 Welcome to Nation Beat. I am Genelle Norville bringing you this brief on the pulse of our nation and highlights around the heart of Saint Lucia. Saint Lucia was spared the effects of heavy rainfall associated with tropical storm Isaac. Minister of Responsibility for External Affairs speaks on US visa interview waivers. IBSA collaboration bears fruit and family and friends bid farewell to Saint Lucia was spared the effects of heavy rainfall associated with tropical storm Isaac which was expected to produce 50 to 100 millimeters on the island from September 12th to 14th 2018. The center of Isaac passed between Martinique and Dominique with maximum sustained winds of about 45 miles per hour. The system has now weakened into a tropical depression and convection associated with Isaac diminished considerably. Isaac is expected to dissipate within the next few days. The cloud system associated with Isaac remains poorly organized and Saint Lucia fell between the rain bands of Isaac hence the island has thus far not received the expected rainfall. However cloudiness and showers trailing tropical depression Isaac will continue to affect the lesser Antilles including Saint Lucia during the next 24 hours. Residents especially those in flood and landside prone areas are to be vigilant and small craft operators and sea-beavers advised to exercise caution due to locally rough seas. Minister of Responsibility for External Affairs the Honorable Sarah Flood Bobra has welcomed the decision by the US Embassy to implement interview visa waivers in Saint Lucia for qualified applicants wishing to renew their US visas. This came into effect Monday September 10th 2018. Minister Flood Bobra says there are many benefits aligned with this decision. We know for example the cost of air tickets to Barbados to and from most persons applying for non-immigrant visas would have to pay the high cost of these tickets would have to overnight in accommodations in addition of course to the fees that have to be paid for the visas the monies that have to be paid to have the visas or passports FedEx back and we know how exorbitant that can be especially when you have a number of family members applied and for many many years now solutions have had to spend all this money in applying for a US visa and sometimes it is even rejected so we can see immediately what the benefits of that decision is and we do welcome this and thank the United States government for considering doing this at this time. Saint Lucia and passport holders with the exception of beneficiaries of the citizenship by investment programs may qualify for a visa renewal interview waiver if their previous visa expired within the past 12 months. One would have to go online and fill in the usual application form and then one knows whether or not he or she in fact can proceed without having to be present at the US Embassy for the visa interview so the waiver of the interview is not automatic but the what the rule what the new rule says is that we are now eligible providing we make certain criteria so as the Ministry of External Affairs we will be continuing to monitor this to see how how how many Saint Lucia's in fact are able to benefit from this and we would encourage our citizens to continue to be in touch with us so that we can receive information first hand. The applicant must be physically present in Saint Lucia or within the consulate district of the US Embassy in Bridgetown Barbados to avail themselves of this opportunity. Additionally the previous US visa must be in the applicant's possession. Students who wish to renew their visas and who satisfy their four mentioned requirements may qualify for interview waiver if they are applying to continue attendance at the same institution or will continue the same major course of study at a different institution. Applicants seeking to renew work related visas who are returning to work for the same employer or company as annotated on the previous visa may also qualify. Applicants under the age of 14 and over the age of 79 years will continue to qualify for interview waiver in most visa classifications. Applicants who acquired Saint Lucia citizenship via an economic citizenship program and all third country nationals will still be required to schedule visa interviews for visa renewals. The Prime Minister Barbados during the last meeting of the Council of Ministers of Finance and Planning COFAP highlighted the critical role played by the organization in advancing curriculum single market and economy CSME. Listing the region's many challenges she asserted that immediate action was required to undo the damage which is currently being done not only to the country's economic stability but also to its citizens. This was the second meeting of the Council of Ministers of Finance and Planning COFAP held in three months following a five-year period since the last meeting was held. Prime Minister of Barbados mere mortally highlighted some of the common challenges faced by curriculum member states which include but are not limited to the EU blacklisting and the continued struggle to stabilize economies and financial services. Mortally further stated that the fact that countries continue to attract investments in a way that undermined other country's stability reiterated the need for common community investment policy and code. When we look at the investment policy code that was first settled as far back I think as 2008 or 2009 so that we're talking about almost a decade in the wilderness in the absence of being able to settle some of these critical initiatives that this meeting can bring us closer to settling and signing off on them that we can enhance the ability of our citizens to be able to access credit by putting a framework in place that protects both the individual citizen as well as the financial institution is absolutely critical if we are going to give true expression to improving the lot of our citizens. She urged COFAP to address that which is fundamentally linked to the