Cuba and the Caribbean Try to Slow Snowball

HAVANA TIMES, Dec.9 — Cuba and the 14-member  Caribbean Community (CARICOM) continued to strengthen ties at a summit held in Santiago de Cuba on Monday. Rotating CARICOM president, Antigua’s Prime Minister Baldwin Spence said he hopes the US blockade on Cuba will soon be “relegated to history.”

The Caribbean leaders warned of the “devastating” impact of the US economic and financial crisis that unleashed a snowball effect which threatens to erase any progress made in meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals to combat poverty.

While Cuba is not a member of CARICOM it provides assistance to several of its nations especially in the fields of health care and education. Many Caribbean island nations are seeing regional cooperation as a vital way to cope with the global financial, energy, environmental and food crises that seriously affect them.