 Welcome to NTN Nightly. I am General Norville. This edition stops stories. Plans for home cruise sporting viewport are advancing despite the impact of COVID-19. COVID-19 prevention and control protocols are extended to the end of May. And Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Chastney looks forward to critical changes in Caricam with a new Secretary-General. Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Chastney has completed the first week of a two-week quarantine period following his official travel to Miami, Florida on May 5, 2021. There, Prime Minister Chastney held talks with the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association on the plans for the home cruise sporting viewport. Honourable Chastney provided details during an appearance on the GIS weekend wrap-up program. Harris Homer DeMarc. Prime Minister Honourable Alan Chastney, having returned from official travels, provided an update on several projects which he indicated will be of major benefit to the country and the cruise industry. Highlighting other cruise spots in the region, the Prime Minister noted that given the increase in the size of cruise ships, cruise lines now require more than one home port, as such St. Lucia would make for a valuable addition. Another infrastructural project on the cards for St. Lucia is that of the UNR International Airport. Honourable Alan Chastney explained how that project complemented the southern home port. The decision was to move the terminal perpendicular or off to the side of the bottom of the Cacabeth as we know it. What that would have allowed us to do is the following. One is to build a new airport without interfering with the day-to-day operations of the existing terminal and that once the new airport is finished, the goal is to convert the old airport specifically into a charter hall, but one design very much in mind of home port. So what would happen is passengers would arrive off of the flight into the existing HIA terminal which would be reconfigured and passengers would not be clearing customs and immigration in that facility. What they in fact would be doing is being processed to get into their cabin so they would get their room keys, they would put all their credit card information etc and literally when they leave that terminal to the ship which is only about a mile and a half away, they actually would be just going straight to their cabin and their bags would have been sent in advance. Prime Minister Honourable Alan Chastney explained that the cruise industry is very excited about this venture as it offers additional benefits including the close proximity of the port to a dedicated terminal aiding significantly with logistics, saving time, money and creating a better customer environment. He added however that the venture has not been without its challenges. The difficulty that we've had, Lisa, was one overcoming the current financial status of the cruise industry and secondly that the cruise companies wanted to be satisfied that there were sufficient tours available from view forward to service the remaining passengers because as I indicated to you not all of the passengers getting on the ship would be coming on from solution. So there would be other passengers who arrive on that same ship and would be going on an excursion for the day and so we've been working very closely with them to give them the assurance one that sufer is actually closer to view forward substantially closer to view forward than castries. It means that there's extra time that persons can stay in sufer and what are some of the new tours that we're doing in the sufer area. The second one is the opportunity for new tours between view forward and sufer as well as between view forward and denry. The prime minister explained that the meetings also encompass talks with technical personnel to iron out the final details of the agreement. However, more formal pronouncement will be made at a later date. I will be making a more formal pronouncement hopefully in the beginning of June and I'm hoping that the MOU between the cruise industry and submersion would have reached the point where we can sign it. So those are the details that we're working on. I felt it was important to go up to Miami because this has been one of the projects that we started from day one and I certainly want to see it through this permission before elections. The home cruise spot will be strategically located in VA4 in close proximity to the UNR international airport giving St. Lucia a competitive edge from the government information service. Hamedi Mark reporting. Following recommendations from the command center the government of St. Lucia has extended the existing COVID-19 prevention and control protocols until May 30 2021 as St. Lucia continues to manage the spread of COVID-19. The government of St. Lucia is currently monitoring the situation regarding the spread of COVID-19 and notes that over the last week we have registered an increase in the number of active cases. Today May 17 the Ministry of Health and Wellness reported that the number of active cases had climbed to 240. Another COVID-19 related death was also recorded taking the toll to 76. The protocols that have been in place are to