Caribbean Leaders To Begin UN Address Thursday

By NAN Contributor

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. Sept. 27, 2018: Caribbean Community, (CARICOM), leaders will begin delivering their annual address to the UN today, Sept. 27th, as the 73rd session of the United Nations’ General Assembly, (UNGA) continues this week.

Haiti and Jamaica will be the first Caribbean nations to address the General Assembly this year, doing so today.

Representatives of Guyana, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados will address the forum the debate tomorrow, Friday, Sept. 28th.

On Saturday, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Dominica and Grenada will address the body.

The prime ministers of St. Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and Barbados will also address the General Assembly’s Third High-Level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) today, Sept. 27th.

Meanwhile, Antigua and Barbuda, Guyana, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines are among the countries expected to sign the “Escazú Agreement” on regional environmental matters today. The agreement, the first environmental treaty of the States of Latin America and the Caribbean. will be signed during a high-level ceremony at United Nations Headquarters, New York at 10:00 a.m. this morning.

The Iran nuclear deal, a response to the Rohingya crisis, and the future of the UN Relief and Works Agency, (UNRWA), are some of the issues expected to take center stage at this year’s gathering.

On Tuesday, the first batch of leaders addressed the assembly – US President Donald Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and France’s President Emmanuel Macron among them. Trump elicited laughter from many leaders gathered at the Assembly after he claimed falsely that “in less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.”