Category Archives: Caribbean

Luxury rooms and a swim-up bar: hotel with funding from Dominica’s golden passport scheme

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Former Afghan spy chief among those to gain citizenship though investment in Caribbean island

Nestled in a valley formed by an extinct volcano on the Caribbean island of Dominica, the InterContinental Cabrits resort has 101 luxurious rooms overlooking an emerald bay. Its website invites guests to “explore and unwind in paradise while discovering the pristine island”.

But waterfront views and a swim-up rum bar are not the hotel’s only attraction: for the wealthy investors who helped fund the project, it was also a route to another nationality.

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Caribbean nations set to demand royal family makes reparations for slave trade

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Lloyd’s of London and Church of England also to be approached over role in past exploitation

Caribbean nations are preparing formal letters demanding that the British royal family apologise and make reparations for slavery.

National reparations commissions in the region will also approach Lloyd’s of London and the Church of England with demands of financial payments and reparative justice for their historic role in the slave trade.

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Large swells batter Caribbean as Hurricane Lee churns waters nearby

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Storm not forecast to make landfall but is expected to strengthen again on Sunday and Monday and turn north

Large swells battered the north-east Caribbean on Saturday as Hurricane Lee churned nearby through open waters as a category 3 storm.

The storm, which is not forecast to make landfall, was located about 350 miles (565km) east and north-east of the northern Leeward Islands. It had winds of up to 115mph (185kph) and was moving west and north-west at 12mph (19kph).

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Hurricane Lee prompts weekend beach warnings on US east coast

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Dangerous surf and rip currents expected along most of Atlantic coast from Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center

Hurricane Lee is making its way through the Atlantic Ocean and is expected to remain a powerful hurricane through early next week, prompting warnings of dangerous beach conditions on the US east coast over the weekend.

Between Wednesday and Thursday night, Lee evolved from a category 1 tropical storm to a category 5 hurricane. It then dropped down to a category 4 hurricane, the National Hurricane Center announced on Friday morning.

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Unicef sounds alarm as record numbers of children cross dangerous Darién Gap

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Children risking lives to migrate across Latin America and Caribbean, with aid groups warning they cannot cope

Record numbers of children are migrating across Latin America and the Caribbean with more than 60,000 children risking life and limb to cross the treacherous Darién Gap jungle pass this year, according to a new Unicef report.

Sounding the alarm over the rising number of youngsters on the move, the UN’s children’s agency said at least 92 migrant children had died or gone missing last year – more than any other year since 2014.

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Tropical storm could become ‘extremely dangerous’ hurricane, US experts warn

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Lee, currently in Atlantic, could be upgraded to hurricane later on Wednesday with its track still unclear

A tropical storm in the Atlantic might soon turn into an “extremely dangerous” major hurricane, with its future track and chances of making a potentially devastating landfall still unclear, the National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday.

Tropical Storm Lee could turn into a hurricane later on Wednesday and intensify to a category 3 or higher by this weekend. The National Hurricane Center issued advisories in areas near the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

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Family of former British PM apologises for enslaver past in Guyana

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Descendants of William Gladstone urge British government to discuss reparations in the Caribbean

The descendants of the former British prime minister William Gladstone have apologised for their family’s past as enslavers in Guyana and urged the UK to discuss reparations in the Caribbean.

Gladstone’s father was one of the largest enslavers in the parts of the Caribbean colonised by Britain.

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Guyana’s president asks European slave traders’ descendants to pay reparations

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Irfaan Ali also demands posthumous charges for crimes against humanity for traders and enslavers

The president of Guyana has called on descendants of European slave traders to offer to pay reparations to right historical wrongs.

Irfaan Ali also demanded that those involved in the transatlantic slave trade and African enslavement be posthumously charged for crimes against humanity.

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‘A huge human drama’: how the revolt that began on the Gladstone plantation led to emancipation

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The Demerara Rebellion failed, but it was a step towards ending slavery in the British empire

• William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery

The Demerara Rebellion of August 1823 was a pivotal event in the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

While the transatlantic slave trade, the largest forced migration in human history, was outlawed by Britain in 1807, slavery continued across the colonies. Conditions were brutal in Demerara, one of three provinces that made up British Guiana, where sugar plantations were among the most profitable in the world.

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How William Gladstone defended his father’s role in slavery

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The great Victorian statesman’s glittering career was financed by huge profits made in the 1820s and 30s on Guyanese estates

• William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery

William Gladstone’s father, John, was an absentee landlord who never visited his estates in the Caribbean but became fabulously rich from the proceeds of slavery.

His pursuit of profit at the expense of free – and then cheap – labour in Guyana transformed the South American country for ever.

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‘I felt absolutely sick’: John Gladstone’s heir on his family’s role in slavery

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Charlie Gladstone on why the only way he can live with his family’s dark past is to turn it into something positive
• William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery

For Charlie Gladstone, the question is not what sort of ancestor he had, but what sort of ancestor he wants to be.

