good afternoon it's friday september 25 i'm herman green with the midday news
if you're watching on onespotmedia.com again a special welcome to you thanks
for joining us entertainer vibes cartel and his co-accused have been granted conditional leave
to take the case to the private council leave was granted this morning by the appeal court
attorney bert samuels who was speaking with tvj's prince moore via telephone a short while ago says
the defense is happy with the decision the team of sean campbell and adisha palmer and the others
are very elated because we have been granted conditional leave to appeal to the decision of
the court of appeals to the private council we've been happy that there are some jury grounds which
have gone and some admission of evidence grounds which have been permitted to go to the private
council the court of appeal has seen it necessary that those grounds need to be resolved by another
court so it's a very good day for us and we're looking forward to victory in the favorite house
how soon do you expect the mata to go to the private council
well we have a month within which we must prepare the papers and have them onto the bundles and send
them onto the river council we're looking for uh you know if it is expedited a christmas decision
the government has been spending big in the fight against the covet 19 pandemic
at a covered press conference yesterday permanent secretary in the ministry of health and wellness
dunstan bryan outlined the expenditures thus far the ministry of health and wellness is reporting
that it has spent four billion dollars in the fight against the covet-19 pandemic speaking
at a media briefing on thursday permanent secretary in the ministry dunstan bran said
the money was spent between april and september mr brand said 40 of the 4 billion dollars was
spent in june and july to fulfill commitments made in march and april our commitments to equipment
our commitment to ppe's our commitment to drugs our commitment to the build out of infrastructure
and those commitments came in in june and july and we were able to pay those bills to the tune of
4 billion he says the majority of the funds were spent on drugs and personal protective equipment
for health professionals this he says costs approximately 1 billion dollars the next
high high expenditure item is the amounts that we spent on accommodation and that is primarily
based on the return um the citizens with the controlled re-entry program that we undertook in
may june april may june the ministry has spent approximately 728 million dollars
on the four regional health authorities mr brand says that the funds were geared
towards facilitating contact tracing financing activities at the health centers and hospitals
employing 121 doctors who were out of a job and providing salaries for community health aides
the ministry now has a balance of 1.5 billion dollars of the 5.9 billion
dollars it was allocated of that 1.5 billion dollars approximately 370 million dollars
are commitments that are um to come in for payment the balance minister though um is based on
other expenditure that we will have so tomorrow you will sign contracts that prince moore tvj news
the government is this afternoon declaring that it has not turned a blind eye to the
daily increases in the covet numbers concern had arisen that the government is not given the
attention needed to deal with covet 19 since community transmission started on september
4. but health minister dr christopher toughton at a press briefing yesterday said not so the
report health minister dr christopher tufton is assuring the country that the government remains
on top of managing the covet 19 pandemic his declaration comes amid heightened dissatisfaction
with the level of response from the government since community transmission of covet 19 began
he says a strategic approach is what is currently being used by the government in its response
we are as a government as a people and certainly as a ministry of health continue
then to take covid 19 and the response to covet 19 as a very important and absolute priority
for the health and wellness of the population the numbers are concerning and every positive case
is a concern every death is a tragedy and so we each day deliberate over how to improve the
process and the response dr tufter noted that the health minister's early models had projected that
up to 1.5 billion jamaicans could contract over 19. he said the numbers so far are way
below projection the reality is that based on that modeling we put in place a plan to mitigate
against that level of impact and to date if you look at the numbers of positives
hospitalization and the unfortunate cases of death the truth is we're doing much better
than the modeling suggested and that is because of the work that we have put in
in the meantime national epidemiologist dr karen webster carr says there are early signs that the
number of new cases of covert 19 is beginning to stabilize this means cases could soon begin
trending downwards dr webb sakhara says this is despite the fact that it's taking fewer
days to reach a thousand new cases it took us a 151 days to reach the first thousand case
then 20 then eight then nine and six but there is some stabilization and hopefully it means that if
we continue or we improve our our actions as a society then we could see the flattening of
the curve and hopefully we would have peaked and start going down from that peak ashayne masters
tvg news meanwhile dr toughton is denying claims that the government has abandoned contact tracing
amid community spread of covet 19. opposition spokesman on health dr maurice gai made the claim
yesterday saying the absence of contact tracing heightens the risk of exposure to the respiratory
illness however dr toughton says the claims are not true contrary to reports in the news media
up to earlier today that contact tracing has been ceased we no longer do contact tracing
we are still engaged in contact racing and that therefore is a wrong impression to give
that is why we had announced long ago the engagement of additional staff in the field
in the form of community health aids and we have gotten permission and have budgeted for up to 1200
such personnel and as i said last week we have between 7 800 already deployed he said the
employment of 121 medical officers to the clinical team is also part of the efforts to boost contact
tracing and equipping health facilities to deal with more cases dr toughton says the ministry is
currently following more than 3600 contacts of persons who have tested positive for covet 19.
