 Welcome to the NTN Nightly. I'm Nisha Traus. This edition stops stories. The initial phase of the John Compton Dissilting Project nears completion. Another component of the Enhanced Country Poverty Assessment Project to be rolled out in St Lucia. A workshop focuses on capacity building and economic opportunities utilizing organic waste. All that plus the NTN Nouvelle Arquéon. The initial phase of the John Compton Dam Dissilting Project is nearing completion. This after new piece of equipment was purchased to move the process along even further. Once that phase is complete, the dissilting process will commence at the John Compton Dam. Phase one of the John Compton Dam Dissilting Project includes the construction of the sediment disposal area. That process has been halted in the past due to heavy rainfall, which hinders the completion of the Starter Dyke Foundation. After much trial and error, a new piece of equipment was bought to accelerate the process. Recently, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Physical Planning, Natural Resources and Corporatives, along with WASCO officials visited the site to see the work being undertaken first hand. We have tried many initiatives. One is of course liming the soil with carbon carbonates that have not worked. The other one was to get a tiller and a harrow from the Ministry of Agriculture that has not worked. The third one was to cover with tarpaulin that have not worked. So we have tried many things to see how we could expedite the process. Following all these attempts, it was brought to our attention, there is a piece of equipment that can be purchased which assists us in expediting the process. So here it is today we came here to witness the operation of this piece of equipment and of course to get some feedback as to what our timeframe is looking at to really finish phase one. Project engineer with the project management unit at WASCO, Lee Patrick La Force, explained how the piece of equipment will assist in the completion of the project. The main objective is us being able to dry the soil to a certain moisture level to get the requisite to meet the specs so we can continue laying material to finish what we call the Saturday. The issue we've been having with the weather is that even if it rains one day it takes at least two to three days to get the material dry to the requisite level so that we can proceed with another layer of material. With this equipment we should be able eliminate those two days and get another level within the succeeding day. Chairman of WASCO's Board of Directors Francis Dembo believes if the weather permits the starter dike will be completed within 20 days. The next activity is that we have the suction dredge already on the reservoir as a John Compton reservoir. It's already connected to the sediment disposal area and once that de-arrives right we shall start the dredge and it will suck silt, siltation right at the bottom of the reservoir so that we could the first priority is to unblock the lower port which is the which is the port that we have been traditionally you know transmitting water up to our cesarean treatment plant. There are two ports there is a lower port and there is a higher port right so once that's done the desilting process will commence at the John Compton dam. Dembo says that once the desilting process commences at the John Compton dam they will be able to extract millions of gallons of water from the dam. From the Government Information Service I am Rajvaro Lawrence reporting. The International Institute for Cooperation and Agriculture EECA has collaborated with the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute CAUTI to host an organic waste management training. The two they exercise focuses on capacity building and economic opportunities utilizing organic waste. Anise Antoine has the details. The workshop is targeted towards institutes responsible for the youth of St. Lucia including the Ministry of Agriculture, the Solid Waste Management Authority, Farmers and Entrepeneurs. Greg Rollins is the representative in the eastern Caribbean states for EECA. This activity again demonstrates our thinking at EECA that the agricultural sector offers an opportunity as a great problem solving sector for a number of the climate and socioeconomic challenges facing small and developing states. In this case we are advocating an approach towards solid waste management that can help protect the environment and public health while creating value for stakeholders of the agricultural sector. Not limited to just composting but inclusive of bioenergy generation, production of biomass and biomaterial inputs for industrial and agricultural applications as well as the creation of biofuels. This field offers a number of entry points along the value chain for prospecting entrepreneurs. Rollins noted that the motto for the delegation in St. Lucia is people focused development. The objective of this initiative is therefore to strengthen the resilience of the economies through the adoption of innovative technologies and sustainable waste management systems in the Caribbean region. Dr Ambim Bola Abiola, technical specialist and facilitator of the workshop gave an overview of the nature of the program. In terms of the of the of the content I am saying that so we're in our intention is to look at the whole area of bio wastes okay initially