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NEWS IN BRIEF
FOR GENERAL DISTRIBUTION
Top News in the Print Media: The JIS, The Gleaner & The Observer
From the Overseas Department, Jamaica Information Service
Tuesday October 07, 2003
JAMAICA FIGHTING TERRORISM
The Observer: Saying Jamaica is playing its part in the fight against terrorism, Prime Minister P. J. Patterson on Friday told a group of American business and political leaders that Jamaica's much-touted Anti-Terrorism Act would soon be introduced in Parliament.
The planned introduction of the Act is in keeping with the island's international obligations.
As a member of the United Nations and a UN Security Member at the time of the terrorist attacks in the US, Patterson said, in his address to the Americas Society in New York, that Jamaica was committed to fighting terrorism through far-reaching and effective international co-operation.
SPOT MARKET WEIGHTED AVERAGE RATE
CURRENCY -- PURCHASES -- SALES
___US$_______59.5502_____59.8183
__CAN$_______43.1308_____43.4466
___GB£_______97.7974_____99.2879
EXPORTS TO UNDERGO BIO-TERROR INSPECTION
The Observer: Nearly 400 Jamaican exporters of processed and fresh foods will soon have to start providing the Americans with paper trails of their products from farm to shipment if they intend to continue selling to the US market after mid-December.
The new regulation, which will apply to exporters worldwide, is part of America's attempt to upgrade its capacity for quick response to potential bio-terrorist attacks through imported foods.
But Jamaican officials say that the move could have a severe negative impact, especially initially, on Jamaican exporters who will be required to put in systems to track the movement of produce from farm gate to factories and onto ships and planes.
VIOLENCE COSTING GOVERNMENT
The Gleaner: Violence resulting in ice pick stab wounds, machete and knife gashes and gunshot injuries - cost the Government $500 million last year alone. Dr. Elizabeth Ward, the director of Epidemiology at the Ministry of Health, noted that last year, the Government spent $1 billion on injuries, 50 per cent of which were as a result of violence.
"Most injuries we treat are of young males, ages 10 to 29 years old. Almost all were fighting with acquaintances using sharp implements such as cutlasses, ice picks and knives," she explained.
Tomorrow, an international conference on violence, organised by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), will begin in Kingston at the Jamaica Conference Centre. The conference will end on Thursday.
MEASURES TO CURB VIOLENCE
The Gleaner: Director of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), Dr. Mirta Roses, yesterday cited the need to effect preventative measures to curb the scourge of violence.
"Violence is a contagious disease, if we let it go, it multiplies, but if you can control it, then you can reduce it and scale it back," Dr. Roses told The Gleaner. Dr. Roses is in Jamaica to address the PAHO International Conference on Violence which starts tomorrow at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston.
"Sometimes people feel hopeless that they cannot do anything, societies become tolerant, they don't like it, but they do not feel they can do anything, they have to accept and that is what we need to modify," Dr. Roses explained.
She said as society, we needed to try and convince people about the impact violence can have on the health of a nation.
NATIONAL MINERS POLICY BEING DEVELOPED
The Observer: A national minerals policy is currently being developed to provide a single official document outlining government's approach to the development of the sector.
The policy document is currently being prepared by the Ministry of Land and Environment, through the national minerals policy development committee. The policy will also attempt to streamline incentives available to entities within the minerals sector.
The committee began work on the policy in July 2003, and it is hoped that the document will be prepared by July 2004. The policy will seek to identify the country's mineral wealth and the mechanisms needed to develop these resources.
GOV’T TO ESTABLISH OVERSEAS LOBBY GROUP
The Observer: Foreign Affairs Minister K. D. Knight says the Government is planning to establish a lobby group among Jamaicans living abroad to drum up support for trade and investment, and to change the country's negative image.
Knight, who was addressing members of the Northern Caribbean University Alumni Association in Miami, Florida on the weekend, said a number of experts will be consulted about the planned move at a symposium to be held on October 28.
He said the symposium, which is being organised in collaboration with the University of the West Indies and which is a precursor to the Diaspora Conference slated for 2004, will examine the "potential" for the formation of this group as well as the prospects for "trade and investments".
