Lost in all the fuss and attention being made over Iraq, Iran and North Korea, is the escalation in the atrocities affecting our African brothers and sisters in the Sudan and Chad. Over the past years there has been continuous Arab-African clashes in Sudan’s Darfur region, which has resulted in the violent death of thousands of African men, women and children, and the rape and disfigurement of thousands of women. All this is happening while America concentrates on the Iraq war, with hardly a comment on the Sudanese situation.

However, we need to raise the public’s awareness of what is going on in the sub-Saharan African region, and seek more international intervention before the situation worsens. Enough African blood has been shed in recent years in Rawanda, Uganda, Liberia and other African nations for us to just gloss over these atrocities. People from the Caribbean speak so often about their birthright allegiance to Africa. So many of us have spoken, and made songs about our wanting to be repatriated to Africa. Some of us even worship an apostle who descended from Africa – His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie. Indeed, the map of Africa is an icon of black power to many Caribbean nationals. But, how many us of are aware of, or even care about what is happening to our kin in African regions like Darfur, Sudan and now Chad?

Migrants from the Caribbean continue to be amazed at the nature of political campaigns in this country. jost us are familiar with the type of political campaign, back home, that focuses on political meetings held on main streets, town squares or prominent public parks; elaborate newspaper ad campaigns, and political motorcades with candidates driving through the streets with sound system blaring party slogans, and songs.

Now, living in America, we find political campaign is vastly different. The campaigns here are largely television events, featuring sound bites, debates and political advertisement.

To us the nature of political advertising is shocking, blatantly maligning opposing candidate’s character and self worth. Ads all over the country tend to be jostly negative and personal, some being downright slanderous.

“Sixty-two million for new jail…” was part of a headline in a recent edition of the Miami Herald newspaper. That headline assailed the few last good nerves that we thought we had left. We are simply past sick, tired and frustrated to hear, or read of plans to build new jails, not only in South Florida, but in any place, any country. There are plans afoot to build a new jail in Pompano, Broward, to alleviate the problem of overpopulated jails in the county. We would have felt much better and more encouraged if the headlines read, “$62 million to address social problems of communities…”

Jails, we will always contend, are a “Band-Aid” for crime. Just like the little strip of a bandage temporarily stops the bleeding, without getting to the source, so it is that jails may temporarily halt crime, but they don’t cure the root causes.

We admit that jails are unfortunate, but necessary, institutions in any society because there are, and always will be, evil people in a society who will remain resistant to any attempt to change their anti-social behavior. At the same time there are thousands of individuals who are not evil, who are in jail because society has not paid sufficient attention to their social or psychological needs, which are often interrelated. We are not making this statement as just an unfounded theory, but rather one based on observed facts realized through two separate experiences, which brought to our attention that criminal activities are the result of social weaknesses.

Ah! The world of politics. Last week while we were busy focusing on the fallout from Mark Foley’s e-mail scandal, Jamaica was involved in its own political mess. This involved a J$31-million contribution to the People's National Party from Trafigura Beheer, a private company marketing oil (originally purchased from Nigeria by Jamaica) on behalf of the government of Jamaica. The incident escalated into massive allegations, denials, accusations, and ultimately the resignation of Colin Campbell, from the Jamaican senate, Cabinet and as general secretary of the PNP.

However, the matter needs careful analysis before we allow party political preferences to cloud both common sense and sound judgment.

With countries like Jamaica and other Caribbean countries lacking proper political financing regulations, as is present in Britain and the United States, questionable political funding will continue to come in from various sources.

This is not the first time that there has been controversy surrounding financial contributions being made to political parties in Jamaica. Both major parties have been accused in the past of accepting funds from dubious sources, some with criminal implications, both nationally and internationally.

Seems like the Republicans are taking another hit with a series of new scandals and as the Mark Foley incident unfolds no one knows how much this will affect the polls. Saying that the recent disclosures pertaining to Republican Foley, representing Florida’s District 16 in the U.S. Congress is hypocritical is a gross understatement.

Foley resigned from Congress last week after ABC News published sexually provocative e-mail and instant messages he sent to teenage male pages. Now the Republican Party, the FBI, the media and other investigative bodies are sifting through files and various sources to get to the bottom it – and so the finger pointing begins.

Up to press time Kirk Fordham, a top aide to Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y started fingering Republican congressional leaders, accusing them of “trying to shift the blame on me,” and tendered his resignation Wednesday. He said he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s office about former Rep. Mark Foley’s sexually driven communication with teenage pages more than three years ago, long before officials have acknowledged becoming aware of the issue. Fordham, said he was resigning and speaking out to rebut implications that he interceded with Republican leaders to protect Foley whom he worked with prior to Reynolds.