 Welcome to NTIA Nightly, I am Genelle Norville, this edition's top stories. Hundreds of St. Lucians gain new employment opportunities from the latest investment company to the island. The Cannabis Commission lays out a comprehensive framework for the legalization of cannabis hair and a revised youth sports program to be implemented later this year. Hundreds of St. Lucians are gaining new employment opportunities with one of the Caribbean's largest homegrown business process outsourcer offering management solutions. Itel BPO, which was founded in Jamaica in the last year, has been in discussions with Invest Inclusion on branching out to St. Lucia. Itel BPO has now opened in the town of Ufort. The company will next week host job fairs to recruit staff. At the beginning of the year, Invest St. Lucia ISL introduced its plans for 2020 to the media, outlining all the projects set to come on stream in the near and long term. Within just a few months, Itel BPO's view for toperation has come to fruition and the company is ultimately expected to employ more than 400 St. Lucians in the global services sector. Following the MOU signing between ISL and Itel BPO in January, ISL immediately began retrofitting a 20,000 square foot factory space as part of its facilitation process to accommodate this new investor. Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19 and the inevitable delays caused by safety restrictions and protocols, ISL delivered the shell fully retrofitted to Itel BPO specifications by June 29, 2020. Itel BPO also showed commitment regardless of the fragility of the world's economy, demonstrating that employment in business process outsourcing can meet up with the technological and innovative demands of the new normal. At the official handing over of the facility on June 29, ISL's CEO, Roderick Sherry, said Itel BPO's new facility will play a critical role in reducing unemployment rates in our country, St. Lucia, particularly amongst young women and men. Mr Sherry added that this new state-of-the-art BPO facility will house initially 150 employees in the global services sector with aggressive growth plans by Itel BPO. These hiring commitments have changed minimally and during the past week, Itel BPO's Kiran Long, Senior Vice President of Operations, announced that about 400 employees will begin going through training by next week. Itel BPO's view for operation is the company's fifth in the Caribbean and is one step closer to the company employing 5,000 agents in the region. Anyone desiring to apply to Itel BPO can send a curriculum vitae to slurecruitment.itelbpo.com. From the Government Information Service, I am Anisia Antoine reporting. Meanwhile, more opportunities have been secured for St. Lucia's to gain employment under the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Farm Workers Program. The latest batch of 52 workers are now all set to take up employment in Canada following an orientation exercise held on Wednesday, July 8, 2020. Organised by the Department of Labor, the orientation exposed the workers to what they should expect when they arrive in Canada, importance of teamwork and department and the basic dos and don'ts. In his address to the gathering, Labor Minister Hon. Stevenson King encouraged the workers to be quality ambassadors for St. Lucia. According to Minister King, the performance of the individual workers may result in the creation of fresh opportunities for even more inclusions. The group of 52 St. Lucia men will leave the island on July 15 via special charter and will be employed on farms in various provinces for a maximum of 8 months. All workers signed commitment contracts and will undergo two weeks mandatory quarantine upon arrival in Canada. St. Lucia has successfully managed the first commercial flight to the island as revised travel protocols come into effect. More in this report. St. Lucia welcomed the first commercial flight into Huronur International Airport on Thursday with a full complement of safety protocols in place. American Airlines Flight 2295 from Miami International Airport landed at 2.15 p.m. This was the first flight to arrive since the destination reopened its borders in June 4, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The island is scheduled to also welcome Delta from Atlanta on Friday and JetBlue from JFK in the coming weeks. Officials from the St. Lucia Tourism Authority, the Ministry of Tourism, St. Lucia Air and Seaports Authority and the Ministry of Health greeted passengers. Various teams assisted with the new arrival procedures to ensure seamless experience, navigating the enhanced safety procedures at the airport. Per COVID-19 protocols, upon arrival, all visitors passed through a nurse's station for screening before advancing to immigration and customs. After successfully picking up their luggage, arriving passengers proceeded to the exterior of the terminal where COVID-19 certified taxis provided transportation to certified hotels. Clad in full PPE, Tourism Minister Honorable Dominic Fede spoke on the reintroduction of the service to the island. At the beginning of the opening of our tourism sector, no means by, is it at full capacity, but what we are doing here is to examine our protocols. We are testing all of the management mechanisms we've put in place to ensure that we can coexist with COVID. We can't stay closed forever. We get the calls, we get the letters from our constituents as parliamentary reps in both sides of the political aisle and also as ministers of government. And so what we want to ensure is that we strike a very strong balance between meeting the public safety of our nationals with very strong public health management and also rebound our economy. We are having a good process to determine whether there are any shortcomings or issues with the process. We intend to meet immediately after this flight have been cleared to determine what the areas where we see that there are weaknesses and to be able to strengthen. But so far the process has been going on reasonably well and we are getting quite good cooperation from the passengers at this point in time. All arriving passengers received gift bags with local chocolates, St. Lucia Cocoate ingredients with a recipe and sanitizer, branded flip flops, water bottles and handy what you need to know guidelines. I'm from North Carolina in the United States. We were actually supposed to travel to Barbados but with the restrictions and everything we had to change our destination. So St. Lucia was our next choice. Well I already had a plan because we were on our honeymoon so just for the