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All Jamaicans will have access to affordable, safe and legal housing solutions by 2025, Minister of Water and Housing, Donald Buchanan told the House of Representatives, yesterday (June 15). Making his contribution to the 2005/06 Sectoral Debate, the Minister said that notwithstanding the success of the past, there were still major challenges to be faced, especially in providing housing solutions...

Water and Housing Minister Donald Buchanan has said that with the National Water Commission (NWC) should realize annual savings in excess of $30 million, with the completion of its organizational restructuring process. Minister Buchanan, who was making his contribution to the 2005/06 Sectoral Debate in Gordon House on June 15, said that the restructuring of the management team of the...

The National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) is again appealing to the public to donate blood, due to the critically low blood levels at its collection centres. This appeal comes two days after World Blood Donor Day (June 14), when the NBTS issued an appeal to the public to donate more blood to save lives. The situation has become so grim,...

The Half-Way-Tree Transportation Centre, currently under construction, will comprise a state of the art facility featuring two levels for arriving and departing buses as well as appropriate facilities and comfortable surroundings for the commuting public. As stated in the Ministry of Transport and Works' Highlights of Agency Performance 2004/2005 report, which was tabled in the House of Representatives on June...

Of all the sources of lead poisoning, used lead acid batteries are considered the most dangerous, Professor Gerald Lalor, Director of the International Centre for Environmental and Nuclear Sciences (ICENS), has said. He said while cases of lead poisoning have been associated with some containers that store rum and exposure to lead mine waste, by far too many cases were...

Project Manager for the government's Information and Communication Technology (ICT) project, Richard Gordon has said that more than 850 persons have registered to use the online system for paying taxes, since the facility was put in place in December last year. The e-payment facility, Mr. Gordon said, was designed to make it easier for persons to do business with government...

Eight months after the launch of Operation Kingfish, National Security Minister, Dr. Peter Phillips has credited the special task force initiative as being instrumental in leading to 200 arrests, the seizure of 12 tonnes of cocaine, and nearly 100 illegal firearms being confiscated. Minister Phillips said Operation Kingfish was launched "with the aim of dismantling organised criminal gangs, and to...

Jamaica AIDS Support's on-going fight against HIV/AIDS in western Jamaica, received a boost yesterday (June 15), when a partnership was successfully established with the Jamaica Public Service Company Limited (JPS). The partnership will see the JPS spending some $5 million in cash and kind over a three-year period, supporting and enhancing the activities of Jamaica AIDS Support, which include a...

The Jamaica 4-H Club Warminster Training Centre in St. Elizabeth will be augmenting its peanut production business by engaging in the manufacturing of value-added products such as peanut butter. The clubbites grow peanuts on a 1.3 hectare-plot (four acres) and the produce is sold mainly to the informal sector. According to Regional Coordinator for the Jamaica 4-H Clubs, Ronald Blake,...

Members of the 4-H Club at the St. Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) now have a new and re-stocked poultry house, which was rehabilitated at a cost of $300,000 by the Council for Voluntary Social Services (CVSS)/United Way of Jamaica. The sum was given as part of the efforts of the organization to assist in the rehabilitation of the agricultural...

The port security programme, which was carried out to meet the requirements of the International Maritime Organization's International Ship and Port Facility Security (IMO ISPS) Code was successfully completed, making Jamaica one of the first countries to be accorded security certification for its ports. Transport and Works Minister, who made the announcement in Gordon House on June 14, informed that...

Delroy Palmer, Clarendon Parish Manager for the Ministry of Labour and Social Security has said that assessment of earthquake damage would continue until the end of the week and a report submitted to head office in Kingston for assistance to be organized. Some 23 families in North Clarendon are said to have suffered property loss or damage from the earthquake,...