Seventeen dead after boat carrying Haitian migrants capsizes in Bahamas

Twenty five people rescued in dangerous route frequently used by migrants seeking to reach the US

Seventeen people died after a boat carrying dozens of Haitian migrants capsized off the coast of the Bahamas, authorities said on Sunday, as more Haitians attempt to reach the US to flee gang violence and poverty at home.

Rescue teams recovered the bodies of 17 people including an infant and 25 people were rescued, the Bahamian prime minister, Philip Davis, told reporters. Davis said authorities believe the people were on a speedboat heading for Miami.

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Royal tour ‘in sharp opposition’ to needs of Caribbean people, says human rights group

Legacy of ‘colonial-era ideologies’ is condemned as community leaders demand reparations for imperialism

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s recent tour was in “sharp opposition to the needs and aspirations of the Caribbean people”, a human rights alliance from the region has said.

The British monarchy’s historic role in the slave trade continues to damage the Caribbean’s society and economy, Jamaica’s Advocates Network said in an open letter published jointly with representatives from Belize and the Bahamas.

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William and Kate: what matters is better future for people of Commonwealth

Royal couple say they are ‘committed to service’, which is not ‘telling people what to do’, at end of Caribbean tour

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have insisted they are interested only in a “better future” for the Commonwealth, not in who leads it, at the end of their tour of the Caribbean.

William said foreign tours were an “opportunity to reflect” and he and his wife were committed to “serving and supporting” the people of the Commonwealth, not “telling them what to do”, in a statement published on the couple’s Twitter account.

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Caribbean: William suggests monarchy will respect any decision to become republic

Leaders of Bahamas, Jamaica and Belize present as duke says ‘we respect your decisions about your future’

As the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s controversial tour of the Caribbean draws to a close, William has signalled that the UK would support with “pride and respect” any decision by Jamaica, Belize and the Bahamas to break away from the British monarchy.

It comes after the couple visited the three countries during a week-long tour to mark the Queen’s platinum jubileeand were met with criticism and protests amid calls for slavery reparations and fury over the Windrush scandal.

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‘Perfect storm’: William and Kate’s awkward Caribbean tour

Calls for slavery reparations and Jamaica’s PM insisting country was ‘moving on’ signal sea change in relations with royals

It was supposed to be a visit to mark the Queen’s diamond jubilee – a chance to present the modern face of the British monarchy to a region where republican sentiment is on the rise.

But it really didn’t turn out that way.

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Deadly coral disease sweeping Caribbean linked to wastewater from ships

Researchers find ‘significant relationship’ between stony coral tissue loss disease and nearby shipping

A virulent and fast-moving coral disease that has swept through the Caribbean could be linked to waste or ballast water from ships, according to research.

The deadly infection, known as stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), was first identified in Florida in 2014, and has since moved through the region, causing great concern among scientists.

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Forget GDP, ‘vulnerability index best gauges aid’ to small islands

Commonwealth research says UVI is better measure of small island states’ aid needs, especially on climate

Small island nations on the climate crisis frontlines have been overlooked in overseas aid, according to a new index.

Urging a move away from the current benchmark of using gross domestic product (GDP) to measure aid allocation, researchers from the Commonwealth secretariat and the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (Ferdi), a French thinktank, have developed the universal vulnerability index (UVI) as an alternative. GDP, they claim, fails to reflect the realities nations face, particularly on climate.

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US Coast Guard rescues three Cubans stranded on desert island for 33 days

  • Two men and a woman swam to Anguilla Cay after boat capsized
  • Unclear if Cubans were trying to reach United States

The US Coast Guard rescued three Cuban nationals stranded on a desert island for roughly five weeks, after officers saw the group waving a makeshift flag to gain their attention.

The group, including two men and a woman, had been living on an uninhabited Bahamian island, Anguilla Cay, for 33 days after their boat capsized.

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Plastic in paradise: Goldman prize winner’s fight to protect Bahamas

Kristal Ambrose had to beat prejudices about class and race to change mindsets on the islands

When the latest Goldman prize winner, Kristal Ambrose, began campaigning against plastic waste in the Bahamas, one of the first obstacles she had to overcome was prejudice about class and race.

“You have been around white people too long. We always use plastic bags,” she recalls being told by neighbours in Eleuthera, one of the 30 inhabited islands in the ocean state. “I had to challenge the mindset that only a certain class of people get to care about this stuff. I told them it is not just for tourists. It’s my island and I want to protect it.”

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Florida closes beaches as Hurricane Isaias barrels through Bahamas

State readies evacuation centers with social-distancing measures as Bahamas and North Carolina order evacuations

Hurricane Isaias ripped shingles off roofs and blew over trees as it carved its way through the Bahamas early on Saturday and headed toward the Florida coast, where officials in Miami said they were closing beaches, marinas and parks.

Miami’s mayor, Carlos Giménez, said on Friday that 20 evacuation centers were on standby that could be set up with Covid-19 safety measures.

