OFFICIALS are grappling to prevent mischief related to how DNA samples to establish a person’s paternity are collected following a landmark citizenship ruling in May.
Health Minister Dr Michael Darville said officials are working to ensure samples are always taken
from the right person, not someone providing material in their stead to skew results.
His comments to The Tribune come as some complain the Davis administration is taking too long to finalise the genetic testing protocol, leaving people entitled to citizenship in limbo.
“If a mother has three
LABOUR Direc-
tor Robert Farquharson believes 40 per cent of the 12,000 work permits issued this year relate to jobs Bahamians can fill.
“In the domestic area, the farm labour area, in the handyman area, the majority of applicants come from Jamaica or Haiti. Those are
the two major areas,” he said during a press conference yesterday.
“Many of the jobs that become available, most Bahamians are not interested in them. For instance, handymen, farm labourers, housekeepers, caretakers –– these are jobs that Bahamians don’t even apply for.
“You will be shocked at the amount of welders we
A 34-YEAR-OLD man on bail for several murders and other serious offences was shot dead yesterday morning on Carmichael Road.
Chief Superintendent Michael Johnson said the
shooting happened around 9.30am when the suspects got out of a small silver coloured Japanese vehicle, approached the victim as he left his car and shot him multiple times.
Police said ShotSpotter technology alerted them to the incident.
“This victim is known to police,” CSP Johnson said.
“He is being electronically monitored and is on bail for four murders. As recent as 2018, he has been charged with several other serious offences, which he is also on bail for, other than the murders.”
The victim is said to be Philano “Sleepy” Rashad
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
FTX’S Bahamian liquidators are seeking to recover a total $9.15bn from the crypto exchange’s US entities with some 84 percent of this sum involving assets that were “misappropriated” prior to its late 2022 collapse.
The extent of the Bahamian provisional liquidators’ claims were revealed in late-night court filings by John Ray, head of the 134 FTX US entities in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware.
YOUTH, Sports and Culture Minister Mario Bowleg responded to Argentinian critics of The Bahamas’ male basketball team yesterday, saying: “They could cry as much as they want.”
On Sunday, the national team defeated Argentina to win the FIBA Americas Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournament title, keeping the dream of competing in next year’s Olympics alive. One Argentinian player, Andres Nocioni, complained that Eric Gordon was allowed to play for the Bahamian team.
ft X’s bahamian liquidators looking
recover
from page one
Williams, 34, of Sunset Drive.
In 2018, Williams was charged with killing Anthony Brice in Fox Hill on June 11, 2018, and murdering Donathan Hanna on June 26, 2018, outside the man’s home in Southern Breeze Estates, off Golden Isles Road.
In April 2017, Williams and another man were charged with abetting the killing of Leslie Rolle earlier that year.
In December 2015, Williams turned himself in after allegedly shooting at police during a high-speed chase in New Providence.
Some social media users expressed satisfaction as reports of Williams’ death spread.
“Justice prevail, rest in peace to all people who he kill, he on the way now,” one user said on Facebook.
Another user said: “Well you live by the sword. So this the way you supposed to go. God don’t sleep bad guys. Time is longer than rope. What you did to other people family will come back to yours. Keep giving them bail.”
Officials have repeatedly noted that those on bail for serious offences are at risk
of being killed. CSP Johnson warned the public to be careful around such people.
“Persons who are on bail for these serious offences, I caution persons who hang with these individuals to be very careful because they are targets when they are given bail for these many serious offences,” he said.
“These are individuals who have rights. They are entitled to bail. But I would advise them to just try to
A 34-YEAR-OLD man on bail for several murders and other serious offences was shot dead yesterday morning on Carmichael Road.
remain invisible. Keep out of the public from being seen because they eventually become targets. You see it over and over and over again, and we speak to it.
“I’m very concerned. One person killed on our streets is too many. But again, we will do what we have to do. We will investigate. Nobody has the right to take anybody’s life, whether they’re on bail for six, ten, 11 murders, we have to investigate it.”
from page one
children,” he said yesterday, “two may be biologically mine, and the last one may not be mine.
The mother wants citizenship for the child, and she has that right once the child can be confirmed as mine, so rather than the blood sample being taken from the one that is in question, the blood sample may be taken from the one that is mine, and so the DNA report that will come, because it matches my DNA to the child’s DNA, it will say with 99 per cent certainty that it’s mine. The question is, do we have the right sample?”
The Privy Council in May affirmed that children born out of wedlock to Bahamian men are Bahamians at birth regardless of the mother’s nationality.
The Passport Office began accepting applications from many affected people on June 26, approving some 300 since then.
However, those without their father on their birth certificate are waiting for the government to finalise genetic testing rules so they can apply for their document. Calls from such people have reportedly bombarded the
Passport Office. Dr Darville said he initially thought the police lab could collect samples but realised the Royal Bahamas Police Force does not have the capacity.
He said letting the National Reference Laboratory collect all samples is one option.
He said the emerging system will not allow every certified lab to collect and test samples as if they were performing COVID-19 tests.
“If I open it up, generally speaking,” he said, “how do we know that the blood sample is from the right person, and how do we control that if we allow it to be done with every lab that can do it? Security is important. I need to make sure the person who is sitting in the chair who we are taking this sample from is the right person.
“We must ensure that the sample was taken from the right person with the right ID and the right profile in the presence of this person or that person where a sign-off is done and it is not held in the responsibility of one person.”
Dr Darville said he has requested guidance from the Pan-American Health Organisation to finalize the framework.
from page one
have to approve every year. Welders are being paid $30 an hour, but you have to apply and when persons apply, we have to approve them because the employers are seeking these people to work.”
Mr Farquharson encouraged Bahamians to register with the Department of Labour to see available job opportunities.
He said the department’s online database has jobs
available for more than 34 careers, including AC technicians, bankers, certified public accountants, cooks, teachers, bartenders, and more.
Mr Farquharson said for many of the jobs, certification is required.
“You don’t even need a degree; all you need is certification, and you could have a job,” he said. “But those people who are certified are not registering with us.
“You don’t need to have a degree in welding. You have to be certified as a
welder. You don’t need to have a degree as an AC technician or a plumber. You need to be certified. Once you become certified either locally or internationally, jobs are available.
Mr Farquharson’s comments come as the department prepares to launch its registration drive on August 26 at the Department of Labour on Carmichael Road.
The Public Employment Services Unit also commenced a seven-week registration drive on
August 21.
The purpose of the drive is to register more Bahamians in the department’s online skills bank to reduce the need for foreign labour.
