Barbados Hosts Cuba-CARICOM Summit
Dignitaries from Cuba and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will foster relations during the 2nd bilateral summit taking place Thursday in this capital.

The meeting will strengthen existing ties, drawing regional nations closer and stimulating cooperation in several spheres.

Prime Ministers Owen Arthur (Barbados) and Kenny Anthony (St. Lucia), as well as CARICOM general secretary Edwin Carrington will speak with leaders from the 15 member nations and Cuba.

Before signing the Barbados Declaration, presidents will lay a wreath at the monument erected to the victims of the terrorist attack on a Cuban plane off the Barbadian coasts on October 6, 1976, which killed 73 people.

A few years after gaining independence from Great Britain, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago simultaneously established diplomatic relations with Havana on December 8, 1972.

The Caribbean bloc is composed of Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Santa Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname plus Trinidad and Tobago.