Simon Cowell wants to return to the US

Simon Cowell

Simon Cowell is planning to move back to America. The music mogul is said to be ‘open’ to returning to Los Angeles with homesick girlfriend Lauren Silverman and their nine-month-old son Eric. He plans to relaunch ‘The X Factor’ in the US.

A source said: “Lauren regularly flies to and from the US and UK and she has admitted to Simon she’s still homesick for America and wants to move back. She says she’s struggled to make new friends and misses her old life.

She wants them to move back to LA once X Factor is finished. Simon is open to the idea. He’s frustrated at how X Factor has fared in the UK ratings this year and is contemplating trying to re-launch the show in the US”

Insiders claim Simon, 55, plans to rework the talent show in a bid to revive it Stateside and boost his own profile.

The source added to Closer magazine: “Simon’s keen for a new concept for the American version. It will be much more about bands and older acts rather than younger novelty singers.

Lauren supports him and would love to be based in the US with him. He’s already in informal talks to make a pilot of the show in the States, to get the whole idea up and running. He wants to blow America away and get back his crown as the King of Entertainment. Lauren thinks Eric can still have the best of both worlds if they have a main base in LA and pop back to London when they need to.”

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Simon Cowell wants to return to the US

Simon Clarke to lead education consultations

BY GARFIELD MYERS Edititor-at-Large, South/Central Bureau myersg@jamaicaobserver.com

MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Chairman of the National Council on Education, Dr Simon Clarke, is to oversee consultations with “stakeholder groups” and the public regarding the proposed review of the education regulations of 1980, Education Minister Ronnie Thwaites has announced.Clarke, a retired educator, is a former UNESCO Caribbean director and education advisor for the region.Describing the review as the “core of many of the intended improvements in the education system”, Thwaites told a Manchester Chamber of Commerce forum last Thursday that the consultations will “begin this month and we hope to complete them by early next year”.Thwaites said the timetable was to have the amended regulations approved by Parliament during the legislative year.According to Thwaites, the regulations that require review “have to do with the governance of schools, responsibilities and procedures of school boards. It also has to do with rewarding and disciplining of students.Thwaites that social dynamics had rendered the disciplinining of students in schools more complex than had been the case in the past and there was need to provide guidance for teachers.“The fact is that the social fabric in many parts of Jamaica in many schools is not what it was in many parts of Jamaica a generation or two ago and many teachers and school principals are completely at a disadvantage now because what they can do in relation to student behaviour and student conduct is completely inadequate given the social inadequacies of many students,” the minister said.In apparent reference to the Ministry of Education’s ban on corporal punishment, the minister said: “We will not go back to the brutality of a previous era but we must find creative and constructive ways in order to insist that our students recognise that school is not any romping shop; that teachers cannot spend 15 minutes of the class creating order before you can begin to teach the lesson and that this is a pearl of too great price for us to waste on deviant behaviour.”Regarding revision of regulations affecting school boards, Thwaites told the Observer that the “regulations and procedures that govern them are in my view unhelpfully complicated and it is that aspect that will have to be revised.”The minister said he expects that amended regulations will make it easier for school boards and principals “to do their jobs and place more authority in their hands.”The revised regulations would also require greater accountability from educators, he told the Chamber of Commerce.“Our teachers for whom we have the greatest respect need to be accountable in new ways for their conduct and performance,” he said. “This is not to be seen as onerous but there is no job in the world where strong standards of accountability are absent, and therefore the regulations need to be looked at with a new vigour,” said Thwaites.Thwaites said that a companion measure to revising the education regulations “will be the eneactment of the Jamaica Teaching Council Bill which will over see the professionalisation of teachers and their functioning”.He told Manchester business leaders that the “piece of legislation” had been inherited in draft form from the previous Jamaica Labour Party Administration and will be carried to completion after one year and more of consultations with teachers’ representatives, parents and churches who were the “sponsoring agencies of many schools”.CLARKE… served as director of UNESCO Caribbean and education advisor for the region

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Simon Clarke to lead education consultations

Caribbean joins OAS in paying tribute to Simon Bolivar

WASHINGTON, DC, United States CMC) — Permanent representatives from the region at the Organisation of American States (OAS) have joined the hemispheric body in paying tribute to Simon Bolivar’s legacy, while commemorating the 230th anniversary of his birth.

The OAS said its Permanent Council on Wednesday held a protocolary session during which representatives paid tribute to the “memory, work and legacy” of the Latin American revolutionary.Diplomats “recalled the continued validity of his thinking and the need to continue working for the unity and freedom of the peoples of the Americas,” the OAS said.Speaking on behalf of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), the permanent representative of Trinidad and Tobago, Neil Parsan, referred to the challenges facing the region, warning that many of them have been around since the days of Bolivar.“The Hemisphere has witnessed positive changes that have occurred since then, but a lot still remains to be done. Our Hemisphere struggles with a high degree of inequality, poverty and the scourges associated with the drug trade, trafficking of illegal guns, violence, human trafficking and the exploitation of women and children,” he added, while praising the ideals of “this great regional hero we are proud to honour today.”Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the OAS and vice chair of the council, Deborah-Mae Lovell, said the celebration continues the tradition established in 1986 to institutionalise an annual tribute to the ‘Liberator’.The permanent representative of the Dominican Republic, Roberto Saladín Selin, meanwhile, mentioned his country’s historical ties with Simon Bolivar, as well as the “spark of freedom that he ignited in the Hemisphere”.He referred to the career of the liberator, his speeches, campaigns and struggles, saying that “no man deserves more the title of ‘Man of the Americas’, because he not only overflowed the borders of several countries of the Hemisphere, but also became the firmest personality of the history of Hispanic America.”

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Caribbean joins OAS in paying tribute to Simon Bolivar