分类： politics

SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland — After a wave of public complaints over unprofessional conduct and biased treatment by local law enforcement, the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) Westmoreland Police Division has announced a multi-pronged strategy to repair community trust, combining mandatory professionalism training, expanded outreach events, and public accountability commitments.

Deputy Superintendent Jordaine Allen, the division’s operations officer, outlined the new initiatives during a monthly general meeting of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation last Thursday. Starting Monday, May 18, 2026, all officers across the division will participate in ongoing interactive training sessions, with professional conduct and appropriate public engagement prioritized as the first core module, per Allen’s direct instruction.

The training rollout comes in direct response to growing criticism from local elected officials over gaps in existing interpersonal skills training for junior officers, and widespread allegations of inconsistent treatment of motorists based on vehicle type and perceived social status. Councillor Ian Myles, representing the Little London Division for the Jamaica Labour Party, highlighted the disparities many residents face: if an officer stops a driver operating a vehicle commonly associated with marginalized groups, the interaction is often far more aggressive and disrespectful than it would be for a driver in a different vehicle, falling far short of the professional standards expected of law enforcement.

Myles also shared a recent high-profile incident to illustrate the scope of the problem: a uniformed JCF officer parked in a paid public parking bay on municipal corporation property, located directly across from the Westmoreland Police Divisional Headquarters, and launched into a verbal tirade of abuse against a senior female municipal department head who confronted him about the violation. Myles described the officer’s language as completely unjustified and deeply distasteful, underscoring the urgent need for cultural change within the local force.

In his response to the corporation’s concerns, Allen affirmed that the JCF remains committed to its core motto of professional service, and pledged that all officers will be retrained on the national Police Public Interaction Policy, which mandates that all members of the public be treated with the utmost respect regardless of background or circumstance.

Beyond formal training, the division is launching a new phase of its community engagement program Beat the Streets, scheduled to kick off simultaneously with the training on the morning of May 18 at the Cook Street Multipurpose Court in Savanna-la-Mar. Unlike traditional top-down policing outreach, Beat the Streets brings together senior command staff, local station commanders, traffic officers, and operations teams to meet directly with community stakeholders in informal settings. The initiative is designed to open two-way dialogue: law enforcement shares their public safety vision for the area, while community members can voice unaddressed concerns and collaborate with officers to develop solutions that meet local needs.

Allen also used the meeting to share positive progress on the division’s core crime reduction mandate, noting a substantial drop in homicides so far this year. Compared to the same period in 2025, the Westmoreland Division has recorded six fewer murders, representing a 38% overall reduction in fatal violent crime, a gain the command team credits to consistent proactive patrols and community collaboration.

Looking ahead, the division will host a public awards ceremony on June 30 at Savanna-la-Mar’s Sean Lavery Hall to recognize outstanding service by officers across the parish, celebrating work that has advanced both crime reduction and positive community engagement.

Eight months after Supreme Court Justice Leighton Pusey issued a sharp public warning to both prosecution and defense legal teams demanding they secure every required document ahead of an April 13, 2026 trial for eight accused members of the so-called Ronko Gang, the high-profile criminal proceeding remains in procedural limbo.

The eight defendants — seven men and one woman — have been tied up in the Jamaican court system since 2022, and already two scheduled trial start dates have been scrapped due to repeated delays from legal teams. The first scheduled trial, set for September 16, 2025, was vacated in July 2025, in large part because multiple defense attorneys were absent from pre-trial hearings and other counsel confirmed they would not be prepared to proceed on that timeline. It was at that July hearing that Justice Pusey adjusted the timeline, pushing the trial to April 2026 to give all parties sufficient time to get their materials in order.

In his stern address to legal teams at the time, Pusey emphasized that the extended window was a one-time accommodation. “For all the counsel in this matter, I want you to listen very carefully. All the attorneys in this matter, I have done matters with them and I have had the joy of being in the middle of the matter and being told that there is something that they didn’t realise wasn’t there or they want some document or something like that… so please ensure that everything that you need, you have now so that when the trial starts — whether it is me or some other poor unfortunate judge — you have every single, striking piece of paper that you need. That especially goes for the Crown,” Pusey stated.