When he learned about John Gladstone’s involvement in slavery he was moved to tears. “I felt absolutely terrible. I really, really hated it. It was a shock and I felt absolutely sick.”

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William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery

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Descendants of PM, whose father’s wealth came from sugar plantations, travel to Guyana for 200th anniversary of rebellion by enslaved Africans

The family of one of Britain’s most famous prime ministers will travel to the Caribbean this week to apologise for its historical role in slavery.

Six of William Gladstone’s descendants will arrive in Guyana on Thursday as the country commemorates the 200th anniversary of a rebellion by enslaved people that historians say paved the way for abolition.

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‘Huge’ coral bleaching unfolding across the Americas prompts fears of global tragedy

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Scientists stunned by unprecedented heat-stress event say they can only hope it ‘motivates and unites people’

Corals across several countries are bleaching and dying en masse from unprecedented levels of heat stress, prompting fears that an unfolding tragedy in Central America, North America and the Caribbean could become a global event.

US government scientists have confirmed reefs in Panama, Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Mexico and six countries in the Caribbean, including the Bahamas and Cuba, are suffering significant bleaching, alongside corals in Florida that began turning white almost a month ago.

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EU to invest €45bn in Latin America and Caribbean

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Package includes projects to extract minerals, electrify bus fleets and help protect Amazon rainforest

EU leaders in Brussels have announced €45bn (£39bn) in investments to Latin America and the Caribbean, some of which will speed the shift to clean energy, but made little headway thawing a frozen trade deal that critics say will further degrade the Amazon rainforest.

The EU-Celac summit, the first of its kind since 2015, aimed to bring the EU closer to Latin American and Caribbean countries. Disagreements over how to refer to the war in Ukraine in the final text soured negotiations.

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Tropical Storm Bret forecast to strengthen into hurricane

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Storm approaching eastern Caribbean Leeward and Windward Islands in aggressive weather pattern early in the season

Tropical Storm Bret is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane as it approaches the eastern Caribbean’s Leeward and Windward islands, with meteorologists noting that the weather pattern is unusually early and aggressive for the Atlantic cyclone season that formally began on 1 June.

It is only the second hurricane to form in the tropical Atlantic in June since record keeping began, according to forecasters. The previous June hurricane was the 1933 Trinidad hurricane.

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What’s the Caribbean without its beaches? But the people are losing access to them

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Barring public access to beaches and other sites is not a model for development. Transparency and engagement are needed

Walk along a Caribbean beach, which may stretch for miles, and your stroll is guaranteed to be cut short by an angry hotel security guard. In recent years, the Caribbean has seen a worrying trend of governments readily selling off assets to foreign corporations and political financiers.

Prime real estate, protected land and valuable resources are being relinquished without consideration for long-term consequences. It raises questions about whether remnants of the colonial mindset still prevail in political ideologies and decision-making.

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Could Guyana’s Exxon ruling scare big oil off risky exploration?

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Ruling requiring ‘unlimited guarantee’ from oil firms to cover costs of spills could change offshore drilling throughout region

A ruling from Guyana’s high court could change the face of offshore oil drilling throughout the Caribbean, according to financial and legal analysts.

The ruling ordered the country’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require an independent liability insurance policy from Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) and an “unlimited guarantee” from its parent company, ExxonMobil, in the case of any damage caused by the company’s oil and gas development in the country.

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‘It’s hell’: vigilantes take to Haiti’s streets in bloody reprisals against gangs

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Members of terrorised Port-au-Prince communities armed with rocks and machetes carry out wave of lynchings

As Vélina Élysée Charlier ventured on to the streets of her conflict-stricken city last week, she encountered scenes that will haunt her for many years to come.

Armed civilians dragging bodies through the streets. Smouldering corpses. Young men with machetes chasing suspected gangsters they planned to kill.

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Clive Lewis calls for UK to negotiate Caribbean slavery reparations

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Labour MP says Rishi Sunak should talk to region’s leaders after Trevelyan family announcements

The Labour MP Clive Lewis has called on Rishi Sunak to enter negotiations with Caribbean leaders on paying reparations for Britain’s role in slavery, following the historic announcements by the Trevelyan family.

Speaking at a parliamentary debate on promoting financial security in the Caribbean, Lewis said the issue of reparations could not be dismissed as an obsession among a small group of “so-called woke extremists”.

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Gangs, cholera and political turmoil leave half Haiti’s children relying on aid

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Triple threat sees Caribbean country in worst crisis since 2010 earthquake, with young people bearing the brunt, warns Unicef

An escalation of gang violence, political instability and a deadly cholera outbreak in Haiti has left half its children relying on humanitarian aid to survive, Unicef says.

At least 2.6 million are expected to need immediate lifesaving assistance this year as the overlapping crises leave Haiti’s children in the worst position since the earthquake of 2010, Unicef’s Haiti representative, Bruno Maes, told the Guardian.

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