Simone Thurston, acting assistant director of labour, said the database has existed for about 16 years; some 100,000 people are registered.
Officials said the Department of Labour hosted a job fair in Andros last week, resulting in Royal Caribbean International hiring 35 locals.
EAST Grand Bahama
MP Kwasi Thompson said the Davis administration has again failed to release a fiscal responsibility report in time.
He said the administration is making a mockery of the principles of accountable and transparent management.
“The opposition notes the blatant disregard for legal timelines with the tardy publication of the April 2023 report, which, by law, was due in the first week of June,” he said in a press statement yesterday. “As is the unfortunate habit of the Davis Administration, this report was published two months late. The May 2023 report is now also overdue, as it was due in early July.
“The government still has not ensured the publication of the legally mandated 2021 and 2022 fiscal responsibility council reports on the government’s annual fiscal strategy.
“Despite another seemingly idle promise from the prime minister, Bahamians have still not received
an update on the current composition of the fiscal responsibility council, nor a timeline for when the council will produce its delayed reports.”
Mr Thompson noted the government’s revenue expectations may require revision and that the deficit may increase.
“The slowdown in the pace of revenue growth must also lead the government to reconsider its lofty projections for revenue in the current fiscal year and the planned elevated
expenditure that was tied to revenue numbers that may not materialise,” he said.
“The FNM reiterates its stance that this administration must take a cautious and prudent approach to public expenditure. Given the revenue trends, the government must now expressly scale back on unnecessary and extravagant expenditures so that its current deficit target of $131.1m is not put at risk.
“This is not simply an
academic exercise. Local and international creditors –– as well as credit rating agencies –– are watching to see if the government meets its fiscal consolidation goals.
“If the government’s planned reduction in the deficit is not met, it will drive public debt higher than currently projected. This will undoubtedly place undue pressure on our country’s credit ratings and its ability to raise new financing on favourable terms.”
CROOKED Island
residents say they are dissatisfied with unfinished roads, telling The Tribune the roads are affecting their quality of life.
Videos showing halfpaved roads and parked tractors were sent to The Tribune
“They were doing a road between Cabbage Hill and Colonel Hill,” said long-time resident Tommy Thompson. “The original road, which goes through Cabbage Hill and Colonel Hill, is a low area with a lot of ponds, so when the hurricane comes, it gets flooded, and we can’t drive through.”
“So they decided to do this road through the hill, and the road was kinda paved and it wasn’t too bad, but they dug it up in preparation to resurface it and they never came back so we are agitating about it.”
He said after the community threatened to contact the minister of works last month, a team returned to the
island, but left. “All they did was drive up some machines to the area, and they did nothing and they left it how it is to date,” he said.
Efforts to reach area MP Basil McIntosh were unsuccessful up to press time.
“From election, we don’t hardly see him, ya see,” Mr Thompson added.
He said the roads have been in disrepair for nearly nine months.
“It had an affect on tyres, vehicles especially when we come from the mailboat,” he said. “We have to ride through there with roads and trucks and stuff like that and it has a devastating affect on the vehicles with the load.
“The Ministry of Works got to address it because that’s going to get postponed and they got to give us an answer why the contractor is not (here). I don’t know if he’s waiting on money or they say he’s waiting on tar, but if you’re a big-time construction company, you have to have tar.”
EQUIPMENT sits abandoned on the side of what is supposed to be a new road on Crooked Island, however, no work has been done in nine months according to Tommy Thompson. INSET - A road has been left half-paved.
A NEW airlift service between Miami and Abaco involving JSX Airlines will start on December 24, 2023, the Ministry of Tourism, Investments & Aviation said. JSX vice president of Strategy and Corporate Development David
Drabinsky explained the airline will service multiple markets before it leaves Florida.
“The airline’s plan is to connect Dallas (DAL) and White Plains (HPN) through Miami for service to/from Marsh Harbour by flying five round trips per week,” Mr Drabinsky said in a press statement from the ministry.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism, Investments and Aviation Chester Cooper said the effort was a collaborative one that took months of positive engagement with JSX.
“We are excited to support this new launch to match the ever-growing demand for the Abacos as travel continues an impressive recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian and the COVID19 pandemic,” Mr Cooper said.
“The additional air stopover arrivals from such important key markets will expose new and returning visitors to a widely refreshed product
and bring tremendous economic benefits for the local community and industry stakeholders”.
Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, John Pinder II, who is also an Abaco resident, said the additional airlift would aid in the recovery of Abaco’s economy, which suffered the twin blows of Dorian and the pandemic.
“It’s welcome news for all of us on Abaco,” he said.
“The Ministry of Tourism is actively seeking to build direct linkages to different destinations in The Bahamas in order to spur the economic development and growth we need.”
JSX is an American air carrier that is described as a hop-on jet service.
As a unique public charter operator, they offer travellers the perks of private air travel on roomy 30-seat jets, booked by-theseat, at attainable fares.
“We look forward to this new service and hopefully adding more destinations to The Bahamas in short order”, said Mr Drabinsky.
Grand Bahama Police made over 30 arrests during a police operation that was successfully executed on Tuesday.
Six individuals were arrested for criminal offences, 28 people were arrested on warrants of arrest, 96 persons were searched, and 1 vehicle was searched.
Operation Sling Shot was launched on Tuesday,
August 22, between 5pm and 12.30am on Wednesday, August 23.
The objective was to focus on known hotspots, execute search warrants, and arrest persons wanted by police.
A team of officers from the Central Division, Rapid Response Unit, Drug Enforcement Unit, Criminal Investigation Unit, Anti-Gang and Firearm Unit, and Central Intelligence Bureau, along with the K-9 unit, were involved in the operation.
THE Davis administration has started closed consultation on a compendium of marijuana legislation, The Tribune understands.
Attorney General Ryan
Pinder and Health Minister Dr Michael Darville are expected to discuss the legislation during the Office of the Prime Minister’s weekly briefing today. Mr Pinder recently said the legislation would be debated in Parliament before the end of the year.
Speaking to reporters at the House of Assembly after Commissioner Clayton Fernander read Governor-General CA Smith’s proclamation proroguing Parliament earlier this month, Mr Pinder said:
“We are proceeding on our consultation, initially
with some private sessions with some interested parties,” he said. “Those should kick off. Within two weeks, we look to launch public consultation and townhall meetings through September.
“We have the legislative regime prepared. We have
all of the ancillary pieces, the regulations, the rules, the respective orders all prepared. We have a communication plan that has been drawn up that we look to initiate.