The April 13 start date was expected to carry proceedings through to a planned conclusion on June 15, 2026. However, after a January 2026 trial readiness hearing was adjourned until February, the second scheduled trial date was also vacated. The case was reassigned to case management review in April 2026, still before Justice Pusey.

When the matter came up for a routine mention on April 30, court officials confirmed that no prosecutor from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions had been formally assigned to the case. In response, Justice Pusey gave the prosecution until May 14 to submit both a structured trial timeline and a complete witness list.

When the case was called again before Justice Pusey at the Supreme Court Home Circuit Division on the May 14 deadline, prosecution representatives informed the court that their case files were still incomplete. Taking advantage of the prosecution’s continued unpreparedness, defense attorneys filed a formal request with the judge to grant bail to four of the defendants currently being held in pre-trial detention. They argued that it is fundamentally unfair to keep the accused in custody solely because state prosecutors have failed to complete their required case preparations.

All eight defendants face joint charges under Jamaica’s Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisation) Act, widely known as the national anti-gang legislation. The Ronko Gang, which authorities allege includes multiple active law enforcement officers among its members, has been connected to 17 separate criminal incidents across Jamaica between 2019 and 2021. The alleged offenses range across multiple parishes including Clarendon, Manchester, St Elizabeth, St Catherine, St Mary, Trelawny, Kingston, St Andrew, and St James, and include charges of shootings, burglary, aggravated robbery, illegal firearm possession, shop-breaking, conspiracy to murder, and abduction.

After reviewing written and oral submissions from all participating defense counsel, Justice Pusey announced that he would hold formal hearings on the bail applications for the four detained men: Tafari Silvera, Tehneil Francis, David Henry and Tevin Henriquez. The remaining four accused — Jasette Brown, Daneilio Barnes, Ovilgo McKenzie and Rajay Morrison — are already out on bail ahead of trial. The defense team includes lead counsel Ovilgo McKenzie, alongside Denise Hinson, Tamika Harris, Andrea Whyte-Walters, Donahue Martin and Richard Lynch.

After the conclusion of The Bahamas’ latest general election that saw incumbent Prime Minister Philip Davis secure a second consecutive term, the Organization of American States (OAS) Electoral Observation Mission has released a detailed package of targeted recommendations designed to reinforce the integrity and efficiency of the Caribbean nation’s electoral processes.

Headlined by Sherry Tross, a veteran former diplomat from St. Kitts and Nevis, the mission’s top proposal calls for the creation of a fully independent electoral commission that operates outside of direct government oversight. The delegation also emphasized the urgent need for expanded investment in the country’s Parliamentary Registration Department, calling for boosted funding, advanced technical resources, and expanded staffing to support consistent, accessible election administration.

To modernize vote counting and data management, the mission has pushed for the adoption of a digital electronic results transmission system, alongside wider rollout of biometric voter identification cards and public online voter verification portals. Recognizing growing global threats to election infrastructure, the panel also stressed the critical importance of upgrading cybersecurity frameworks to protect sensitive electoral voter and results data from unauthorized access or manipulation.

Additional reforms put forward by the OAS team target transparency across all stages of the electoral cycle. The recommendations include updated requirements for clearer, more accessible campaign finance regulation, which would implement formal limits on both anonymous and foreign political donations to prevent outside influence over Bahamian elections. The mission also called for updated training protocols for poll workers, revised and more accessible electoral dispute resolution mechanisms, and new measures to boost transparency throughout campaign and voting periods.

In a nod to persistent gender gaps in Bahamian political representation, the delegation further proposed targeted policy measures to remove barriers to increased women’s participation in electoral politics and establish formal frameworks to address and reduce the prevalence of gender-based political violence, a challenge that disproportionately discourages women from entering public office across the region.