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Hurricane Isaias drenches Bahamas as Florida braces for storm

Storm expected to produce 4-8in of rain in Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands and remain hurricane for few days

Forecasters declared a hurricane watch for parts of the Florida coastline on Friday, as Hurricane Isaias drenched areas of the Bahamas devastated by Dorian last year, on track for the US east coast.

Isaias had maximum sustained winds of 75mph and was expected to remain a hurricane for a few days, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami.

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Coronavirus: cruise passengers stranded as countries turn them away

Thousands in limbo around the world as vessels seek a port at which to dock

As countries scramble to close their borders in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of cruise ship passengers are stranded on the high seas while their vessels seek a port at which to dock.

The Norwegian Jewel, sailing under the flag of the Bahamas, has been refused permission to dock in French Polynesia, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, and is piloting to American Samoa to refuel.

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Fashion executive accused in rape lawsuit reportedly hosted Prince Andrew at Bahamas estate

  • Peter Nygard is accused of luring women to the property
  • Photos from 20 years ago show the royals visiting the site

A millionaire fashion executive accused of raping 10 women and girls at his Bahamas mansion reportedly hosted Prince Andrew and his family at the property in 2000.

A class action lawsuit lodged in New York City claims that Peter Nygard lured “young, impressionable, and often impoverished children and women” to his Bahamas property with cash payments and promises of modeling opportunities, only to then “assault, rape, and sodomize them”.

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Reporting on Hurricane Dorian: ‘It was a scene of complete devastation’

New York reporter recalls challenges of covering a disaster as huge as the category 5 storm that ripped through the Bahamas

How do you start an interview with someone who has just lost everything?

With the floodwaters just receded, the stench of mould beginning to creep into the hollowed-out buildings that survived two days of pummelling winds, and bloated corpses still being recovered, that was a question I was forced to grapple with last week in the Bahamas.

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‘The poor are punished’: Dorian lays bare inequality in the Bahamas

The tourist destination relies on a life support system of fishermen, hotel workers and laborers. They’ve been hardest hit

Holidaymakers queuing at immigration at the Bahamas’ Nassau airport are still serenaded by three pink-shirted men playing jovial music. They are still sunbathing on the beaches and still swimming in the sea. It is as if nothing has changed in paradise.

Yet 40 minutes away by plane, on the Abaco Islands, heaven turns to hell. The Mudd, a shantytown that was home to the Bahamas’ biggest Haitian immigrant community, has been obliterated by Hurricane Dorian as if by a massive bomb.

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Bahamas: new storm threatens Hurricane Dorian relief efforts

Tropical Storm Humberto expected to drop up to 15cm of rain as operation to provide food and shelter continues

A tropical storm carrying heavy rain and strong winds is nearing the already devastated Bahamas, threatening to complicate Hurricane Dorian recovery efforts as the UN secretary general arrived in the islands in a show of support.

The new weather system, known as Tropical Storm Humberto,is expected to drop up to 15cm (6 inches) of rain through the weekend in areas of the islands inundated by Dorian, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre.

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Greta Thunberg joins young activists in climate protest outside White House – live

Swedish teen climate activist and other youth advocates demand action from the US to address the climate crisis

A Taliban negotiating team has reportedly arrived in Russia just days after Trump said potential peace talks with the group were “dead.”

The AP reports:

Russian state news agency Tass cited the Taliban’s Qatar-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen as saying the delegation had held consultations with Zamir Kabulov, President Vladimir Putin’s envoy for Afghanistan.

The visit also was confirmed to The Associated Press by a Taliban official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

This may well be the most terrifying thing you read on this Friday the 13th. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and senior adviser, told a group of donors last month that she got her moral compass from her father.

At a mid-August fundraiser in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Ivanka Trump was asked to name the personality traits she inherited most from her parents.

Without much of a pause, Trump told the crowd of roughly 120 high-end donors that her mother gave her an example of how to be a powerful, successful woman.

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Hundreds of Bahamian evacuees ordered off boat due to lack of US visas

Crew said people without visas must disembark ferry to Florida because of CBP’s ‘last-minute call’ that they would not be admitted

More than a hundred Bahamian citizens desperate to escape the devastation of Hurricane Dorian were ordered off a ferry to Florida, sparking a dispute between US immigration officials and the operator of the vessel.

Related: Search for survivors of Hurricane Dorian continues in Bahamas

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Bahamas sends 900 security personnel to hurricane-hit islands

  • Government acts to avert profiteering in wake of disaster
  • Officials still trying to reach areas cut off by floods and debris

The government of the Bahamas has sent 900 police and military personnel to the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama hardest hit by Hurricane Dorian, while taking action to stave off any profiteering by private sector rescue missions amid signs of chaos in some of the aid operations.

The destruction caused by the hurricane was still unfolding as a humanitarian and environmental disaster a week after it landed in the northern reaches of the Bahamas as a category 5 tempest.

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