remain including the curfew from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. daily. All agencies and businesses will continue to implement a blended service operations approach where possible for the employees. All business operations and commercial activities shall seize operation at 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. daily as guided by curfew enforced for the state of emergency. Social gatherings are restricted to no more than 10 people of immediate family. The government calls on all to continue practicing the infection prevention and control measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and keep us safe. Meanwhile the Ministry of Health and Wellness has transitioned from the phased approach to vaccination to targeting everyone 18 years and older with the arrival of 26,400 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The Ministry says it is important to achieve COVID-19 population immunity of 70% or greater to regain some level of economic or population normalcy. As a result, the Ministry is ramping up its community vaccination outreach with the inclusion of the mobile pop-up vaccination drive which began on Friday May 14, 2021. These pop-up vaccination clinics will be established at various high-traffic sites across the island. Persons are encouraged to continue accessing vaccines at the main vaccination sites as well as the mobile unit when it's in their area. And the director of the Pan-American Health Organization, Dr. Carissa Atien, is urging young people to take their role in the prevention of COVID-19 seriously. Dr. Atien notes that for much of the pandemic, hospitals in the Americas were filled with elderly COVID-19 patients, many of whom had pre-existing conditions that made them more susceptible to severe disease. These trends created a false sense of security among the younger populations who, while fearful of the virus, were not concerned about severe disease. However, increasingly intensive care units across our region are now filled not only with elderly patients but also with younger people. Over the last few months, hospitalization rates among those under 39 years increased by more than 70% in Chile. In Brazil, the highest jumps in hospitalizations have been among people in their 40s. In some areas of the United States, more people in their 20s are now being hospitalized for COVID-19 than people in their 70s. Adults of all ages, including young people, are becoming seriously ill and many of them are dying. In Brazil, mortality rates have doubled among those younger than 39. It has quadrupled among those in their 40s and tripled for those in their 50s between December 2020 and March 2021. This is tragic and the consequences are dire for our families, our societies, and our future. Director of PAHO, Dr. Carissa Atien. The safety of patrons at the Lafay-Kaimajey Human Resource Development Center is being prioritized. This comes with the donation of first-aid kits and fire extinguishers by two residents of the Lafay community. Leiland Figuera and his wife, Angel Figuera, in presenting the donation said they are pleased to be able to contribute to the community. That's something that I noticed that the center needed and as for me, I can say it's a journey seeing that we are new residents. I am pleased for what I've seen so far and with that, I know that the journey will continue. Minister for Equity, Social Justice, Local Government and Empowerment, and Parliamentary Representative for Grosjele Hon. Leonard Montout, recognizing the significance of the contribution, contributed hand sanitizer dispensers to the center. He expressed gratitude to the couple for giving to the community in such a meaningful way. We are actually in a time where safety is at the premium. I mean, we know what the world that we end today and I thought, okay, fine. We have a safety kit that will remain here permanently, but at the same time, there's another aspect of safety that we must consider. Sanitizing is one of the big protocols that we engage in these days and I realize, but wait, we do not have sanitizers here. Well, of course, my hand was sanitized when I walked in, but I thought even if there is not someone standing at the door, if we have dispensers as you walk in, you can sanitize your hands, that in itself would be a measure as well towards safety and good health of our people. Hon. Montout pledged to supply dispensers to other centers in Grosjele. The OECS Commission through its Eastern Caribbean Liaison Service has defied all odds to continue expanding participation of OECS Nationals in the Canada Caribbean Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program with over 1,000 OECS workers in 2020 contributing approximately EC $37 million in remittances. The first charter flight scheduled to depart St. Vincent and the Grenadines on April 9 was delayed due to the eruption of the last two-three of volcano and a subsequent implementation of emergency security measures. Despite these difficulties, the OECS Commission has since mobilized three charter flights to move 318 OECS Nationals to Canada, including 152 workers from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, many of whom are from communities in the Red Zone or