The May 12 general election delivered a clear outcome for the country, returning Prime Minister Philip Davis and his administration to office for a second consecutive term, setting the stage for policymakers to review and act on the OAS mission’s reform proposals in the coming months.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica’s bicameral Houses of Parliament has issued an official statement confirming it has received five investigative reports from the national Integrity Commission, confirming the documents have not yet been placed before either the lower House of Representatives or the upper Senate for formal debate and review. The parliamentary body clarified in the Monday statement that the submissions are currently moving through internal processing protocols, overseen by the legislature’s presiding officers, and that existing legislation governing the anti-corruption watchdog does not mandate a fixed deadline for the public tabling of these reports. The confirmation comes amid mounting public pressure from Opposition Leader Mark Golding, who has publicly demanded that a specific IC probe into the country’s Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA) be tabled during the House of Representatives’ next sitting. Golding has openly rejected arguments that ongoing court proceedings connected to the FLA investigation provide legal justification for withholding the report from public view. In line with statutory confidentiality requirements that apply to all IC reports before they are formally tabled, parliamentary officials noted they cannot disclose any details about the content of the five received reports. This includes refusing to confirm or deny the subject matter of any submission, any findings or policy recommendations included in the documents, or whether any specific individuals or entities are referenced in the investigations. While Parliament acknowledged it is aware of both the opposition’s correspondence regarding the FLA report and the ongoing related court proceedings, it emphasized its constitutional authority to manage its own internal procedural rules, including the process for laying submitted documents before the full legislature. “The Integrity Commission Act does not prescribe a specific timeline or procedure for the tabling of reports submitted to Parliament. The reports will therefore be dealt with in accordance with Parliament’s constitutional, legal and procedural responsibilities,” the statement read. Closing out its official comment, the legislature reaffirmed its institutional commitment to core governance principles of transparency, public accountability, and full adherence to national law, adding that no further substantive updates will be released to the public at this stage of processing.

HAVANA, Cuba — Long-standing geopolitical tensions between the United States and Cuba erupted into open escalation on Monday, as the U.S. Department of the Treasury unveiled new punitive sanctions targeting the Caribbean nation’s top intelligence service and most senior government officials, while Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel issued a stark warning that any American military incursion would unleash an unprecedented “bloodbath.”

Diaz-Canel’s comments came 24 hours after U.S.-based news outlet Axios published an exclusive report citing unnamed American intelligence officials, which claimed Cuba had acquired more than 300 military-grade drones from Russia and Iran, and was evaluating plans to deploy these unmanned systems against targets including the U.S. Navy’s Guantanamo Bay base on Cuba’s eastern coast, U.S. military vessels operating in the region, and even parts of Florida. The unconfirmed report has fueled already rampant speculation across Washington that the Trump administration is actively considering large-scale military action to overthrow Cuba’s communist government, a path it took against the sitting government of Venezuela just months earlier.

Responding to the claims on the social media platform X, Diaz-Canel pushed back firmly on accusations that Cuba poses any offensive threat to the U.S. or any other nation. While he did not directly confirm or deny the report of a stockpiled drone arsenal, he emphasized that Cuba holds an inalienable, legitimate right to build up its defensive capabilities to fend off any foreign military attack. “That cannot be wielded, logically or honestly, as an excuse for imposing war on the noble Cuban people,” he wrote. He added that any unprovoked U.S. attack would trigger a bloodbath with consequences that cannot be reasonably calculated.

Hours after Diaz-Canel’s statement, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control formally announced the new round of sanctions, placing prohibitions on Cuba’s primary intelligence agency and nine high-profile Cuban nationals. The sanctioned list includes the country’s cabinet ministers for communications, energy, and justice, alongside multiple senior leaders of the Communist Party of Cuba and at least three active-duty generals.

This latest escalation is part of a steady ramp-up of American pressure on Cuba that began in January, when former President Donald Trump openly floated the possibility of removing Cuba’s sitting leadership, mirroring the U.S. military operation that ousted the Venezuelan government earlier that same month. Soon after, Washington cut off one of Cuba’s last remaining critical economic lifelines by halting all Venezuelan oil shipments to the island — Venezuela had long been Cuba’s primary fuel supplier — and threatened to impose punitive tariffs on any third country that moved to cover the resulting fuel gap.

That American oil blockade has dramatically worsened an already severe humanitarian and energy crisis across Cuba. Widespread, increasingly frequent blackouts have become a daily reality for Cuban citizens, as the country’s aging, poorly maintained power plants cannot generate enough electricity to meet basic demand. Cuban government officials have repeatedly accused Washington of intentionally sabotaging the country’s economy through the crippling fuel blockade to create a pretext for full-scale military intervention.