wedding. To add to the excitement of the first arrival St. Lucia awarded a holiday prize to one lucky passenger. And you have just won yourself. Four nights stay for two. With breakfast in a luxury cottage at the five star luxurious Sugar Beach a vice-war resort. The strategic phase approach to reopening St. Lucia's tourism sector includes comprehensive safety and wellness protocols developed by government and tourism officials. A COVID-19 taskforce continuously monitors local and global health updates assessing protocol options to mitigate the possible spread of COVID-19 for visitors and St. Lucia communities. For more information and pre-registration prior to arrival in St. Lucia please visit www.stlucia.org forward slash COVID-19. For the government of St. Lucia I am Jureen Georges. The Cannabis Commission appointed by Cabinet in 2019 has presented its report on the development of a cannabis industry in St. Lucia. The Commission has recommended the legalization of cannabis under a regulatory framework. The St. Lucia Cannabis Commission on Thursday presented its findings based on an assessment of the impact of the legalization of cannabis and its benefits to the country. The report according to chairman of the Commission, Ateniac Law Michael Gordon QC, shares similar literature to the report undertaken by the Caricum Regional Commission on Marijuana. He indicated that the Commission has referred substantially from the conclusions and recommendations of the Caricum Commission. The conclusion according to the chairman favoured the legalization of cannabis. Michael Gordon QC went on to explain the regulatory environment in which cannabis could be legalized. The Commission was of the view that the growing processing for industrial and medicinal purposes the possession for recreational use by adults and the possession and use for religious use should be made legal within a framework which we set out. The Commission was of the view that the protection of young persons under the age of 18 should be achieved by the criminalizing of the sale or otherwise supplying or attempting to supply high THC cannabis for recreational use by young persons. The Cannabis Commission indicated that a model like that used for bananas should be used. The chairman indicated that for this model there would be a central purchasing association, the Singlucia Cannabis Cooperative, that would comprise all cannabis growers. Its responsibility would be to license all growers and to determine what criteria should be used by growers as it relates to potency and so on. The Cooperative therefore would be their licensing authority and no person could legally grow marijuana unless licensed by the Cooperative with the quality of the cannabis being assessed by the Singlucia Bureau of Standards. Health consultant on the Cannabis Commission, Dr Stephen King, highlighted that there are many benefits to legalizing cannabis use, noting that only a regulated environment can ensure the proper management of its use and the generation of revenue. The interesting thing about cannabis in particular and why people with mental health issues from depression to anxiety to psychosis and thought disorders, the reason why people will gravitate towards cannabis not only is it because it's available easily but also because of its neuronal amelioration and inhibitory effect. It tends to give people a sense of their thoughts, their thoughts slow down so they feel they get a benefit from it and in fact CBD cannabidiol is now being studied as a pharmaceutical product to deal with schizophrenia anxiety and so on. THC it is true tends to be pro-psychotic, CBD is anti-psychotic and of course in an unregulated environment when you go on the street because you have thought disorders and you go seeking out a cannabis product to ameliorate your painful thoughts that are disturbing you greatly you may find high THC which might make your problems worse. The use of cannabis by Rastafarians is regarded by their religion as a sacrament and as such they would be exempted from licensing. The legalization would also have to provide a revenue stream for the government to finance a regulation and contribute to the national wealth. Dr. King recommends education campaigns and providing widespread support for susceptible individuals who may have problems that contribute to substance use and for pregnant and nursing mothers children and adolescents cannabis would be prohibited. Economic consultants on the Cannabis Commission, Melissa Hippolyte Descat provided the economic benefits of the legalization. When we look at the revenue under the and so there will be no revenue under the under model 1 because the criminalization there will be no industry but under model 2 and 3 we see that there's a roughly about 82 million dollars that can be generated with model 2 and roughly about 80 under model 3. So both of these models will yield significant amount of revenues for the government. The differences is the differences we saw was based on the implementation course. So if you have model 3 where you have a statutory body there will be more implementation course which would account for the difference. When we look at the value added and I'm not going to go into all of the methodology but value added is how we measure GDP the contribution to GDP. So when you look at the value of output you minus the cost of inputs and taxes. What is left is the value added and we saw that the value added under model 2 is roughly about 426 million dollars which is very significant and especially in the time of COVID the economy can definitely do with that boost. The St. Lucia Cannabis Commission was established by the government of St. Lucia in 2019 to review and make recommendations on the laws and regulations as it relates to cannabis and mario. The ministries of youth and sports and education have completed a review of the youth sports program in schools. More from Anisia Antoine. Officials from the Department of Youth Development Sports met with representatives from the corporate office of the Ministry of Education to present a revised concept of the youth sports program and to seek their participation in finalizing the action plan for its development and implementation. Acting Permanent Secretary at the Department of Youth Development and Sports, Benson Emile explained the rationale behind this initiative. The intention is to go on the road in terms of engaging major stakeholders and fine-tuning that concept and education being one of the primary stakeholders because the school plant, there are so many students actively participated in sports and