Orange Zone, and have been staying in shelters since the volcanic eruption. Agriculture worker Nolan Joseph shares his experience. A friend of mine, Moms, she asked me if I would like to take the opportunity to go abroad and pick apples and stuff, and I just jumped at the opportunity. I told her, yes, and she did everything she could to help me through the application process, and I just took it from there. It's been very kind of life-changing, you know, because I get to do more to help my family, you know, and I guess that that is the whole embodiment of the program to, you know, come on board and to get to change your life and help you to have a broader prospect of life and just to help your family and others. It would be a nice experience, you know, to just, you know, to just, you know, have a comfortable life, you know. The OECS Commission says the Agricultural Workers Program is especially important to the ongoing relief and rebuilding efforts in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This is NTN Nightly. Stay with us. If you are in receipt of an abnormally high bill, it is highly possible that you have a leak. That leak may not always be visible. Before you contact WASCO, conduct a do-it-yourself test. 1. Record your meter reading. 2. Do not use water for 30 minutes to 1 hour. 3. Take another meter reading. If the reading changes, you have a leak. Contact a plumber to identify and fix the leak at the earliest. A message brought to you by the Water and Sewage Company Incorporated, WASCO. Welcome back. The Caribbean community has created history, selecting for the first time a woman to serve as Secretary-General, more from Toussaint King English Francis. Dr. Carla Barnett, a National of Belize, has been elected to serve as the new Secretary-General of the Caribbean community from the 15th of August. Her assumption to office will coincide with the end of tenure of Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, who is completing his second tenure in office. Dr. Barnett was elected on May 11th during a special meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of Curricum, chaired by Dr. Hon. Keith Rowley, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. Dr. Barnett is the first woman and the first Belizean to be selected for the post. And St. Lucia's Prime Minister, the Hon. Alan Shastney, was among the region's leaders, who decided on Dr. Carla Barnett's appointment. Hon. Shastney says he is looking forward to some critical changes at the Secretariat with Dr. Barnett at the helm. The Secretariat that we have now, even its name, needs to be reviewed. Certainly the structure of the Curricum Secretariat has to be restructured. So when I looked at the job description just of the Secretary-General, it's very vague. And I think that we have to become a little bit more specific and hold leadership at the Secretariat a little bit more accountable to what our objectives are. Certainly coming out of COVID, it's very clear that deeper regional integration is necessary. We're spending way too much money on services that we can't afford. So St. Lucia, with a population of 180,000, if we were to share in terms of security, let's just use security as an example. I think we should have a regional security force that is more present in our day-to-day lives than currently what we have, which is only on cases of emergency. We can deploy people to go to react to a situation rather than having now a central database of everybody's fingerprinting, whether we have the access to DNA, because it's not to say that criminals are just staying in one place or the other. And we also have to have a greater focus on white-collar crime as well. Honorable Shasne says integration after COVID-19 will be paramount to the development of the region. Why do we have to have OECS Civilization Authority, Barbados Civilization Authority, Jamaica Civilization Authority, and Trinidad Civilization Authority, when what is the price? And even for the airlines doing business in Caracom, it makes much sense that there is a common platform that they're operating on. It just makes it much easier. But COVID has really, I think, made it absolutely necessary that we have a deeper dive into integration. And the Caracom Secretary has to play a lead role in that. It can't just be about foreign affairs. I think foreign affairs is important, but I don't think it's the only thing. And certainly for us at OECS, we're now meeting on a more regular basis. We're now getting the central bank to be more integrated into policy and also in harmonization. So we hear many times that we go to the parliament and pass bills that have already been approved by the other OECS countries in the sake of harmonization. And I think this is the same thing that needs to take place at the Caracom. And I'm really hoping that Dr. Barnett, being a person who has worked there before, has left and is now coming back, that we're going to start seeing these kind of changes taking place. Prime Minister, the Honorable Alan Sharsney. That brings us to the end of NTN Nightly. Join us next time at 7 p.m. with a repeat at 7 p.m. You can also catch up with us anytime on the St. Lucia Government Facebook page or YouTube channel. I am Channel Novel.