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By Balford Henry Senior staff reporter balfordh@jamaicaobserver.com Wednesday, September 30, 2020 A new National Identification and Registration Bill has been completed and is being reviewed at the Cabinet level, Prime Minister Andrew Holness informed the House of Representatives yesterday. This follows the significant landmark reached in April when the Cabinet approved the draft for a new voluntary National Identification and Registration Policy, which includes the introduction of a national identification system (NIDS). Holness said that the Bill has been completed and is being reviewed by the NIDS Policy Committee and the Legislation Committee, which is a sub-committee of the Cabinet, and he is hoping that it will be passed by year end. He said that substantial changes were made to the original policy, which was rejected by the Supreme Court after being passed in the House of Representatives in 2017, and are reflected in the new policy, including voluntary enrolment under the NIDS a...

When a third cancer diagnosis forced Josan Sutherland to decline her first Chevening Scholarship offer in 2018, she was devastated. Not only would the practising physiotherapist have to fight the deadly disease for a third time, but her dream of pursuing advanced studies in her field would have to be put on hold. Josan Sutherland of Jamaica, 3 time cancer survivor “I was lost beyond words. I kept on asking myself, ‘how could this be happening to me’?” she recalled, noting that she received the diagnosis a day after her scholarship acceptance letter. But come next week, Sutherland is scheduled to leave Jamaica for University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom (UK) to pursue a master’s degree in neurological physiotherapy. The 28-year-old is one of 14 Jamaicans awarded the prestigious Chevening Scholarship this year. Sutherland said that her cancer fight started at age 12, when she was diagnosed with bone cancer, which resulted in the loss of her right leg. “I had just s...

A grand jury in Louisville, Kentucky, has indicted Detective Brett Hankison in the case of the shooting death of  Breonna Taylor , charging him with three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment. No charges were filed against Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Officer Myles Cosgrove, the other two police officers who were at the scene the night Taylor was fatally shot. Notably, no murder charges were filed against any of the men. First-degree wanton endangerment is a felony that comes with a sentence of up to five years in prison under Kentucky law. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Annie O’Connell issued a warrant for Hankison’s arrest in a Wednesday hearing and set his bail at $15,000. The charges were tied to shots fired into neighboring apartments, not those shot inside Taylor’s. O’Connell read the charges aloud, linking each to the occupants of the three apartments that Hankison “wantonly” shot into by listing their initials. She did not say BT for “Breonna Taylor,” suggest...

BY RICHARD JOHNSON Observer senior reporter johnsonr@jamaicaobserver.com  Monday, March 26, 2018 INCARCERATED reggae singer Buju Banton will do his first concert, upon release from prison, in Trinidad and Tobago. The announcement came yesterday from Jodian Ebanks, a member of the singer's marketing team, at a media briefing held during the Love and Harmony Cruise aboard the  Celebrity Summit  vessel. Buju Banton According to Ebanks, the concert will be held on April 22, 2019. The venue was not disclosed. She said a concert is scheduled for Jamaica at a later date. “Buju is very excited about being on the road again. Jamaica is very special to him and he wants to be able to give his home country the type of concert it deserves,” said Ebanks. “Trinidad was chosen as the dates, travel schedules, and all the other variables all came together for that time of year and was the best fit,” she continued. Jamaica Observer  was informed that some of ...

Albert Thompson A Jamaican man in the United Kingdom is being refused treatment for prostate cancer despite living there for more than 40 years, Britain's  Guardian newspaper has reported. The newspaper report names the man as Albert Thompson, 63, and said he has not been receiving the radiotherapy treatment he needs because he has been unable to provide officials with sufficient documentary evidence that he has lived in the UK continuously since arriving from Jamaica as a teenager in 1973. Thompson, the  Guardian  said, was told to provide the evidence or pay £54,000 for his treatment. Britain's Prime Minister Teresa May, in a letter to Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who brought the situation to her attention, said: “No urgent treatment should ever be withheld or delayed by the NHS regardless of ability of willingness to pay.” The  Guardian  reported that regulations introduced last October require hospitals to check patients' paperwork, i...