Some documents have expiration dates

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Ask the US Embassy Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Q: When I went to the US embassy last week for my immigrant visa appointment, I was told that my Jamaican police certificate was expired and that I needed to obtain a new one. I don’t understand what the problem is, because I sent the police certificate to the National Visa Centre (NVC) a year ago when they requested it. Why is the embassy making me get a new one?A: Many of the documents required to obtain an immigrant visa have expiration dates, and an individual must be issued a visa and must travel before those dates pass. It may be that the documents you sent to the NVC expired before it was time for your interview, or the documents might expire while you are awaiting additional documents after the initial interview. These documents have the following expiration dates:1. Medical exam results — six months from exam date2. Police certificates — one year from date of issue3. DS-230 immigrant visa application — one year from date signedThe US Embassy encourages all immigrant visa applicants to carefully track the age of the documents listed above. If you notice that one of these documents is nearly one year old, you should take the necessary steps to replace it before it expires. If you do not remember to keep these documents current, the processing of your visa will be delayed and you will not be issued an immigrant visa.Immigrant visa applicants also must remember that if they do not take any action relating to their visa application during a one-year period, they will have to repay the visa application fees and the security surcharge.Lastly, individuals who receive an immigrant visa must travel to the United States before the expiration date listed on their visas. Normally your immigrant visa will be valid for six months from the issue date, but if one of the documents listed above expires before that date, your visa will be limited to the expiration date of the document. Individuals who fail to travel before the expiration date will be required to repay the visa application fees and security surcharge and obtain new documents in order to obtain a new visa.For more information about immigrant visas, please visit our website at http://kingston.usembassy.gov/immigrant_visas.html.The Embassy staff in Kingston will answer questions you may have regarding the US Mission, including consular law, regulations and/or practice. In order to respect privacy, staff will not answer questions about specific visa applications. The embassy employs a visa appointment system, so it is only necessary for visa applicants to arrive 15 minutes before their scheduled appointment.Send your questions to: editorial@jamaicaobserver.com and we will send them to the embassy. Some documents have expiration dates

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Some documents have expiration dates

Pre-trial dates set for Asafa, Sherone and 3 other athletes

PRE-TRIAL dates were yesterday set for five Jamaican athletes who were said to have returned adverse analytical findings at the National Senior and Junior Championships in June.

They include former 100-metre world record holder and Olympian Asafa Powell, and 2004 Olympic relay gold medallist Sherone Simpson.The others are national record holder in the men’s discus, Traves Smikle; discus thrower Allison Randall; and triple jumper Demar Robinson.The athletes, with the exception of Randall, who currently resides overseas, faced members of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) disciplinary panel, during a mentioning of the disciplinary hearing held yesterday at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston, where the pre-trial dates were set.The date for Smikle, Randall, and Robinson, who are all represented by a team of attorneys led by Dr Lloyd Barnett, William Panton and Sabrina Cross, has been set for Friday, September 20 at 10:00 am at the Jamaica Conference Centre.Smikle will face a four-member pre-trial panel comprising former Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and Chairman of the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel Kent Pantry; Deputy DPP and Second Vice-Chairman Jeremy Taylor; physician Ivor Crandon; and Olympian Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn.Additionally, a four-member panel consisting of Pantry; Taylor; physician Dr Archie McDonald; and FIFA referee Peter Prendergast will head the pre-trial hearing for Robinson.Randall will sit before a four-member panel, which includes Pantry, Taylor, Dr McDonald and Cuthbert-Flynn.As regards Powell and Simpson, who are being represented by attorneys Kwame Gordon and Danielle Chai, a pre-trial hearing has been set for Friday, September 27 at 10:00 am at the Jamaica Conference Centre.A three-member panel, led by attorney-at-law and Vice-Chairman of the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel Lennox Gayle; physician Dr Jephthah Ford and Prendergast will preside over both Simpson and Powell’s pre-trial hearings.Both Powell and Simpson tested positive for the stimulant oxilofrine at the national trials in June. Powell has blamed his positive test on a range of new nutritional supplements prescribed to him by a physiotherapist.Pantry, who led the proceedings, informed that the matters concerning all five athletes would not be heard during the pre-trial hearings.“The pre-trial is really where certain orders will be made for documentation and other things and then a (disciplinary) hearing date will be agreed on (for each athlete) on that day,” he stated.Representing JADCO at yesterday’s mentioning were Chairman Dr Herbert Elliot, and attorney-at-law Lackston Robinson.Meanwhile, JADCO has informed that B samples for all five athletes have confirmed the prohibited substances, which were found in the A-sample analyses in June. The B samples were tested at a Montreal-based lab accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency.Asafa Powell (left), along with Bruce James (centre), MVP president, and Sherone Simpson as they exited a room at the Jamaica Conference Centre yesterday, where pre-trial dates were set for them to answer to charges of doping violation. (PHOTO: BRYAN CUMMINGS)

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Pre-trial dates set for Asafa, Sherone and 3 other athletes

Local travel start-up focusing on vacation interests, not dates

THE founders of Jamaican start-up travel company, Antullia, believe their firm could one day be a leading Caribbean-based business that serves the world.

The founders of the search engine that focuses on leisure travel, Christopher Whitfield and Marlon Gichie, plan to jet off to the World Summit in Ireland where they will show their prototype to some of the largest technology companies and investors.“Our goal is to showcase our travel search prototype to investors and experienced tech entrepreneurs who can give us feedback and make us better entrepreneurs,” said Whitfield, the company’s managing director.Antullia seeks to capture the market of travellers who have no idea where or when their next getaway will be. It will provide visual search results with contextual travel information based on people’s interests.This represents roughly 50 per cent of discretionary travellers in developed markets and nearly 66 per cent in emerging markets, according to Whitfield, who learned about these findings from PhoCusWright, a travel, tourism and hospitality research company.Rather than allowing users to search for hotel rooms based on a particular date, Antullia will go even further to show travellers the kinds of activities that are happening in or around the area that are within their budget.“When we present people with the right information they will book with us,” Whitfield reasoned.The company aims to earn income from contextual video advertising and commissions on hotel room bookings and in-destination tours.The available travel agencies and search engines options don’t produce the information that travellers want, according to Whitfield.“If a leisure traveller goes to Google and searches for “luxury Caribbean resorts”, the search results they get are usually based on which resort has the best search optimisation campaigns,” Whitfield explained.Moreover, actual travel websites focus primarily on price, limiting their decision to cost rather than value.“Those are problems that are causing well documented frustration among travellers,” he said.Though Whitfield knows the company’s idea is feasible and there is a demand for user friendly search engines that turn specific results, there is still much more to be done before the site is put to market.“We’ve spent just about two years on whiteboards and writing code to develop our first prototype. There are a number of steps between prototype stage and taking it to market but we will go to the summit with it,” he said.For now, the founders of Antullia are more concerned with forming relationships and building the right product rather than seeking investments.“Our aim for the programme is not initially financial. The travel industry is extremely complicated and fragmented and even if we were to have an investment of US$1 million tomorrow, it wouldn’t necessarily mean we’d be successful,” he said.The company got into the Alpha Programme of the Web Summit, which gives early start-up companies a chance to exhibit their products and services.Tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, PayPal and EBay are previous attendees.Following the gathering in Dublin, Whitfield will attend the World Travel Market in London to make contacts in the travel industry.Rather than allowing users to search for hotel rooms based on a particular date, Antullia will go even further to show travellers the kinds of activities that are happening in or around the area that are within their budget.

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Local travel start-up focusing on vacation interests, not dates