The administration has missed its previous timelines related to the
legislation.
Mr Pinder had said the bills would be released after the July 10th independence anniversary celebrations, but that did not happen. In 2022, Mr Pinder said cannabis legislation would be advanced within the first six months of the new year.
A well-established Law Firm seeks a
The Legal Assistant will perform complex legal assignments with a high degree of independence, experience, skills, and knowledge.
Duties will include but are not limited to:
• Management of Client matters
• Assisting attorneys with trial preparation,
• Composing routine letters and general communications
• Preparing reports and various legal documents
• Responding effciently to internal and external inquiries.
• Tracking the progress of multiple transactions
• Preparation of fee billings
The Candidate must be:
a. Customer service oriented
b. A team player
c. Computer profcient
d. Conscientious, thorough, organized and extremely detailed oriented.
Interested persons should submit resumes via email
AT THE start of May, a major ruling was handed down by the Privy Council on citizenship.
The ruling affirmed a previous ruling by Chief Justice Ian Winder – made in 2020 – that children born out of wedlock to Bahamian men are citizens at birth regardless of their mother’s nationality.
The word landmark is sometimes overused, but for the people affected by this ruling, it was perfectly appropriate.
The plaintiff in the case, Shannon Rolle, talked in 2021 of the difficulties that people face when they cannot get a passport. He said: “Some people turn into murderers and thieves when they find out how hard it is to get a passport when in this situation. You can’t even get a McDonald’s job without a passport.”
The written ruling on the matter said: “Bahamian citizenship is an important and fundamental right and the provisions governing entitlement to citizenship are rightly entrenched in the constitution.”
Consider those words for a moment – an important and fundamental right. Not a privilege, but a right.
Several months on from that ruling, we seem to be in a position where the government is still trying to figure out who gets that right.
Paternity testing seems to have become central to the government’s considerations of how citizenship is evaluated.
And while the government figures out how to apply that process, months are passing – and what happens to those who wish to avail themselves of the right that has been asserted by the court?
Indeed, we now find ourselves in a situation where it seems that only one particular category of people – those born to Bahamian men out of wedlock to a foreign mother – find themselves perhaps having to prove the DNA link to their father.
Now some may say that it is the way to prove the connection – but if so, should that not apply to everyone?
Fraud is one concern. As Health Min-
ister Dr Michael Darville himself says:
“If a mother has three children, two may be biologically mine, and the last one may not be mine. The mother wants citizenship for the child, and she has that right once the child can be confirmed as mine, so rather than the blood sample being taken from the one that is in question, the blood sample may be taken from the one that is mine, and so the DNA report that will come, because it matches my DNA to the child’s DNA, it will say with 99 percent certainty that it’s mine. The question is, do we have the right sample?”
That is true – but who is to say a child said to have been born to two Bahamians indeed has that parentage. There are many children born to fathers who are not the husband.
So if we cannot trust what it says on the birth certificate – where indeed it does say – for those born in these specific circumstances, why can we trust what it says for everyone else?
More pertinently, knowing that this ruling was in the works since 2020, should the plan of action not have been in place already in case the Privy Council ruled in this fashion?
Now we have citizens in limbo – who are entitled to their citizenship, but who must wait while the government works out how to affirm it.
How long can a Bahamian be denied their right to citizenship before it becomes a scandal? Ten years? Five? A year? A month? A week? A day?
This has all the makings of another court case for anyone denied by a decision on their citizenship or by the delay in such a decision.
There should have been a plan, but in the absence of one, there needs to be one as a priority – and one that does not treat one citizen any differently from any other.
Resolving that particular conundrum may be a challenge for the government – but it is not as if there was not time to prepare.
EDITOR, The Tribune.
LAST evening interesting watching the live showing of the 13th Commonwealth Women’s Conference… did you notice how few Government Cabinet Ministers were present? Where were the top advocatesAG Pinder and Minister National Security Munroe? Probably two rows behind the top Minister’s seating empty. Her Excellency Madam Commonwealth Secretary General... misspoke Harry Belafonte is Jamaican, well
at least his parents were, you were looking for Sir Sidney Poitier, Madam, he Bahamian through his parents, born in US.
Do we really make any money from these events? Civil Servants have a fixed per diem... probably don’t indulge in liquor-wine, certainly not players in Casino on strict budget … filling rooms at
low period agreed yes … a lot of fuss politically.
CHOGM 2025 Samoa... boy our airline bill is going to costs $’000’s … half way around the world! Have a good meeting, seems Women’s issues are not as critical as everyone thought from the lack of attendance of Ministers and MPs! Clearly last week all window dressing and distraction from the scandals Bell — BPL.
PETRA SMITH Nassau, August 22, 2023.
EDITOR, The Tribune.
GLAD to see at least one Minister, Fred Mitchell is openly against cashless society... we, all those that totally disagree with the cashless stupidity, are supported that recent Central Bank stats indicate in a quarter the ‘wallets of these digital things’ the deposits in them decreased - dropped by over $31m. Seems the consumers are
saying... be gone!
Why do you need to have a viable approach to paying bills in The Bahamas considering our personal banking statistics profile?
Central Bank says that 90%, yes 90%, only have a credit cash balance on their bank account of $1,000.00
- so we need to be cashless seems we are already basically no one has much cash - isn’t that the ultimate of a cashless thing? You don’t
have cash! Credit - Debt card and cheque book (cheques only cost the consumer-user) so why push to ban their use?
Why? So average Bahamian has...$1,000.00 in their checking account. 90% have $1,000.00. We darn already cashless, have little or any cash! Resolve that! D ROLLE Nassau, August 20, 2023.
A JURY heard yesterday that the outfit matching a gunman who killed a man in 2019 was found in the defendants’ car. The silver coloured Honda was also spotted in security footage capturing the fatal shooting.
Dwayne Lodimus, 29, and Anton Lodimus, 25, are accused of shooting and killing Elroy “Skully” Burrows, 40, of Podoleo Street, on March 19, 2019. The victim was buying a drink from a bar on Mackey Street when the gunmen allegedly approached and killed him.
By RASHAD ROLLE Tribune News Editor rrolle@tribunemedia.net
THE lawyer representing Azario Major’s estate is urging the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to make a decision soon as to whether to charge the officers who killed Major with a crime.
Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Cordell Frazier had previously noted that her deliberation on the matter was suspended pending the outcome of an appeal before the Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, Justice Franklyn Williams told Keevon Maynard, the lawyer representing the officers, that he was doing his clients a “disservice” by insisting the inquest
finding should be quashed
because the coroner did not consider his constitutional motion claiming that pretrial publicity prevented a fair inquiry. The judge is expected to deliver his ruling on the motion on October 30.