look at the different options for bio waste for management and then we will later focus on composting we are going to look at the data that you have for the country the data that we have for the region as well as some international information and see where we are here in St Lucia. The key beneficiary states of the training includes St Lucia, Belize, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyano. From the Government Information Service I am Anicia Antoine reporting. The Ministry of Equity, Social Justice, Local Government and Empowerment is preparing to roll out its participatory poverty assessment as part of the Enhanced Country Poverty Assessment Project which has been administered through the OECS Commission. Stakeholders recently met in St Lucia to prepare for its implementation. The Enhanced Country Poverty Assessment Project is a qualitative and quantitative study of living conditions. The project is being funded by the Caribbean Development Bank and administered across the OECS through the OECS Commission. In 2016 a component of that project the survey on living conditions was conducted in St Lucia. It is the main quantitative assessment that generates indicators of poverty and vulnerability but there are other aspects that are needed for the completion of the assessment project. Recently the OECS Commission engaged with officials from the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice, Local Government and Empowerment to plan and prepare for the rollout of these other components in particular the Participatory Poverty Assessment. Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice, Local Government and Empowerment, Velde Joseph says this step provides a qualitative focus of poverty from the perspective of specific groups of persons within the population. That is important for us because we are now engaged in a broader reform of social protection and we believe that the opportunity now to roll out that initiative will provide complementary data to inform the decisions of the ministry as we engage in this social protection reform. Ideally for us we want to look at the social protection agenda in St Lucia on a comprehensive basis and we want to make sure that all of the initiatives that the ministry will be engaged in over the coming months and years would lend itself to a reform that would benefit our beneficiaries and that is the vulnerable among us. The OECS Commission has pledged its technical support to the implementation process. The Permanent Secretary is confident that the surveys will be implemented shortly. So we are looking to bring on board a technical consultant who will assist us in identifying the resources and bringing together the various aspects and the various activities that need to be undertaken. We do have some in-house capacity that will support that technical consultant but as of now we are actually detailing the training plan. We are in the process of making sure that we identify the relevant communities that we will participate in in the survey. We will be re-engaging the national assessment team to make sure that they are an integral part of the process and beyond that we will simply ensure that we roll out the training and that we are able to facilitate the fieldwork. Other components of the poverty assessment project include the institutional analysis, the macro socio-economic assessment and the poverty and vulnerability mapping exercise. And this is the NTN Nightly. We'll be back in a moment. The Ministry of Tourism is working alongside the Department of Statistics to develop St Lucia's Tourism Satellite Account, TSA. The Tourism Satellite Account is an internationally established method of measuring the direct contributions of tourism to our national economy. This will help the government in developing effective policy for the industry. If you are in the business of tourism, the ministry needs your help in collecting critical data necessary for this tourism satellite account. Let's all help to develop and improve our economy. All tourism-related establishments are asked to contact the ministry at 468-5393 before Friday the 28th of February for further information specific to their business. Welcome back. Under the theme Renewal of Love, the Ministry of Commerce held its Valentine Day Showcase. The exhibition was an opportunity to provide clients with more avenues to promote and market their businesses and services. Tenelle Norville reports. Tau Team, the success of last year's Showcase, the small enterprise development unit's business development officer in the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, Investment, Enterprise Development and Consumer Affairs Heidi Alcindor indicated that this year even more entrepreneurs were featured. The business development officer urged the public to support local. We'd like to encourage all persons to support our local entrepreneurs. When we go into the supermarket, there's a lot of potential and the quality of the products are actually way better than what you would get internationally. We just need to give them a chance and I am sure that they will be very satisfied. We have it all here. We have everything you could name being produced locally. We just need to give the entrepreneurs a chance, give it a try and have an open mind and I think we could boom in the commerce industry. The Showcase consisted of