KINGSTON, Jamaica - OFFICIALS of the Financial Investigations Division are urging the Government to take steps to carry out its commitment to the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force to ensure several groups are regulated by November this year or risk seeing the country on a watch list which could scare investors.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – There seems to be disagreement within the ruling People’s National Party (PNP) government over the implementation of a ban on smoking in public places.
Former national security minister and government senator, K.D. Knight, has said he is prepared to join people in protesting the measure and wants the issue debated in Parliament.
But Attorney General Patrick Atkinson has told the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper that “the real concern is not about debating in Parliament.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC - With the recent implementation of a ban on smoking in public places, Tourism Minister, Dr. Wykeham McNeil has announced that an inter-ministry task force will take a look at concerns about implications of the ban in the hotel sector. The decision to convene the task force was made at a meeting on Friday between representatives of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), the Tourism Ministry and the Health Ministry. The hotel sector has complained that the regulations could cause a major fall out in the sector.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - A few days ago the BBC Television World Service interviewed one of the wealthiest people in China. She will be 48 years old next month and her assets are worth US$3.6 billion. Zhang Xin was born into abject poverty, began working in a sweat-shop, lived in a single room with her mother in Hong Kong, saved from her paltry earnings to buy a ticket to the United Kingdom where she took secretarial classes while working.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - IT would be foolhardy to think that Jamaica's image would not be harmed by the doping scandal involving several of our athletes, including the much loved Mr Asafa Powell, and just before that, the iconic Mrs Veronica Campbell Brown. Yet, we must admit to being greatly surprised by the immediate conclusion in so many quarters about how badly the Jamaican name (brand) has been hurt — irrevocably, according to some — without any recourse to objective surveys.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – The authorities have imposed a 24 hour curfew on a section of Annotto Bay in St. Mary after gunmen shot and killed three people including a woman. Police said that 27-year-old Dwayne Harris, 41-year-old David McIntosh and his common-law wife, 44-year-old Maureen Pinnock were shot and killed after the gunmen gained entrance to the premises. Police said that the victims were shot several times and taken to hospital where they were pronounced dead.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - THIS IS UNDOUBTEDLY a most challenging period in global political and economic developments for some members of CARICOM. And a few leading Community partners seem to be wilting under mounting economic and social pressures, resulting in rather surprising political posturings. None more so than in the case of Jamaica.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Karl Samuda, the opposition MP, with great clarity, summed up the impact of the recent spate of positive drug tests for leading Jamaican athletes on the global brand. The observation applies, too, to our collective psyche. "What has happened," Mr Samuda told his parliamentary colleagues, "is that the previously infallible nature of our athletics prowess has been assaulted. "That pride, that certain knowledge that we are the best, has been damaged; and if you damage that, which is essential to our country, you damage the brand," he said.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - THE positive analytical findings involving two of our star athletes and three other young athletes have not only shocked the nation but have placed Jamaica under intense scrutiny as the supreme sprinting powerhouse in the world. The doubters are having a field day, ramping up the claim that our athletic domination in sprints is not based on anything else but chemistry and work done in the laboratory. While we do not subscribe to this view, the ammunition now at the disposal of the naysayers is potent.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - THE Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO) have heaped praises on Jamaica for the no-smoking regulations, which took effect on Monday.
In a release yesterday, the United Nations bodies said that the regulations will protect the population from the harmful effects of tobacco and exposure to second-hand smoke.