competitiveness of the single market but related to how the economy functions. These she said must be advanced if curriculum is to take the matter of single market to the next level. And I referred to the question of the integrated capital markets of our region all of us are having access problems with respect to capital. Too many of our citizens in the productive sectors too many of our companies in the productive sectors are complaining about the inability to be able to access capital in ways that make sense and at cost that makes sense and to the extent therefore that we can allow for the surplus liquidity in markets to be able to flow to other markets we will have added value to our general ability to move towards greater growth in the region. According to Prime Minister Motley the decisions made at COFAP meeting are critical to the advancement of the CSME. The curriculum single market and economy CSME is an arrangement among the curriculum states for the creation of a single and large economic space for the removal of restrictions resulting in the free movement of goods services people capital and technology. Saint Lucia's legal fraternity on Friday bade farewell to one of its most revered members and he said Antoine attended the special sitting of the High Court held to honor Marcus Peter Foster. Members of the legal fraternity gathered at the Parliament chambers for a special sitting of the OECS court to pay tribute to the late Marcus Peter Foster also known as Ole or Harry who passed away on September 4th 2018. Marcus Foster is the son of Kenneth Foster who is a member of the inner bar and stems from a well-established family in the law field. In 1992 he became the proprietor of Marcus Foster and Associates and contributed immensely to the law system in Saint Lucia during his tenure as an attorney. In correspondence from his brother-in-law Marcus is described as one of Saint Lucia's most distinguished through his potential minds that ever lived. I concur with that sentiment and with permission I docked it now as my own. In that same document Marcus is described as making an indelible contribution to regional jurisprudence which reflects his profound intellectual standing. He was also described as being assiduous and endowed with creativity, ingenuity and possessing a cognitive flexibility of first grade steel. Again with all of these sentiments I concur and with permission I docked them now as my own. To me Marcus had clearly mastered his craft. He was persuasive in closing, swift with counter legal arguments, winning in closing where he may have lost on submissions or winning on submissions where he could not win in closing. All this he accomplished not with venom and animosity but with casual confidence in matter of fact style that was seasoned always with wit and humor. Marcus Foster was a past student of the St. Mary's College, Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, the University of the West Indies Cavill and graduated from the U Woodin Law School in 1989. He had the capacity to and did help lawyers both junior and senior and all lawyers acknowledged that he was a repository of legal genius. Despite this in his character, he had a sense of humility, cloaked in wit and had a natural ability of conceiving his pain in laughter and humor. The funeral service of the late Marcus Peter Foster will be held on Tuesday, September 18th at the minor Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. From the Government Information Service, I am Anisia Antoine reporting. This is Nation Beat. We're back after this break. When you're out at sea, there are no service stations along the way or supermarkets for a quick stop if you need something. It is essential that everything you will need while at sea is on the boat before you leave. That's why pre-sea checks are so important. Checks should be carried out by more than one person to ensure that all essentials are on board. Pre-sea checks should include food stores, extra water and fuel, navigational equipment, safety gear and communication equipment. Before heading out to sea, always ensure that all equipment is in working order. You are stocked up on food and also extra fuel. Call the lighthouse to inform them of your voyage plan and inform someone responsible of your departure time and estimate the time of arrival back on shore. For more information on obtaining a license to fish, contact the Department of Fisheries at 468-4143. Welcome back. An ongoing farming project established in conjunction with the India, Brazil, South Africa, IBSA Fund has yielded several successes. Dr. Darrell Bess, veterinarian and animal husbandry officer in the Ministry of Agriculture said the IBSA Project addressed several sector challenges. We've done what we've actually tried to do for the IBSA Fund. We've actually done different segment or different cohorts. Our first thing was that we actually brought in some new bloodlines of both sheep and goats into the island to help improve our bloodlines and improve the quality of animals that we can make available to the farmers and therefore the farmers to the general public. That has been ongoing for at least a year or two years now and we're actually getting our offsprings out to the farmers and the farmers are getting some good results from the offsprings and therefore they can help now produce or uprofilate these animals. The IBSA grant also provided for educational opportunities for both farmers and technical agriculture officers. In St. Lucia, we've accomplished thus far three farmer fields schools, one in small ruminants, swine and poultry. This is where we actually bring the practical knowledge to the farmers not in a school setting, but a farmer setting. So we actually go out to the farms, it's very hands on. Another part of it is the AI. AI is artificial insemination, where we've actually trained farmers, trained some farmers and our technical staff in the procedures of artificial insemination. We've had our own officers go overseas to Jamaica via