a wide range of products and services including wines and tea. We make 100% local teas. We make all the traditional teas, all the known teas, daily, low and jet. We make them in a specific way. We dry them with a natural drying process to maintain the flavors. Our main thing is about the flavor and the benefits of the herbs that have been preserved. We use 100% natural products. Our tea bags are oxygen bleach, so there is no chemical process in this. Everything you get is 100% natural and local and we serve them in these, our packaging is dual packaging so we have an outer envelope to keep the goodness and we also have also a seal. So the idea this is going to last up to four years in proper storage. I am into the production of local wines, local brooms, mobibac, packaging the mobibac, dried up and then sell to the supermarkets. But my most popular product is the wine and it's now known as the Latani is the head, the leading one. Most people know it as all my products. They even consider me as the local Latani boy, Latani guy. The feedback has been good so far you know from last year and so it's been really good. The public favorite is the pomegranate passion. Yes this goes really really well. I can never have and for you to see. It's always whenever it's always finished. Photography services and beauty products and services will also be in showcased. We offer photography weddings, photoshoots, birthdays, commercial, anything basically you'll have to do photography. We try to do our best to at least meet the needs of the client. So we just try to make them look a little more natural, just give it a little extra flavor, there's nothing different you understand. Today I am showcasing my makeup because I do makeup, eyebrow shaping if you want to do your eye shadow or just get your eyebrow filled in. I'm doing that today. But my business does include sewing so I do sewing services, garment creation, headpieces, that type of thing. So love and spice basically caters for everyone. We do natural holistic body care products right. It started through a label of love where we were first to begin Amarastafarian. So we could not get natural organic products that were cruelty free without chemicals for our skin. So I was forced now to stay and go into myself and bring out the creativity that is within me. So through that came the product. Love and spice products include body oils and butters and hair and skin products. Sweets and treats were in abundance and included island pops and saline cake making and decorating, offering a variety of cakes. Leesweets treats is a local confectionery and it's what we grew up on. We have tamarind balls, fudge, seaweed jam or you could say gooseberry jam which is the name that is known as. We also have coconut balls. What we try to do is have a variety as to with the seaweed jam we have the rum and the wine infused. Also with the cold with the tamarind balls we do spicy regular and rum. Also coconut balls we have rum and the regular. With the fudge we have a really large variety such as ginger with turmeric, ginger mint, peanuts, chocolate. So we do a variety of fudge and we have different sizes with the containers. We also have ready to travel packs if you may say because the waste package is travel ready. Jewelry flowers and personalized gifts offer specialized gifts and trinkets. With Zinnovations we create handmade greeting cards and our vision is to really help persons express themselves differently. So if you're looking for a card to or you want to go all out to give somebody something special and different we are the persons to contact. You can certainly reach me on Instagram at Zinnovations and that's Z-N-N-O-P-A-T-I-O-N-S. I'm also on Facebook as well so you can find us on Facebook at Zinnovations or you can contact me at telephone number 519-0567. So come if your ideas if you have any words special words you want to say to that special someone we are the persons and we'll take care of that for you. This is Portuguese is the home of handmade wearable arts. I specialize in unique distinctive statement pieces of jewelry that speaks to the wearer, it speaks about the wearer and it makes a statement about who you are and what you're basically all about. We use a lot of local material locally sauce material natural skin friendly material as well and a lot of handmade shell we use um clay beads and seeds fabric as well so it's very skin friendly for people with sensitive skin as well they're awesome statement pieces for the daring bold individual. So that's pretty much basically what we're about. As well I do visual arts as well I paint and so I've tried to marry the two and taking my paintings and putting them into pendants into charm bracelets and making them as personalized as possible. We do wedding, funeral, birthdays, anniversary name it with my pieces are self-inspired so I yes I may visit the internet but it's mostly to perfect my craft so if I'm doing a link and I want to get a better way to do a link or an easier way to do the link then I would go on to the internet and my pieces are solely self-inspired so I will look at materials and I will see exactly what I'm going to do and as a result of that I create one of a kind in my jewelry. The showcase was held at Constitution Park on the 12th of February 2020. Individuals interested in any of the products or services at the showcase are