the school plant we felt it necessary to consult them and as we move up to grow and build more or less a small grouping that will revise and fine-tune the concept even further. The Acting Permanent Secretary also explained that one of the objectives of the program includes ensuring that all schools receive assistance from the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports in developing their sports programs. That would be one of the primary objectives is to encourage to help for the Ministry to go in and help schools develop sports programs and by sports programs I mean having sporting activities throughout the year in schools and organizing it around classes versus class and house versus house so that when it comes to preparing a school's team to represent the school in national competition that they would be better prepared and as a result the quality of the competitions would be improved. The quality of the competitions at the Ministry would be improved The review of the revised concept of the Youth Sports Program took place on Tuesday July 7th 2020 From the Government Information Service I am Anisia Antoine supporting. The Make It Happen Foundation continues its support of police and fire stations island wide and with proceeds raised from the annual officers ball held this past December has furnished top of the line gym equipment including treadmills weights and other machines to for police and fire stations. The handover took place on the 9th of July at the St. Lucia Fire Service headquarters in Cass Trees which is among the recipients Souffre View Fort and the Police Force Academy where the SSU train are among the beneficiaries for other stations received large flat screen televisions including the Rich Four and Schroesel police stations and three others each received five waiting room chairs and kitchen stools This is NTN Nightly Up next, Primers Hutchinson with the NTN Nouvelle Aquial Covid-19 is a new pandemic disease as declared by the World Health Organization It is transmitted directly by respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes or indirectly through rubbing the face with contaminated hands. There is still no specific treatment or vaccine against Covid-19 and as such the farming community should adhere to some special recommendations stock up on essentials such as animal feed, fertilizers pesticides enough to last for about 30 days stock up on fuel and oils for farm equipment ensure that tools and vehicles are serviced to prevent breakdowns and to ensure that farming and food production remain steady and protect yourself and your workers by ensuring you take all necessary precautions to remain healthy More than ever before your important role as gatekeepers of St Lucia's nutritional health authority should be taken seriously when you exercise these precautions you not only safeguard your health but also continue to allow St Lucia's access to freshly grown fruits, vegetables and other local crops Remember, it is our responsibility to ensure our nation eats fresh St Lucia's best Mr. Prime Minister I would like to inform you the government of St Lucia the GIS and the National Television of the NTN of the New York City of Cuyol of the Harkinsonson in consideration of the travel that I have seen and started the operation you are the one who collaborated to support personal equipment and protection for Covid-19 for the work of the sector and transport Minister of Tourism Minister of Health and the Autonomy of Tourism of St Lucia I would like to inform you that you have been available for more than 20,000 years to be equipped with a sanitizer for the future of St Lucia The objective initiative is to continue to provide for a bad possibility of Covid-19 to be eaten in the country If you don't want to be a Minister of Tourism, I would like to invite you to work in this operation so that all operations will be in place Excellent invitation to consider this investment to prepare taxi drivers for a new normal Minister of Tourism I would like to explain how to prepare for a situation that will be difficult and that will be very difficult for the future of St Lucia Minister of Tourism Minister of Tourism I would like to tell you that you have been well prepared for a new normal for the future of St Lucia Minister of Tourism Minister of Tourism Minister of Tourism Minister of Tourism Minister of Tourism Minister of Tourism 360 Lady Lysis Juliette de Milve. This is where I work as an agricultural worker in Canada. I found a lot of opportunities to start working in Canada. My last job was to start working in Canada. After participating in the exercise, I went to school, and I was supposed to work there. When I started working in Canada, I was able to expose my work to the quality of my work. In Canada, I was able to learn how to work as a farmer. I was able to learn all the habits that I could learn, and I was able to embrace them. I was able to work in Stavinson King. I was able to work there, and I was able to learn how to work as a farmer, and I was able to learn how to work as a farmer, and I was able to find a better place to work. I started working in Canada on the 15th of July, and I started working in Canada for 8 months. I started working in Canada, and I was able to do the training. I was able to do the training, and then I started working in Canada. I was able to go to various military organizations. This was a different agreement. We all work together. We have Sarah, Floyd and Bobre. We are able to work together. That is one of the main chances that we will have retaliation. But we are proud to work together as a motor company. I think that now we have Corona now space. I find the country to be full of large diplomatic activities. I am laughing, even with the Bank. Trans takich meine FIFA Cli. the situation quite at this moment here at the UNE Ecclesiast. So, all the pay you can come and continue to pay if you're self-worth. This is your call to the UNE by everyone who is your mom, your pay you can come and continue to pay because the UNE is your family member. Today, we are celebrating Kary Komde and we are starting a celebration here. We are raising flags which symbolize who can make us change that you say your family. We are from West Yassam. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the end of today's news report. Thank you very much for watching. I don't have any other invitation. Because I don't think it's going to be a good thing to have a lot of news here at the UNE. So, it's a good thing to finish this event because I think it's going to be a good thing to finish this event.