Caddy to actually learn these kind of techniques. We've actually held our own AI workshop in St. Lucia sometime last year. Dr. Bess said the workshops have been successful in educating farmers about new practices and preparing them to implement similar procedures. The IBSA project aims to alleviate poverty by improving farming practices. It is being implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO of the United Nations, in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture. The St. Lucia Electoral Department encourages the young and the marginalized to participate in the electoral process. This week, the world observes the International Day of Democracy. The United Nations Secretary-General sees this as an opportunity to invigorate democracy by bringing the young and marginalized into the political system. Assistant Chief Elections Officer of St. Lucia's Electoral Department, Olympia Lionel, says her department has taken measures to encourage and accommodate such groups. I must say we fortunate in the Caribbean that St. Lucia is the only country as it relates to democracy, that has taken democracy to the second shorten at the hospital. In 2016, SI number 13, 2016, the law was amended that you can go to a hospital or care institution to allow those persons to exercise their franchise, where at the last general elections, persons were able to cast a ballot right at the bedside. For the care institutions, we were able to do a mobile unit where persons were able to exercise their franchise and for us to move on to the other institution. Lionel also unveiled her department's efforts to further educate citizens on the process of attaining ID cards in an effort to encourage persons to participate in the electoral process. We had a number of issues with the general public in terms of the services we provide and as of last year, we had instituted the customer service desk where we created checklists with the different requirements for a new registrant and non-elector to change your address, if you change your name. So somebody coming to electoral department would go to the customer service desk where the customer service rep would check our system and let you know what is required for whatever transaction you come in to do. International Day of Democracy is observed annually on September 15. The observance was established through a resolution passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007. St. Lucian's, both here and in the diaspora, watched the live stream of the memorial service for both of them, who was shot and killed in his Dallas apartment last Thursday. The more than a four hour long service was marked by worship, praise, stories about Gia's adventures, endeavours and aspirations. His uncle, former government minister Ignicia Gia, eulogized the 26 year old. The Carter School of Business at Botham's Beloved Harding University asked me if I would consider helping a brilliant highly Christ-centered, extremely personable, sterling young man from St. Lucia. They said, we really only want you to do two things. Number one, obtain for him a quality internship in Dallas. Hopefully, hopefully with his first round draft pick, Price, Waterhouse, Cooper, PWC, no less, both of them aimed high. Both of them aimed high in his pursuit of excellence in everything. PWC is hurting, not just in Dallas, but all across our country. And I want to thank you all for the opportunity to share with Bo and to 55,000 people in PWC. I'm honored to pay tribute to Bo in his memory with all of you. For you are the people who love Bo and the people that Bo loved the most. And especially to Bo's family. I am amazed by your strength and I am in awe of what an incredible young man you raised. And I hope, by my few words, I can give you the comfort that he will never be forgotten. My name is Todd Gentry. I'm the campus minister in Botham in 2011. I got to meet him. Later on, he became my intern in ministry. In 2011, Botham said, Todd, why don't you lead a group of students to my island of St. Lucia? It's a beautiful place. I've been leading students to other places and doing other things. And so we got together in 2012 was our first trip to St. Lucia. I wish that all of you could see him in those moments. We went and worked with children that did not have parents. He was good with both the little ones and the old ones. We walked along the streets of grossly St. Lucia and helped everyone that needed something done, whether it meant taking a machete to a grown-up lot or fixing a door, or just singing with people that needed a friend. We went to the juvenile detention center and let know a bunch of boys that needed hope that there was hope. And we played soccer. And in six years, they beat us once. But anyway, and Botham wasn't a good soccer player. We went into the nursing homes of Castries and Viewfort. And Botham Shaw loved those people. And he combed their hair. And he sang to them. And he loved them. And he cleaned up their messes. We went to the hospitals in Castries and Viewfort. And at every hospital bed, we stopped. And we prayed. And we sang. And we talked. That's who Botham was. I won't miss him. But I will see him again. Because while I was his mentor, he touched me. And he changed me too. Botham was our prince. And as evidence by the outpouring of expressions of outrage, love, sympathy, and solidarity from near and far, in the four corners of the globe, he was truly a prince of the people. Our star was about to complete his 27th orbit around the sun on the 29th of September. His brilliance had radiated a universe. We give thanks to the true and almighty God, Most High, for gracing us with the presence of this change agent, Good day, please. Asuujinu, our brothers, lead us to糾 with our machines. Our brothers, with peace and blessing. Let our brothers, lead us to the cross. A'ai-ai-ai- dear он We will enjoy themselves So I will visit you That's a nation beat. Join us next time as we fill the pulse and heart of our community. I am Janelle Norville.