He added that these deliberations would also assist in the formulation of a demographic survey and database of Jamaicans residing abroad.
JIS NEWS
Tuesday October 07, 2003
PROJECTS APPROVED FOR CHASE FUNDING
A total of 62 projects have been approved for funding through the Culture, Health, Arts, Sports and Education (CHASE) Fund, since it began operation in January this year.
As at September 30, 2003, $477.17 million was allocated to the five areas, with sports receiving $152.69 million for 10 projects. Early childhood education received $95.43 million; $76.35 million was allocated to the health sector, while approximately $57 million went to arts and culture.
The CHASE Fund, which is supported by the proceeds from ticket sales of lottery companies, was set up to administer, manage and distribute funds to various projects under the category of culture, health, arts, sports and education. A Finance Committee of the Board invests the money to increase its value until it is disbursed.
LOCAL COMPANIES BUY INTO JCCP CONCEPT
Some 200 local companies have now officially signed on to the Jamaica Cluster Competitive Project (JCCP), which is poised to take the country into new and profitable frontiers by leveraging its world-famous brands and culture, thereby making local firms more internationally competitive and fostering economic growth.
In an interview with JIS News, former Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Mosina Jordan, who played a leading role in introducing the project here, describes the JCCP as vibrant and dynamic, having grown by leaps and bounds since it began in September 2002.
She explains that the cluster approach is aimed at improving the growth and international competitiveness of Jamaica’s non-traditional and traditional exports and strengthening them.
TWO JAMAICANS WIN SEATS IN CANADA
Two Jamaicans emerged victorious in the provincial election, which took place in Ontario, Canada on October 2, as their party scored a landslide victory and will now form the next government.
Alvin Curling who contested the constituency of Scarborough-Rouge River retained his seat, which he has held since 1985, while Mary Anne Chambers in the constituency of Scarborough East, is a first-time winner. The other two Jamaican candidates - Monica Purdy and Yvette Blackburn – were not successful in their bids.
Both Mr. Curling and Mrs. Chambers ran for the Ontario Liberal Party (OLP), which won 72 of 103 seats.
SCHOOL GARDEN PROJECTS REAPING SUCCESS
The School Garden Projects are reaping success since their inception five years ago in the island’s schools, pulling in over $5 million in revenue over the period.
President of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) and Chairman of the Jamaica 4-H Clubs, Senator Norman Grant made the disclosure at Friday’s (October 3) sitting of the Senate, while closing the debate on a motion he moved, calling for support for the nation’s farmers in their commitment to increasing food production.
He informed that close to some 300 schools were participating in the programme, with over 200 of these institutions benefiting from the Rural Agricultural Development Authority’s (RADA) assistance. Further, he said that some 60 schools were benefiting from a revolving loan of $25,000, which the programme provided to schools interested in starting a school garden.
BE MORE ENGAGED IN THE ISLAND
The Government’s drive to include overseas Jamaicans in the island’s development process was taken to London last week, with State Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Delano Franklyn, calling on UK-based Jamaicans to be more engaged in the island.
Mr. Franklyn, who has responsibility for Jamaicans overseas, noted that there were two kinds of Jamaicans living abroad, the engaged and the disengaged, whose views on the country differed vastly.
The State Minister was speaking on October 3 at the Jamaica National Building Society’s 2003 Investment Forum in London.
MOTION IN SUPPORT OF LOCAL FARMERS
The Senate on Friday (October 3), closed the debate on a Motion moved by Government Senator and President of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), Norman Grant, calling on Jamaicans to support local farmers.
At the end of the deliberations, members on both sides of the Upper House gave full support to the Motion.
In closing the debate, Senator Grant said that the JAS would be pursuing a campaign to encourage more production and for Jamaicans to buy local produce.
