 Coming to you from our GIS Studios, I am Anicia Antoine and this is your Midday News Brief. The third cohort of vendors from the castries market have completed training under the OACS Original Tourism Competitiveness Project, ORTCP. The week-long training workshop was designed to build the capacity of vendors and forms part of the ORTCP's support for the upgrade of the castries market and surrounding areas and was facilitated by the Ministry of Tourism, Information and Broadcasting, Culture and Creative Industries. During the five-day training program, vendors listened to presentations from the St Lucia Bureau of Standards, Export St Lucia, Bell Fund and TVET on the requisite standards and certifications for offering codes and services, the importance of product quality and as well as good business management and customer relations. Soldiers received the certificate for their participation in the training exercise. The Government of St Lucia is moving to revolutionise the public transport sector. The Department of Transport through the A Government system is modernising the licensing process. Minister for Economic Development, Housing, Urban Renewal, Transport and Civil Aviation, Honourable Guy Joseph explained that the processes at the Department of Transport will soon be fully automated and citizens will be able to access the services online. Databases will soon be integrated, renewal of driver's licences will be done online among other transactions. Additionally, their current systems will be integrated so as to allow law enforcement access to relevant information to conduct their duties effectively. The licence renewal process is expected to be available online by January 2020. St Lucia continues to forge ties with countries across the globe. On August 27th 2019, the Government of St Lucia and the Government of Nepal established diplomatic relations and on August 28th 2019, the Government of St Lucia and the Republic of Rwanda established similar relations. These relations seek to promote mutual understanding and strengthen the friendship and cooperation between the countries. The relations are guided by the principles of the United Nations Charter and International Law, particularly the respect and promotion of international peace and security, equality among states, due respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity, independence and international treaties and non-interference in internal affairs of the states. Signing on behalf of the Government of St Lucia was His Excellency Ambassador Cosmos Richardson, the Permanent Representative of St Lucia to the United Nations. This has been your media news brief. Thank you for watching.