asked to contact the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, Investment, Enterprise Development and Consumer Affairs Small Enterprise Development Unit SEDU. For the Government Information Service, I am General Norville. And stay with the NTN Nightly. Up next is Primus Hutchinson with the NTN Nouvelle Arquio. Welcome back. We join Primus Hutchinson for the NTN Nouvelle Arquio. Welcome back. We join Primus Hutchinson with the NTN Nouvelle Arquio. Autority of National Conservation, NCEA. Autority of National Trust, Hotel Landings, Xander's Grande. I agree. I would like to declare that the situation in the world is very very bad. It is a bad damage for business tourists. The views are generally excluded. I would like to declare that the situation in the world is very very bad. Because it is a very bad damage for business tourists. I would like to declare that the situation in the world is very very bad. Because I want to proclaim that I have not made a difference in business via service exchange which I have been working on and I am working with banks, and banks, and banks to be able to serve the people, and to be able to establish the community. All of this is a place for the people of Puy Vee, Puy Puy John Island. All of this is a place for the people of Puy Vee, an organization called Yoke Kupab, which is a place for the people of Puy Vee and to be able to put these people in the official place to get their audience here, that's in the Deaglo. I want to invite the management of the Murray Dalsons, who are not able to find Kupab in this situation, and who are able to pay $5,000 in cash. They can pay it, but they can't pay it. So I'm going to call Yoke Kupab to the booth immediately. I want to thank the National Trust, who are the leaders who led the movement, and they are the first to be able to take part in this event. They are the leaders of the Puy John Island. They are the ambassadors of the Puy John Island. I would like to thank the Parliament for the honor of all of this, because it is not only the leaders of the Puy John Island, but it is also a pleasure to be able to come to Godzilla. They have played with the people of the public to do what they have to do to save the environment, especially here in general. The positive thing about Godzilla is that these people who have these problems are able to come to Godzilla. They have visited the Authority for assistance. They have also made a suggestion to place a camera to help these people who continue to live here, to work here, and to help them find a place to live. We also have plans to open the 29th February of the day. We have a discussion about the 7th February, the Committee on Security of the National Trust, and Prime Minister Alain Chassney to help the people of the United States to move to Corona, and to help them find a place to live. We also have a suggestion to come to Godzilla. I would like to thank Dr. Aurea King-Snack for explaining to us that it is a pleasure to come to Godzilla. We also have a suggestion to come to Godzilla. We also have the Duen official stating that Duen will continue to place restrictions so that this examination will come to the head fishers to make sure that the protection is paid. For example, everything will come to pass the examination under the head of the Ministry of Agriculture. The 29th February, the Committee on Security of the National Trust which has more than 27,000 cases of coronavirus in the world. A total of 812 people have died of COVID-19. So, we will continue to follow these recommendations that are in place when we have the best, and then we will serve chemically to preserve... to preserve and clean the best. The French alias of this issue, which is based on information for the same media, more or less, is based on information on this regional program, the CARICOM, for cooperation, education, and also to discover new resources in the business. It was an initiative that was established last year. For this program, it was created to promote the regional health system because it is an agency that is committed to the business to encourage more business mobilization in the region and to make sure that the region is open and wider for the other eclatures in general. The French alias, as well as the local population, were full to offer this, not only for this issue, but also for the CARICOM alias. The French alias, as well as the local population, was able to promote the French-speaking business as much as possible to learn more about the language and the culture. It was a movement that was also able to find education and, by the way, to develop and support and promote the culture and the language and all the resources that the French alias were able to promote in the region in the middle of the region. It was a movement that was also able to help the other eclatures in the region and to encourage them to learn more about the culture and the culture. That was it. Thank you. Thank you very much. The tide for Castries Harbor was low at 12.57 p.m. and is high at present. The tide for Vierfort Bay was low at 2.24 p.m. and will be high again at 8.31 p.m. The seas locally roughed with waves and northerly to northeasterly swells 6 to 9 feet or 1.8 to 2.7 meters. Small craft operators and sea bathers are advised to exercise extreme caution due to brisk winds and rough seas. The sun will rise Friday at 6.27 a.m.