Contact: Celia Lindsay For further information about any of these news items,contact the Overseas Department at
[email protected]
. The Jamaica Information Service web page address is
www.jis.gov.jm
.Telephone: (876) 926-3740-8 / 926-3590-8, Fax: (876) 926-6715
COMMENTARY
Tuesday October 07, 2003
THE OBSERVER
EFFICIENCY AT THE POST OFFICE
MR Phillip Paulwell, the minister with responsibility for the Post Office, may be correct, that the price for delivering mail through the government postal service is too low.
According to Mr Paulwell, the Postal Corporation of Jamaica, the agency he established to run the Post Office and related services, has an annual deficit of about $300 million. That is a lot of money, which taxpayers have to find to ensure that the mail system continues to operate.
The minister, however, has announced that he has given the Postal Corporation three years within which to turn a profit, thus easing the taxpayer of the burden of carrying the service. Among the ways which Mr Paulwell expects this to happen is for the island's post offices to begin to deliver a host of technology-based, communications-related finance services.
So we can expect, he says, to see more things like Internet kiosks, bill-paying and faxing services. For which, we expect, consumers will be asked to pay a fair economic price.
Nothing at all is wrong with this. The Post Office, its position as a government entity notwithstanding, has, like any other business, to respond to the changing needs of its customers. And the fact is that more and more people are using e-mail and other electronic delivery systems to communicate and transact business.
Nonetheless, the core of the Post Office remains the delivery of paper-based letters and other packages. Indeed, the Jamaican service, each year, handles several million pieces of mail.
The fact, though, is that the Royal Jamaican Mail has lost, and continues to lose, business to private sector competitors. The private companies are just more efficient.
The Post Office may have improved its service in the past year or two, but it is still a fact that it suffers from a reliability problem. Very few people in Jamaica would post a letter, in the circumstance of an emergency, with the certitude that it will arrive within a short time. Or arrive at all.
Indeed, a few years back, Mr Paulwell, with much fanfare, announced that he was putting in place a 24-hour turn-around time for local letters. That undertaking, we sense, has been quietly abandoned.
Which brings us back to the point of the Post Office's deficit and Mr Paulwell's intention to increase the price of delivering mail. We have not heard about efficient service.
The one ought not to happen without the other: higher postal rates without a guarantee of the timely delivery of letters.
We would urge Mr Paulwell to again publish the delivery times for letters mailed to and from specific regions, and the penalties when these are breached. For the minister should be aware that the Post Office will continue to lose business to the private courier companies if people lose confidence in the quality of its service.
People will pay more for efficiency.
============================================
THE GLEANER
THE WILL TO WIN
WE ARE in danger of losing the fight against violent crime. Last week's events in Temple Hall and elsewhere make this clear. The Commissioner of Police confesses failure. The Minister of National Security makes speeches. The Opposition opposes. Civil society leaders express alarm. Useful proposals for combating extortion have been recently put forward and these must be implemented. But that is about it. The society and its leadership, battered and buffeted, seem to be losing the will to win.
We must recover our will to win. Other societies, faced with criminal threats on a similar scale, have won the fight. We are thinking of the successful fight against the Mafia in Sicily in the 1980s and 1990s. Crime there had gone much further in corrupting the society's institutions than it has in Jamaica, reaching to the very top of the Italian state and controlling the entire construction industry in Sicily. Yet, after an enormous effort, civil society succeeded in rolling back the stranglehold which the Mafia had on Sicilian society. And this was achieved without the militarisation of the state and the accompanying loss of human rights. So we know that civil society can win a desperate fight of this kind.
The key there, as it is here, was the successful development of a means of involving civil society in the mass in this fight. Unity of the police, the army, the government, the opposition and civil society leadership is vital but is not enough. The legal regime must become stiffer. International assistance must be enhanced.
What tips the balance, however, is the practical involvement of civil society in the mass in the fight for peace. One possibility is to substantially expand the peace operations and resources of already existing organisations. The point is to develop a powerful organ of civil society: a permanent voluntary peace organisation in which thousands of law-abiding Jamaicans can play an organised part.
For make no mistake: a fight on this scale is a fight of the whole society. It cannot and will not be won by relying only on the police, the army, the government, the opposition and civil society leadership. All must take responsibility. All must get involved.
