Spider Wasps & Tarantula Hawks: Step away from this insect

I’ve recently had a flood of online hits for a creature I wrote about several years ago. It’s an aggressive-looking insect that I found in the coppice on South Abaco. I have revisited and revised the original article, with some better images than my own original ones. I could only get a partial shot of the insect, and I wondered whether to try to reach it and get a more complete shot. Perhaps I could have, but very fortunately for for me (as it later turned out) I didn’t touch it.  Read more >>

Sky Bahamas In Fight To Survive: Flights Grounded And Airline Could Face Total Collapse

By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor
nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Sky Bahamas’ principal yesterday said the airline and its 63 employees are fighting for its survival following a two-week long grounding due to delays in a key permit’s renewal.

Captain Randy Butler, the airline’s chief executive, told Tribune Business that the private Bahamian-owned carrier had been told by the Bahamas Civil Aviation Authority, the industry regulator, to “discontinue” commercial passenger services from July 8.

While Sky Bahamas’ air operator certificate (AOC), the approval required for an airline to carry fare-paying passengers, had expired on June 29, 2019, Captain Butler said normal protocol was for the previous licence to remain in effect until the new one was granted provided it was not “suspended, revoked or terminated”.

Producing a copy of Sky Bahamas’ just-expired licence to show it contains such a clause, Captain Butler revealed that he was called to a July 9 meeting at The Bahamas Civil Aviation Authority where the regulator “came up with some ridiculous findings” in relation to a recent safety inspection conducted on the airline.  Read more >>

Attack Shadow On Shark Conservation

BNT President Eric Carey

By AVA TURNQUEST
Tribune Chief Reporter
aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE death of an American woman from a shark attack in Bahamian waters has presented significant challenges to conservation efforts.

Bahamas National Trust executive director Eric Carey pointed to “back channel” campaigns to introduce legal provisions that would justify killing a shark under certain circumstances following the death of 21-year-old Jordan Lindsey. His comments come as researchers at the Cape Eleuthera Institute (CEI) celebrate hard-won scientific breakthroughs that have crystallised the country’s global reputations as a leading site for shark conservation and protection.

The college student died from a shark attack off Rose Island on June 26 as researchers descended on a mission to successfully satellite tag a deep-sea bluntnose sixgill shark some 500m beneath the surface in Exuma Sound. Read more >>

Industrial action looming at BTC

Union: “We will continue to agitate until Mr. Sinclair is gone”

Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU) President Dino Rolle said yesterday that the union will continue to agitate until Liberty Latin America CEO Balan Nair and BTC Chief Executive Officer Garry Sinclair resign, saying if the pair do not step down, the union will “do what it must”.

“We will continue to agitate; we will continue to push and we will continue to have our voices heard,” he told Eyewitness News Online.

“We are not comfortable with the likes of Balan and Sinclair trying these plantation tactics of trying to put one group of persons against the other, and that is why we are calling for his resignation because that is a clear indication of poor leadership, and he can carry Mr. Sinclair with him because he seems to be running rudderless, and has the company running rudderless. We will continue to agitate until Mr. Sinclair is gone.

During a recent Liberty Global meeting in Jamaica, Nair said BTC is one of Liberty’s lowest performing subsidiaries.

He linked the performance of the company directly to its employees.  Read more >>

Back to Angola festival celebrates shared history of Bradenton and the Bahamas

By Anna Bryson

In March, Mineral Springs Park was officially recognized as a stop on the Underground Railroad Network by the National Parks Services’ National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

Daphney Towns, a native of the Bahamas, lived in Bradenton for 25 years before she knew that it was the land where her ancestors once lived.

The story taught in textbooks is that when slaves escaped their owners in the U.S. in the early 1800s, they went north to free states or to Canada. But researchers discovered that some of them went south, to Florida. Escaped slaves and Seminole Indians created a Maroon community along the Manatee River that became known as the Angola settlement.  Read more >>

Govt eyeing crackdown on opioid prescriptions

The government intends to crack down on pharmacies that have “a disproportionate business” in control substance prescriptions, Minister of Health Dr. Duane Sands said.

The United Nations World Drug Report 2019, which was released last month, said synthetic opioids pose a “serious threat to health” globally, noting that overdose deaths have risen in North America and the trafficking of fentanyl has expanded worldwide.

Sands said The Bahamas has not seen a problem with opioids that’s “anywhere near as serious” as what’s occurring in the United States.

However, he told The Nassau Guardian, “Our problem has been the availability of opioids for cancer care, for pain relief, et cetera, typically when we move toward the end of the clinical year. Whether that is due to visitors accessing our consignment of opioids when they come to visit, or whether there’s misappropriation or inappropriate prescribing patterns.”  Read more >>

Brookfield Is Exploring Sale of Atlantis Resort in Bahamas

Atlantis Paradise Island resort Photographer: Jessica Koscielniak/Biloxi Sun Herald/TNS/Getty Images 

By Gillian Tan
and Scott Deveau

Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is exploring the sale of Atlantis Paradise Island Resort, a luxury destination in the Bahamas, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The firm is working with an adviser to solicit potential interest in the sprawling resort, which includes multiple hotels, a casino and more than 10 swimming pools, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. A representative for Toronto-based Brookfield declined to comment.  Read more >>