Free Republic

On a Caribbean island just 220 miles from the shore of the U.S. Virgin Islands, a black-clad Chinese security guard swept an arm at more than a thousand acres of woodland and a glittering, aqua-green marine reserve beyond."It's like a small country," he said in Chinese.

Haiti a country of nearly 12 million people in the Caribbean is on the brink of total State collapse around 200 0:06 different heavily armed gangs have managed to seize control over large swats of the country's territory and are operating with near impunity while some 0:13 of the more heavily armed gangs that are more similar to paramilitaries have managed to seize control over as much as 90% of hades's capital and largest city 0:20 Port of Prince these gangs have been able to completely overpower what little is left in the country of the former 0:26 Haitian government...

VIDEOIn just 38 days as of this writing on April 27, my wife and I will be embarking to the ABC islands of the Caribbean again aboard the Celebrity Beyond. In September 2022 we made the same cruise aboard the Celebrity Equinox. In this video, I attempt to relay the incredible excitement of embarkation day. The moment we stepped aboard the Equinox we were enveloped in luxury which included the surroundings, the food, and the drink... lots of drinks as you can see. Embarkation day is always memorial. This time we are looking forward to catamaran sailings with our group...

The Virginia woman believed to have been killed alongside her husband by escaped prisoners who commandeered the couple’s yacht in the Caribbean was allegedly raped by one of their murderers, according to police. One of the three men charged with the couple’s murder allegedly raped Kathy Brandel, 71, before the trio killed her and her 66-year-old husband, Ralph Hendry, on their sailboat last month, according to the Royal Grenada Police Force. Ron Mitchell, Atiba Stanisclaus and Trevon Robertson were all charged Thursday with two counts of capital murder as well as escaping lawful custody, housebreaking, robbery and two counts of...

An American couple has gone missing in the Caribbean after three escaped prisoners allegedly used their yacht to island hop before getting recaptured by authorities, according to investigators. Ralph Hendry and his wife Kathy Brandel disappeared from their yacht, Simplicity, which was docked in the waters of the southern Caribbean nation of Grenada, Hendry's sister, Suellen Desmarais, told ABC News. Police have not confirmed the identity and nationality of the couple but are investigating the incident. Hendry and Brandel were last seen alive by their boating neighbor at the dock on Sunday afternoon, according to Desmarais. The neighbor said he...

Former slave-trading colonial powers should pay Barbados $4.9 trillion (£3.9 trillion) in reparations, the Caribbean country’s leftist prime minister demanded. Speaking at the London School of Economics this week, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley redoubled her push for slavery reparations, saying that the movement demanding payment for historical wrongs had become a more pressing issue following the resurgence of Black Lives Matter and the killing of George Floyd in the United States in 2020.

Colombia is hoping to expedite its mission to recover a three-century-old sunken treasure worth as much as $20 billion as the ownership of the fortune lies in legal limbo amid an ongoing court battle. President Gustavo Petro ordered his administration to exhume the “Holy Grail of shipwrecks” — the Spanish galleon San José — from the floor of the Caribbean Sea as soon as possible, the country’s minister of culture told Bloomberg last week. Petro wants to bring the 62-gun, three-masted ship to the surface before his term is up in 2026 and has requested a public-private partnership be formed...

This is the moment a fugitive Venezuelan drug trafficker known as Taliban is dumped alive in the ocean with his hands zip-tied and an anchor around his waist in revenge for stealing 200 kilograms of cocaine - and cash - from the Cartel. Reinaldo Fuentes is seen bound and gagged with blood stains on the back of his head before his killers struggle to heave him - and the anchor - over the side of a boat into the Caribbean Sea near Martinique. The footage, shared to social media, shows Fuentes staring at the person recording the video. He is...

When Americans think about conflict with China, Taiwan comes to mind first. Yet there’s a front off our shores as well, in the Caribbean. Visit almost any island in the region, and you’ll confront evidence of Beijing’s reach. Ten Caribbean nations participate in the “Belt and Road” initiative — Grenada, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname and of course Cuba. These states owe much of their modern infrastructure, from roads and ports to energy and telecommunications, to Beijing’s patronage. In Antigua, China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. built a new terminal for VC...

As headlines about the frosty relationship between China and the United States are dominated by spy balloons, Taiwan and botched attempts at diplomacy, commanders in the Pentagon are increasingly worried by a more insidious threat: Beijing's growing stronghold on Latin America. From tens of billions of dollars in funding for key infrastructure projects across the region to its own secretive, military-run space station in Argentina that could target American satellites, China's presence has grown. Some 21 countries in Latin America are signed up to Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative - a defining policy introduced by President Xi Jinping in 2013...

