Muslim clerics, Virgin's progress and Slavery

Jamaica has been in the news this week - not much of it good. A mad muslim cleric is being sent back to Jamaica (what's old is what's new). He has lived in England since 1992, and now he's been released early from prison to become Jamaica's problem. Hopefully he won't create a terrorist base here. But, as he hasn't been found guilty of any crime here, he will be free to give it a shot.

Air Jamaica has sold its route to Virgin - so there will be no more Jamaican national carrier flying into Heathrow. But as its on its last wings anyway, hopefully this could actually help to save the the little piece of Jamaica that flies. How it was losing money on that route when the planes were always full beats me. Maybe Virgin will have better luck.

And last but not least John Prescott came to Jamaica. For what I don't know. But he announced to a Jamaican audience that Britain had no reason to apologise for slavery. Mike Henry, a member of parliament here, walked out in disgust. Prescott's also added that the effort now should be on helping African nations rather than formal apologies.

This sounds to me like madness - akin to Japan refusing to apologise to Korea for its crimes against humanity there during World War II. But why the effort should be now on helping African nations - when they were the Africans who escaped slavery and who escaped the middle passage, I don't know. The Africans who were ripped from their motherland and who now live in the Caribbean should be given no thought at all it seems.

Meahwhile, Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean are supposed to be happy at losing their protected markets in Britian for sugar and bananas, the sidelining of the Commonwealth in preference to the EU and ..... well that's about it I think.