 Welcome to the NTN Nightly, I'm Nisha Charles. This edition stops stories. Ground has officially been broken for the new Soleil Couchier Restaurant Project. St. Lucia imposes travel restrictions as the coronavirus threat persists and the ECCBC's robotics encoding as the future for young people within the region. The community of Choselle is set to benefit from the Soleil Couchier Restaurant Project which is being undertaken in that community. Ground was broken for the restaurant on Friday, January 31, 2020. The new restaurant will be located near the Teter Rouge resort in Delta Choselle providing local cuisine with an Italian flair and will cater to locals and visitors alike. Paul Hugo, director of Teter Rouge and Soleil Couchier, noted that local produce and seafood will be sourced from the Choselle fisheries. Hugo also praised the laborers who are residents of Choselle for the level of work being produced. But Teter Rouge is small. We have six studios. We have a restaurant and bar that serves our guests only. So when our guests want to try another restaurant, you all come down to get here today to Belze. It's not that easy to come down the road to Belze. Once you get to Belze, if you want to stay, then there is no stand-alone restaurant. There is no stand-alone fine dining, casual restaurant for tourists. You come to climb the Gros Pétain, you come to Teter Paul, or you're staying in one of the villas around Teter Rouge, or you're staying in Teter Rouge. We now will have a restaurant where you can come and have a nice meal. The Minister for Commerce, Industry, Investment, Enterprise Development and Consumer Affairs and Parliamentary Representative for Choselle, Honourable Bradley Felix, commended the director of Soleil Couchier on the location chosen for the project. We're now in an emerging jurisdiction for regional and international headquarters. We have begun that sort of facility and we have quite a few interests of people who want to set up the regional headquarters in St. Lucia. Currently, we have on record over US $1.5 billion to be invested in St. Lucia over the next two years. Now I say all of this to highlight that with all of this investment that we're going to have coming into St. Lucia, we need the facilities to accommodate the people who will be coming here. And I applaud you because I can real recognize the impact your facility will have to maintain that repeat visitor and more people coming in here. Minister Felix stressed on the benefits of the hotel for the community on the whole. We must recognize that the impact here is not just on the people who are going to be working in not just the construction aspect of it, but when the operations, but also the indirect benefits to the community, our farmers, our official folks, the craft people of Shwazel. We all need to own Solaikushe. Be part of it. We need to recognize that the spirit of community that we will bring to this facility here can only benefit to other people wanting to come and invest in our community. The sorting ceremony for the Solaikushe restaurant took place in Dal Sour Shwazel on Friday, January 31, 2020. From the Government Information Service, I am Anisia Antoine reporting. St Lucia has imposed travel restrictions on travellers coming from China as the novel coronavirus has been deemed a public health emergency of international concern. On Thursday, January 30, 2020, during the second meeting of the emergency committee convened by the World Health Organization, regulations regarding the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, the committee agreed that the outbreak now meets the criteria. Chief Medical Officer Dr Sharon Belma George says the Department of Health and Wellness has taken this approach so as to restrict the possible entry of the virus into St Lucia. The World Health Organization indicated that they expect further international exploitation of cases which may appear in any country. They advise that all countries should be prepared for containment including prevention measures, active surveillance, early detection, isolation, case management, and contact tracing. The Department of Health and Wellness of St Lucia has noted the escalation in the classification of the outbreak and is taking measures to restrict the possible entry of coronavirus disease into St Lucia and protected citizens. As of February 4, 2020, the government of St Lucia will not allow any non-nationals with a travel history within the last 14 days from mainland China, whether in transit or originating to enter any local port. Any national returning to St Lucia with similar travel history will be quarantined for 14 days. The government of St Lucia commends the Chinese government and authorities in their efforts to manage and contain the outbreak and will continue working to strengthen the local capacities against this global threat. And that was the Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sharon Belmar George. The Ministry of Education, Innovation, Gender Relations, and Sustainable Development is ensuring that students and staff of the Cass Street's Anglican Primary School can return to normalcy as quickly as possible following an altercation on school compound. At around 8 a.m. Monday morning, a caretaker was accosted by two individuals on the school compound. A team from the Department of Education, headed by Minister, Hon. Dr. Gil Rigabird and the Chief Education Officer, Mrs. Fiona Meyer, responded immediately to the report. For us, it is really important to listen to the professionals in the councillors who speak to how quickly a school, an institution, a place where an incident does take place to come back to a sense of normalcy. And so our individuals are on board in terms of ensuring that every child who needs to have that one-on-one with our counselling team that they do get it. We privilege that as part of their counselling week, they are all on board and they've been able to lend that kind of support and intervention really in record time. The Chief Education Officer says that while the ministry is saddened by the incident, it has been proactive in ensuring that caretakers, watchmen, and security personnel are trained to handle such situations. Our head of counselling in the person of Mrs. Eugene has been part of the decision-making side of security. Mr. Coe, the Education Officer, we've been working with the team at the school. The principal, the staff, were all made aware as to what the protocols should be. We put in training for our security personnel and that is ongoing. So after the last set of people have been trained, we continue to offer that training so that when incidents such as those which we hope do not happen, but when we have incidents, we can deal with them in a manner that is proactive in a manner that will ensure we deal with conflicts, we manage the situations as best as we can with the main focus being the well-being of all school community. After observing the necessary protocols on the ground, the team visited the Victoria Hospital where the caretaker is being attended to. The Department of Education extends its well wishes to the family and loved ones of the victim and also wishes him a speedy recovery. The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank has noted the potential of robotics and coding to transform the lives of young people within the region. Prime Minister Hon. Alan