“The decision whether to charge and prosecute the officers involved remains with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions,” attorney David Cash said yesterday. “But having regard to the comments of the presiding judge at the last hearing, the prosecution should be encouraged to once again review the evidence in this matter and consider the evidence that led the coroner’s jury to return a unanimous verdict of homicide by manslaughter.
As the time allowed for an appeal has expired, there is nothing presently prohibiting the office of the DPP from laying criminal charges against the officers involved.”
Major was killed in 2021. The inquest into his death ended in May. At the start of that inquiry, Mr Maynard filed a constitutional motion to stop the investigation because of the pretrial publicity. Yesterday, he argued that Acting Coroner Kara Turnquest-Deveaux had no right to refuse that constitutional motion. He said the coroner should have been compelled to refer the matter to the Supreme Court.
“I believe that you are doing your clients a disservice,” the judge told him.
THREE men were granted bail after they were accused of having a loaded firearm in their vehicle on Soldier Road last weekend.
Magistrate Shaka Serville charged Deangelo Key, 20, Jeremy Major Jr., 21, Bruce Sears Jr., 22 and Dale Burrows, 53, with possession of an unlicensed firearm and
possession of ammunition.
Ian Cargill represented the accused.
The three male defendants were arrested on Soldier Road around 1.30pm on August 19 after a police search of their silver coloured Suzuki Swift allegedly found a silver and black coloured Ruger 9mm pistol.
The fourth defendant, Ms Burrows, was arrested because the vehicle was
By PAVEL BAILEY Tribune Staff Reporter pbailey@tribunemedia.netA JUVENILE boy was remanded to Simpson Penn after he admitted to a carjacking.
Magistrate Kara Turnquest-Deveaux charged the
14-year-old male defendant, whose name is being withheld as he is a minor, with stealing and receiving.
The defendant is accused of stealing a silver coloured 2013 Toyota Passo valued at $6,000 from Willy Germain on August 17 in New Providence.
registered in her name.
All four defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges. The three male defendants found in the car were granted $6,500 bail with one or two sureties. Burrows was granted $1,500 bail with one or two sureties. The accused were warned not to interfere with the witnesses and were told to return to court for a report. The initial trial date is December 13.
On Tuesday, attorney Sonia Timothy Knowles revealed that she would stop representing the defendants. However, she and her junior, Tonique Lewis, continued to represent the men yesterday after reconciling their differences before the trial resumed before Justice Renae McKay.
Sergeant Richardson Curry testified yesterday that she reviewed security footage of the deadly
attack.
The footage showed the deceased walking on the sidewalk on Mackey Street when someone in black runs towards him.
The footage showed a silver coloured two-door Honda at the scene.
Sgt Curry said on April 8, 2019, she encountered a vehicle matching the one used as a getaway car at the Wendy’s parking lot at the Golden Gates Shopping Centre.
Both defendants were arrested after a firearm was found in the car. Authorities also recovered a black t-shirt with a Nike logo, shorts and darkcoloured shoes from the defendants’ vehicle. The clothes allegedly matched those worn by the killer.
Sgt Curry said the clothes pulled from the defendants’ car were tested for gunshot residue but she did not get the results.
She said Dwayne was interviewed twice and Anton was interviewed once.
She said Dwayne consistently denied being the shooter and told her the brothers wore the same clothing. However, she said Anton
claimed Dwayne does not wear the black clothes or shoes pulled from the Honda.
Under questioning from Mrs Knowles, Sgt Curry confirmed that Anton was not photographed near the car when the gun was discovered. Even though the defendants were not charged with firearm offences, the officer disagreed with the suggestion that no firearm was present.
During cross-examination by Ms Lewis, the officer said Dwayne never wore the tennis shoes, shirt or pants found in the car to see if they fit him. When the defence lawyer suggested Dwayne’s foot size is significantly smaller than Anton’s, the officer said she could not confirm this.
Ms Lewis highlighted a discrepancy between the car in the footage, which did not have tinted rear windows, and the car that was confiscated, which had tints. Prosecutor Uel Johnson responded that the defendants may have had the car tinted in the weeks between the shooting and their arrest.
Perry McHardy is also a prosecutor in the case.
By PAVEL BAILEY Tribune Staff Reporter pbailey@tribunemedia.netA MAN was fined $2,500 yesterday after he admitted to having $1,300 worth of marijuana hidden in his bedroom closet on Monday.
Magistrate Shaka Serville charged Lynden Rolle, 27, and Ebony Bowe, 26, with possession
of dangerous drugs.
The defendants were arrested after police, acting on a search warrant, discovered 1lb 3 1/8oz of marijuana in their Tyler Street residence on August 21. The drugs seized from the defendants’ closet have an estimated street value of $1,300.
While Rolle pleaded guilty to the charge, his
co-accused, Ms Bowe, pleaded not guilty. Rolle was ordered to pay a fine of $2,500 or risk six months in prison. He was further informed that he has until December 29 to pay the fine in full. Ms Bowe was granted $1,500 bail with one or two sureties and was told that her trial date was set for October 20.
After the boy pleaded guilty to the stealing charge in the presence of his guardian, the receiving charge against him was withdrawn. He was then remanded to the Simpson Penn Centre for Boys pending a probation report on November 23.
M AN FINED $2,500 FOR MARIJUANA VALUED AT $1,300 FOUND IN HIS CLOSETAZARIO MAJOR
THE Republic of Haiti has been in a state of chaos since the assassination of its president in July 2021. The central government has lost control of significant parts of the country. Armed gangs have taken over. There is widespread violence. Many people have been killed. Many have suffered brutal sexual violence. The gangs are also using kidnapping to extort money from desperate families.
According to the United Nations, between January 1 and August 15, 2023, at least 2,439 people were killed and another 902 injured in Haiti. In addition, 951 were kidnapped, including some from other countries. Some of the killings were in the most brutal manner with families being burned alive.
In October 2022, Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry called for international military intervention to help restore order in his country. Thus far, no major power has agreed to lead such a force. However, Kenya has recently expressed a desire to lead a multinational mission
to Haiti and to send 1,000 police officers to help train and assist Haitian police in restoring order.
Kenya is awaiting a mandate from the UN Security Council.
The Davis administration has said, via statements, that it is prepared to send Bahamian men and women into the dangerous situation in Haiti. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said The Bahamas has committed 150 people to support the multinational force once it is authorised by the United Nations Security Council.
