MANDELA Park in Half-Way-Tree, St Andrew will be closed to the public as of today for refurbishing and is expected to reopen a month later with a new ambience and increased security.

The public park, which up to two years ago was a haven for numerous homeless persons and drug addicts, is to receive a facelift by the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) Parks and Gardens Division.

Executive director of the NSWMA Joan Gordon-Webley told the Observer yesterday that the facelift will include the planting of new flowers, painting of the facility, as well as infrastructural work to the bathrooms and the perimeter walls to prevent persons from scaling them to vandalise the park.

"We want to put in new plants and paint the facility so that the park can become a place for persons to go and sit and enjoy themselves and also to facilitate events being held there," she said.

Additionally, Gordon-Webley said the NSWMA is hoping to have water piped to the park through the National Water Commission to replace the water tanks, which are currently the only water source for the sanitary conveniences there.

"While the main gates to the park will be closed we want to notify the public that the sanitary conveniences will remain open so they can access them from a gate on the outside," she told the Observer.

According to Gordon-Webley, some walls and fencing which were knocked down will be replaced while others will be constructed higher to prevent persons from scaling them.

"Although the bathrooms are there, some persons come over the fence and do everything right there on the ground, and I am not talking about just urinating," she said.

Following the completion of the work, the NSWMA boss said the park will be better supervised to ensure that it remains in good condition.

She explained that the park has been run down, with the NSWMA receiving no funding to take care of the many needs there, necessitating a full closure of the facility to undergo the refurbishing work.

While the project has a market value of approximately $10 million, Gordon-Webley said it is expected to cost the NSWMA much less, given that all of the work will be done through the Parks and Gardens Division.

"That means no contracts will be given, so even if we hire a mason he will be paid at the regular wages of what is being paid in-house," she said.

Additionally, she said a lot of what is needed, such as the plants, are already owned by the Parks and Gardens division.

"We already have up to 30,000 plants in the Parks and Gardens division and we will be using a lot of those... so this will greatly minimise the cost," she explained.

Gordon-Webley said the NSWMA will be ensuring that the work is done within the proposed timeline. 

TWO men charged with possession of, dealing in, taking steps to export ganja and conspiracy to export ganja were each offered bail in the sum of $10 million with one or two sureties when they appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court last Tuesday.

Sixty-two-year-old businessmen Leopold Bromley and Donald Davis were offered bail by Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey on condition that they report to the Narcotics Police on Mondays between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm.

Both men are charged along with 32-year-old Oneil Seabourne, 35-year-old Nigel Seabourne, 38-year-old Mark Dobney, 34-year-old Michael Rodney, and 43-year-old Errol Tyrell, all of Red Hills addresses in St Andrew. The men, who were previously released on $500,000 bail, are facing similar charges and their bails were extended.

The men were arrested during a police operation on June 23 at a factory on Ken Hill Drive, Pembroke Hall, in Kingston where police said they found the drugs during a search.

The police reported that on their arrival they saw the accused men loading bottles of cranberry water, which was destined for South Africa, on to a 40-foot container.

The police ordered the men to stop and searched the premises where they said they found 184 carton boxes containing parcels of ganja in a storeroom. The drugs seized weighed 11,592 pounds, the police said.

The police also alleged that they were informed that Bromley had given Davis permission to use the premises to store the cranberry water, but that the ganja was transported to the premises in a smaller truck.

The police said that Bromley had instructed the other men to offload that truck and to place the ganja in the storeroom.

All the accused men are to return to court on August 26. 

 THE Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) said it booted 149 cops from its ranks between January and July this year in what it admitted was an aggressive and ongoing campaign to rid the police force of cops who continued to operate unprofessionally.

Head of the Anti-Corruption Branch, Assistant Commissioner Justin Felice yesterday said the number of cops dismissed in the first seven months of the year was close to the number given marching orders for the entire 2009.

A police news release yesterday said that 34 of the dismissals were effected last month.

According to the news release, between January and July, 105 cops were not permitted to re-enlist, 26 were retired in the public interest, and 18 were cashiered as a result of corruption.

Another 21 cops have been charged with breaches of the Corruption Prevention Act and are now before the courts.

One gazetted officer, four sergeants and one special sergeant were listed among 36 cops arrested for corruption breaches. Also arrested were three corporals, 19 constables, one special corporal, six special constables, and one district constable.

Assistant Commissioner Felice said that in addition to corruption, some of the cops were dismissed for unprofessional behaviour.

He said that removing rouge policemen and women from the constabulary was always a difficult task. However, one method being used to achieve this goal was rigorous review of the services of members when they come up for re-enlistment every five years.

He said those cops found to be involved in corrupt activities or whose actions or attitude were not in keeping with what the JCF required would not get their contracts renewed.

Felice also warned that the drive would be intensified in coming months.

"We are going to be working hard over the next three months and year to rid the force of anybody who is not up to the standards required," said Felice.

He also warned that part of the drive going forward was to also target civilians who attempted to corrupt policemen and women.

That point was highlighted in yesterday's news release which reported that since the start of the year 10 civilians have been charged for corrupting members of the JCF.

The release also said that a total of 55 personts (36 police and 19 civilians) have been arrested since the start of this year for corruption breaches. Of the 55, males numbered 50.

Last year, former head of the St Catherine North Police, Superintendent Harry 'Bungles' Daley, became the most senior Jamaican police officer to be found guilty of a crime.

Daley, accused of collecting protection money, was found guilty of the corruption charges that were levelled against him. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. However, he is on bail pending the hearing of an appeal. 

A sex tape of screen goddess Marilyn Monroe has sold for a whopping 1.5 million dollars - but the new owner is adamant that people will not get to see it. The 15-minute black and white video was said to have been shot in the 1950s, before the sultry star became famous the world over.

The tape, which was found by memorabilia collector Keya Morgan as he researched a documentary on the star, shows Monroe performing a sex act on an unidentified man.He said that there was no doubt about the actress' identity."You see instantly it's Marilyn Monroe - she has the famous mole.

She's radiant," The Sun quoted him, as saying. Morgan came to know about the tape from an ex-FBI agent who told him about an informant who tipped off the spy agency about its existence in the 1960s, a time when then FBI chief J Edgar Hoover was trying to prove that the sultry star was involved with President John F Kennedy or his brother Bobby.

Edited declassified FBI documents state the informant "exhibited to agents a motion picture which depicted Marilyn Monroe committing a perverted act." Morgan revealed that this informant made a copy of the porn tape, which went to his son after his death. Morgan traced the son and acted as broker in the sale of the video to a New York businessman, who plans to lock it away to protect Monroe's reputation.

"I'm just going to lock it up. I'm not going to sell it out of respect," Morgan quoted the businessman as telling him. According to declassified documents, Marilyn's ex husband, baseball hero Joe DiMaggio, also tried to buy the film for 12,000 pounds but failed in his attempts.

Fantasia Barrino is under a self-imposed lockdown -- after the "American Idol" champ received a threatening letter.

It all started Saturday night at the Pantages Theater in L.A. -- Fantasia was reading her fan mail after a performance of "The Color Purple."

Fantasia's manager tells us Barrino became alarmed over a disturbing letter loaded with racial slurs -- including the n-word -- and a line that read, "go back where you came from and die."

We're told the person who wrote the letter claims he used to work as a security guard for Fox while Fantasia was on "A.I."

50 Cent will drastically change his image for his new role in the upcoming movie Things Fall Apart, which is being produced through his Cheetah Vision Films.