Black Immigrant Daily News

The Institute of Coding — a joint venture between the Amber Group and the Heart NSTA Trust — is encouraging youngsters to apply for the October intake.

The residential programme will expose participants to intense training in world-class coding to design and build software applications to meet the needs of several sectors and to help simplify business transactions, according to a release from the Amber Group.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Amber Group of Companies and software and coding pioneer in the Caribbean, Dushyant Savadia, says the company is pleased to launch the first-ever coding institute in Jamaica on October 1 with an initial cohort of 500 students.

Savadia outlined that the group’s “long-term vision is to train 20,000 Jamaicans to be engaged as software developers over the next five years”.

In June, Amber Heart Academy graduated an initial cohort of 100 participants as part of a pilot project. The graduates were placed with several corporate entities to build software and join their tech teams.

The Institute of Coding, which will be in full operation in October, will offer spaces to 200 students who’ll commute to the campus and 300 who’ll be in residence.

Making an impassioned plea for an increased emphasis on skill-based training, Savadia emphasised that skills training, such as those provided by the Amber Heart Institute of Coding, was designed to provide trainees with the knowledge and abilities necessary to be successful in today’s job market.

“We, as businesses, need to provide these hardworking skilled persons with opportunities to work and grow,” the Amber Group CEO declared.

Already, two of Jamaica’s largest companies, Digicel and NCB, have moved to hire 27 of the graduates from the pilot programme. Government agencies have also committed to follow suit in short order. Savadia said this will boost Jamaica’s economy with more employment of persons with tangible technology expertise.

In June, during the graduation ceremony of the students from the pilot programme, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, lauded the initiative, noting: “This form of education is open and inclusive. It is not only for the elite, it is for everyone.” He said he was encouraged by the results of the initiative and is hoping that it will be one of many to come.

Holness has also commended the Amber Group and urged companies to hire skilled people who did not have degrees but who were competent and knowledgeable.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Consumers will be paying less for gasoline and diesel from Friday, August 19, 2022.

Gasoline will be reduced from $4.83 to $4.48 per litre, while diesel will be priced at $4.03 as opposed to $4.28 per litre.

This was announced by Prime Minister The Honorable Mia Amor Mottley during a press conference held today Monday, August 15.

Prime Minister Mottley revealed that firstly the price cap of Value Added Tax [VAT] which allows the government to absorb around 22 cents for gasoline and 26 cents for diesel [per litre] will stay in effect until January 31, 2023, to allow Barbadians to be shielded more.

“My first obligation in speaking to you this afternoon is to be able to indicate what the position of the government will be going forward with respect to the cap of the value added tax that we placed on fuel items, gasoline, and diesel to be specific. We’re satisfied that we’re going to have to keep that cap in place. That cap, for example, has made the difference of 26 cents I believe on diesel so if that cap was not there, the diesel price would be 26 cents per litre more and I believe it is 22 cents with respect to gasoline. We are going to extend that cap at least until the 31st of January and we are doing that recognising that Barbadians do need to be shielded some more.

“The truth, however, is that that cap in and of itself is not necessarily proving to be enough. While things are difficult even for the government, we feel that we have an obligation to shield Barbadians more. We’ve looked around at the prices and we’ve looked around at what we can do and we’ve made a determination as a government.”

In this vein, the Prime Minister also disclosed that government will bite the bullet and shoulder the loss to lower the prices of gasoline and diesel at the pump from this week.

“You would recognize that this is not the government’s first attempt at obviously trying to shield Barbadians the best we can and we believe that this therefore will allow us to do that. There has been a decline in prices so we’re not capping at the highest possible price, the truth is that the $4.83 at the pump that you’re paying now for gasoline is at a far higher price than what is currently available and to that extent, we will absorb the loss on that because those prices were to remained in place until the end of January.

“Since then there was a shipment that came in at lesser and we believe we have to cap it at the lesser amount and therefore with effect from Friday morning, we will have the price of gasoline at the pump capped at the price of $4.48 per litre and with respect to diesel at $4.03 per litre.”

