Above: UN peacekeepers in Haiti (UN Photo/Logan Abassi)

CARICOM has expressed concern over what it sees as a decrease in United Nations representation int he Caribbean. Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite, the acting secretary-general, called for a stronger UN presence in the region. “We in CARICOM are of the firm belief, that while we enjoy very good working relations with our counterparts at the Head Office in New York, much more can be achieved by having a stronger UN presence in the region,” she said at the sixth general meeting of the Caribbean Community and the United Nations System in Turkeyen, Guyana yesterday. “We trust that this is a matter which the UN will take into favourable consideration and we look forward to positive feedback in the near future.”