TRAGIGURA MATTER in JAMAICA : Lawyers file appeal after court subpoenas PNP officials; Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller and three People’s National Party (PNP) party officials

Wednesday, June 01, 2016    

ATTORNEYS representing Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller and three People’s National Party (PNP) officials in the long-standing Trafigura matter yesterday filed an appeal seeking to halt the proceedings after High Court Judge Justice Lennox Campbell ordered that subpoenas be issued for them.

“I’ll be going to court on Monday. A court order will be shown to the judge, and that should end the matter for that day. An appeal has already been filed and the court order is a consequence of that appeal,” Queen’s Counsel K D Knight told the

Jamaica Observer when contacted yesterday.

Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn, QC, yesterday explained that the subpoenas were issued after Simspon Miller, Robert Pickersgill, Phillip Paulwell, Colin Campbell, and businessman Norton Hinds failed to appear in court. The witnesses were required to give sworn testimony regarding the investigation by the Netherlands Government into the payment, in September 2006, of $31 million to an account bearing the name CCOC to which certain members of the PNP were signatories.

The Trafigura scandal rocked the then governing PNP after it emerged that the party accepted the money from the Dutch firm which, at the time, had an oil-lifting agreement with Jamaica.

The PNP had said the money was a donation, but Trafigura said it was payment on a commercial transaction. The party has since said the money was returned.

The saga resulted in Campbell’s resignation from the Cabinet and as PNP general secretary. It was also widely believed to have contributed to the party losing the 2007 General Election.

Since November 2011 the matter has been dragging through the courts, as defence lawyers have tried unsuccessfully to have it heard in chambers.

Yesterday, the DPP said that attorney Bert Samuels, along with Juranell Smalling, who appear for Paulwell, were the only ones from the defence who appeared in court for the completion of the matter.

All parties in the matter, the DPP said, were invited by the registrar of the Supreme Court. more

PM Andrew Holness: Murder victims have rights too. “It is not just one view that should hold pre-eminence,” Holness insisted.

Thursday, June 02, 2016    

PRIME Minister Andrew Holness has assured that the Government intends to pursue its proposal to amend the Bail Act to remand individuals accused of committing murder.

Andrew Holness

“It is not the intention of the Government to, in any way, diminish human rights,” the prime minister told the

Jamaica Observer in a one-on-one interview at Jamaica House on Tuesday.

“But the Government has to weigh the balance of human rights on a whole, and the human rights of those persons who are being murdered by persons who get bail and laugh in the face of justice and law enforcement, and go out and commit more crimes,” Holness added. The prime minister said he understood the attorneys’ interest in ensuring that their clients can get bail, and that bail is part of the legal rights of their clients. However, he suggested that the proposed measure was necessary to deal with repeat offenders.

“The society has to be practical and reasonable and what we have done is to put the issue out there so that the views of the attorneys who have a perspective can contend with the hundreds of Jamaicans who have suffered from the criminal activities of repeat offenders,” he said.

“It is not just one view that should hold pre-eminence,” Holness insisted.

He indicated that Attorney General Marlene Malahoo Forte would be dealing with the issue in Parliament.

“I don’t want to pre-empt the attorney general, but we have given narrow parameters for how we will seek adjustments to the Bail Act, and it will be for those crimes involving murders,” he stated. more

EXCLUSIVE: Queens man unaware of $2 bail, spends nearly 5 months at Rikers Island

He could have been free for the cost of a cup of coffee. A Queens man spent nearly five months at Rikers Island — from November 2014 to April 2015 — without knowing his bail was just $2, according to records and his lawyers.

Aitabdel Salem, 41, who was acquitted of bail jumping at a Manhattan Supreme Court trial last week, had been jailed on $25,000 bail for attacking an NYPD cop who was arresting him for stealing a coat at a Zara store in the Flatiron District on Nov. 21, 2014, court papers show. Although Salem didn’t know it for more than four months, he caught a lucky break when prosecutors could not get an indictment. He was ordered released on Nov. 28, 2014 on the police assault arrest....

Rikers correction officer busted for smuggling in cell phone, pot

But he still had dollar bails set on each of two minor offenses — that included tampering and mischief charges — so he could not have been freed without first paying the tiny amount. more

NEW YORK TIMES (HISTORY AT IVY LEAGUE YALE UNIVERSITY for AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS) : Crouch Quadruplets Accepted Into Yale....Meet the Crouch Quads; Kenny, Martina, Ray and Carol

By JACQUES STEINBERG

Published: December 18, 2009

DANBURY, Conn. — Ray Crouch, a senior at Danbury High School, logged onto the computer in his family’s living room just after 5 p.m. on Tuesday and entered the Web site of the Yale admissions office.

