标签： Dominica

In a formal press conference hosted Wednesday at Dominica’s iconic Fort Young Hotel, opposition political grouping Team Unity Dominica (TUD) announced a major leadership shift: US Virgin Islands-based Petra Carbon-George will take the reins of the organization, replacing Carlos Charles, who had led the party since assuming the role in November 2022.

Carbon-George, a native of Dominica’s Capuchin community, first relocated to the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) roughly eight years ago to support her daughter through university studies. What began as a temporary stay to see her daughter complete her education turned into long-term residency, but she has maintained deep professional and personal ties to her home country. During the conference, she outlined her growing cross-border agricultural trade business, which ships Dominican produce to USVI supermarkets once a month. Carbon-George reported that her venture generated more than $300,000 in trade volume last year alone, and she is actively working to expand operations. To meet growing demand, she has opened new market channels for local Dominican farmers, and is currently developing a new export route for dasheen to Miami, urging local producers to scale up plantings of the crop to match incoming demand.

Addressing questions from attendees about why a resident overseas would seek national political leadership in Dominica, Carbon-George emphasized her enduring commitment to the Dominican people and the nation’s prosperity. “Yes, I live in the Virgin Islands, and people may say, ‘you live overseas; what are you coming here and do?’” she told reporters. “Well, I love you, and I want to ensure you survive…”

Alongside the leadership announcement, TUD General Secretary Alex Bruno laid out the party’s strategic electoral plan for upcoming contests, confirming that the party will strategically step aside in multiple constituencies to enable unified opposition against the incumbent ruling party. Bruno announced he would not run for the upcoming Roseau North by-election, and added that TUD would also not contest the Goodwill by-election. The party’s goal, Bruno explained, is to enable one-on-one contests between the incumbent party and a single opposition candidate in every constituency, a strategy designed to maximize the opposition’s electoral chances.

Bruno confirmed that TUD also plans to cede the Marigot and Salisbury constituencies to allied opposition partners, saying that the party has made a deliberate choice to act collaboratively rather than contest every seat. “Because this is a very fruitful hunting ground for one of our sister partners in the business,” Bruno asserted. “Not that we can’t, but we just felt sometimes you have to be gracious, so Marigot and Salisbury will not be contested by Team Unity Dominica. All other constituencies are up for grabs.”

Bruno added that the party is still in the process of finalizing its full slate of candidates across the remaining constituencies, and remains open to ongoing negotiations with other opposition groups to adjust candidate alignments in service of broader collaborative goals. The conference also confirmed the party’s current announced candidates: Sherian Austrie will stand for the Castle Bruce Constituency, outgoing leader Carlos Charles will contest the Mahaut seat, and Christine Dupuis-Dubique will run in Paix Bouche.

Five days after a fatal collision between two vessels off Saint Lucia’s Anse Cochon coast killed at least two local nationals, the Caribbean island nation’s government has moved quickly to launch a formal Commission of Inquiry to unpack the full details of the tragedy.

The July 18 incident sent shockwaves across the small country, prompting immediate action from Prime Minister Hon. Philip J. Pierre, who confirmed that the independent inquiry is tasked with uncovering a complete, accurate account of the events that led to the collision and developing actionable strategies to stop similar preventable deaths in the future.

Under the country’s governance framework, the inquiry body will receive its formal appointment from the Governor General. To ensure rigorous, expert-led investigation, the commission will be led by a former senior judicial officer, and will draw on cross-sector expertise including maritime operations specialists, marine safety professionals and a seasoned police investigator.

In an official statement published by the Prime Minister’s office, Pierre emphasized that the commission’s core end goal is to deliver evidence-based recommendations that will strengthen Saint Lucia’s maritime safety standards, reinforce regulatory oversight of commercial and recreational water activities, and cut the risk of future accidents across the country’s coastal and open waters.

“The entire nation has been deeply shaken by this heartbreaking loss,” Pierre said in the release. “Our government bears a fundamental responsibility to the victims, their families, and all Saint Lucians to uncover every relevant fact, and to extract every possible lesson that can help us avoid repeating this pain.”

