NEW YORK, CMC – Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer says the Second Annual Conference on the Caribbean will open up doors for further dialogue and concrete initiatives, spurring regional economic growth. In delivering the keynote address Thursday at the launch of ‘The New York Conference on the Caribbean Community: A 20/20 Vision Continued’, the Antiguan leader said “the moment is opportune” for the region to engage in this “interface with existing and prospective investment and trade partners”.
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Cuban state television has broadcast the first video in five months of the country’s former leader, Fidel Castro. The pictures of Mr Castro are the first since he relinquished power to Raul in February. He has not been seen in public since falling ill in July 2006. The silent footage shows Mr Castro at a meeting in Havana on Monday with his younger brother, President Raul Castro, and Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez. Mr Chavez said he had discussed issues such as the food and energy crises.
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The Dominica government announced on Monday a change in its traditional pro-whaling voting position and said it would abstain on a vote for the sustainable use of marine resources at the 60th International Whaling Commission meeting in Chile, later this month. Dominica, St Lucia, Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines have traditionally voted alongside Japan in favor of commercial whaling but Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said his cabinet had taken a decision not to support Japan at the June 23 meeting. Skerrit said he did not expect assistance from Japan to be reduced as a result of the new position “because there is mutual respect”.

Via [Muzikmedia]

The World Food Programme will extend its school feeding programs in Haiti through the summer months because of the country’s huge needs related to a global food crisis, its executive director said on Tuesday. Josette Sheeran said the commodity price shock that has made staple foods increasingly unaffordable in poor countries meant the United Nations agency’s budget, already increased, would have to rise further this year. “The solution (to hunger) is stabilizing situations so that the hungry can grow their food and meet their food needs” Sheeran said.