Enlarge This Image

Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times

Kenny, Martina, Ray and Carol Crouch have until May 1 to decide whether to attend the same college or to branch out.

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Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times

Kenny, Martina, Ray and Carol Crouch have collectively made more than 30 applications to college, and not to all the same places.

Suddenly the screen turned blue — Yale blue — and an image of a bulldog, the university mascot, appeared, followed by “Welcome to the Class of 2014.” Ray, 18, had been offered a spot in the next freshman class, under its early-admission program. Standing behind him, his mother, Caroline, screamed.

But that was only the beginning. Moments later, Ray’s brother, Kenny, also 18, went to the Yale site and got an identical message. He was followed by their sister Carol. Same news. Then the room fell silent. Ray, Kenny and Carol are quadruplets, and their sister Martina had applied to Yale, too.

“I was thinking, it’s going to be really awkward when I don’t get in,” Martina recalled Friday.

But the computer turned blue for her as well, which prompted such an outpouring of joy from their mother that she wrestled their father, Steven, to the floor in a hug.

The Crouches’ perfect batting average represents a first for Yale — the first time in anyone’s memory that it has offered admission to quadruplets. It is also, of course, no small milestone for the siblings, who were born more than two months premature. (Ray was the last to be released from the neonatal unit, more than four months later.)

They made up for that rough start. Their class rankings range from 13 out of a class of 632 (Kenny) to 46 (Martina) — and they have sky-high SAT scores (including Carol’s perfect 800 on the verbal part of that exam).

But whether any one of them, let alone all four, winds up at Yale remains an open question. Under Yale’s early-admission program, accepted applicants can apply to other colleges and need not make up their minds until May 1.

For one thing, money is still an issue. With a father who works for the State of Connecticut as a case manager in the Department of Mental Health, and a stay-at-home mother who is studying for her master’s degree in social work, the quadruplets say their decision will be heavily influenced by financial aid.

“We have to be practical,” Kenny said.

While the family has some savings, the four say they do not want their parents to have to pay much of anything for their education.

As a so-called need-blind institution, Yale commits in advance to meet any admitted applicant’s financial need. But it is the university — and not the student — that defines what that need is. For the Crouches, such calculations will be made further down the road. They have yet to complete their financial aid paperwork. more

KINGSTON, JAMAICA (SICKENING!) : ‘A six months now mi nuh cook’... Overflowing sewage, lack of running water making life miserable for Rema residents

BY TANESHA MUNDLE Observer staff reporter mundlet@jamaicaobserver.com  Monday, May 30, 2016    

IT’S been years since some residents of the inner-city community of Rema in St Andrew Southern have been waking up to the unpleasant sight and smell of raw sewage settling in their backyards and seeping into their houses.

Daphne says she wants something done about the
mosquito-infested drains in Rema.

Now they are tired of it and are calling for the intervention of Minister of Local Government and Community Development Desmond McKenzie, since efforts to get help from the local representatives in the People’s National Party (PNP) stronghold have so far failed.

“A long time wi a face dis, but dem seh dem ago fix it and all now. It look like a politics... a politics mek wi a suffer,” declared one resident, who gave her name only as Shaneka. She said that most of the people who live in the problem area are supporters of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party.

“Check the smell and look at the sewage. When adults can’t can manage it, the children can’t deal with it also as fi dem immune system weak,” Shaneka told theJamaica Observer on Friday, noting that she has been forced to take her two young children to the doctor on several occasions because of infections caused by the unhealthy environment. “We need help, but dem nuh business wid we, ‘cause a nuh dem a face it and dem inna fi dem uptown house weh nice and luxurious. Only time dem business wid we is when dem want wi hand fi dip inna ink,” Shaneka said.

An underground spring in Rema from
 which residents catch water for
domestic use.

She said residents have been living with the problem for over 20 years, and the sewer pipes have badly deteriorated and need fixing.

She said the drains get clogged easily, and when they do the sewage flows over and settles in residents’ backyards. She said residents, most times, have to pay to clean the area.

The sewage also backs up into people’s toilets, especially those of residents like herself who live on the ground floor of the high-rise buildings.

“When dem flush, everything come down on me, everytime me haffi a clean,” she explained.

“A bout six months now mi nuh cook, because if mi cook it come in like a [filth] mi a cook even though mi close mi window,” she said. “Mi have a AC and a one year now mi cyaan use it because of the smell.”

The large garbage heap near the spring.Photos:
Lionel Rookwood

Added to that, the area has been without running water for approximately seven years, and the residents said that they are perplexed as to why the National Water Commission disconnected their supply.

“When people want water some haffi go across the road or go up a Seventh Street and some go down a May Pen Cemetery,” Shaneka told the Observer, pointing out that residents are forced to fetch water from a ‘spring’, which is next to a huge garbage heap on the main road. more