President Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh, yesterday afternoon, received in audience a seven-member interview panel from the Latin-American state of Venezuela at State House, Banjul. President Jammeh also received Mousa Cesse, the director general of a Senegal-based magazine, Temps de I’Afrique, in a separate engagement.

The Venezuelan team were from the the Latin-American School of Medicine and Venezuelan Scholarship Fund, referred to as Fundaya Chaucho. The purpose of the visit was meant to brief the president on the interviews they conducted for 308 students, out of which 100 were selected to undergo studies in various fields in Venezuela.

Speaking to newsmen shortly after briefing the president, Mairin Moreno, the head of the team, said they discussed the selection process and ways and means of creating facilities to study such programmes in The Gambia. But Mairim was quick to add the idea was proposed by the Gambian authorities, noting that her country will be looking into the possibility of it happening.

According to her, the 100 students will be the second batch of Gambians who would be undergoing studies in Venezuela, since the inception of the scholarship programme. The areas of studies, she went on, include medicine, agriculture, civil, mechanical and electrical engineering.

The selected 100 students will undergo orientation in Spanish language by the first week of July and are expected to leave Banjul between January and March 2009.

In a separate development, Mousa Casse, the director general of the Dakar-based Temps de I’Afrique Magazine, also called on the president.

The magazine features prominent African leaders, including President Jammeh. The magazine’s 16th edition - June to July - highlights the development strides under Jammeh administration.

In its past edition, the magazine also featured other African leaders, such as Muammar Ghadaffi of Libya, Dr Yayi Boni of Benin, Faure Gnassingbe of Togo and Abdoulie Wade of Senegal.