Details of the commission’s official Terms of Reference, which will outline the scope of its investigation, powers and expected deliverables, will be disclosed to the public at a future date, according to the statement. Pierre closed by reaffirming the administration’s unwavering commitment to building safer waterways for all residents, visitors, and maritime workers who depend on Saint Lucia’s coastal waters.

At a landmark open debate of the United Nations Security Council held in New York on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a stark wake-up call to the global community, demanding sweeping improvements to international natural resource governance amid a growing tide of conflict and humanitarian catastrophe driven by illegal mineral exploitation. The high-level debate, themed “Natural Resource Governance: The Foundation of Peace, Security and Prosperity”, provided a critical platform to address one of the most underrecognized drivers of global instability at a time of surging demand for critical raw materials. Guterres opened his address by acknowledging the dual nature of the global rush for minerals critical to the clean energy transition: lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earth elements hold unprecedented potential to drive economic growth and sustainable development in resource-rich nations, but their rising value has also amplified geopolitical tensions and created new incentives for violent competition over resource reserves. The Secretary-General pointed to urgent, on-the-ground examples of the damage caused by unregulated and illegal resource extraction. In the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he noted, non-state armed groups continue to generate massive profits from unlicensed mining operations and cross-border smuggling of valuable minerals, fueling years of persistent conflict that has destabilized the entire Great Lakes region. In Sudan, competition over gold reserves and gum arabic production has emerged as a core flashpoint for the ongoing civil conflict that has displaced millions of people and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. “The greatest burden falls on the least powerful: women and children, and communities displaced from the land that holds the wealth,” Guterres emphasized, highlighting how local communities rarely share in the economic benefits of the resources extracted from their territory. Guterres recalled that the Security Council has long acknowledged the link between illicit natural resource exploitation and the financing of armed groups, pointing to existing tools the body has deployed to counter the problem: targeted sanctions, mandated peacekeeping operations that monitor resource flows, and expert panels tasked with tracing supply chains and financial networks that sustain conflict. But these existing measures are no longer sufficient to address the growing scale of the challenge, he argued, before outlining four core priorities for collective global action: advancing economic justice for producing nations, preventing conflict before it breaks out, resolving resource disputes through peaceful diplomacy, and integrating climate change into resource governance strategies. On the issue of justice, Guterres pushed for a fundamental restructuring of global resource economics, arguing that resource-rich countries – particularly across Africa, where centuries of colonial exploitation and ongoing governance gaps have left producing nations capturing just a small fraction of their resource wealth – must be guaranteed a far larger share of the economic benefits from their own natural assets. “Countries and communities must benefit – first and most – from the resources in their own backyard,” he stated. He also called for coordinated global action to strengthen oversight of transnational mineral supply chains, improve transparency around ownership and trade flows, and deepen cooperation between resource-producing, transit, and consumer nations to crack down on illicit trade and block conflict-linked minerals from entering legitimate commercial markets. Turning to conflict prevention, Guterres urged national governments to prioritize diplomatic negotiation and third-party mediation to resolve disputes over resource access, revenue sharing, and territorial control before tensions escalate into large-scale violence. He also placed particular emphasis on the intersection between climate change and resource conflict, warning that increasing frequency of extreme weather events including droughts and floods, paired with widespread environmental degradation, is intensifying competition over already strained supplies of land, fresh water, and mineral reserves. This means climate adaptation and mitigation must be core components of any effective resource governance and conflict prevention strategy, he argued. Closing his address, Guterres called for a fundamental systemic shift in how the world extracts, processes, and markets natural resources, a shift that would ensure producing countries and the local communities most affected by extraction retain a far greater share of the value generated by their resources. “No more exploitation. No more plundering,” he declared, adding a stark warning of the consequences of inaction: without bold reform, illegal resource exploitation will continue to widen global inequality, fuel widespread instability, and sustain cycles of violence that harm vulnerable communities most. He concluded by urging all Security Council members to commit to governing natural resources in a way that advances inclusive sustainable development, strengthens national and regional institutions, and builds the foundation for lasting peace. “Ultimately, this is a political choice. And I urge you, as members of this Council, to choose peace,” he said.