The Ministry of National Security said the 150 Bahamian security personnel would be there mainly to train and offer technical support to the Haitian police.
The gangs in Haiti are heavily armed. They are expanding their territory, beating back a police force that is incapable of containing or defeating them.
Any multinational force that goes to Haiti will have to fight the gangs in an effort to bring some order to the situation. There would likely be heavy fighting, many fatalities, and some
seriously injured, including some with permanent disabilities.
Those who seek troops to fight in Haiti want soldiers and police who are willing to enter war-like conditions and fight. It is quite possible that if the PLP administration were to send our men and women to Haiti they would be caught up in the fighting and violence.
Our main concern should be the safety and well-being of our brave men and women who might be selected for this mission.
Haiti has a tragic history. As the first black republic, it was not welcomed by the colonial powers when it won its independence at the beginning of the 19th century. The colonial powers initially would not trade with it. Exorbitant war debt was imposed by France. It has also chronically struggled with poor leadership, dictatorship and coups. It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
There have been numerous foreign military interventions in Haiti’s history. None has worked to permanently set the country on the path to long-term stability and prosperity. The disorder is so pervasive in Haiti that foreign powers have gotten bogged down in the country in open-ended campaigns.
The Davis administration was reckless in pledging 150 Bahamian men and women to a yet to be defined Haitian military campaign. There is no consensus among the Haitian elite, Haiti’s politicians and the people of the country as to the way forward. Factionalism is ruining Haiti. Gangs have allegedly said they would attack foreign military or police personnel.
Foreign intervention might help to bring some order for a short time, but without the rebuilding of the country’s institutions of state and its infrastructure, Haiti would likely revert to chaos once the troops depart.
Prime Minister Philip Davis should not unilaterally send our brave men and women into the chaos in Haiti without an acceptable plan of action agreed to and supported by the international community and without the express consent of the Bahamas Parliament.
In a parliamentary democracy the
government has a constitutional and moral responsibility to have the deployment of such a force debated in Parliament. If the Davis administration refuses to have such a debate that would be a most egregious example of contempt of Parliament and would leave many crucial questions unanswered. For instance, has the Government already committed to any foreign government or international agency that it will definitely send personnel? Has the Cabinet agreed on the terms of reference for the deployment of Bahamian personnel, including the nature, cost and possible duration of the mission?
Will any assets such as vehicles and marine vessels be sent by The Bahamas?
Will the United Nations and other governments defray the costs for Bahamian and Caricom troops? What role will the United States, Canada, France and the European Union play in any intervention?
Thus far, the Davis administration seems to be on the wrong course with its Haiti intervention policy.
AT the 50th independence anniversary celebration at Fort Charlotte, Prime Minister Philip Davis declared: “Independence was the first big step on the long journey that continues to take our nation forward and upward.”
He remarked: “In just a few short hours, come midnight, our Bahamian flag will be raised once again. It will be an echo of that moment, 50 years ago, on July 10th, 1973, which marked the birth of our nation...”
Disappointingly, core elements of his remarks were historically deeply problematic and inaccurate.
He demonstrated a misunderstanding of Bahamian history and the concept of nationhood.
He was poetically and narratively misleading: independence was not the “first big step” on “our long journey” as Bahamians.
Mr. Davis stated: “Moses led his people out of slavery and into the desert.
That was their Independence.” Though he may have meant this poetically, his suggestion was simplistic theologically, scripturally and historically.
It was a misinterpretation of the complex history of Israel, beginning with ancient Israel and Judah, and within the context and sweep of world and Biblical history.
Mr Davis pressed: “But Moses did not live to enter the Promised Land. It was Joshua who led the people forward on their journey.”
But what about the history of Israel before Moses?
What of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and others?
What of the history of the development of the Jewish people, consciousness, identity, religion and “nation” during various exiles, including in Assyria, the Babylonian Captivity, in Egypt, and other geographic areas in ancient times and other periods of history?
The history of the people of Israel appears to go back to the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age, though the fuller historicity is complex and debated by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, theologians and scholars in myriad disciplines.
Of critical and compelling note, it was not until 1948 that the Provisional Government of Israel proclaimed the State of Israel. In 1949 the U.N. General Assembly admitted Israel as its 59th member-state.
The advent of the State of Israel is a milestone in Jewish history but it was not like a baby borning or the first big step.
Tragically, the Palestinian people and nation are still awaiting the fuller
recognition of their status as a nation-state, with a secure homeland and internationally recognized borders.
Prime Minister Davis continued: “We – all of us – are the Joshua Generation. Each of us is called to continue to play our part to build on our inheritance. Each of us is called to join our footsteps on the road to our Promised Land…” Is not the fuller sweep of Bahamian history and nation-building integral to our inheritance?
As an aside, making dubious parallels between political and scriptural figures can go horribly wrong.
To wit, if Sir Lynden Pindling was Moses, who was Joshua and are we still awaiting a Promised Land that we have yet to fully understand or enter?
By suggesting we are part of “the Joshua Generation”, Mr Davis is ironically noting a history previous to July 10, 1973, a history of previous generations crafting a Bahamas nation.
Still, curiously, he actually contradicted his dubious assertion that we first became a “nation” at independence, and that 1973 was akin to the big bang-like creation of a Bahamaland.
While we became an independent sovereign nation-state from the British Empire in 1973, our development as a people and as a nation constitutes a longer history.
There is an essential distinction between a nation and a nation-state. This is not splitting geographical or historical hairs, particularly given the struggle against colonial and imperial subjugation by various empires.
While Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland are a part of the United Kingdom, they consider themselves as nations within the UK. Moreover, many indigenous peoples refer to themselves as First Nations.
Dictionary.com defines a nation as: “a large body of
people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own.” The Palestinian and the Kurdish people understand themselves as nations.
The constitutional and political development of The Bahamas was central to nation-building. The Colony of The Bahama Islands got its first codified constitution in 1964 following a conference in London in 1963. It was enacted by the British Parliament and brought into force by Order in Council of the Queen.
Before that, The Bahamas had what the late venerable Eugene Dupuch described as “representative but not responsible” government. There was a parliament, the House of Assembly, which had been established since 1729, and an Executive Council appointed and presided over by the British Governor.
The 1964 Constitution for the first time provided for the establishment of a Cabinet to be presided over by a Premier who headed the majority in the House of Assembly at the time.
Our first Premier was Sir Roland Symonette who headed the United Bahamian Party (UBP).
