Director at the Heart Foundation and Consultant Emergency Physician, Dr. Hugh Wong, has appealed to Jamaicans to do something to help if someone is having a cardiac arrest. “Don’t just stand by and look, do something to assist,” he urged, as he addressed a Jamaica Information Service ‘Think Tank’, recently. “Oxygen-starved brain cells begin to die and the individual can...

Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Senator the Hon. Ruel Reid, says that all of the island’s 171 high schools now have metal detectors. Most institutions are equipped with handheld scanners. “We have some walk-through detectors now being installed in selected schools and another 200 (handheld) devices are being procured to ensure that defective ones are readily replaced,” Senator Reid...

Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Audley Shaw, is encouraging local rum-manufacturing companies to produce more high-quality products and market them within the Caribbean region. During a factory tour of National Rums of Jamaica and Clarendon Distillers Limited in Lionel Town, Clarendon, on June 14, Mr. Shaw said Jamaica’s rum-manufacturing companies can earn millions annually from the regional...

The Ministry of Local Government and Community Development will be providing $1 million to the Poor Relief Department of the St. Catherine Municipal Corporation, to assist needy individuals in the parish. This was announced by portfolio Minister, Hon. Desmond McKenzie, who said the needy cases will be identified and addressed at the discretion of the department. “We are doing this...

The European Union (EU) Delegation is introducing a new financing mechanism called ‘Blending’, which involves the mixing of EU grants, with loans from other international development partners. Speaking at a recently held JIS Think Tank, First Counsellor and Head of Cooperation at the EU Delegation, Ricardo Bardia Divins said this will allow the government to leverage EU grant resources, in...

Hundreds of young Jamaicans are being exposed to tertiary training this summer through an internship programme at the University of Technology (UTech). The programme is being carried out through a partnership between UTech and the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ), which has been developed to enable the interns between 18 and 35 years of age to get a pre-university experience...

Organisers of festivals have benefited from a training seminar aimed at strengthening their capacity to stage such events. The Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport and the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) partnered with the British Council to host the one-day seminar, dubbed ‘Festival X’, at The Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston on Wednesday (June 13). The event...

Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Audley Shaw, says the early decision to move aggressively towards energy diversification makes Jamaica less susceptible to the volatility of oil prices in the global market. He noted that developments in liquefied natural gas (LNG), wind and solar will provide a total of 410 megawatts of alternative energy to the national grid...

Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Senator the Hon. Ruel Reid, says a Special Education Policy has been developed and is ready for Cabinet submission. He made the disclosure at a back-to-school conference for regions one, two and six, held at the Jamaica Conference Centre on June 14. “We have never had a special-education policy, and we need to put...