Free Republic

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.

Rockets are expensive, complex, bad for the environment and prone to occasionally exploding – so alternative launch technologies are popping up to reduce their use. We wrote about SpinLaunch's remarkable kinetic launch system earlier this week, which spins a rocket up to incredible speeds on the end of a long, carbon-fiber arm in a vacuum chamber, then releases it skyward at speeds up to and over Mach 6. Then another company dropped us a line, to show us a far simpler approach it says can get launch vehicles and ruggedized electronic cargo off the ground at nearly three times that...

It was a memorable event but not in the way intended. There stood the Prince of Wales, looking like he’d much rather be in Kent or Devonshire or Cornwall—anywhere but there. The military band played nicely but the honor guard wasn’t up to the usual perfection one expects from a British regimental formation. Things were already beginning to slip. Charles mumbled something about strong ties between countries, the stain of slavery, the strength of the people; exactly what the Foreign Office told him to say. Then he watched his mother’s personal standard hauled down the flagpole as 396 years of...

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...

Note: The author was SeaDream’s guest on its first restarted sailing out of the Caribbean. It’s going to be tough for cruise lines to resume sailings in North America anytime soon. That, in a nutshell, is the takeaway from last week’s COVID outbreak on the very first Caribbean cruise since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. That’s how I see it, at least, and I’ve been following the cruise world for a long time. As the incident on a small SeaDream Yacht Club vessel showed, no amount of pre-cruise COVID testing for passengers is guaranteed to keep the illness off...

China has poured billions of dollars of investment into the Caribbean while signing tax and trade deals in an attempt to wrest the region out of the West's sphere of influence and bring it under the sway of Beijing. The Chinese government has invested at least $7billion in six Caribbean nations since 2005, records show - building roads, ports and the five-star Baha Mar casino and resort in the Bahamas - though the true figure is thought to run well into the tens of billions. While some of the money arrives as part of trade and investment deals, much of...

Sept. 16 (UPI) — Barbados Governor-general Sandra Mason said Wednesday her Caribbean island nation has decided to remove Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and declare itself a republic. Barbados, a tourist destination in the eastern Caribbean 700 miles off the Venezuela coast, won independence from Britain in 1966 but has remained a British commonwealth realm.

Which came first, the pigs or the pioneers? In Barbados, that has been a historical mystery ever since the first English colonists arrived on the island in 1627 to encounter what they thought was a herd of wild European pigs. A recent discovery by an SFU archaeologist is shedding new light on the matter. Christina Giovas uncovered the jaw bone of a peccary, a South American mammal that resembles a wild pig, while researching a larger project on prehistoric animal introductions in the Caribbean... Giovas and collaborators George Kamenov and John Krigbaum of the University of Florida radiocarbon-dated the bone...

FULL TITLE: 'These are the idiots making decisions for WOMEN in America': Rihanna slams Alabama lawmakers as celebrities share their own abortion stories in a backlash against state's near-total ban Rihanna has called the Alabama state senators who voted in favor of a near-total ban on abortions in the state 'idiots', as celebrities continue to vent outrage at the law. The singer, a native of Barbados, wrote in a tweet on Thursday: 'Take a look. these are the idiots making decisions for WOMEN in America. Governor Kay Ivey...SHAME ON YOU!!!!' The tweet included a photo showing all 25 Alabama senators...

Singer Rihanna has said she "couldn't be more proud" after being given a new ambassadorial role by the government of Barbados. The artist, whose full name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty, was named "Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary" for her home country on Thursday. The role involves promoting education, tourism and investment. Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley said she was honoured to confer the title.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz signaled a bruising fight Thursday if the White House pushes ahead with the nominee for a coveted Caribbean diplomatic post who spread unfounded conspiracy theories about him during the 2016 campaign. As an ardent cheerleader for Donald Trump, beauty supply executive Leandro Rizzuto Jr. used Twitter to promote an unsubstantiated allegation that Cruz cheated on his wife, and other claims that Heidi Cruz herself was part of a cabal seeking to unite North America under one government. "I don't know the fellow. He seems to have unusual views," Cruz said Thursday through an aide. "I...

