 Welcome to Nation Beat, I am General Norville bringing you this brief on the pulse of our nation and highlights around the heart of St Lucia. The first phase of the castries redevelopment project is underway. Medical practitioners get training in bedside ultrasounds and the OECS explores opportunities on the African continent. The government of St Lucia has embarked on a new visioning process for the city of castries. The first phase will run for four months to end in December 2018. The aim of this process is to make castries more compact, mix use socially inclusive, better connected and more resilient to climate change through integrated urban planning. The castries redevelopment review is also guided by international policy frameworks that St Lucia has signed on to such as the sustainable development goals and the new urban agenda. In 2008, the government of St Lucia via extensive consultation with a multitude of stakeholders sought to articulate a vision for the island's development via Quadrant Development Plan. Government has mandated the recently established National Integrated Planning and Program Unit NIPP in the Ministry of Finance to focus on the castries redevelopment project by first articulating the 2030 vision for castries using the 2008 vision as a benchmark. Howard Wells is the director of NIPP. Stakeholders at the forum included representatives from civil society organizations, various government ministries. The forum concluded with seven clear declarations outlined as part of the visioning for castries. We also looked at the whole idea of heritage. Castries historically was a place of strong culture, strong heritage related activities, but now we've seen that most of this has disappeared. The United Nations Office for Project Services Unops has partnered with the government of St Lucia on the castries vision 2030. The NIPP director is optimistic that this effort will bear more fruit than other visioning exercises in the past as it will outline tangible, doable projects which can be rolled out for Phase 2 in 2019. For the National Competitiveness and Productivity Unit, Glenn Simon reporting. Mayor of castries, his worship, Peterson Francis, is on official visit to Trinidad and Tobago for a series of meetings. According to the mayor, the meetings are geared toward building strong partnerships in an effort to improve and develop the city of castries. Having met with several of his counterparts, Mayor Francis noted that without some level of autonomy from the government, the offices of the mayors are hindered in the crime fighting efforts. One of the things that they realized is that while there are certain things that are under the jurisdiction, they did not have the power over it. Most of the two jurisdictions are mountaineers and the mayor for Arima, although they have city police, but they have actually no control over them. So we are now looking to see how they could strengthen the government, could strengthen the hands of local government. And as I told the gathering that I'm looking at the death of local government, because what is happening, because we are on the ground and basically rubbing shoulders with people and finding the nature of what's happening and reacting to the needs of the people, that is now going to put us in conflict with central government. His worship indicated that the Trinidadian officials have been following the work of his office for some time now. Due largely to its success, the castries mayor was invited to Trinidad for an official visit. During the visit, the castries mayor is meeting with representatives of the mounted and canine branches of the Trinidad and Tobaco police service and commission of police Gary Griffith to discuss crime control strategies within the city of Port of Spain. Mayor Francis explained that the flexibility within city police provides an added advantage. We are on the ground, we are basically on the ground, like in other words, I mean I, the police on myself, the city police, we are the daily basis in contact reviewing as to, I don't think the permission of police has that type of logs here in the sense that I mean, we are a wider team to deal with and we have other administrative things as far as, you know, Madrid Street, the courts, lawyers, I mean they have more work on the thing to do, but with me, I have a smaller team dealing with a smaller sphere of space, so therefore on a daily basis, you know, like we could review, we could see where we go in and I think that is where we have a little more strength in that we are operating the city police on a daily basis. The skills and knowledge of emergency physicians responding to traumatic injuries in the hospital environment is expected to be enhanced with the arrival here of a team from the Stony Brook University. The team from the Stony Brook University is assisting in the training and support of emergency physicians around the island to strengthen their ability to provide care to pregnant and trauma patients using the service of bedside ultrasound. Professor of the Stony Brook University William Marlon says this training will provide an exchange of valuable information on bedside ultrasound which is important in the diagnosis of patients in the accidents and emergency department. Bedside ultrasound is sort of different than what you would get from a radiologist. The areas that we're interested in are real-time clinical decision-making. Is someone having intra-abdominal bleeding after a car