FOR GENERAL DISTRIBUTION
Top News in the Print Media: The JIS, The Gleaner & The Observer
From the Overseas Department, Jamaica Information Service
Tuesday October 07, 2003
JAMAICA FIGHTING TERRORISM
The Observer: Saying Jamaica is playing its part in the fight against terrorism, Prime Minister P. J. Patterson on Friday told a group of American business and political leaders that Jamaica's much-touted Anti-Terrorism Act would soon be introduced in Parliament.
The planned introduction of the Act is in keeping with the island's international obligations.
As a member of the United Nations and a UN Security Member at the time of the terrorist attacks in the US, Patterson said, in his address to the Americas Society in New York, that Jamaica was committed to fighting terrorism through far-reaching and effective international co-operation.
SPOT MARKET WEIGHTED AVERAGE RATE
CURRENCY -- PURCHASES -- SALES
___US$_______59.5502_____59.8183
__CAN$_______43.1308_____43.4466
___GB£_______97.7974_____99.2879
EXPORTS TO UNDERGO BIO-TERROR INSPECTION
The Observer: Nearly 400 Jamaican exporters of processed and fresh foods will soon have to start providing the Americans with paper trails of their products from farm to shipment if they intend to continue selling to the US market after mid-December.
The new regulation, which will apply to exporters worldwide, is part of America's attempt to upgrade its capacity for quick response to potential bio-terrorist attacks through imported foods.
But Jamaican officials say that the move could have a severe negative impact, especially initially, on Jamaican exporters who will be required to put in systems to track the movement of produce from farm gate to factories and onto ships and planes.
VIOLENCE COSTING GOVERNMENT
The Gleaner: Violence resulting in ice pick stab wounds, machete and knife gashes and gunshot injuries - cost the Government $500 million last year alone. Dr. Elizabeth Ward, the director of Epidemiology at the Ministry of Health, noted that last year, the Government spent $1 billion on injuries, 50 per cent of which were as a result of violence.
"Most injuries we treat are of young males, ages 10 to 29 years old. Almost all were fighting with acquaintances using sharp implements such as cutlasses, ice picks and knives," she explained.
Tomorrow, an international conference on violence, organised by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), will begin in Kingston at the Jamaica Conference Centre. The conference will end on Thursday.
MEASURES TO CURB VIOLENCE
The Gleaner: Director of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), Dr. Mirta Roses, yesterday cited the need to effect preventative measures to curb the scourge of violence.
"Violence is a contagious disease, if we let it go, it multiplies, but if you can control it, then you can reduce it and scale it back," Dr. Roses told The Gleaner. Dr. Roses is in Jamaica to address the PAHO International Conference on Violence which starts tomorrow at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston.
"Sometimes people feel hopeless that they cannot do anything, societies become tolerant, they don't like it, but they do not feel they can do anything, they have to accept and that is what we need to modify," Dr. Roses explained.
She said as society, we needed to try and convince people about the impact violence can have on the health of a nation.
NATIONAL MINERS POLICY BEING DEVELOPED
The Observer: A national minerals policy is currently being developed to provide a single official document outlining government's approach to the development of the sector.
The policy document is currently being prepared by the Ministry of Land and Environment, through the national minerals policy development committee. The policy will also attempt to streamline incentives available to entities within the minerals sector.
The committee began work on the policy in July 2003, and it is hoped that the document will be prepared by July 2004. The policy will seek to identify the country's mineral wealth and the mechanisms needed to develop these resources.
GOV’T TO ESTABLISH OVERSEAS LOBBY GROUP
The Observer: Foreign Affairs Minister K. D. Knight says the Government is planning to establish a lobby group among Jamaicans living abroad to drum up support for trade and investment, and to change the country's negative image.
Knight, who was addressing members of the Northern Caribbean University Alumni Association in Miami, Florida on the weekend, said a number of experts will be consulted about the planned move at a symposium to be held on October 28.
He said the symposium, which is being organised in collaboration with the University of the West Indies and which is a precursor to the Diaspora Conference slated for 2004, will examine the "potential" for the formation of this group as well as the prospects for "trade and investments".
