WESTERN BUREAU: Funding to spark recovery after hurricanes and other natural disasters in the Caribbean and Latin America could become a major feature of the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) suite of loans to countries in the region. Teresa...
Western Bureau: David Rosenblatt, regional economic adviser of the country department Caribbean Group, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), has said the Caribbean should begin to look at strengthening its domestic market instead of focusing on...
WESTERN BUREAU: The Jamaica Racing Commission will be moving its operations to the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission (BGLC) in Kingston as part of ongoing steps to merge the three independent gaming regulators into one major regulatory state...
WESTERN BUREAU: Montego Bay’s mayor, Councillor Homer Davis, last week came down on the side of small ganja farmers, declaring that they cannot afford the high cost to acquire a cannabis licence and are basically being locked out of the lucrative...
WESTERN BUREAU: Lambert Johnson, president of the Cornwall Bar Association, has said that he has assembled a task force of defence attorneys to ensure that persons detained under the states of emergency (SOE) in St James, Hanover, and...
Western Bureau: Deputy Commissioner of Police Clifford Blake is lamenting that at any given time of the night, as many as 40 children can be found sleeping in prams or otherwise engaged at major entertainment events being staged across the island...
WESTERN BUREAU: Following last weekend’s child justice guidelines training seminar in Hanover, the Office of the Children’s Advocate believes that police personnel from across the county of Cornwall are now better equipped to treat the needs of the...
WESTERN BUREAU: Deputy Commissioner of Police Clifford Blake has revealed that there are no child-friendly holding areas in any police station across the island. He made the revelation while speaking at an Office of the Children’s Advocate training...
Western Bureau: Rosalee Gage-Grey, chief executive officer of the Child Protection and Family Services Agency, says that part of the country’s mental health problems stems from acts of violence and crime being perpetrated against children leaving...
WESTERN BUREAU: Minister of Science, Energy and Technology Fayval Williams says that Petrojam will be ready to supply low-suphur fuels in keeping with new international regulations for marine fuel that will take effect in January. Under the new...
WESTERN BUREAU: Minister of Local Government Desmond McKenzie says that he is satisfied with the pace of the ongoing construction of the Montego Bay fire station. The Barrett Street-based building is being constructed at a cost of $534.9 million....
WESTERN BUREAU: Omar Robinson, president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), says that his association will be donating US$20,000 to assist the Bahamas with recovery from Hurricane Dorian. The category 5 hurricane left more than US...
WESTERN BUREAU: Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett has announced that the Government has finalised the sale of approximately 300 acres of state-owned lands in Salem, St Ann, to the Karisma Hotel and Resorts group. Under the ‘Sugar Cane Project’,...
Western Bureau: President of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) Howard Mitchell has cautioned both the Government and the private sector against corrupting or polluting the country’s indigenous ganja strains. Mitchell, who was...
Western Bureau: The Reverend Hartley Perrin, the chairman of the Clifton Boys’ Home in Darliston, Westmoreland, is bemoaning the lack of Government support in the rebuilding of the facility, which was razed by fire two and a half years ago. The...
WESTERN BUREAU: Omar Robinson, president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), wants the State and the private sector to work together to create a supportive environment that embraces persons suffering from mental illness as a way of...
WESTERN BUREAU: Former Mexican President Vicente Fox, a prominent advocate for legalising marijuana, will again be among the high-profile guests in Jamaica for next month’s fourth staging of the CanEx Jamaica Business Conference and Expo. Douglas...
WESTERN BUREAU: Owen Speid, newly invested president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), is recommending that the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examination be administered over the course of a single week, instead of the existing arrangement,...
WESTERN BUREAU: Byron Farquharson, secretary general of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), wants to see a fast-tracking of hearings by the tribunal looking into cases against teachers who are suspended or dismissed. Of the 20 dismissal cases...
WESTERN BUREAU: Dr Garth Anderson, the outgoing Jamaica Teachers’ Association president, is lamenting that the nation’s teachers are still facing a major struggle to meet their basic needs because of their meagre salaries. In May last year, the...
WESTERN BUREAU: Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Janet Silvera is expressing disappointment that the media coverage of the just-concluded Reggae Sumfest 2019 did not highlight Montego Bay as the host city in a more substantial...
WESTERN BUREAU: Godfrey Dyer, chairman of the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF), has said he wants to see the country’s murder rate drop below 16 per 100,000 and is prepared to support extensions to the ongoing state of public emergency (SOE) in...
WESTERN BUREAU: Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) Chairman Godfrey Dyer says huge opportunities are on the horizon for Montego Bay as the new town centre bypass will create a gateway to new business prospects. Work on the Montego Bay bypass – a 15-...
Western Bureau: With an oversubscribed demand for commercial space in Montego Bay, stakeholders are bemoaning a decision by the Government to establish a sewage treatment pond in the Bogue area of the Second City. The P.J. Patterson-led...
Western Bureau: Peoples National Party (PNP) Vice-President Mikhail Phillips has issued an apology on behalf of the 81-year-old party for any acts of corruption the party, which is currently led by his father, Dr Peter Phillips, may have been...
