 Coming to you from our GIS studios, I am Anicia Antoine and this is your Midday News Brief. St Lucia is looking to strategically position itself and highlight its many offerings as tourism industry representatives met in the much anticipated Florida Caribbean Cruise Association FCCA conference in Puerto Rico. The conference allowed industry personnel to network share ideas, examine best practices and establish business initiatives with top-level cruise executives. The St Lucia delegation headed by Prime Minister Hon. Alan Chastney and Tourism Minister Hon. Dominic Fede seized the opportunity to update industry partners on plans to commemorate the Caribbean Equine Cultural Festival happening on December 12th and 13th in St Lucia. The two-day luxury lifestyle and racing entertainment event will be held at the newly commissioned Royal St Lucia Tourist Club in the southern town of Viewfort and will feature the inaugural Peter Cup that boasts one of the largest horse racing prizes purchased to date in the Caribbean. St Lucia is being promoted as a must-see for investment and leisure. The St Lucia Sports Academy has become a home away from home for 37 students who have enrolled there. The School of Excellence for Sports is the first and only boarding school on the island where students will concentrate on sporting disciplines including cricket, football and track and field. Academics will also feature prominently within the curriculum. For the school's principal, Delia Charles, the initiative by the Government of St Lucia and the Ministry of Education is a welcomed one, one that she believes addresses the thinking that one size does not fit all when it comes to education. From dawn to dusk, the students are engaged both physically and mentally in activities that will prepare them to gain sports scholarships abroad. The St Lucia Sports Academy opened on September 11th, 2019. With a history of rampant flooding in times of inclement weather, 12 communities in Castree Southeast are now set to benefit from significant investment to help reduce flooding and its debilitating impact. On Monday, October 21st, 2019, area residents gathered for a second time to receive official updates from the experts responsible for the execution of the DVRP-funded EC6 million dollar slope stabilization and drainage projects. They include reinforced concrete retaining walls, basket retaining walls, masonry retaining walls and rip wraps. Glory Cedar trees will be planted along the river banks to help with slope stabilization. Communities in Castree Southeast are marked to benefit from the flood mitigation works at Country Village, Otso, Badu Shosei, Bel-e, Bekso, Wavin-Pwaso, Mac, Crownlands, Labe'i, Sarat Gap and Air Bar. The projects are scheduled to be completed by air end and present a collaborative effort between the Department of Infrastructure and the Department of Economic Planning through the Project Coordination Unit, PCU. This has been your Midday News Brief. Thank you for watching.