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Dr. Goulda A. Downer, a Jamaican-born top official at Howard University's College of Medicine in Washington, DC, was recently awarded a US$400,000 Ford Foundation grant, to provide mentoring opportunities to Caribbean clinicians who are interested in honing their skills in HIV diagnosis, treatment, care, and support. The Principal Investigator and Project Director for the National Minority AIDS Education and Training...

Acting Executive Director of the Financial Services Commission (FSC), George Roper, has called on Caribbean insurance regulators to move quickly to improve the regulatory system across the region. Mr. Roper, who was addressing the opening of the Caribbean Association of Insurance Regulators Conference in Montego Bay, St. James yesterday (Dec. 4), expressed support for views articulated recently by Prime Minister...

Minister of State in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Michael Stern, has said that persons in rural Jamaica are serious about taking advantage of opportunities in the export sector. Speaking at the opening of the Export Centre and Business Information Point, in the St. Elizabeth Co-operative Credit Union Complex in Santa Cruz, on December 4, the State Minister...

Come February 2009, the Jamaica Film Academy (JFA), through the Ministry of Information, Culture, Youth and Sports (MICYS), will host the second annual Reggae Film Festival, at Emancipation Park, in Kingston. This will be carried out under the direction of the Ministry's Consultant, Barbara Blake Hannah, and British film archivist, Peter Gittins. In an interview with JIS News, Ms. Hannah...

Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Audley Shaw, today (December 5), signed three loan agreements, totalling US$101 million, with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), in Washington. Two of the loans are policy-based, amounting to some US$90 million, while the other is a direct loan of US$11 million. The larger of the two policy-based loans amounts to US$60 million, and...

Prime Minister Bruce Golding, says Spanish investment in Jamaica is part of what will help take the country through this difficult economic period. He said if there was any doubt, then the society should pause and contemplate what Jamaica's situation would be today, if the Spanish entrepreneurs were not as active and aggressive as they are, in keeping those flights...

The revived School Garden Programme, administered by the Jamaica 4-H Clubs, is moving apace in the parish of St. Elizabeth. This programme, which was relaunched on October 10 by Minister of State in the Ministry of Agriculture, J. C. Hutchinson, is seeking to establish and restore some 23 school gardens in each parish, in one year. Co-ordinator for the programme...

Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Audley Shaw, has said that the Government is maintaining strict fiscal prudence, given the global economic crisis that has led to a credit crunch on the international market. "Given the limitation of global financing, it is important for us to strive to maintain our deficit target, and despite the pressures for additional expenditure...

Jamaica's Ambassador to the United States, Anthony Johnson has challenged overseas Jamaicans and persons of colour, to work to improve their circumstances. Addressing an audience of Jamaicans and friends of the island at the 20th anniversary ball of the Committee for the Economic Redevelopment of Jamaica (CERJ) in New York recently, Ambassador Johnson said that the time was opportune for...

The National Parent Teachers' Association of Jamaica (NPTAJ), will be undertaking a Best PTA Award Competition, in an effort to identify and salute those organisations that are doing well. The competition was launched in October and PTAs will be judged on their performance over the 10-month period from November 1, 2008 to August 31, 2009. President of the NPTAJ, Miranda...

The National Centre for Youth Development (NCYD), will join the rest of the world in observing International Volunteers Day (IVD) tomorrow, December 5, with a work day at the Mines Basic School, in St. Ann. In an interview with JIS News, Youth Empowerment Officer for the NCYD, St. Ann region, Gavin Myers, explained that the scope of work would be...

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), earlier this week, began an islandwide roll out of its revamped breathalyser programme, geared at catching motorists who partake in the illegal practice of Driving Under the Influence (DUI). Speaking at the launch in Kingston, Commanding Officer of the Traffic and Highway Division, Superintendent Fred Hibbert, appealed to drivers across the island to refrain from...