Shastney himself highlighted the potential of the two during his New Year's address to modernize and innovate the school system. ECCB Governor Dr. Timothy Antoine says that ultimately this would reduce the youth unemployment rate. The youth of St. Lucia remain a top priority for the government. The government of St. Lucia has committed to addressing the needs of the education sector which will in turn ensure that the youth are fully equipped with the skills and tools necessary for prosperity. Prime Minister of St. Lucia, the Hon. Alan Shastney during his New Year's address, indicated that one venture being undertaken is the teaching of computer coding and robotics in schools. The government has also embarked on the introduction of e-books to schools. In modernizing and innovating our schools, we've already started teaching computer encoding and robotics. Our next exciting venture is the introduction of e-books as a pilot project for Form 3s. Unlike with the previous administration, the new program will be supported by downloadable lessons, infographics and internet links. This will significantly reduce the cost of books for parents. We wish to say a special thanks to the Republic of China Taiwan for their commitment towards ICT in the education over the next three-year period. We're grateful to our diplomatic partners who continue and in some cases have increased scholarships for solutions to study abroad. Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, ECCB Timothy Antoine, highlighting the employment opportunities in areas such as coding and artificial intelligence is in full support of such a move. There are some real opportunities for young people in the area of coding where you can make a good income. $2,000 for example per month if you are trained and that training can take less than a year. That is something we want to see more and I recently heard that St. Lucia is moving into a plant with artificial intelligence for young people. I was really happy to hear that because those will create job opportunities and not just any opportunities, good jobs. What I'm saying is that that's what you want to see because you want to see higher paying jobs. You want to see jobs that are sustainable and the fact of the matter is when you look at the demand for coding around the world it is a massive demand. We only need to get a few thousand young people into that and that will make a difference with jobs, the economy and we suspect it will also ameliorate or reduce crime. So those are the things that we want to see our youth involved in but there are other things. I mean I mentioned that but whether it's in agriculture, whether it's in cultural services, to me the use should be in everything. The introduction of such programs is expected to see a reduction in the youth unemployment rate for the government information service I am Genelle Norville. And this is the NTN 90. We'll be back in a moment. The Ministry of Tourism is working alongside the Department of Statistics to develop St. Lucia's tourism satellite account, TSA. The Tourism Satellite Account is an internationally established method of measuring the direct contributions of tourism to our national economy. This will help the government in developing effective policy for the industry. If you are in the business of tourism, the ministry needs your help in collecting critical data necessary for this tourism satellite account. Let's all help to develop and improve our economy. All tourism-related establishments are asked to contact the ministry at 468-5393 before Friday the 28th of February for further information specific to their business. Welcome back. Solutions are being encouraged to give their full cooperation to enumerators who will be gathering information for the upcoming population housing census. We get the details in this report from the office of the prime minister. This is the year to be counted. Contestantly see the future is counting on you. This is the theme for the St Lucia 2020 population and housing census, which will officially start on May 12, 2020. The value of a census cannot be underscored as it is a vital information gathering process for the development, monitoring and evaluation of various socio-economic policies and strategies at the national and sectoral levels. Sustainable development goals and targets of St Lucia can also be assessed and monitored from the data gathered from the national census. The launch of the 2020 census represents the CSO's sustained commitment to providing the means for a comprehensive empirical assessment of the country's demographic features and its development needs. Data gathered from this complex and expensive nationwide exercise will give the government a development partners and the general public an objective and reliable picture of the population and the housing of St Lucia. Present at the launch was Minister for Economic Development, Housing, Urban Renewal, Transport and Civil Aviation, Honourable Guy Joseph. Minister Joseph echoed the importance of the census and made a call to all St Lucia's to be open and counted. It gives me great pleasure to stand here today to address you, but more so to be part of such an important initiative as the national housing and population census. As you would have heard, a census is very important because it gives us the key information that is required in proper planning and development. I want to assure St Lucia's that the reason stated for the census is the only reason why we are gathering the data. It is important. In order for us to plan adequately for the development of this country, the information is important. A census takes place every 10 years and this year over 500 persons will be employed for the enumeration process. More information about the census can be accessed on the Central Statistical Office of St Lucia Facebook page and website. Reporting for the office of the Prime Minister, I am Danielle Dubois and stay with the NTN Nightly. We'll be right back. Stride of unity is here again. Are you ready? This February 9th from 6am starting at the Governor General's residence. Join in as we walk, run, race, skate and cycle around St Lucia against all issues affecting us as a nation. Be sure to come out and support when the teams pass through your community to cheer them on. Wear your national colors to support the youth at the strides of unity. Now is the time. Let's do this together. Welcome back. And here's a look at what's happening to us, what there was. Partly cloudy and slightly hazy, becoming cloudy at times with a few scattered showers over the northern Leeward Islands. Elsewhere, it will be fair to partly cloudy with brief isolated showers. The Atlantic high pressure system will continue to generate moderate to brisk easterly winds and above normal seas across the eastern Caribbean region over the next few days. A dissipating frontal trough will cause a few showery periods over the extreme northern portion of the Lesser Antilles during the forecast period. The tide for Castries Harbor was high at 12.20pm and will be low again at 7.35pm. The tide for V4 Bay was high at 1.27pm and will be low again at 9.02pm. The seas moderate to locally rough with waves 5 to 7 feet or 1.5 to 2.1 meters. Small craft operators and sea waivers are advised to exercise caution due to brisk winds and above normal seas. The sun will rise Thursday at 6.30am.