UNITED NATIONS, CMC – United Nations officials have underscored the plight of Caribbean and other migrants, stressing that countries should increase efforts to protect their rights while finding ways to integrate their contributions to society into the post-2015 development agenda.
“Evidence clearly shows that migration contributes significantly to development,” the Deputy Secretary-General, Jan Eliasson, told reporters here on Wednesday on the eve of the General Assembly’s High-level Dialogue on International Migration and Development.

MIAMI, CMC – The United States Coast Guard says a joint operation with the Royal Bahamian Police Force Drug Enforcement Unit and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), known collectively as Operation Bahamas Turks and Caicos (OPBAT), seized 67 bales of marijuana on Little Farmer’s Cay in the Exuma island chain of the Bahamas.
The Coast Guard said the seizure, the second in a week, has a wholesale value is in excess of US$2 million. The seizure, made this week is “a direct result of coordinated US and Bahamian counter-narcotics effort, known as Operation Lion Fish.

New York – As John Ashe assumed the presidency of the 68th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, there was much speculation as to what impact his election would have on the Caribbean agenda – and in particular that of Antigua & Barbuda.
Ashe, who heads this country’s New York-based United Nations mission, has long been a champion for developing countries on a range of issues; but it is his role in the advancement of the climate change agenda that will become the hallmark of his diplomatic career.

WASHINGTON, CMC – World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim has announced that the lending agency plans to invest at least US$700 million through the end of 2015 to help developing countries, including the Caribbean reach the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for women and children’s health.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro cancelled his debut at the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday, saying his enemies were plotting to incite violence in New York or even kill him. Just hours before he was scheduled to address the U.N., Maduro announced via Twitter that he had arrived back in Venezuela -- not New York -- after a six-day trip to China. During a national broadcast late Wednesday, Maduro said he was on a layover in Canada when he received information about two plots, one to incite violence and the other to kill him.