WATCH: Saint Lucian History, Indigenous Language To Be Taught In Schools – St. Lucia Times News

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: St. Lucia Times News

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Prime Minister Hon. Philip J. Pierre is intent on ensuring students learn about Saint Lucia’s history, its cultural heritage and indigenous language in school.

More in this Rehani Isidore report:

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Source: Office of the Prime Minister. Headline photo: Internet stock image

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Director de la ASEM emite expresiones tras manifestación de profesionales de la salud exigiendo mejores salarios

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: Radio Isla TV

El director general de la Administración de Servicios Médicos (ASEM), Lcdo. Jorge Matta González, emitió declaraciones ante la manifestación que realizaron hoy empleados de ASSMCA, Departamento de Salud, UDH, Pediátrico, Cardiovascular y de la ASEM por mejores salarios y condiciones laborales.

“Respetamos el derecho de los compañeros a manifestarse. Por nuestra parte, estamos enfocados en completar el proceso de desembolso del aumento salarial de reclutamiento que se otorgó a los profesionales de la salud que incluye no sólo a los técnicos de sala de operaciones, sino también a los técnicos quirúrgicos, de suministros estériles, ortopedia, farmacia, asistente dental, prelavado, instrumentos quirúrgicos, oftalmología y tecnólogos de cuidados respiratorios. Esto significa que los nuevos que entrten tendrán ese salario y los que están por debajo, se les ajustará a este nuevo mínimo.

Estamos conscientes de que no es suficiente para la responsabilidad que tienen en sus manos, pero es un buen comienzo. Los aumentos aprobados se comenzarán a recibir en la segunda quincena del mes de agosto y como se autorizaron con carácter retroactivo al 1 de julio, el personal estará recibiendo el aumento en su quincena, más lo adeudado del mes de julio. Esta noticia viene acompañada del aumento de salario base para los enfermeros que también entró en vigor a partir del 1ero de julio.

Este problema de la escasez se viene arrastrando desde hace varios años, pero se visibilizó al declararse la pandemia y ante esa realidad de inmediato en la ASEM hemos actuado. Desde noviembre del año pasado sometimos una petición de aumento salarial en la solicitud presupuestaria para el reclutamiento de personal. Quiero dejar claro que esa solicitud se hizo desde el año pasado y está autorizada.

Por último debo decir que, por órdenes del Gobernador Pedro Pierluisi, actualmente se trabaja con un plan de retribución y reclasificación para todos los empleados de los hospitales del gobierno, el cual debe entrar en vigor en los primeros meses del próximo año”, concluyó.

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Salud reporta seis muertes y 2,316 casos nuevos por COVID-19

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: Radio Isla TV

El informe de COVID-19 del Departamento de Salud (DS) reportó el miércoles, sobre 523 casos positivos confirmados, 1,793 casos probables y seis muertes.

Las personas fallecidas fueron 4 hombres y 2 mujeres de 50 a 92 años de las regiones de Arecibo, Bayamón, Mayagüez y Metropolitano. 4 de ellos estaban sin vacunas al día, uno con vacunas al día y uno no vacunado.

El monitoreo cubre el periodo del 18 de julio de 2022 al 1 de agosto de 2022.

La tasa de positividad está a 32.85 por ciento.

Hay 304 adultos hospitalizados y de ellos, 45 están en intensivo. Mientras, 42 menores están hospitalizados y ninguno está en intensivo. 20 adultos están en ventilador y ningún menor.

Las personas con vacunas al día son 1,006,4981 personas.

El total de muertes atribuidas es de 4,784.

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Prof Sir Hilary Beckles elected to new role on Council of ACU Loop Barbados

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: Barbados News

Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (The UWI), Professor Sir Hilary Beckles has been elected by his peers across the international academic community to serve on the governing Council for the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU).

This new leadership role for Vice-Chancellor Beckles follows his recent appointment by UNESCO in May this year, to serve on the Council of the United Nations University for a six-year term, as well as his recognition as UN Visionary Expert on Higher Education in 2021.

