Caribbean

The Democrat governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands has instructed all government employees to not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials operating within the Caribbean territory, citing the need to “celebrate diversity.”

The World Bank published a study on Sunday that found 26 of the world’s poorest nations — including Afghanistan, Yemen, Ethiopia, and North Korea — are “in deeper debt than at any other time since 2006.”

U.S. officials are again issuing strong warnings for people not to travel to Haiti as the Caribbean country suffers from violent crime and gang activity.

Cuba announced on Wednesday that three vessels from Russia’s Baltic Fleet will visit the island nation starting Saturday.

The tiny Caribbean nation of Anguilla has found a lucrative side-gig in the business of letting artificial intelligence (AI) companies use their .ai domain code for their websites.

Russia’s Kazan nuclear submarine and the Admiral Gorshkov frigate arrived in Cuba on Wednesday morning as part of a five-day stopover.

Russia is reportedly preparing to deploy combat vessels to the Caribbean Sea in the summer as part of combat exercises.

Haiti finally announced the membership of its “presidential transition council” on Tuesday, taking an important step toward removing unelected and wildly unpopular Prime Minister Ariel Henry from power and possibly ending the massive gangster insurrection that has plagued the country since February.

The gangs rampaging across Haiti ransacked the National Library in the capital city of Port-au-Prince on Wednesday. Anguished library director Dangelo Neard said some rare documents were stored in the library, so the gang attack put Haiti’s history at risk.

Canada sent 70 troops to Jamaica to train Caribbean forces for a prospective U.N.-authorized military intervention in Haiti.

An American couple who went missing after their yacht was stolen in the Caribbean are now presumed dead; a trio of escaped inmates were charged with their deaths as well as raping the woman.

The U.S. Southern Command airlifted non-essential personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Haiti and sent more troops to the embassy to provide security.

A retired American couple is feared dead after three escaped inmates allegedly hijacked their yacht in the Caribbean on February 18.

Authorities in Trinidad and Tobago continued investigations on Thursday into the mysterious “ghost ship” that capsized in unknown circumstances, causing a large offshore oil spill that is now threatening its neighbors.

Colombia is hoping to recover as quickly as possible what has been called the “Holy Grail of shipwrecks” from the Caribbean Sea.

A lawsuit claims the body of a man who died during a Celebrity Cruise in August was not kept in the ship’s morgue but in a cooler.

Hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police on Friday in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname. Several dozen of the protesters were able to force their way into the National Assembly building, but were driven back with tear gas, while others burned and looted shops across the city. The United Nations expressed concerns on Monday that more violence could be in store, possibly building into an effort to overthrow President Chandrikapersad Santokhi.

Police in London have demanded that an annual Afro-Caribbean festival in London no longer be held after widespread violence, with one officer even being sexually assaulted while policing the event.

Authorities in Colombia who were monitoring the sunken San José galleon have made an exciting discovery, President Ivan Duque announced Monday.

Jamaica indicated on Wednesday that they intend to remove Queen Elizabeth II as head of state and become a republic.

Whoopi Goldberg, has called for the royal family to apologise for the British Empire and its role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Prince William and his wife Kate have been ‘cancelled’ by Belizean protestors who accused the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge of continuing Britain’s “colonial legacy”.

Two men were sentenced to prison on Wednesday for trying to smuggle £250,000 worth of cocaine into the United Kingdom. 

A major earthquake hit the western portion of Haiti on Saturday, which sent shockwaves across the Caribbean, Reuters reported.

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 74, suffered a gory head wound on Thursday when he was struck by a projectile during a protest against mandatory coronavirus vaccinations for government employees. The projectile was later identified as a rock thrown by one of the demonstrators.

Former mobile network executive Gary Miller, founder of a cybersecurity startup called Exigent Media, on Tuesday accused China of using mobile phone networks in the Caribbean to conduct surveillance operations against Americans.

Cornell University has rejected a proposal to create a “Caribbean Studies” minor. Other universities, including Rutgers, Wesleyan, NYU, and the University of Michigan already offer a minor in Caribbean Studies. Cornell’s Africana Studies department chair Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò argues there is no “intellectual justification” to create a Caribbean Studies minor.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has reportedly ordered British diplomats to try to counter the “expansionism” of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Belt and Road initiative following accusations that the regime in Beijing pressured Barbados to remove the Queen as its

“Some islands seem to be close to swapping a symbolic Queen in Windsor for a real and demanding emperor in Beijing.”

A team of British sailors and Royal Marines, joined by USCG personnel have interdicted 358kg (790lbs) of cocaine in the Caribbean.

A Dutch military helicopter has crashed into the Caribbean Sea near the island of Aruba, killing two of the crew.

Protest movements are sweeping the world, from Hong Kong to Iraq. Protesters in each country are aware of the other movements and frequently give them shout-outs or adopt their tactics. The fate of all these movements is uncertain, but they share a more unambiguous commitment to sovereignty than most global protest stories of the past few decades, and perhaps an understanding that national and cultural identity are vital weapons against authoritarian hegemonic powers. Smaller governments may not guarantee freedom and human rights, but big ones almost guarantee their absence.

The Dutch government on Friday announced it would budget 23.8 million euros (about $26 million) for the Caribbean islands of Curacao and Aruba to help deal with a massive influx of refugees from Venezuela.

A dozen FBI agents raided deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein’s “pedophile island” on Monday morning, according to reports.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen arrived in New York on Thursday for a brief stay on the outbound leg of her trip to visit Taiwan’s allies in the Caribbean.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen announced on Monday that she will depart on July 11 for a 12-day trip through the Caribbean. The mainland Chinese government expressed anger at Taiwanese media reports that Tsai will stop in the United States for two nights on both the outbound and return legs of her journey.