Author: Admin

A recent comment by Public Service Union president Elroy Boucher has raised question of looming industrial action by public servants. At a press conference at the union’s headquarters at Mc Kie’s Hill last week Wednesday, the union revisited attempts made to have a number of issues, particularly working conditions at the Mental Health and Rehabilitation Centre, addressed last year but their letters over months saw scant regard. Boucher told reporters last week that the union was on the verge of industrial action but it was aborted after there was some movement which made them feel conditions were going to improve.…

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica has recorded 12 deaths due to COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, the highest number of deaths in one day since the first case of the virus was confirmed locally in March 2020. The country’s case count also inched closer to 30,000 yesterday, with 695 new cases. This pushes the total confirmed deaths to 475 and the total confirmed cases of the virus since the outbreak in the island to 28, 968. The latest deaths include two females, ages 54 and 37, and two males, ages 79 and 33, from St James; three males, ages 75,…

The Board of Directors, Management and Staff of the National Broadcasting Corporation are saddened today, Thursday March 11th, to learn of the passing of Former General Manager and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Ms.Nina Maloney. Ms. Maloney served as General Manager from 1997-2001. She was succeeded by Ms. Corletha Ollivierre. Ms. Maloney worked at the West Indian Broadcasting Service (WIBS) and upon completion of her training at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), she later became General Manager of the then, Radio 705, now NBC Radio. She travelled throughout the country bringing weekly broadcasts of Divine Worship from churches which…

The body of a woman found in Greiggs yeterday has been identified as sixty-one -year old Sharon Sam. Well-placed sources say the body of the Greiggs resident had no unusual mark to suggest foul play. It is understood that Ms Sam was diagnosed with a terminal illness in 2011 and she last visited a doctor in 2013. She was said to have been living alone. According to information received, the woman was officially pronounced dead by the district medical officer and the district magistrate gave permission for the body to be removed from where it was found. Meanwhile, ANN has…

“You know, I was really so disappointed to hear the falsehoods, mingled with really lots of mischief, in my view, by the Public Service Union about what was happening at the Mental Health Centre, where they were moved over to the camp site in Queen’s Drive.” Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves made the comment on WE FM radio last Sunday, days after the Public Service Union (PSU) held a press conference and spoke of conditions in which nurses and other staff members at the Mental Health Centre and the Glad Tidings campsite were reported to be working. “I mean the…

The Public Service Union has said that efforts to conduct full and proper investigations into concerns of working conditions are being hampered because of lack of access. “We have had the opportunity to be on the ground but not having access to the facility in the way that we wanted to have access. Because, we would have reached out to management in terms for us as a union paying a visit to the institution to see what was happening,” the union’s public relations officer Shelly Ann Alexander-Ross said at a press conference held at the union’s Mc Kie’s Hill headquarters…

KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Government is to roll out a Conditional Cash Transfer for the Vaccinated (CCTV) sub-programme, to benefit more than 100,000 Jamaicans, who will each receive a sum of $10,000. It is geared towards people aged 60 and over, who are not in receipt of a pay cheque or a pension greater than $1.5 million per annum, as evidenced by the records at Tax Administration Jamaica. Individuals will also have to be vaccinated as evidenced by the records at the Ministry of Health and Wellness. Details of the programme were announced by Minister of Finance and the Public…

A century from Shai Hope and a half-century from Evin Lewis helped West Indies cruise to a comfortable eight-wicket victory over Sri Lanka with 18 balls to spare at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium and take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. Chasing a target of 233, Man-of-the-Match Hope scored 110 and Lewis featured in an opening stand of 143, a record-opening stand for the West Indies against Sri Lanka in the West Indies, which was ended when the latter was bowled by an in-swinging yorker from Dushmantha Chameera for 65. Lewis had faced 90 balls in his 109-minute…

Brathwaite’s XI defeated Chase’s XI by four wickets as the Best vs Best four-day match at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua earlier today. Twenty-one wickets fell on a dramatic final day when Brathwaite’s XI resumed from 240-5 and was dismissed for 346 thanks to a 55-run ninth-wicket partnership between Rahkeem Cornwall and Preston McSween. Kavem Hodge failed to add to his overnight score of 59. Cornwall hit nine fours and three sixes in his 63 while McSween struck five fours and a six that gave Brathwaite’s XI a 20-run first-innings lead. In their second turn at bat, Chase’s XI…

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Closed schools, surging poverty, forced marriages and depression — after a year of the pandemic, indicators measuring child and adolescent development have all regressed, a setback that heralds lasting stigma for an entire generation, UNICEF warned Thursday. “The number of children who are hungry, isolated, abused, anxious, living in poverty and forced into marriage has increased,” Henrietta Fore, executive director of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, said in a statement released exactly one year since the World Health Organization classified COVID-19 as a pandemic. “Their access to education, socialisation and essential services…