KINGSTON, Jamaica - News from Trinidad & Tobago read: "Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders met in Port-of-Spain this past Tuesday and agreed to the formation of a Commission on the Economy as they seek to revive the ailing economies of the 15-member regional grouping."
CARICOM Commission on the Economy, said Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who chaired the CARICOM Bureau meeting, "should address the priority areas for fiscal sustainability, resource mobilisation as well as critical economic infrastructure services, particularly energy and ICT (Information Communication Technology)."

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — UN leader Ban Ki-moon yesterday pressed the major powers to overcome differences on the Syria war amid troubled talks on a UN Security Council resolution on Syria's chemical arms.
Ban hosted a lunch with the foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- the permanent Security Council members --to put across his message, UN officials said.

CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC - St.Lucian Cultural Icon and International Opera singer Blaise Pascal, 38, died in New York on Wednesday after a ten week illness, family sources have confirmed.
News of his illness was announced by the Cultural Development Foundation (CDF) last month. Pascal, a well known international tenor, left St.Lucia for New York in July to perform the lead role in a theatrical production at the Lincoln Center in New York when he came down with a bout of pneumonia.

BELMOPAN, Belize, CMC – The Belize National Coast Guard confirmed it had demoted an officer following an embarrassing incident involving Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, who was a guest of the government for the country’s independence celebrations last week.
Commander of the Belize National Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Borland said that Petty Officer Richard Ogaldez had been stripped of his rank and demoted to ordinary Seaman. He said the demotion was the result of a disciplinary tribunal.

ROSEAU, Dominica, CMC – Former prime minister Oliver Serpahin has rubbished reports that he is making a comeback into local politics.
“I have been resident abroad for the most part of the past six years and wish to state categorically that I have  at no time expressed a desire or demonstrated intent to form any other political organization for the forthcoming general elections in Dominica,” said Seraphin, who served as head of an interim government here between 1979-80.