(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Honourable John Maginley, Minister of Health of Antigua and Barbuda has come in for praise for his leadership role in contributing to the passage of a bill which sees the expansion of the United States President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to include fourteen Caribbean countries.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Ministers of Government with responsibility for the Environment begin a two-day meeting in Georgetown on Thursday 17 April 2008 aimed at charting a course to curb environmental degradation.

At least nine Ministers will attend the Twenty-Fifth Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED).

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The CARICOM/Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP) Regional Coordinating Mechanism (RCM) will meet in St. Kitts and Nevis on 16-17 April 2008, under the chairmanship of the Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health, Belize and present Chair of the RCM.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Technical officers and experts in the field of the environment today buckled down to the business of fleshing out responses to the varied environmental problems facing the Region as the Twenty-Fifth Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) got underway at the Guyana International Conference Centre (GICC) in Georgetown.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The environmental dimension within the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), Climate Change and Disaster Management, are high on the agenda of a Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) on the Environment on 17-18 April 2008.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Thirteen Member States were represented at the workshop organized for quiz masters by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in preparation for its second regional school quiz to mark the 35th Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat will be convening the Second Meeting of Experts and Stakeholders Concerning the Development of Harmonised Legislation for the Reform of the Electric Sector at the Amaryllis Beach Resort, Christ Church, Barbados during the period 9-11 April 2008. This meeting is co-sponsored by the Caribbean Renewable Energy Development Programme (CREDP), the CARICOM Legislative Drafting Facility (CLDF) and the Caribbean Law Institute Centre (CLIC), University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus.

CHAIRMAN OF THE CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY, THE RT. HON HUBERT INGRAHAM, PRIME MINISTER OF THE BAHAMAS

• OTHER HEADS OF GOVERNMENT
• HONOURABLE MINISTERS
• HEADS OF DELEGATION
• COMMISSIONERS OF POLICE
• HEADS OF MILITARY ORGANISATIONS
• DISTINGUISHED LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
• REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MEDIA

Good Morning to you all. A warm welcome to this Thirteenth Special Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government.

The Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) held its Thirteenth Special Meeting in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on 4-5 April 2008.

Crime and Security was the focus of the Meeting as agreed at the Nineteenth Inter-Sessional Meeting in Nassau, The Bahamas. The thrust of the Meeting was to ‘fully ventilate the crime and security issues facing the Region and to agree on a Strategy and Plan of Action to stem the rising tide of violent criminality’.