accident? Does someone have a popped lung from a broken rib? And so those are the types of things, we're doing more than that, but those are the types of ultrasounds that we're trying to make sure that we're clear on and to teach here today. Coordinator of the bedside ultrasound training, Dr Lisa Charles says, training of this nature are very beneficial to staff and patients as it will improve diagnostic timeliness. Ultrasound really is an incredibly useful bedside test for two sets of patients, our pregnant patients and our trauma patients. And if I can talk a little bit about the trauma patients with limited access to advanced radiology testing like CT scanning. When you have a trauma patient present in the ER, this is a bedside test that can help you figure out whether there's internal bleeding and that can save valuable minutes in terms of getting a patient to operating theatre if required. Bedside ultrasound for internal bleeding is now a routine for every patient who visits the Victoria Hospital with a traumatic injury. Reporting from the communications unit of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, I am Fennel Neptune. This is Nation Beat, stay with us. And genetically modified foods are harmful to health and the environment. Join the Good Food Revolution. Grow, buy and consume organic. A message from Rye St. Lucia and the Ministry of Sustainable Development with funding from the GEF Small Grants Program, UNDP. Welcome back. The Sir Arthur Lewis Community College has informed that cleaning and maintenance work at the Monfortune campus have been completed and authorization has been given by the Occupational Safety and Health Specialists in the Ministry of Labor for the resumption of classes. The college further informs that because of major rehabilitation issues needed attention at the Goodlands extension, the two units' house there will be relocated. Therefore, effective Wednesday, 7th November, 2018, classes for the Department of Health Sciences and the Division of Teacher Education and Educational Administration will be relocated to the UE Open campus and the SALCC campus at Monfortune. The Ministry of Education and Cabinet, as promised in August this year, have released the first disbursement of funds. On Monday 5th November, the college collected a check of $1.5 million. This money will be used to address some operational shortfalls and, most importantly, allow for commencement of the rehabilitation of the two buildings on the Monfortune campus. When rehabilitated, these two buildings will be better positioned to allow the college to accommodate the divisions that have been temporarily relocated. OECS Heads of Government at the 66th meeting of the OECS Authority agreed to strategic representation in Africa as that continent continues to expand economically. The Heads have decided to appoint non-resident ambassadors in several African countries. Dr. Ralph Gonzales, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is the chairman of the OECS Authority. We also took a decision for OECS representation in Ethiopia and at the African Union, which is in Al-Sababa in Ethiopia. We took a decision to establish an embassy in Morocco, the Kingdom of Morocco, and also to establish a non-resident ambassador to Algeria. This is a matter which is long overdue and it's a full aggressive thrust in Africa. It's the country from which most of the people of the Caribbean hail in terms of their parentage, their ancestry. And of course, Africa is a big untapped market, the growing middle class, for tourists, for business, and the like. So this is an important opening. The Heads of Government also reaffirmed the decision to reopen joint diplomatic representation in Ottawa, Canada and considered the shared interest of Barbados in this joint adventure. The OECS is also cementing its presence in Brussels. Not only because it is the headquarters of the European Union, but because in practical terms a lot of issues touching upon development assistance and trade and a multiple set of relations between the European Union and the African Caribbean and Pacific countries and the post-Cotton negotiations. All these things are of vital importance to us. The ordinary man and woman may not think that these things are important, but if you don't get good quote-unquote deals out of all these arrangements, we will be the worst off. Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Chairman of the OECS Authority, Dr. Ralph Gonzalez. The Department of Infrastructure, Ports and Energy will be undertaking road markings from Grozile to Castries. These works will be undertaken during the months of November and December 2018. The markings will take place on the Castries-Grozile and John Compton Highway, section of Jeremy Street, Pena to Bridge Street, Manuel Street, Inner Relief Road and will end at the Bernanke Roundabout. These markings include all edge and centre lines, all lane and directional arrows, all hatch lines and pedestrian crossings. Motorists are asked to be cooperative and be guided by the road signs and cones and should pay attention to the flaggers who will be on location. The working times may vary depending on the type of markings being undertaken. That's Nation Beat. Join us next time on NTN at 7.30pm, with a repeat at 7.30am and on this station as we fill the pulse and heart of our community. You can also catch up with us anytime on the St. Lucia Government Facebook page or YouTube channel. I am Channel Novel.