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The common external tariff (CET), on motor cars including SUVs has been cut from 40% to 20%.

The tariffs on motor bikes with engine sizes below 300 cc have been reduced to 10 per cent while tariffs on those with 600 cc engines have been cut to 20%.

In addition, the CET on all-terrain vehicles has moved down to 20%.

Licensed taxi operators who import buses with fewer than ten seats, will now pay an aggregate duty of 36%.

In announcing the changes to the import duties last week, Finance Minister Audley Shaw said these measures are aimed at regularising the tax regime on motor vehicle imports as well as to stimulate the industry.

At the same time, Shaw also announced increases to some motor vehicle import duties.

The CET on pickups for example has been doubled.

Source: Go-Jamaica

Claro, which is being acquired by Digicel, has 15 per cent market share to LIME’s 18.4 per cent. The survey, conducted by Professor Hopeton Dunn of the MSB’s Telecommunications Policy Management Programme, with assistance from the United Nations and other international bodies, surveyed 2,200 households and individuals.

The percentages are not exclusive, however, since many persons are customers of more than one network.

The acquisition of Claro by Digicel, which is subject to Government approval, could also see Digicel acquiring a larger share of the Internet service provider (ISP) market.

LIME is the current market leader with 35.7 per cent of Internet customers, Flow has 22.3 per cent, Digicel 21.4 per cent and Claro, 8.2 per cent. Remaining providers accounted for 6.6 per cent of customers while 5.9 per cent of respondents reported using more than one ISP.

The fieldwork was conducted by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica between November 2010 and January of this year.

Source: Jamaica Observer

Ganja seized by Jamaican security forces.

The commission will comprise the foreign minister Ken Baugh; justice minister Dorothy Lightbourne; health minister Ruddy Spencer; agriculture minister Christopher Tufton; youth minister Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange and security minister Dwight Nelson.

The report included several recommendations, including that:

Parliament decriminalises the use of ganja in small quantities by adults and also as a religious sacrament;

• Government launches a national education programme aimed at reducing the number of young people who use ganja;

• Security forces intensify their interdiction of large scale cultivation of ganja and the trafficking of all illegal drugs;

• Establishment of a Cannabis Research Agency; and

• Government ensures international support for these actions.

Source: Jamaica Observer

The project is intended to bring affordable and consistently high quality Internet delivery to all secondary schools, post offices and public libraries in Jamaica. Under the terms of the agreement, the providers will be held to the agreed standard of 99.9 per cent availability and high speed transmission of 100 megabits per second on the backbone.

“On Monday March 21, 2011, Cabinet approved the award of contracts to Cable and Wireless and Columbus Communications for the provision of a managed island-wide broadband network, not only for providing connectivity and Internet access to our targeted schools, libraries, and post offices. Any community, however remote, which has a public secondary or high school, will be provided with facilities for Internet access. The spin off benefit of this Project is that the deployment of high speed Internet services in the associated communities and within communities traversed by the optical fibre cables can be accelerated,” said Minister of Information Daryl Vaz at the signing held at Jamaica House.

Funding for network is from the Universal Access Fund Company Limited (UAFCL), which manages the levy charged to telecommunications companies for incoming international calls into Jamaica. The Fund has so far provided approximately $2.4 billion for teacher education and school projects through the e-Learning project.

“We charge the telecommunications providers to urgently complete the necessary arrangements for businesses and residents within these communities to be provided with broadband access. We would like to see the whole country provided with broadband access within the shortest possible time.”

Source: Jamaica Observer

The company will switch off the lights and unplug non-essential devices and equipment at its Jamaica and group offices in New Kingston for one hour from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm.

Earth Hour takes place a week after the vernal equinox, when the seasons change, and it is dark at 8:30 pm local time in both the northern and southern hemispheres, so that people anywhere and everywhere can participate.

While the actual hour is a symbolic call to action on climate change and not intended as an energy-saving measure, event organisers are asking people to “go beyond the hour” and take meaningful steps to reduce their energy consumption after the lights go back on.

Organisers of the event, the World Wildlife Fund, said people in 131 countries have registered to participate in the event. The first Earth Hour was observed in 2007.

Commenting on the initiative yesterday, Digicel head of facilities management and emergency services, Donovan Betancourt said that the company takes the business of the protection and conservation of the environment very seriously.

One of the company’s flagship stores, Anbell on Knutsford Boulevard, electronic screens and the Anbell store will also be powered down during Earth Hour.

Said Betancourt: “Digicel is delighted to be a part of this initiative… We have implemented several strategies in our business to take a ‘greener’ and more responsible approach to the protection of the environment in which we live.”

This initiative comes months after the telecoms company announced that its future headquarters in downtown Kingston will be the greenest building in the Caribbean. The building will contain ground-breaking conservation devices such as solar panels, sensor taps, wind turbines and others that are all geared at energy conservation.

Source: Jamaica Observer | Earth Hour

Members of the public and organisations are now invited to make comments on a standard offer contract created by the OUR, in conjunction with JPS, for the purchase of energy up to 100kWh.

The contract, which is available at the OUR’s website www.our.org.jm, outlines the terms, conditions and pricing regime for small power providers to sell to the grid operated by JPS.

“In order to utilise net billing, the customer’s generation must be interconnected to the utility grid through a meter that can register the amount of electric energy that is used from the grid as well as that produced and sold to the grid,” explained the OUR in a statement this afternoon.

Comments should be e-mailed to Richard Brown at rbrown@our.org.jm

The OUR is also issuing an invitation to members of the public to attend one or more of the three consultations to be held in Kingston, Montego Bay and Mandeville. Persons will have an opportunity to ask questions and offer their opinions.