Under the 1964 Constitution considerable responsibility was given to the Cabinet but the Governor retained direct responsibility for a number of matters including external affairs, defence, internal security and the Police Force.
The 1969 Constitution was brought into effect after the same process, beginning with a conference in
London the previous year. In this Constitution the designation of Premier was changed to Prime Minister. The Governor was still responsible for external affairs and defence but limited responsibility for these items could be exercised by the relevant Ministers. Provision was made for a Security Council presided over by the Governor, with the Prime Minister as one of its members, to consult on matters relating to external affairs, defence, internal affairs and the Police Force.
The 1973 Independence Constitution gave The Bahamas complete sovereignty with responsibility for all of its affairs but retained the British monarch as Head of State. The monarch appoints a Governor General as his representative in the Bahamas.
Just as the General Strike of 1958 heightened the political consciousness of black Bahamians, especially those living at New Providence, Black Tuesday, April 27, 1965, proved a pivotal moment in the struggle for majority rule, a watershed moment in our nationalist struggle and consciousness.
That change, the denouement of a certain stage of the struggle, when the consciousness of the majority reached an historic apogee, arrived on 10 January 1967 when the Second Bahamian Emancipation was ushered in by the mass of Bahamians.
In addition to political development, a national story is woven together by myriad narrative threads. Such threads bear the names and personal narratives of peoples spanning the globe.
Migratory passages and trails from Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, Europe and Asia are integral to the Bahamian story, including that of the modern Bahamas. The name Pindling has become thoroughly identified with The Bahamas even though it is not a common name in the country.
Surnames more commonplace include Rolle, Smith, Albury, Hanna, Roberts, Chea, Maillis, Johnson, Lowe, Bethell, Wong, Moss, Butler and Pinder, as well as Deveaux, Moncur, Bonamy, Dillet, and other names of Haitian derivation.
The Bahamian family and experience are constituted by an alphabet soup of national origins and family names and now include surnames such as Paul, Georges, Joseph and Duvalier, such as in the person of Maureen Duvalier, who became a national and cultural icon and thoroughly Bahamian, and Eustace Duvalier who opened the first cinema Over-the-Hill.
A friend recalls a mother whose father, the friend’s grandfather, refused to let his school-aged children attend Empire Day celebrations on Clifford Park in the 1940s. Her father, an officer on the Royal Bahamas Police Force, insisted, “We are not British. We are Bahamian!”
As noted by Bahamianology: “… In 1903 The Bahamas had initially rejected the proposal of a Victoria Day/Empire Day but soon after was eagerly celebrating it for more than 50 years hence…
“There was probably one very important reason why pressure was brought
to bear on the Legislative House in Nassau to accept Empire Day.”
The website suggests that because The Bahamas had one of the oldest parliaments in “the British colonial empire, therefore observing [Empire Day], held particular significance to Britain.”
The parallels of history are curious. Though the mostly white legislative leaders of an earlier era originally rejected Empire Day, today’s mostly black leaders still want to retain the Crown or are ambivalent about the final decoupling from a foreign head of state and a foreign system of honours.
It is unfortunate when national leaders do not better grasp our history and are unable to articulate and communicate Bahamian nationhood and identity to successive generations.
Every Prime Minister of The Bahamas has such a solemn responsibility.
Moreso, our leaders have an obligation at minimum to not mislead, misinterpret or misrepresent Bahamian history because of a lack of knowledge or on purpose.
The late Lee Kwan Yew, the father of modern-day Singapore, insisted that while economic and infrastructural development were critical to his country’s national development, the forging of a unified people was perhaps more essential to Singaporean nationhood and identity.
Mr Lee instructed: “A nation is great not by its size alone. It is the will, the cohesion, the stamina, the discipline of its people and the quality of their leaders which ensure it an honourable place in history.”
“A nation is great not by its size alone. It is the will, the cohesion, the stamina, the discipline of its people and the quality of their leaders which ensure it an honourable place in history.”
- Lee Kwan Yew
ALL the talk these days is about an election still 15 tortuous months away in the future. There’s breaking news out of Iowa, where the numerous Republican also-rans were scrambling to gain some traction – any traction – ahead of last evening’s first GOP debate of this endless political season and the looming first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses scheduled for January 15.
Donald Trump, wisely, has declared he won’t attend this or perhaps any debate this season: Let the others chew up each other. They’ll just talk about him, and he’s on the record that any publicity is, in his view, good publicity.
This seems to be a good strategy. All the polling continues to support two notions. First, Trump retains a hammerlock on the loyalty of his base of support within the GOP.
Secondly, President Joe Biden’s poll numbers continue to sag. It is admittedly easy for voters to focus on his evident old manhood and ignore his administration’s considerable achievements.
But the theory is gaining ground that if any Republican can beat Biden next year, why not the fourtimes-indicted former president who most Republicans still trust. “He’ll never lie to me,” said one Iowan on national TV the other day. This concerns a man who has reportedly told over 30,000 lies in public since taking office in 2017.
America’s most famous journalist told a private audience in New York last week that “the 2024 presidential race will be contested between candidate X and candidate Y – neither of whom is named Trump nor Biden”.
Bob Woodward, of “deep
STATESIDE with Charlie Harperhis most serious charges in Washington in connection with the January 6, 2021 assault on the US capitol. The presiding judge is naturalised American citizen and US District Court judge Tanya Chutkan, now 61. She was born in Kingston, Jamaica. Chutkan has two siblings, both of whom are physicians. Her father is also a doctor, and her mother Noelle was one of the leading dancers at the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica.
As reported here earlier, Chutkan has already ruled against Trump in another matter related to January 6, and has been tougher than most other judges on the seditious thugs who actually broke into the capitol building that day. In fact, she is beginning to remind observers of the legendary John Sirica.
Sirica was a US district court judge in the early 1970s. He rose to national prominence when he ordered President Richard Nixon to surrender his recordings of White House conversations to Federal prosecutors. Sirica’s involvement in the case had begun when he presided over the trial of the original Watergate burglars, whose incompetence gave them as much chance of evading prosecution as did the televised felonies of the January 6 rioters.
to help identify and prosecute the real villains in the White House. Sirica’s no-nonsense approach, impatience with legal shenanigans and firm sentencing preferences earned him the title “Maximum John”.
Sirica was a legal hero.
Our Jamaican sister Tanya Chutkan has the potential to achieve similar status. And she’s already on her way.
At a hearing recently, she said the following in response to attempts by several of Trump’s regiment of lawyers to delay or dilute proceedings in her courtroom: “The fact that he (Trump) is running a political campaign has to yield to the administration of justice,” Chutkan informed Trump’s lawyers. “And if that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say in a political speech, that is just how it’s going to have to be.”