At a hearing today, witnesses will testify that Fusion GPS, an organization behind an infamous dossier pumping the Russia-Trump collusion story, is a highly paid smear-for-hire operation in violation of international laws. At a hearing this morning, Senate Judiciary members will receive testimony that Fusion GPS helped advocate the interests of corrupt Russian and Venezuelan officials while hiding its foreign work from federal authorities. Many in the media have focused on whether Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort would testify publicly at the hearing. Less well covered has been anything to do with Fusion GPS, the...

In a poignant essay, a Barbados woman confesses the unspeakable: she regrets having aborted her two children. The 47-year-old unnamed woman wrote, "Each time I hear a child laughing or see children playing, I regret not having any. I truly regret that I did not have at least one child to leave all that I have worked so hard for. It's not easy knowing that as you grow old, and friends pass on, that there is no one there to take care of you if the worst happens." In today's permissive culture, such an admission is tantamount to heresy. Women...

he Seismic Research Centre (SRC) of the University of the West Indies has issued an orange alert for the underwater volcano Kick’em Jenny, after strong and sustained signals were recorded in the early hours of this morning suggesting than an eruption could occur with less than 24-hours notice. Instruments monitoring the volcano, located 8km north of Grenada (12.3000° N, 61.6400° W), recorded strong, continuous activity between 1:25 a.m. and 3.am. Grenada, as well as St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago are particularly on alert. “Signs of elevated seismicity began on July 11 and continue to present....

The European Union spends more on advertising than the drinks giant Coca-Cola, according to a new analysis of how Brussels uses our money. Its budget for promoting itself and all its works comes to £2.4 billion a year. That compares to the £2.13 billion spent in the same year by the soft drinks company on promoting its brand around the world. The vast scale of the EU’s self-promotion was set down in a new “fiscal factbook” designed to shed light on how Brussels spends the billions it receives from Britain and other member countries. … And on a larger scale,...

When terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 of this year and killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, there were no U.S. Marines deployed in Libya to defend U.S. diplomats, diplomatic facilities and classified information and equipment. However, says the State Department, a Marine Security Detachment was deployed on that day to carry out those duties at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados.

CINNAMINSON — A fight between two women broke out inside the Wawa on Church Road on Wednesday morning and turned bloody in the parking lot when one of the combatants stabbed the other several times with a box cutter, police said. Kartelina Holt, 32, whom police described as an undocumented immigrant living in the Sicklerville section of Winslow, Camden County, was arrested shortly after she allegedly stabbed Ashley Anderson, 25, of Pennsauken, seven times, Detective Sgt. William Covert said.

A Southern Californian man thrown off a Caribbean gay cruise earlier this week has said that that he and his partner were taunted, humiliated and subjected to inhumane treatment when they were arrested for indecent exposure.Dennis Jay Mayer, 53, of Palm Springs said he has no doubt they were arrested in Dominica because they were gay. Police said it was because they were seen having sex in public on the balcony of their ship cabin. Mayer said they were not having sex, but were ‘partially clothed’. (edit) The pastor of Dominica's Trinity Baptist Church, Randy Rodney, praised the police for their...

    Summer 2000 (8.2) Scandinavian Ancestry Tracing Roots to Azerbaijan by Thor Heyerdahl Above: Thor Heyerdahl with Peruvian children who still construct traditional boats made of reeds, the principle material that enabled early migrations on trans-oceanic voyages. Courtesy: Thor Heyerdahl. Archeologist and historian Thor Heyerdahl, 85, has visited Azerbaijan on several occasions during the past two decades. Each time, he garners more evidence to prove his tantalizing theory - that Scandinavian ancestry can be traced to the region now known as Azerbaijan. Heyerdahl first began forming this hypothesis after visiting Gobustan, an ancient cave dwelling found 30 miles ...

(Barbados Nation) More arrests are on the cards following an intense police audit of shooting clubs and firearm dealers this past week. The ongoing investigation has also resulted in the transferral of two police officers and the temporary closure of the firearms section of the Royal Barbados Police Force. The SUNDAY SUN has further been reliably informed that an undisclosed number of unregistered firearms and quantity of ammunition were uncovered during the probe, which has revealed some other stunning irregularities. Yesterday, Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin said he preferred not to make any comment at this stage.