JPS Standard offer contract

Source: Jamaica Observer & Office of Utilities Regulation

Local media reported at least 32 deaths, with more casualties feared. And the 8.9-magnitude quake, which struck at 2:46 p.m. local time, prompted the U.S. National Weather Service to issue a tsunami warning for at least 50 countries and territories.

The quake’s epicenter was offshore 373 kilometers (231 miles) away from Tokyo, the United States Geological Survey said.

But residents there continued to feel aftershocks hours after the quake. More than 30 aftershocks followed, with the strongest measuring 7.1.

“I wasn’t scared when it started … but it just kept going and going,” said Michelle Roberts, who lives in central Tokyo. “I won’t lie, it was quite scary. But we are all OK. We live on the third floor, so most everything shook and shifted.”

A spokesman for the U.S. military bases in Japan said all service members were accounted for and there were no reports of damage to installations or ships.

President Barack Obama, while offering his condolences, said the United States was standing by to help “in this time of great trial.”

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said an emergency task force has been activated, and appealed for calm. He said there were no reported leaks of radioactive materials from power plants.

Four nuclear power plants closest to the quake were safely shut down, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said.

At Tokyo Station, one of Japan’s busiest subway stations, shaken commuters grabbed one another to stay steady as the ground shook. Dazed residents poured into the streets after offices and schools were closed. Children cried.

The quake toppled cars off bridges and into waters underneath. Waves of debris flowed like lava across farmland, pushing boats, houses and trailers. About 4 million homes had no power in Tokyo and surrounding areas.

Firefighters battled a fiery blaze at an oil refinery in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo.

Residents said though earthquakes are common in Japan, Friday’s stunned most people.

“This was larger than anyone expected and went on longer than anyone expected,” said Matt Alt, who lives in Tokyo.

“My wife was the calm one … she told us to get down and put your back on something, and leave the windows and doors open in case a building shifts so you don’t get trapped.”

Richard Lloyd Parry said he looked through a window and saw buildings shaking from side to side.

“Central Tokyo is fine from what we see, people are calm … and not going inside buildings,” he said.

Such a large earthquake at such a shallow depth — 24.4 kilometers (15.2 miles) — creates a lot of energy, said Shenza Chen of the U.S. Geological Survey.

As the city grappled with the devastation, a massive tsunami swept across the Pacific Ocean.

An earthquake of that size can generate a dangerous tsunami to coasts outside the source region, the National Weather Service said.

In Philippines alone, the tsunami is expected to hit in the early morning and the government has evacuated coastal areas.

The National Weather Service issued warnings for more than 50 countries and territories.

The wide-ranging list includes Russia and Indonesia, Central American countries like Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica and the U.S. state of Hawaii, where warning sirens were sounded in the morning. A tsunami warning was also issued for areas along the United States and Canadian west coasts.

While some officials feared that waves from the tsunami could be high enough to wash over entire islands in the Pacific, at least one expert said it was unlikely.

The tsunami could cause significant damage and flooding, but “washing over islands is not going to happen,” said Gerard Fryer of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Humanitarian agencies were working with rescue crews to reach the people affected.

“When such an earthquake impacts a developed country like Japan, our concern also turns to countries like the Philippines and Indonesia, which might not have the same resources,” said Rachel Wolff, a spokeswoman for World Vision.

Wolff said her agency is helping people on the ground in Japan and teaming up to help others in countries along the path of the tsunami.

The tsunami could cause damage “along coastlines of all islands in the state of Hawaii,” warned the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Urgent action should be taken to protect lives and property.”

Tsunamis are a series of long ocean waves that can last five to 15 minutes and cause extensive flooding in coastal areas. A succession of waves can hit — often the highest not being the first, said CNN meteorologist Ivan Cabrera.

The quake was the latest in a series in the region this week.

Early Thursday, an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.3 struck off the coast of Honshu. A day earlier, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake had struck off the same coast, the country’s meteorological agency said.

The largest recorded quake took place in Chile on May 22, 1960, with a magnitude of 9.5, the USGS said.

The quake Friday was the fifth-strongest in the world since 1900, the agency said and the most powerful to hit Japan since then.

Source: CNN

The network will serve over 1 million residents and provide internet to Jamaicans with limited or no internet access. The first phase of the network in nine towns in Jamaica was launched in July 2010.

The SuperWiFi service is now available in over 30 towns and cities in Jamaica and is a fully integrated network providing roaming ability – one account, access anywhere on the network.

David Lee, CEO of Dekal Wireless said, “We are delighted to have partnered with Altai Technologies, whose team effort in completing the network has been fantastic. We have proved that WiFi does not need to be confined to hotspots and can be deployed as a typical cellular wireless service. Altai’s technology is the world’s finest WiFi network system and we are happy to be a part of this.”

Dekal Wireless is an early adopter of Altai’s SuperWiFi wireless technology. Its SuperWiFi network provides broadband speed between 4 Mbs to 10 Mbs for each user using Altai’s Super WiFi equipment.

Altai’s Super WiFi technology requires significantly fewer units per square mile of coverage and allows much higher data transmission speed and larger user capacity at range than conventional WiFi products.

Source: CaribbeanNewsNow.com

The campaign was launched this morning at Coronation Market in downtown Kingston with Olympic medallists Asafa Powell, Brigitte Foster-Hylton, Melaine Walker, Michael Frater and Nesta Carter all in attendance.

“I really love what the Government is doing with this programme and I really do hope they will continue because this is what is needed (to support local production),” said Walker

The three-month campaign valued at $17.2 million, will entail a series of road shows across Jamaica.

“As part of consumer education, the campaign will seek to get consumers

united behind the theme ‘grow what we eat, eat what we grow’,”

explained Tufton.

The campaign is funded by the European Union and implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

Source: Jamaica Observer