meanwhile there have been an additional three deaths linked to kovit 19. the latest deaths are
an 84 year old female of a scent caffeine address a 46 year old female of a sent elizabeth
address and a 68 year old male of a clarendon address this pushes the number of coveted 19
deaths to 80. meanwhile the ministry says two deaths are under investigation
in the last 24 hours there were 135 new positive cases of the virus in jamaica
bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 5723 4063 are active cases 119 persons are
in hospital with seven critically ill and 44 being moderately ill
welcome back continuing the news questions are being raised about the lack of enforcement of the
plastic ban which was implemented in january last year chairperson of the jamaica environment trust
jet diana macaulay says there are still reports about plastics being sold on the local market
she believes enough is not being done to minimize the use of plastics
from the very beginning of the plastic ban and then later the styrofoam band they have been
if you go on social media any day of the week there are people reporting where they're still
being sold and there just has never never seemed to be an etiquette response to that
so whether it is a question of lack of real lack of resources lack of personnel
i don't work at nepal so i don't really know but i will say in my time i have seen resources expended
on enforcement so personnel are deployed to a scene reports are written legal advice is taken
and yet still enforcement is not carried out so i would lean on the on the side of lack of will
she maintains that the fines are too low to serve as a deterrent
the nipple signs are low you know and that's been that that too is another matter that has
been you know talked about and and said that the signs are inadequate for at least 15 years
but there was a significant sign brought in under the trade act because the plastic bags
were mostly imported and so the idea was if you could stop them coming in then that would be the
state at which the enforcement took place but i stand to be corrected but i don't recall seeing
a case using the trade act i do recall cases that nepa has brought but the signs are small and and
therefore they're not an adequate deterrent a member of the jamaica defense force jdf
was shot and killed in clarendon last night the soldier 21 year old private reynald king was shot
and critically wounded in an operation in milk river it was reported that mr king was attacked
by gunmen about seven o'clock during an operation in baker beach milk river private king was shot
in the head tvj news understands that the private was airlifted to the maypen hospital he was later
transferred to the university hospital of the west indies in kingston where he died while undergoing
surgery over two thousand pounds of ganja were was discovered during the operation at baker beach
and mayor of kingston and santandro mayor of kingston delroy williams says plans are being
made to have legendary artist frederick toots hibbert laid to rest at the cultural icon section
of national heroes park tots is a pioneer of the music and that is without question he's known
internationally but was very instrumental at the beginning stage of our music and very instrumental
in putting our music on the global stage and the municipality we we believe that it would
be quite in order to have him placed at buried at the the national u.s park also that would also be
in keeping with the municipalities developing of a design and plan for that space that is designated
for a cultural icon we intend to design a la what we refer to loosely now as a legend park
toots died on september 11 at the university hospital of the west indies
hebert was hospitalized late august after he developed breathing problems he was said to be
awaiting a coveted 19 test results toots is credited with popularizing reggae music and
even naming the genre his 1968 single dude the reggae is the first song to use the term we're
going on to news in sports football's world governing body fifa on thursday suspended the
trinidad and tobago football association ttfa with immediate effect due to what the governing
body has described as grave violations of the fifa statutes here is spencer darlington with details
in the press release fifa said the suspension was prompted by the former leadership of the ttfa
lodging a claim before a local court in trinidad and tobago in order to contest
the decision of the fifa council to appoint a normalization committee for the ttfa fifa said
that course of action was in direct breach of article 59 of the fifa statutes which expressly
prohibits recourse to ordinary courts unless specifically provided for in the fifa regulations
a normalization committee was installed by the fifa council after it was established that the
former leadership of the ttfa had engaged in various acts of serious mismanagement fifa
claims that the decision of the former leadership to go to a local court to contest the appointment
of the normalization committee jeopardizes not only the future of football in trinidad and tobago
but also endangers the overall global football governance structure which relies on the court
of arbitration for sport cass as the exclusive forum for resolving disputes of this nature
the relevant parties were initially given until september 16 to withdraw the case but failed to do
so fifa says this deadline was then extended until september 23 which was not respected either in the
circumstances the bureau of the fifa council has decided to suspend the ttfa fifa says the
suspension will only be lifted when the ttfa fully complies with its obligations as a member of fifa
including recognizing the legitimacy of the appointed normalization committee
and bringing its own statutes into line with the fifa statutes spencer darlington tvj sports
and that's the midday news remember the prime time package is at seven please join us then
on behalf of the new sports and production teams good afternoon