This will be tough for Trump because, as David Axelrod says, “the sense that he is being tried for political reasons is the essence of his campaign.” Axelrod, the former Barack Obama campaign manager and White House adviser, also spoke in New York recently.
throat” fame and a man credited with bringing down former president Richard Nixon 50 years ago, raised some eyebrows with his prediction.
It says here that Woodward, the patrician pundit who has managed to remain at the centre of American political life for five decades with a series of much-celebrated insider books on recent presidents, is off-base with his dramatic
forecast.
But what if he is correct? Who would be atop the major parties’ political tickets? Speculating on that at this point might supplant counting sheep or a late-night hot toddy as among the best sleep-inducers. Belying the fact that there are nearly 20 Republicans who might wind up as the GOP candidate if Trump somehow falters,
prognosticating about alternatives to Trump is no easier now than to guess who an alternative to Biden might be on the Democratic side.
We’ll just have to wait with everyone else to see who stumbles or runs afoul of the law most egregiously. And if that really makes any difference to those who will vote in party primary elections next year.
Meanwhile, Trump faces
Sirica did not believe the Watergate burglars’ initial claims that they had acted alone. Using provisional sentencing, Sirica strongly encouraged the burglars to give information about higher-ups before their final sentencing. Judges could give defendants a few months to ponder their sentence before it became final.
Sirica essentially urged the burglars to plea bargain, and used their information
Told of Bob Woodward’s election prediction, Axelrod rolled his eyes. “It’s hard in particular to see a credible Democratic Party alternative to President Biden,” he said.
Back in court, Chutkan chided Trump and his attorneys. “To the extent your client wants to make statements on the internet, they have to always yield to witness security and witness safety,” she ruled, adding: “I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”
“Maximum Tanya”, step forward!
AS noted above, Trump has reportedly told approximately 30,500 public lies since assuming office as president. Most of those lies have been broadcast and amplified by Fox News. Perhaps it will turn out that one of the consequences of Trump’s serial mendacity will be prison time.
But what about Fox? Isn’t there some kind of obligation for the mass media to at least not promulgate information they know perfectly well is untrue?
And if the media betray that obligation, should there not be some punitive consequences?
Trump himself, key Fox ally Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and others say no. To punish Fox for giving credence to lies would violate the network’s First Amendment right to free
speech, they say. “To do so would be mad,” Cruz told reporters. Further, a widely quoted industry insider told reporters that it’s very rare that the FCC would punish a network by, for example, requiring a hearing for a network licensee, let alone to rescind a licence. “The short answer is it almost never happens,” lawyer Andrew Schwartzman said. “It’s a torturous process.”
Nonetheless, a longtime staunch ally and acolyte of Fox owner Rupert Murdoch has joined a likely quixotic effort to persuade the US federal government to hold hearings on renewing the broadcast license of a Philadelphia-based Fox station in an effort to hold Fox accountable for broadcasting and supporting Trump’s lies.
Once a key Murdoch lieutenant, attorney Preston Padden is now arguing before the US Federal Communications Commission that Fox lacks the “character” required by the FCC to be a license holder, because of post-election misinformation spread by Fox News.
“Fox has undermined our democracy and has radicalized a segment of our population by presenting knowingly false narratives about the legitimacy of the 2020 election,” Padden wrote in a statement which accuses Fox of “intentional, knowing news distortion.”
“Never in the history of the FCC have they been confronted with an applicant who was found to have repeatedly presented false news by a judge,” Padden said, referring to the Fox
network’s agreement to pay almost $8 billion to a voting machine company. “If the FCC’s character standard means anything, it means you can’t be guilty of presenting false news.”
Ironically, as president, Trump often threatened to weaponize the FCC to punish “‘liberal news media for their lies and hoaxes and witch hunts” directed at him.
Padden’s effort recalls Barack Obama’s musings during his presidency. He was reported to have seriously mulled over the idea of similarly going after Fox News for its blatant partisanship and general nastiness.
Obama held off, and Padden’s efforts probably will fail. Only lawsuits that succeed might tempt Fox toward responsibility.
Associated Press
TROPICAL Storm
Franklin unleashed heavy floods and landslides in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday after making landfall in the country’s southern region, killing at least one person and injuring two others.
The storm began to slowly spin away late Wednesday afternoon from the island of Hispaniola that the Dominican Republic shares with Haiti after dumping heavy rain for several hours. Forecasters warned the storm could drop up to 12 inches (30 centimetres) of rain in the Dominican Republic, with a maximum of 16 inches (41 centimetres) for the country’s western and central regions. Meanwhile, up to 4 inches (10 centimetres) of rain are forecast for Haiti, with nearly 8 inches (20 centimetres) for the country’s eastern regions.
“The population of the Dominican Republic must all be right now, without exception, in their homes, the homes of friends and family, or in shelters,” said Juan Manuel Méndez, emergency operations director.
The Civil Defence identified the man killed as Carlos Marino Martínez, saying he died in the city of San Cristobal after being swept away by floodwaters. The agency initially said he was one of its volunteers, but later corrected the information saying it misidentified a uniform he was wearing. They did not provide further details. Two women in that city also were injured following a landslide and were hospitalized, officials said.
More than 300 people were huddled in shelters in the Dominican Republic, where emergency operations officials said they were looking for a 54-year-old man with mental health problems who went missing after he jumped into a creek late Tuesday. Another 280 people were evacuated from their homes to safer ground, with at least six communities cut off by heavy rains,
officials said.
The storm also downed several trees and at least two light posts, with dozens of homes affected by floods that turned streets into rushing rivers. Authorities said the roof of one home in San Cristobal collapsed, as did walls of various buildings around the country.
“There’s a lot of damage,” Méndez said.
Meanwhile, authorities in neighbouring Puerto Rico, which also was hit by Franklin’s rain, were searching for two scuba divers missing south of the US territory in waters churned up by the storm.
The UN’s World Food Program warned Wednesday that some 125,000 people in the Dominican Republic are living in areas that “are extremely vulnerable to landslides and flash floods because they live in poor, overcrowded settlements near rivers, creeks, and lagoons.”
Hércules Urbáez, a 41-year-old father of six who
lives in the city of Barahona, where Franklin made landfall, said he and his family went to his mother’s house for safety.
“People have refused to leave,” he said.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the storm was centred about 5 miles (8 kilometres) east of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, according to the National Hurricane Centre in Miami. It had maximum winds of 40 mph (65 kph) with higher gusts and was moving northward at 13 mph (20 kph).
