miller faction resumed Thursday morning at the Supreme Court’s Home Circuit Division in downtown Kingston, with a emotional prosecution witness delivering a harrowing account of identifying one of the gang’s 2018 double murder victims. The chilling repetition “HE’S dead, he’s dead, Sir, he’s dead” has become the defining testimony of this week’s proceedings, encapsulating the trauma of a witness called to confirm the identity of Kemar Williams, one of two men killed in the February 24, 2018 attack in St Catherine’s Pineapple Lane.

The witness told the court she first received word of Williams’ murder shortly after 10 p.m. on the night of the shooting, but did not travel to the Spanish Town funeral home for formal identification until March 7, alongside a group of other acquaintances. Upon arrival, the party waited in a public holding area before a police officer escorted her to an interior examination room, where a medical examiner and another official awaited. Describing the grim space to the court, she noted “some bodies in there, like duppy, dead bodies” — a turn of phrase that drew quiet chuckles from several defendants seated in the courtroom.

When the sheet covering Williams’ remains was pulled back, the witness said she immediately recognized his features: his distinct full head of hair made identification unmistakable. The shock of seeing Williams’ body left her overcome with emotion, and court staff quickly advised her to step outside to regain her composure. “I was crying to see [Kemar] in that situation,” she told acting deputy director of public prosecutions, who is leading the prosecution’s case. When pressed to elaborate on what she meant by “that situation”, she again repeated the same shaken line, her gaze distant as she recounted the moment.

Williams’ killing is one of multiple homicides included in the 32-count indictment the Crown has brought against the accused gang members. The February 24 attack unfolded at a combined bar, retail shop and cookshop in Pineapple Lane, Bog Walk, St Catherine, leaving both Williams and Leon Burke — the establishment’s owner — dead, and a third bystander with life-threatening injuries. According to prosecution charges, Klansman faction leader Tesha Miller and co-accused Kirk Forrester are the masterminds behind the double shooting and subsequent attack, laid out in counts nine through 11 of the indictment.

Count nine charges Miller and Forrester with facilitating a serious criminal offense on behalf of a criminal organization for Burke’s murder; count ten brings the same charge for Williams’ killing; and count 11 accuses the pair of knowingly facilitating the intentional wounding of the third surviving victim, whose name has been withheld for privacy.

Earlier this week, the lead detective who initially handled the double murder investigation testified that when the case was reassigned to other investigators in 2019, he had not made any arrests nor identified any persons of interest in connection with the attack. The trial, which is being heard by Supreme Court Justice Dale Palmer without a jury, is scheduled to resume next Monday. Prosecutors have alleged the defendants are all active members of the violent Klansman Gang faction, linked to a string of murders, shootings and organized crime activities across Jamaica.