He added that these deliberations would also assist in the formulation of a demographic survey and database of Jamaicans residing abroad.
JIS NEWS
Tuesday October 07, 2003
PROJECTS APPROVED FOR CHASE FUNDING
A total of 62 projects have been approved for funding through the Culture, Health, Arts, Sports and Education (CHASE) Fund, since it began operation in January this year.
As at September 30, 2003, $477.17 million was allocated to the five areas, with sports receiving $152.69 million for 10 projects. Early childhood education received $95.43 million; $76.35 million was allocated to the health sector, while approximately $57 million went to arts and culture.
The CHASE Fund, which is supported by the proceeds from ticket sales of lottery companies, was set up to administer, manage and distribute funds to various projects under the category of culture, health, arts, sports and education. A Finance Committee of the Board invests the money to increase its value until it is disbursed.
LOCAL COMPANIES BUY INTO JCCP CONCEPT
Some 200 local companies have now officially signed on to the Jamaica Cluster Competitive Project (JCCP), which is poised to take the country into new and profitable frontiers by leveraging its world-famous brands and culture, thereby making local firms more internationally competitive and fostering economic growth.
In an interview with JIS News, former Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Mosina Jordan, who played a leading role in introducing the project here, describes the JCCP as vibrant and dynamic, having grown by leaps and bounds since it began in September 2002.
She explains that the cluster approach is aimed at improving the growth and international competitiveness of Jamaica’s non-traditional and traditional exports and strengthening them.
TWO JAMAICANS WIN SEATS IN CANADA
Two Jamaicans emerged victorious in the provincial election, which took place in Ontario, Canada on October 2, as their party scored a landslide victory and will now form the next government.
Alvin Curling who contested the constituency of Scarborough-Rouge River retained his seat, which he has held since 1985, while Mary Anne Chambers in the constituency of Scarborough East, is a first-time winner. The other two Jamaican candidates - Monica Purdy and Yvette Blackburn – were not successful in their bids.
Both Mr. Curling and Mrs. Chambers ran for the Ontario Liberal Party (OLP), which won 72 of 103 seats.
SCHOOL GARDEN PROJECTS REAPING SUCCESS
The School Garden Projects are reaping success since their inception five years ago in the island’s schools, pulling in over $5 million in revenue over the period.
President of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) and Chairman of the Jamaica 4-H Clubs, Senator Norman Grant made the disclosure at Friday’s (October 3) sitting of the Senate, while closing the debate on a motion he moved, calling for support for the nation’s farmers in their commitment to increasing food production.
He informed that close to some 300 schools were participating in the programme, with over 200 of these institutions benefiting from the Rural Agricultural Development Authority’s (RADA) assistance. Further, he said that some 60 schools were benefiting from a revolving loan of $25,000, which the programme provided to schools interested in starting a school garden.
BE MORE ENGAGED IN THE ISLAND
The Government’s drive to include overseas Jamaicans in the island’s development process was taken to London last week, with State Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Delano Franklyn, calling on UK-based Jamaicans to be more engaged in the island.
Mr. Franklyn, who has responsibility for Jamaicans overseas, noted that there were two kinds of Jamaicans living abroad, the engaged and the disengaged, whose views on the country differed vastly.
The State Minister was speaking on October 3 at the Jamaica National Building Society’s 2003 Investment Forum in London.
MOTION IN SUPPORT OF LOCAL FARMERS
The Senate on Friday (October 3), closed the debate on a Motion moved by Government Senator and President of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), Norman Grant, calling on Jamaicans to support local farmers.
At the end of the deliberations, members on both sides of the Upper House gave full support to the Motion.
In closing the debate, Senator Grant said that the JAS would be pursuing a campaign to encourage more production and for Jamaicans to buy local produce.