The world's third-richest man has been accused of pulling of the 'largest con in corporate history' through the Indian-based Adani Group corporation. US investor Hindenburg Research, which has begun short selling the conglomerate through bonds, conducted a two-year probe into head Gautam Adani, who is worth $125billion. The firm alleges that Adani and his family controlled a web of offshore shell accounts that it used to carry out corruption, money laundering and taxpayer theft, all while siphoning money from the companies they owned. Adani has pulled off this gargantuan feat with the help of enablers in government and a cottage...

VIDEOLast September while cruising in the southern Caribbean aboard the Celebrity Equinox, I had a close encounter with a rainbow. So close that I estimate I was less than 50 yards from it for awhile. BTW, just about 10 seconds before I got this shot of the rainbow a big lightning strike hit at about the same distance away. Since the good luck from the rainbow was apparently not retroactive, I didn't have my cell phone camera turned on although I was already in the process of doing so.

Scientists have discovered the world's largest known bacteria, reaching up to one centimetre (0.4-inches) in length. The species, called Thiomargarita magnifica, was discovered on sunken leaves in the waters of a mangrove swamp in Guadeloupe, Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. It appears as thin white filaments like vermicelli pasta, and contains microscopic sulphur granules that scatter light, giving it a pearly gleam. T. magnifica is a sulphur-oxidising prokaryote, meaning it derives energy from the oxidation of sulphur compounds. Large sulphur bacteria have been shown to be hot spots for symbionts – an organism living in symbiosis with another. Another species...

Scientists have discovered the world's largest known bacteria, reaching up to one centimetre (0.4-inches) in length. The species, called Thiomargarita magnifica, was discovered on sunken leaves in the waters of a mangrove swamp in Guadeloupe, Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. It appears as thin white filaments like vermicelli pasta, and contains microscopic sulphur granules that scatter light, giving it a pearly gleam. The 'giant' organism is thousands of times larger than most bacteria and can therefore be seen by the naked eye. Thiomargarita magnifica 'challenges the prevailing view of bacterial cell size' and the assumption that microbes are only visible...

The evidence that hurricane activity is at a historical low is hiding on the Caribbean seafloor, tucked away in odd geological features called blue holes. Blue holes are similar to sinkholes but on a much grander scale. They can be 300 meters deep, like the Dragon Hole in the South China Sea, or 300 meters wide, like the aptly named Great Blue Hole in Belize. The Bahamas is home to the world’s greatest concentration of blue holes, making it an appealing destination for paleotempestologists—scientists who study historical tropical cyclone activity. The seafloor at the base of a blue hole acts...

The U.K.'s Privy Council, which serves as the final appeals court for several Caribbean islands, ruled that both islands' bans on gay marriage were constitutional, according to the Associated Press. The decision deals a heavy blow to the islands' LGBTQ communities, which had hoped for a more favorable opinion from the court.

Milton Chan says that as a volunteer, he is exempt from party's travel restrictions. Staffers of the financially strapped party cry 'Nonsense!'.. The order came down before Christmas from Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca that anyone hoping to run as a candidate in the upcoming provincial election would be prohibited from travelling out of country for sunny winter getaways. No exceptions. But some had already made plans to travel, and they were in a bind. One candidate said she called the Ontario Liberals’ chief returning officer, Milton Chan, in December, to explain that she had already purchased expensive non-refundable...

The disaster had a reported depth of 10 kilometers, and a 5.6 magnitude. The departmental delegate reported that one person had died and at least three people were hurt. In August of 2021, Haiti experienced a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people. At least 5,700 people were injured in the Caribbean nation, with thousands more displaced from their destroyed or damaged homes. The earthquake struck the southwestern part of the hemisphere’s poorest nation, almost razing some towns and triggering landslides that hampered rescue efforts in a country already struggling with the coronavirus pandemic, a presidential assassination, and...

Royal Caribbean International canceled cruises on four of its ships Friday amid a global surge in COVID-19 cases. "In abundance of caution, Royal Caribbean International is pausing operations" for a few ships, the cruise company announced in a statement obtained by The Hill.

BBarbados is about to cut ties with the British monarchy, but the legacy of a sometimes brutal colonial past and the pandemic's impact on tourism pose major challenges for the Caribbean island as it becomes the world's newest republic. Famed for its beaches and love of cricket, Barbados will this week replace its head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, with her current representative, Governor General Sandra Mason. Ceremonies on Monday evening into Tuesday will include military parades and celebrations as Mason is inaugurated as president,... In October, Barbados elected Mason to become its first president, one year after Prime Minister...