Disaster management officials are facing a number of challenges going into the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, which begins today.
There are 16 storms predicted for 2008, two to five of which are expected to become major hurricanes, but the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emer-gency Management (ODPEM) says preparations for the upcoming season are not ideal.
Already this week, the first tropical storm, Alma, formed and subsequently weakened.
"Nationally, I think we are better than last year and those signs are always encouraging," ODPEM Director General Ronald Jackson told The Gleaner this week, ahead of a press briefing held at his Camp Road office in central Kingston yesterday.
Bruce shuns Bush?
Prime Minister Bruce Golding has turned down two invitations to have face-to-face talks with United States President George W. Bush.
This has sparked concern of a possible rift in the relationship between Jamaica House and the White House, particularly as Golding has jetted off to Havana, Cuba; Lima, Peru, and London, England, since declining the invi-tations to meet Bush.
The Gleaner confirmed this week that Bush invited Golding to talks in early March and was told by Kingston that the date was not acceptable.
The White House responded with a new date but again, Jamaica House said Golding would not be able to make it.
Bush instead met with the prime ministers of Barbados, The Bahamas and Belize in Washington, DC, on March 20.
Murders spike
Gunmen unleashed a wave of terror on Jamaicans in a number of communities this week, pushing the country's murder toll close to 700 after only five months since the start of the year.
An average of six people died every day this month according to police statistics, as gunmen went on a murderous rampage.
On Monday, police killed two men responsible for the murder of two constables on patrol in Trench Town last weekend.
But by Tuesday, two teenage girls were murdered as gunmen barged into their house on Henderson Avenue in Kingston and sprayed the family house with bullets.
The murders continued Wednesday in broad daylight as gunmen sprayed a group of seven people with bullets as they sat outside a cookshop on Prince of Wales Strret in Allman Town, central Kingston. After the shooting subsided, Margaret Campbell, 26, of 38 Heroes Circle, and Lenroy Moreland, 23, of an unknown address, were dead.
Three others were also murdered in St James, between Tuesday and Wednesday, and on Thursday, another man was killed in Allman Town.
