INSIGHT: A mountain to climb – which we must do together
THE devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Dorian’s wrath has been absolutely unimaginable. As we braced ourselves for this monstrous Category 5 hurricane, there is no way we could have fathomed the trail of destruction that would be left behind. Footage depicting people’s lives scattered across Abaco and Grand Bahama in unrecognisable mangled pieces of debris have been plastered all over local and North American media outlets.
INSIGHT: This is not a time for partisan politics. It is a time for bigger thinking.
It’s pretty tough up here. I am lucky to be alive and thankful. There was no storm surge on the south of Freeport. There was minor damage to my home; water penetration, roof damage and huge landscape destruction.
INSIGHT: Juggling problems but BPL has to remain the priority
AFTER months of inaction on the country’s power generation challenges, the government’s recent focus on remediating the crisis has been welcome. Proclamations by the nation’s top brass - first the prime minister, and more recently, the deputy prime minister – while not completely making amends after months of nearly daily power cuts, have certainly been better than complete silence.
INSIGHT: ‘Yes’ to a higher minimum wage - but it’s all about timing
WHILE the nation’s power crisis has weighed heavily on the Bahamian people over the past nearly three months, we have somehow been able to shift our focus to another subject - increasing the minimum wage. It is four years since the last increase of the national minimum wage to $210 per week or $11,500 per annum – and since then the government raised value added tax from 7.5 percent to 12 percent.
INSIGHT: Shining a light on why we’re so slow switching on to solar
The Bahamas is one of the “solar capitals” of the world with more solar irradiation falling on our land than most other countries. In spite of this, the Bahamas has the least amount of solar integration compared with almost any country.
WORLD VIEW: How long with Venezuela remain a pawn in the game of global chess?
MICHELLE Bachelet is a torture survivor. She was arrested in 1975 by the late dictator Augusto Pinochet’s political police and detained in the notorious Villa Grimaldi torture centre. So, she knows much about the suffering of people.
INSIGHT: Forget power cuts, some of our neighbours suffer greater indignities
CRYSTAL Miller is a 30-year-old mother-of-two. In this modern Bahamas of luxury resorts shares and affluent tourists she, like many other ordinary people, still has to use two outside toilets along with five people at her home in Centreville.
INSIGHT: Are we being lulled to sleep on Carnival’s ocean dumping?
JUST four months ago, the nation was flabbergasted with the revelations of Carnival cruise line’s illegal dumping at sea.
INSIGHT: We should teach our children to enjoy the ocean, not fear it
Only one in 100 government school students can swim, according to empirical data gathered by Andy and Nancy Knowles, the co-founders of the Let’s Swim Bahamas programme.
WORLD VIEW: Trump’s new rules will reduce Caribbean migration to the US
US President Donald Trump’s new rule on immigration and nationality, published on August 12, is no different from the rules applied by Caribbean countries.
INSIGHT: Come on Mr Bannister, do your job
MUCH of what we understand about the world comes from the carrot and stick approach – do something good and get something good in return, or vice versa.
INSIGHT: ‘Four years on and I’m still waiting for police to apologise’
ON reading the complaint of the beating by the police of two women in Exuma last week and the promise by National Security Minister Marvin Dames that there would be no “cover up” if officers in the case were found guilty of wrong doing, a senior government employee reveals today that he is still awaiting the results of his own complaint against two junior police officers.
WORLD VIEW: Caribbean contempt of Haitians is shameful
THE response to Haitians arriving in Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries has been lamentable at best and contemptible at worst. They have been treated, for the most part, as pariahs particularly by the ignorant and bigoted.
WORLD VIEW: Boris Johnson’s homegrown can of worms
THERE were echoes of US President Donald Trump’s famous campaign slogan, “Make America great again”, in the first parliamentary statement of Britain’s new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. “Our mission”, Mr Johnson declared is “making this country the greatest place on earth”.
INSIGHT: Does the PLP leadership have what it takes to form the next government in 2022?
AFTER the almost complete wipeout of the Progressive Liberal Party on May 10, 2017, many believed it would be the end of former Prime minister Perry Christie’s political career - and the end of the PLP’s relevance as one of the two major parties.
