BRIEFS. politics

AEC meetings to start today

At least 15 ministers from the Asociación de Estados del Caribe (AEC) will meet in Panama starting today at 8 a.m. to begin talks on trade, transport, sustainable tourism and natural disasters. The meeting will be inaugurated with a speech by foreign affairs minister Samuel Lewis Navarro.

In the course of the meeting, ministers from Antiguaand Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala and Haiti, will elect AEC's fourth secretary general and approve a plan of action, called "Saint- Marc," to respond to natural disasters in Latin America.

Also on the agenda is the recognition of the Caribbean Sea as an area for sustainable development and the installation in Panama's Ciudad del Saber of a center for Caribbean languages and cultures, according to director of economic relationships for the Cancillería Elmer Miranda.