Regional military to meet in Belize

The top military brass from the Caribbean, Central and North America will gather in Belize later this week to plot regional defence strategy. The sixteenth Caribbean Nations Security Conference, hosted by the BDF and U.S. Southern Command, will begin on Wednesday evening and run through Saturday. The meeting will be attended by delegations from the United States and twenty-one Caribbean basin countries as well as observers from the United Kingdom, Canada, France, the Netherlands and a handful of NGOs. This is the first time that Belize will be hosting the event, which will be officially opened by Minister of National Security Jorge Espat on Thursday morning. Co-chairman is BDF Commandant, Brigadier General Cedric Borland and U.S. Southern Command head, General Peter Pace. The talks will deal with how the region can best respond collectively when one country is attacked by another.