News stories by Kathy Barrett

Although located over 9,500 kilometres from the North African country of Libya, the turmoil there has not left the leaders of some small Caribbean nations unscathed.

For the last 50 years, Jamaica's modern history has been shaped by two powerful parties - the Jamaica Labour Party and the People's National Party. Although dozens of others have periodically emerged, the political graveyard has inevitably been their final resting place.

'I am very much afraid...I'm traumatised,' sobbed Marsha, as she recounted the violence that ripped through the constituency of West Kingston last month as police and soldiers searched for Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, the reputed head of one of the most notorious criminal organisations in the Western hemisphere.

This week's ongoing standoff in Jamaica, in which 73 people have been killed as police search for a wanted gang leader in the Tivoli Gardens neighbourhood of Kingston, is focusing renewed international attention on the island's seemingly intractable violent crime rate.

Classrooms emptied and business owners pulled down their shutters this week as the word spread that the Jamaican government had finally signed an extradition request from the United States for alleged gang leader Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.

The shortage of nurses throughout the Caribbean has reached chronic proportions, in a region already struggling with an ailing health care system.

On the evening of Jan. 12 when Haiti was devastated by a massive earthquake, Jamaica, which lies just 160 kilometres to the west, sought to assure President René Préval that Jamaica was is in the process of organising a 'practical response' to their plight.

It's just before midnight, and the music pulsates through the massive speakers perched under the ceiling, scantily clad girls in their five-inch heels moving closer to the iron poles.

For years, Jamaica's correctional system has been under the glare of the international spotlight.