Ja­maica will re­ceive up to US$6.7 bil­lion over three years from five in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions to sup­port re­cov­ery and re­con­struc­tion af­ter Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa. The pack­age was con­firmed af­ter a re­quest from Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness and will in­volve CAF – De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank, the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank Group, the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, and the World Bank Group.

The Min­istry of Health will ex­pand com­mu­ni­ty-based HIV test­ing and in­crease ac­cess to self-test­ing next year as it push­es to strength­en re­ten­tion in care and roll out a na­tion­al an­ti-stig­ma cam­paign.

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe urged the pub­lic to ask deep­er ques­tions when check­ing in on oth­ers, say­ing a sim­ple “How are you do­ing?” is of­ten not enough to re­veal dis­tress or do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. He en­cour­aged peo­ple to fol­low up with, “How are things at home?” to help un­cov­er con­flict that may oth­er­wise go un­seen.

WIGUT pres­i­dent Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad has as­sured staff that the long-await­ed back pay owed to UWI St Au­gus­tine em­ploy­ees is now in its fi­nal stages of ap­proval, telling mem­bers, “It had to come. It was a le­gal agree­ment.”

Eco­nom­ic progress can­not be achieved with­out the ac­tive part­ner­ship of the pri­vate sec­tor, said Ava Ma­habir-Dass, Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism. She was ad­dress­ing the Cou­va Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) dur­ing the Cham­ber’s an­nu­al Christ­mas func­tion on Fri­day at its ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex in Cou­va.

The au­thor­i­ty to grant Firearm Users’ Li­cences (FULs) must re­main with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, as any at­tempt to shift this statu­to­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty could cre­ate chaos, in­ef­fi­cien­cies and added bu­reau­cra­cy.

For­mer act­ing CEO of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), Jee­van Joseph, is keep­ing qui­et about the rea­sons be­hind his sud­den de­par­ture from the State util­i­ty, con­firm­ing on­ly that he re­signed.

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al is call­ing for full trans­paren­cy from the Gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the in­stal­la­tion of a US mil­i­tary radar sys­tem in To­ba­go.

San Juan East Side Sym­pho­ny Steel Or­ches­tra ce­ment­ed its dom­i­nance in the Sin­gle Pan Band cat­e­go­ry of Panora­ma on Sat­ur­day night, cap­tur­ing its ninth na­tion­al ti­tle and sec­ond con­sec­u­tive crown at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. Per­form­ing Jumbie by Machel Mon­tano, the band de­liv­ered a tight­ly ex­e­cut­ed arrange­ment by Du­vone Stew­art, earn­ing an im­pres­sive 285 points to top a field of 25 com­peti­tors.

Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers met with Bahrain’s Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs, Yousef bin Ab­dul­hus­sain Kha­laf, in Man­a­ma yes­ter­day.

It is too soon to de­ter­mine whether the in­stal­la­tion of a new US mil­i­tary radar sys­tem at ANR Robin­son Air­port will play a sig­nif­i­cant role in the up­com­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions.

A tense phone call last week be­tween the White House and Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro of­fered the em­bat­tled leader one fi­nal deal: re­sign im­me­di­ate­ly, leave Venezuela with his wife and son, and re­ceive safe pas­sage—or face the full force of an ex­pand­ing US cam­paign tar­get­ing what Wash­ing­ton has la­belled a “nar­co-ter­ror­ist regime.”