A regional outreach event on promoting connectivity and trade facilitation through aid-for-trade was held on May 25-26, 2017 at the Sheraton Hotel, Miami. The regional outreach event was jointly hosted by the CCLEC, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The purpose of the event was to examine the progress and…
U. S. Customs and Border Protection agents have arrested a 33-year-old woman who was rolling around Kennedy Airport with a motorized wheelchair filled with cocaine, officials said Tuesday. Yoncela Stanley had just landed in the U.S. on a JetBlue flight from St. Lucia on Sunday when Customs and Border Protection officers noticed something was wrong…
Economic crises in Venezuela may propel that country to the position of one of the Caribbean’s largest supplier of illegal guns and ammunition, along with Haiti and the United States of America, says Anthony Clayton, professor of Caribbean sustainable development at the Univer-sity of the West Indies.
“It is not just the (illegal gun) trade with Haiti or the import of weapons from the United States. There is going to be a third major source of supply into the Caribbean region and that is Venezuela,” Clayton told The Gleaner yesterday.
Clayton said that Venezuela has more guns per person than any country in the Western Hemisphere, a deliberate move by former President Hugo Ch·vez.
Now that the economy is suffering immensely, those arms are being sold rapidly to facilitate basic survival.
“The problem we are facing is, because with Venezuela’s economic collapse, there is now evidence of weapons flooding out of Venezuela, initially into Trinidad, but which will come percolating through the Caribbean. Venezuela has got more guns per person than almost any other country in the (western) hemisphere, including the United States.”
“This is partly due to former President Ch·vez’s policy of arming the militias. Now, with the economy collapsing, a lot of them are selling their weapons and they are selling them for groceries, pharmaceuticals and basic survival items,” Clayton said.
Twenty-six (26) delegates across regional and metropolitan Customs Administrations attended the 39th CCLEC Conference which was held at the Sheraton Miami Airport Hotel and Executive Meeting Center, from the 23rd – 25th May, 2017. The theme “Digital partnerships in a connected world” was underlined by two distinguished speakers, Mr. SergioMujica Montes, Deputy Secretary General, World Customs Organization (WCO) and Mr. Ian C. Saunders, Assistant Commissioner, United States Customs & Border Protection (US-CBP).
Among the participants were the Caribbean Postal Union (CPU), CARICOM Implementing Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS), Regional Security System (RSS), Inter American Development Bank (IDB), SOGET, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Universal Postal Union (UPU) and the WCO.
The conference witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Caribbean Postal Union and CCLEC, the objective of the MOU being to foster greater cooperation between both entities, particularly in the area of information sharing.
A number of presentations were made on the reform and modernization of CCLEC operations, including moving the organization for one based on an MOU, to being treaty based. Reports were received on the activities undertaken by the CCLEC Secretariat and the CCLEC/WCO Joint Intelligence Office in addition to presentations related to the theme, trade facilitation and border security.