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Het vlot helemaal niet met de herschikking van een deel van de miljardenschulden die Suriname heeft. Vooral de bondholders van

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Black Immigrant Daily News

It’s a question that keeps some scientists awake at night: Do spiders sleep?

Daniela Roessler and her colleagues trained cameras on baby jumping spiders at night to find out. The footage showed patterns that looked a lot like sleep cycles: The spiders’ legs twitched and parts of their eyes flickered.

The researchers described this pattern as a “REM sleep-like state.” In humans, REM, or rapid eye movement, is an active phase of sleep when parts of the brain light up with activity and is closely linked with dreaming.

Other animals, including some birds and mammals, have been shown to experience REM sleep. But creatures like the jumping spider haven’t gotten as much attention so it wasn’t known if they got the same kind of sleep, said Roessler, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Konstanz in Germany.

Their findings were published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Roessler and her team dug into the sleep question after she discovered the spiders hanging at night from threads of silk in their lab containers. She had recently scooped up some jumping spiders to study, a common species with a furry brown body and four pairs of big eyes.

“It was just the most unusual thing I’ve ever seen,” Roessler said of the suspended spiders.

The research showed the spiders’ overnight movements looked a lot like REM in other species, she said — like dogs or cats twitching in their sleep. And they happened in regular cycles, similar to sleep patterns in humans.

Many species similar to spiders actually don’t have movable eyes, which makes it hard to compare their sleep cycles, explained study co-author Paul Shamble, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University.

But these jumping spiders are predators that move their retinas around to change their gaze while they hunt, Shamble said. Plus, the young spiders have a see-through outer layer that gives a clear window into their bodies.

“Sometimes as a biologist, you just get really, really lucky,” Shamble said.

The researchers still have to figure out if the spiders are technically sleeping while they’re in these resting states, Roessler said. That includes testing whether they respond more slowly — or not at all — to triggers that would normally set them off.

Critters like the jumping spider are very far from humans on the evolutionary tree. Jerry Siegel, a sleep researcher who was not involved with the study, said he’s doubtful that the spiders can really experience REM sleep.

“There may be animals that have activity in quiet states,” said Siegel, of the UCLA Center for Sleep Research. “But are they REM sleep? It’s hard to imagine that they could be the same thing.”

But Barrett Klein, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse who was also not involved with the study, said it was exciting to find REM-like signs in such a distant relative. Many questions remain about how widespread REM sleep is and what purpose it might serve for species, he said.

REM sleep is “still very much a black box,” Klein said.

By Maddie Burakoff

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Black Immigrant Daily News

REAL NEWS- The abrupt resignation of a manager at the Antigua & Barbuda Airport Authority (ABAA) reportedly has thrown the staff into some disarray, according to inside sources.

These persons tell REAL News that the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Kebra Nanton, quit the job, allegedly at very short notice, on account of policy differences with her bosses.

Nanton declined to be interviewed, since she did “not wish to become the news,” but did confirm her resignation.

Other persons allege that there was a rift between the CFO and her superiors – the substance of which goes back to the tenure of the previous Chief Executive Officer, the late Stanley Smith.

Previous reports traced that situation to an “unauthorized” operations-review that recommended salary increases for line staff – in particular, employees charged with various security duties.

It was alleged, then, that Smith – reputed to have been “a fair man” –

supported the increases while his superiors did not.

Accordingly, when the pay hike did not materialize, the Airport Authority experienced some degree of industrial unrest. At one point, protest action reached a height where Defence Force and Police personnel had to be brought in to undertake critical screening and security duties.

It is alleged, now, that the CFO’s sudden resignation was triggered by much the same issues and, further, that earnings by the Authority are being used to support another statutory organization.

In the meantime, disgusted employees tell REAL News the Authority ought to be using its funds to maintain terminal operations, alleging that only one out of seven screening machines at the Airport is working.

They say the single machine is meant to process oversized luggage. However, given the way it is being over-used now, they fear that it, too, is destined for a breakdown soon. In addition, the conveyor belt also needs to be repaired, the staff say.

An observer says this disarray at the Airport makes a stronger case for the removal of the Cabinet Minister in charge, Sir Robin Yearwood, who, he alleges, “has already lost a grip on APUA.”

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