The controversial Axios drone report was published just days after Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for closed-door negotiations with Cuban officials. It also coincides with widespread U.S. media reports that the Trump administration is pursuing criminal indictments against 94-year-old Raúl Castro, the younger brother of iconic revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and former Cuban president, as another tool in its broader pressure campaign against the island.

Cuban authorities say the fuel blockade has left the country with critically low stockpiles of diesel and fuel oil, which are required to power backup generators that supplement the output of the country’s crumbling power infrastructure. Even amid the rising geopolitical standoff, Cuba received a new 1,700-ton shipment of humanitarian aid from Mexico on Monday, marking the fifth such delivery from Mexico’s left-wing administration since February. Unlike earlier aid shipments, which were transported by Mexican navy vessels, this consignment was carried by a Panamanian-flagged merchant ship, according to on-the-ground reporting from Agence France-Presse journalists. Cuba’s Minister of Food Industry Alberto Lopez confirmed that the shipment includes powdered milk and beans earmarked for children and elderly residents, two of the island’s most vulnerable populations.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica’s main opposition party has launched a scathing rebuke of the national government after a damning auditor general report revealed that just a tiny fraction of donated hurricane relief funds have actually been deployed to support affected communities. As of February 23, 2026, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) had only spent $26.2 million of the $1.44 billion raised in donations following the catastrophic Category 5 Hurricane Melissa — that equals less than 2% of the total pledged funds. The opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has labeled this gross under-spending a deliberate “wicked act” against vulnerable Jamaican households still reeling from the storm’s destruction.

Addressing reporters at a PNP press briefing on Monday, Dr. Angela Brown Burke, the party’s spokesperson on Social Protection and Social Transformation, emphasized that the slow disbursement of critical relief resources is particularly unacceptable given the unprecedented scale of damage Hurricane Melissa left in its wake.

“Most Jamaicans have not forgotten just how extensive the harm from this storm was. Late last year, the Red Cross calculated that more than 156,000 residential properties suffered damage, and close to 90,000 families were directly impacted by the hurricane,” Brown Burke told journalists.

“Even if every dollar donated had been put to use immediately, there would still have been an unmet gap in support for affected families. That makes it all the more outrageous that $1.44 billion in relief is sitting untouched with no clear plan to get it to the people who need it. This is nothing short of a wicked act against our most vulnerable citizens,” she added.

The shadow cabinet minister went on to stress that all donations were earmarked explicitly for delivering urgent shelter and life-saving assistance to survivors of the storm. In her view, the auditor general’s independent review lays bare deep, systemic failures in governance, financial oversight, and public accountability across the entire national hurricane relief program.

“The findings are damning: millions of dollars in funds and critical relief supplies cannot be independently traced or verified, and the Jamaican citizens who need support most are left completely without protection,” Brown Burke said.

The real-time audit of the Hurricane Melissa Relief Initiative, which also reviewed financial management and procurement processes under the government’s flagship Roof Restoration Programme (ROOF), uncovered a host of additional accounting irregularities. Audit investigators found that $34 million worth of roofing materials earmarked for home repairs cannot be properly accounted for, due to widespread missing signed delivery slips and official goods received notes. On top of that, more than $141.1 million in recorded committed expenditure has no supporting, verified payment documentation on file.

Brown Burke has issued a series of clear demands to the ruling government to address the audit’s findings, starting with full public transparency. She is calling on authorities to publish a complete, detailed list of all ROOF programme beneficiaries, including parish-level breakdowns of recipients and clear documentation of the eligibility criteria used to select which households receive support.

“We also require independent, third-party verification of all completed home repair work that the government has reported. That is non-negotiable. We are already hearing reports of discrepancies: homeowners who repaired their own properties using a mix of personal savings and limited government assistance check their parish office records, only to find the work is incorrectly listed as completed by the Jamaica Defence Force. These inconsistencies need to be sorted out immediately for the public to trust this process,” Brown Burke explained.

She also called on government agencies to extend greater dignity and respect to Jamaican families that have been forced to stay in emergency shelters after their homes were destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Melissa. Closing her remarks, Brown Burke urged the ruling administration to prioritize the needs of storm survivors.

“I am calling on the Government to find its conscience, and commit to doing better by the Jamaican people who rely on this support,” she said.