Our Council represents the diversity and strength of Commonwealth cooperation and our Strategic Plan, The Road to 2030

The announcement was made on July 29 in a statement from the ACU, naming the newest members of its governance body who will be responsible for overseeing the association’s activities and determining its future strategic direction. Vice-Chancellor Beckles’ appointment is for three years until August 2025.

The ACU is the world’s first and oldest international university network, established in 1913 to provide a forum for universities to share information, knowledge, and ideas.

The ACU Council comprises Vice-Chancellors from across the Commonwealth, each of whom has been nominated and elected by their peers within the ACU membership network, and will also act as a Trustee for the association. The other new members elected to the Council include Professor Abiodun H. Adebayo from Covenant University, Nigeria; Professor Barney Glover AO from Western Sydney University, Australia; Senior Professor Sudantha Liyanage from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka and Professor Wendy Thomson CBE from University of London, UK.

Commenting on the appointment, Vice-Chancellor Beckles said, “It is indeed an honour to be invited to serve within the ACU, particularly in this capacity to impact its future strategic direction. The University of the West Indies has a legacy of partnership with the Association of Commonwealth Universities that we are proud to continue to nurture in this new dimension of service. This is also another opportunity to deepen my lifelong career engagement in higher education. I am grateful and humbled.”

Welcoming the newly elected Council members, ACU Chief Executive and Secretary General Dr Joanna Newman said, “I am delighted to be welcoming five new members to the ACU’s Council today. Our Council represents the diversity and strength of Commonwealth cooperation and our Strategic Plan, The Road to 2030, makes the case for the role of Higher Education in addressing each of the 17 SDGs. I look forward to working closely with our Council members in our shared mission to build a better world through higher education.”

Chair of ACU Council, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, Professor Cheryl de la Rey, added, “A warm welcome to our newest members of the ACU Council, who join us as the world emerges from a period of unprecedented disruption. They bring with them a wealth of leadership experience and I look forward to sharing in their knowledge, drawing on our diverse communities, and working together to ensure the ACU continues to be a dynamic and exciting global network at the heart of international higher education – now and into the future.”

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CARIBBEAN-FINANCE-After surviving COVID, companies in LAC need help-Report

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The content originally appeared on: Cana News Business

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Slide over, bobsleds. Curling is coming to tropical Jamaica Loop Jamaica

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: Jamaica News Loop News

Slide over, Jamaican bobsledders. A group of expats from the ice-free island are hoping to bring a whole new winter sport to their tropical homeland: curling.

Three decades after Jamaica crashed the Winter Olympics — and then crashed at the Winter Olympics — with the bobsled team made famous in the movie “Cool Runnings,” the country has joined the World Curling Federation (WCF). The status allows it to compete in international events, and the new national governing body is hoping that formal recognition will help the sport break through in a place better known for sprinters, reggae and rum.

“The bobsled team broke the ice — pardon the pun,” Curling Jamaica president Ben Kong said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “Now there’s sort of an acceptance that Jamaicans can compete in any sport, even if it is a winter sport.”

Born on Scottish lochs and most popular among Scandinavians, Scots and Canadians, curling is riding a post-Olympic boost from TV viewers who quadrennially fall in love with the quirky sport with the sweeping and shouting and chess-like strategy. Lately, that’s brought the sport to some new — and non-white — nations.

Since the Pyeongchang Games in 2018, the WCF has recognised federations in the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Bolivia, Turkmenistan, India and Kuwait. Jamaica is the first to join since the Beijing Olympics, earning conditional status last month as the third member from the Caribbean.

WCF president Kate Caithness called it “an exciting milestone for the sport as we continue to increase our members in nontraditional curling nations.”

Curling Jamaica technical director Cristiene Hall-Teravainen, who moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, when she was six, said that after taking up curling in Canada she saw exactly one other person of colour in competitions: a Russian.

“Now with these other countries — with the WCF, I think they’re doing an amazing job of being inclusive, and promoting the sport around the world,” she said. “Africa, India — where there’s minorities playing the sport and loving it — I think it’s going to build and build and build. I see big things in the future.”

