Also known as Monkey Island, Pellew Island is one of Jamaica’s small, near-shore islands. Located just off the San San coast near Port Antonio, Pellew Island is an important part of Jamaica’s natural heritage and an iconic image of our northeastern coast. Originally part of Cold Harbour Estates, it was purchased in 1953 by Baron Heinrich Thyssen as a Valentine’s gift for his fiancée, and has been privately owned ever since. The current owner plans to construct four villas on the island. This is likely to result in significant environmental impact, both during the construction phase and afterwards, as well as the loss of access to the beach.... click on "Save Monkey Island" on the left.

On Wednesday evening the chairman of NCB, Michael Lee Chin, made a memorable return to his hometown of Port Antonio where he unveiled the opening of an NCB branch located on West Street, Port Antonio... click on "Native Returns" on the left.

Jamaica has produced some extremely wealthy expatriates with a Toronto connection, including AIC Ltd.'s Michael Lee-Chin and Ray Chang of C.I. Fund Management Inc., who both reside in the GTA. Chang is the chancellor of Ryerson University and donated $5 million to the institution, and Lee Chin made a $30 million donation to the Royal Ontario Museum. But while both men made the bulk of their fortune in Canada, Gordon "Butch" Stewart is Jamaica's first homegrown would-be billionaire... click on "Butch Stewart" on the left.

Sailing from Santa Cruz, in the eastern Solomons, it took us five days to reach Anuta. It was one of the most tedious journeys I have made, the continuous pitching of our small yacht making it impossible to either read or write. So it was with some relief when the speck of land that was Anuta finally appeared on the horizon... click on "Anuta" on the left.

Hotels in Beijing are slashing room rates for next month's Olympics after tighter security - among other measures dashed an expected windfall of visitors, hotels and travel industry executives said Tuesday... click on "Hotel Rates" on the left.

Since the Soviet fall, Russian generals, intelligence chiefs and foreign policy personnel have often waxed philosophic about the inevitability of a global alliance to hem in U.S. power -- often using the rhetoric of a "multipolar world." Central in all of these plans has been not only the implied leadership of Russia, but the implied presence of China. At first glance, the two seem natural partners. China has a booming manufacturing economy, while Russia boasts growing exports of raw materials. But a closer look at the geography of the two paints a very different picture, while the history of the two tells an extraordinarily different story. If anything, it is no small miracle that the two have never found themselves facing each other in a brutal war ... click on "China Russia" on the left.

The U.S. media is loudly protesting the censorship of their reporters at the Olympics in Beijing. Betraying its promise to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), China has blocked reporters' access to "sensitive" websites, including those that mention human rights violations, the suppression of the Falun Gong religious group, the Tiananman Square uprising and other similar topics the Chinese government would like to imagine never happened ... click on "Censorship" on the left.

A Nebraska television website reports in a recent article that fluoride is completely safe for ingestion via the water supply. They also state that ingesting fluoride helps prevent tooth decay. Research, however, shows otherwise... click on "Fluoride" on the left.

The only known consumer to have developed the health condition known as "popcorn lung" is suing the stores that sold him his microwave popcorn, saying that they failed to warn him that he could become ill from using the product as intended... click on "Popcorn" on the left.