PROMINENT United States-based attorney, Professor David Rowe, says he has very little hope that reggae star Buju Banton’s entrapment plea will hold up in a US court.

Rowe said the US revelation that the prosecution has video recordings of Banton, whose real name is Mark Myrie, tasting cocaine and participating in arrangements for the sale of contraband, will work against him in a big way.

“I see his chances as begin very low. He is on video offering cocaine for sale. I don’t think the entrapment argument has a great deal of effort,” Rowe told Chat! yesterday.

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The Westmoreland police have come up with a strategy aimed at investigating and arresting the leaders of Westmoreland’s Twelve Street, Hot Roses and Toney Reid gangs by year-end.

“Our intention is to utilize every legitimate means (such as arrests and displacement) to ensure that (by) December 2010, these gangs are dismantled and made inoperable. We are of the view that if this is achieved we will be able to reduce criminal activities involving gang members, build safer communities, dissuade others from becoming gang members and restore citizens’ confidence in the rule of law and order, said the parish’s top cop, Superintendent Dezeita Taylor.

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LAMBS RIVER, Westmoreland — An out-of-order toilet at the Lambs River Heath Clinic in Westmoreland is forcing patients to resort to the back of the building to relieve themselves, even as the authorities there caution against unhygienic practices. “Wash hands often to help prevent diseases…please flush toilet after you use it…bathroom out of use…” the conflicting notices mock the reality that there has been no water at the clinic for quite some time now.

When the Observer West visited the clinic Tuesday, two mothers who took their babies for a check-up had to exit the building and head around the back to urinate, Another escorted her son in the same direction for the same purpose.

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WESTMORELAND’S high school track and field programmes are slowly moving out of the long shadows cast by their football counterparts with a series of outstanding results over the past few years.

At last week’s Milo County of Cornwall Athletics Association’s (COCAA) Western Champs, Westmoreland schools finished in the top four of both boys’ and girls’ sections, and made their presence felt throughout the three-day competition. Petersfield was fourth in the boys’ section with 199 points behind winners Munro College, Herbert Morrison and St Elizabeth Technical, while Godfrey Stewart and Frome Technical also scored well. Frome was third in the girls’ section on 172 points while Godfrey Stewart and Maude McLeod High also featured prominently.

Up to a few years ago when Mannings School abruptly pulled the plug on their track and field programme, the parish was always well represented.

From three Girls Champs titles in the 1960s, dozens of national representatives and Western Champs titles through the preceding decades, Mannings was represented by one athlete at Western Champs this year, Omesha Locke, who won the Class 3 discus.

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If you have ever traveled from Savanna la mar to Montego Bay, then you would know the Citrus Plant in Montpelier. A proposal for the divestment of lands at Montpelier, St. James and Shettlewood, Hanover owned by the Montpelier Citrus Company Limited (MCCL) has been approved by Cabinet. The MCCL is owned by the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ) and has accumulated losses of $358 million over the past five years.

The land at Montpelier will be divested to the Coconut Industry Board for $50 Million and the land at Shettlewood to Ramble Enterprises Limited for $52.46 Million. Both companies made the best offers following public advertisements for sale of the lands.

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GOVERNMENT’S efforts to sell the only two state-owned aircraft to pay off debts owed by the national carrier — Air Jamaica — to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States have not found any takers just yet.

“We have the airplanes on the market for US$17 million apiece. They have been on the market since summer of last year. We’ve been scouting but not finding anyone willing to pay that much for the aircraft,” president of the airline Bruce Nobles told the Observer yesterday.

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THREE-TIME world 100m world champion and former world record holder American Maurice Greene believes Jamaica’s double world record holder Usain Bolt has what it takes to be the ultimate sprinter.

“Usain will probably go down as the ultimate sprinter ’cause his 100m is going to get faster, his 200m is going to get faster and if he decides to run the 400, he will shatter that record too,” said Greene, who is in Jamaica as a special guest for tomorrow’s sixth staging of the Douglas Forrest Invitational Meet at the National Stadium.

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TRINIDAD & Tobago’s Caribbean Airlines should attempt to take over struggling carrier Air Jamaica only if it does not include the company’s massive US$900-million debt.

Air Jamaica’s government guaranteed debt stands at US$650 million, with another US$200 million in short-term debt, Bertrand said during a lecture titled ‘Meeting the Challenges of the Aviation Industry in the Caribbean-Whither Air Jamaica’ at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine.

If the airline has to be divested, it will involve another US$50 million to reduce personnel, he suggested.

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WHITEHOUSE, Westmoreland — The family and friends of the six fishermen who have been missing at sea since last week are still hoping the JDF coastguard will rescue them.

Missing are:

* Herman Campbell,

* cousins, Lincoln and Ephrain Frew;

* Wayne Smith,

* Errol Spence, and

* Raphael Morgan.

The men left the Whitehouse community on Monday night aboard the “The Saint”, a 43 by 10 ft fibre gloss boat, for a fishing expedition at the Pedro Banks.

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