Kong, 46, moved to Canada as a baby but didn’t start curling until about a decade ago. “Then came the crazy dream about ‘Why don’t we put a Jamaican curling team together?’” he said.

Crazy, except for one thing: The Caribbean island where ice usually goes in drinks sent a bobsled team to the Olympics in 1988, a fish-out-of-water story chronicled in the 1993 Disney movie “Cool Runnings.”

It was the country’s Winter Games debut, and Jamaicans have competed at every Olympics since except for Turin, in 2006. In Beijing, Benjamin Alexander competed in the giant slalom — another first.

Someday, maybe curling, too.

“They paved the way for Jamaica. It was huge what the bobsled team did,” Hall-Teravainen said. “I don’t think we’re riding their coattails, but we’re marching right behind them.”

In all, Kong has found nine women and five men, 12 of them living in Canada and two in the United States. Most are dual citizens.

Three of the women have competitive experience; Hall-Teravainen is the most accomplished of them, having once competed in Canada’s senior provincial championships. She figures to be the anchor of a Jamaican team that is hoping to compete in the World Mixed Championships in Aberdeen, Scotland, in October.

Of the five men, only one has played competitively. “Our men’s team, while we have enough warm bodies, that team needs some developing,” Kong said.

Curling Jamaica secretary general Andrew Walker, a recreational curler who once won the Monday night house league at his home club, said finding other Jamaican curlers was “a lightbulb moment” for him.

Now he sees a spark in other Jamaicans’ eyes when they watch him curl.

“A young lady came up to me and said, ‘You know, I wasn’t going to come but then I saw you and I thought, “Hey, I can do that, too,”‘” he said. “It gives people the permission to go out and give it a try. They can see someone like themselves.

“Because it was never there in their old country, they don’t seek it out. They’ll seek out soccer and cricket and what have you, but curling is not on the radar,” he said. “So this will hopefully put it more on the radar.”

And he hopes WCF recognition will help get the word out.

“There are Jamaicans in every country on the planet. I’m quite sure out there in the Jamaican diaspora are curlers like myself — and better than myself,” Walker said. “This is the first step to let them know that we’re out here, and we want to hear from you.”

For now, the dozen Canada-based Jamaicans have set up a home base at the Unionville Curling Club outside of Toronto that, at more than 100 years old, is twice as old as the independent nation of Jamaica.

Their debut competition was a friendly coed scrimmage against Hong Kong in April that was limited to three-person teams because of pandemic protocols; Hong Kong was leading 10-4 after four ends when the sides decided that keeping score wasn’t the point.

Hall-Teravainen noted that it’s not uncommon for even well-established curling programs to train abroad, where coaches and ice sheets and plentiful and the competition is robust.

“Even countries that have ice come here to train,” she said. “Jamaica has a hockey team that plays out of Florida.”

Kong said the goal is to build a program in which the curling is played “in Jamaica, by Jamaicans.”

And if Disney comes calling with a movie deal?

“I’m still thinking of what actor I want to play me,” he said.

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Manchester Chamber of Commerce seeks to strengthen connections Loop Jamaica

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: Jamaica News Loop News

Simone Spence-Johnson, President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, says the organisation is working to strengthen the connections among its members.

Spence-Johnson, who was recently re-elected to her second term at the helm of the 58-year-old institution, said the chamber is also seeking to forge new relationships and create networking and business development platforms.

To this end, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce is hosting a Wine and Cheese Event on Thursday, August 4, 2022, at 6:30 pm.

The much-anticipated event will be held on the lawns of the Tropics View Hotel in Mandeville, Manchester. It will will feature a plethora of corporate sponsors and a cache of prizes.

“Being mindful of the difficulties resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have decided to host events that will reconnect and re-engage our members and other business community interests. We really need to get back out into the community and let our members know we are still here,” she said.

The Manchester Chamber of Commerce has identified itself as an organisation that promotes and facilitates entrepreneurship through the development and growth of businesses while improving the quality of life in the parish of Manchester.

Part proceeds of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce Wine and Cheese Event will go to the Ebenezer Rehabilitation Centre.