Contact: Celia Lindsay For further information about any of these news items,contact the Overseas Department at
[email protected]
. The Jamaica Information Service web page address is
www.jis.gov.jm
.Telephone: (876) 926-3740-8 / 926-3590-8, Fax: (876) 926-6715
COMMENTARY
Tuesday October 07, 2003
THE OBSERVER
EFFICIENCY AT THE POST OFFICE
MR Phillip Paulwell, the minister with responsibility for the Post Office, may be correct, that the price for delivering mail through the government postal service is too low.
According to Mr Paulwell, the Postal Corporation of Jamaica, the agency he established to run the Post Office and related services, has an annual deficit of about $300 million. That is a lot of money, which taxpayers have to find to ensure that the mail system continues to operate.
The minister, however, has announced that he has given the Postal Corporation three years within which to turn a profit, thus easing the taxpayer of the burden of carrying the service. Among the ways which Mr Paulwell expects this to happen is for the island's post offices to begin to deliver a host of technology-based, communications-related finance services.
So we can expect, he says, to see more things like Internet kiosks, bill-paying and faxing services. For which, we expect, consumers will be asked to pay a fair economic price.
Nothing at all is wrong with this. The Post Office, its position as a government entity notwithstanding, has, like any other business, to respond to the changing needs of its customers. And the fact is that more and more people are using e-mail and other electronic delivery systems to communicate and transact business.
Nonetheless, the core of the Post Office remains the delivery of paper-based letters and other packages. Indeed, the Jamaican service, each year, handles several million pieces of mail.
The fact, though, is that the Royal Jamaican Mail has lost, and continues to lose, business to private sector competitors. The private companies are just more efficient.
The Post Office may have improved its service in the past year or two, but it is still a fact that it suffers from a reliability problem. Very few people in Jamaica would post a letter, in the circumstance of an emergency, with the certitude that it will arrive within a short time. Or arrive at all.
Indeed, a few years back, Mr Paulwell, with much fanfare, announced that he was putting in place a 24-hour turn-around time for local letters. That undertaking, we sense, has been quietly abandoned.
Which brings us back to the point of the Post Office's deficit and Mr Paulwell's intention to increase the price of delivering mail. We have not heard about efficient service.
The one ought not to happen without the other: higher postal rates without a guarantee of the timely delivery of letters.
We would urge Mr Paulwell to again publish the delivery times for letters mailed to and from specific regions, and the penalties when these are breached. For the minister should be aware that the Post Office will continue to lose business to the private courier companies if people lose confidence in the quality of its service.
People will pay more for efficiency.
============================================
THE GLEANER
THE WILL TO WIN
WE ARE in danger of losing the fight against violent crime. Last week's events in Temple Hall and elsewhere make this clear. The Commissioner of Police confesses failure. The Minister of National Security makes speeches. The Opposition opposes. Civil society leaders express alarm. Useful proposals for combating extortion have been recently put forward and these must be implemented. But that is about it. The society and its leadership, battered and buffeted, seem to be losing the will to win.
We must recover our will to win. Other societies, faced with criminal threats on a similar scale, have won the fight. We are thinking of the successful fight against the Mafia in Sicily in the 1980s and 1990s. Crime there had gone much further in corrupting the society's institutions than it has in Jamaica, reaching to the very top of the Italian state and controlling the entire construction industry in Sicily. Yet, after an enormous effort, civil society succeeded in rolling back the stranglehold which the Mafia had on Sicilian society. And this was achieved without the militarisation of the state and the accompanying loss of human rights. So we know that civil society can win a desperate fight of this kind.
The key there, as it is here, was the successful development of a means of involving civil society in the mass in this fight. Unity of the police, the army, the government, the opposition and civil society leadership is vital but is not enough. The legal regime must become stiffer. International assistance must be enhanced.
What tips the balance, however, is the practical involvement of civil society in the mass in the fight for peace. One possibility is to substantially expand the peace operations and resources of already existing organisations. The point is to develop a powerful organ of civil society: a permanent voluntary peace organisation in which thousands of law-abiding Jamaicans can play an organised part.
For make no mistake: a fight on this scale is a fight of the whole society. It cannot and will not be won by relying only on the police, the army, the government, the opposition and civil society leadership. All must take responsibility. All must get involved.