 Coming to you from our GIS Studios, I am Anisia Antoine and this is your Midday News Brief. The hurricane season for our region which covers the North Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico began on Saturday June 1st, 2019. This year we have had one off season short-lived sub-tropical storm Andrea which developed a few hundred miles southwest of Bermuda on May 20th. Predictions from the major hurricane season forecasting agencies agree that near normal tropical cyclone activity is expected in our region this year. Regardless of the pre-season predictions, the St. Lucia Med Services advises all St. Lucia residents and interests in our region to exercise due diligence in their planning and preparation for this year's season and for that matter every hurricane season. St. Lucia's are asked to add hair to all notices from the Med Office and other official media sources. The hurricane season ends on the 30th of November 2019. As a minister of foreign affairs in the Republic of China Taiwan, Dr. Joseph Wu arrived in St. Lucia for an official visit last Thursday. The St. Lucia minister responsible for external affairs, the Honourable Sarah Flood Borbara, welcomed the other foreign minister and his wife upon arrival at the George F. L. Charles Airport. Also forming part of the welcome was resident Taiwan ambassador, his Excellency Douglas Shen and his wife and permanent secretary in the Department of External Affairs, El Machine Isaac. His delegation then met with Prime Minister Hon. Alan Shastney at the office of the Prime Minister. On Friday, the foreign minister was hosted in Sufre by Parliamentary Representative Hon. Herod Stanislaus for a visit to the Herman Bird Beach Park, a project funded by the Taiwanese. A major part of the visit was the official contract signing and sword turning ceremony to mark the commencement of the Road Improvement and Maintainment Programme valued at 42 million US dollars. The government of St. Lucia has secured a loan from the government of Taiwan to improve local road infrastructure and the Taiwanese government and the government of St. Lucia have engaged the Overseas Engineering and Construction Corporation, OECC, to undertake design and construction of the roads. More benefits are coming to mobile telephone customers in the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitzan-Nivis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority, EC-TEL, has announced that starting Monday, June 3, 2019, mobile number portability will be launched in all five EC-TEL member states. Mobile number portability enables consumers to keep their current mobile telephone numbers when switching from one mobile telephone operator to another. The formal announcement was made at the just-concluded 39th EC-TEL Council of Ministers meeting at the Harbour Club in St. Lucia. This has been your media news brief. Thank you for watching.