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MSJ wants a wealth tax

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: Trinidad and Tobago Newsday

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MSJ leader David Abdulah. File photo/ Roger Jacob

MOVEMENT for Social Justice (MSJ) David Abdulah is repeating the party’s call for Government to implement a wealth tax

In a statement on Wednesday, Abdulah recalled that in April, the MSJ suggested Government consider implementing such a measure on multinational energy companies and large local corporations.

He said the suggestion at the time was that such a tax meant its revenue could be used for things such as maintaining fuel prices at certain levels.

Abdulah said the British government recently introduced a 25 per cent windfall profits tax on oil companies.

“The evidence is clear. BP just announced that its profits for the three months April to June, 2022 were US $9.26 billion .”

Abdulah claimed this figure was “an obscene 300 per cent increase over the US$3.12 billion it made in the same period in 2021.”

He said there were other energy and non-energy sector companies that reported significant profits recently

“We also note that Republic Bank just yesterday announced that its profits for the first nine months of 2022 was $1.15 billion, an increase of $109.7 or 10.6 per cent over what it made in the same period in 2021.

Abdulah said these examples support the argument for a wealth tax.

“Tax policy is one tool available to a government to tackle the gross inequalities of wealth and income that exist in Trinidad and Tobago.”

He also believed revenue obtained from a wealth tax could be used to make a fair wage offer to public-sector unions.

Abdulah said the MSJ will wait to see if Finance Minister Colm Imbert will address this issue when he presents the 2022/2023 budget.

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Criminal Bar Association: Release 60 prisoners for independence

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: Trinidad and Tobago Newsday

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The Port of Spain prison on Frederick Street, Port of Spain. – Photo by Sureash Cholai –

Government is considering a proposal to release 60 deserving prisoners as part of the 60th anniversary of independence, to be observed on August 31.

The suggestion was made to Attorney General Reginald Armour, SC, by the recently installed executive of the Criminal Bar Association.

According to the proposal, the association has suggested that the reformed prisoners be released in batches, with the first six being released on Independence Day.

The association did not identify any of the prisoners nor the category of criminal convictions which the government should consider.

If the government adopts the association’s suggestion, the Mercy Committee which comprises the Minister of National Security, the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecutions and others will have to review each deserving case before making a recommendation to the Office of the President for applicants to be given a presidential pardon which would automatically erase their record of conviction.

The recommendation is in keeping with planned legislation the Office of the Attorney General has already drafted to give rehabilitated prisoners a second chance once they are not repeat offenders.

The draft legislation, which arose out of public consultations in 2019, proposes among other things to consider someone who has been sentenced to not more than three years as having a spent conviction, so that such people would not have with a criminal conviction.

There was no response to questions sent via WhatsApp to Armour and Minister in the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs Renuka Sagramsingh-Sooklal.

In 2012, the People’s Partnership government had proposed to release 50 prisoners to commemorate TT’s 50th anniversary of independence, but the process was stalled by the deliberations of the Mercy Committee.

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Soesdyke businessman shot after breaking into supermarket

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: INews Guyana
An injured Thomas being escorted to the hospital

The proprietor of Blue Mountain Sports Bar at Grant Sand Road, Soesdyke, East Bank Demerara (EBD) was admitted as a patient under guards at the Georgetown Public Hospital nursing a gunshot injury.

The businessman, Lloyd Thomas also called ‘Cuffy and Father” was reportedly shot after he reportedly broke into a Chinese supermarket in the vicinity of the Soesdyke/Linden Highway junction in the wee hours of Wednesday.

An injured Thomas being escorted to the hospital

Based on reports received, the owner of the business, a 49-year-old Chinese national was awaked by a loud banging sound emanating from his bedroom’s metal door.

As he got up to check, he told detectives that he heard a single gunshot after which he saw Thomas lying on the ground with blood on his head.

Reports received indicated that at least three other persons were seen escaping throw a hole that was made in the concrete wall.  Police have since retrieved a spent .9mm shell at the scene.

CCTV footage showed that the vehicle suspected to be that of Thomas fleeing the scene. Police are continuing their investigations.

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