Rivers were swelling across the country, with one in the southern coastal city of Barahona lapping at shacks made of tin where one resident used plastic buckets to raise his mattress above his home’s dirt floor.
In the capital of Santo Domingo, José Abott, a 34-year-old graphic designer, monitored the water level of a river near his home via a WhatsApp group: “It always fills with water.”
Meanwhile, Tropical
Storm Harold weakened into a tropical depression Tuesday night after making landfall in South Texas, bringing strong winds and rain, leaving thousands of homes without power.
In the Caribbean, officials were most concerned about Franklin’s impact in Haiti, which is prone to catastrophic flooding given the country’s severe erosion.
“Haiti is among the most vulnerable countries in the world when it comes to the effects of extreme weather,” said Jean-Martin Bauer, the World Food Program’s director for Haiti. In June, a powerful thunderstorm that unleashed heavy rains left more than 40 people dead across the country.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry had urged Haitians on Tuesday to stock up on water, food and medication.
More than 200,000 people in Haiti have been displaced by gang violence over the past few years: authorities checked up on some of those living on the street or
in makeshift shelters.
In the Dominican Republic, officials shuttered schools, government agencies and several airports with at least 25 of the country’s 31 provinces under red alert. On Wednesday, more than 400,000 customers were without power, and dozens of aqueducts were out of service because of heavy rains, affecting more than 1.3 million customers.
Flooding already had been reported on Tuesday in Santo Domingo, and beyond, where residents prepared for heavy rainfall.
“We’re scared of the river,” said Doralisa Sánchez, a government employee who lives near the Ozama River that divides the city. She had to flee her home three times during previous storms.
She hoped Franklin wouldn’t force her to temporarily abandon her home because she said people steal belongings left behind.
The storm worried thousands of Dominicans who
live in flood-prone areas.
“When two drops of water fall here, this suddenly becomes flooded,” said Juan Olivo Urbáez, who owns a small business in a community near the Ozama River.
The National Hurricane Centre issued a tropical storm warning for the Turks and Caicos Islands, where up to 3 inches (8 centimetres) of rain was forecast in some areas. Franklin is the seventh named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. An eighth named storm, Gert, dissipated on Tuesday.
On Aug. 10, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration updated its forecast and warned that this year’s hurricane season would be above normal. Between 14 to 21 named storms are forecast. Of those, six to 11 could become hurricanes, with two to five of them possibly becoming major hurricanes.
what happened but I’m not surprised,” US President Joe Biden said.
Keir Giles, a Russia expert with the international affairs think-tank Chatham House, had urged caution about reports of Prigozhin’s death. He said “multiple individuals have changed their name to Yevgeniy Prigozhin, as part of his efforts to obfuscate his travels.”
“Let’s not be surprised if he pops up shortly in a new video from Africa,” Giles said.
Flight tracking data reviewed by The Associated Press showed a private jet that Prigozhin had used previously took off from Moscow on Wednesday evening and its transponder signal disappeared minutes later.
The signal stopped suddenly while the plane was at altitude and travelling at speed. In an image posted by a pro-Wagner social media account showing burning wreckage, a partial tail number matching a jet previously used by Prigozhin could be seen.
on charges of violating air safety rules, as is typical when they open such probes.
Even if confirmed, Prigozhin’s death is unlikely to have an effect on Russia’s war in Ukraine, where his forces fought some of the fiercest battles over the last 18 months.
His troops pulled back from front-line action after capturing Bakhmut, a city in the eastern Donetsk region, in late May. Bakhmut had been the subject of arguably the bloodiest battles in the entire war, with the Russian forces struggling to seize it for months.
After the rebellion, Russian officials said his fighters would only be able to return to Ukraine as part of the regular army.
This week, Prigozhin posted his first recruitment video since the mutiny, saying that Wagner is conducting reconnaissance and search activities, and “making Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa even more free.”
ESTONIA
Associated Press
MERCENARY leader
Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a brief armed rebellion against the Russian military earlier this year, was aboard a plane that crashed north of Moscow on Wednesday, killing all 10 people on board, according to Russia’s civil aviation agency.
The crash immediately raised suspicions since the fate of the founder of the Wagner private military
company has been the subject of intense speculation ever since he mounted the mutiny.
At the time, President Vladimir Putin denounced the rebellion as “treason” and a “stab in the back” and vowed to avenge it. But the charges against Prigozhin were soon dropped. The Wagner chief, whose troops were some of the best fighting forces for Russia in Ukraine, was allowed to retreat to Belarus, while reportedly popping up in
Russia from time to time.
The crash also comes after Russian media reported that a top general linked to Prigozhin was dismissed from his position as commander of the air force.
A plane carrying three pilots and seven passengers that was en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg went down almost 300 kilometres (185 miles) north of the capital, according to officials cited by Russia’s state news agency Tass.
Russia’s civilian aviation
agency, Rosaviatsia, quickly reported that he was on the manifest and later said that, according to the airline, he was indeed on board.
Earlier, Vladimir Rogov, a Russia-appointed official in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraine, said he talked to Wagner commanders who also confirmed that Prigozhin was aboard, as was Dmitry Utkin, whose call sign Wagner became the company’s name.
“I don’t know for a fact
Videos shared by the pro-Wagner Telegram channel Grey Zone showed a plane dropping like a stone from a large cloud of smoke, twisting widely as it falls. Such freefalls can occur when an aircraft sustains severe damage, and a frame-by-frame analysis by The AP of two videos were consistent with some sort of explosion mid-flight. The images appeared to show the plane is missing a wing.
Russia’s Investigative Committee opened an investigation into the crash
Also this week, Russian media reported, citing anonymous sources, that Gen. Sergei Surovikin was dismissed from his position of the commander of Russia’s air force. Surovikin, who at one point led Russia’s operation in Ukraine, hasn’t been seen in public since the mutiny, when he recorded a video address urging Prigozhin’s forces to pull back.
As news of the crash was breaking, Putin spoke at an event commemorating the Battle of Kursk, hailing the heroes of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
He reportedly said:
“Now with a cold mind, I think: is it fair what the Bahamas did to nationalize a player who had already competed for the United States (even winning a World Cup) at the last moment? This signing belongs to the club league, not the national team competition. And it should be corrected.”
Mr Bowleg responded yesterday that The Bahamas has followed the rules.
“FIBA has rules and regulations that govern a player’s movement, and if they were educated to the facts, they would understand,” he said. “Or if they were privy to the rules and regulations that governs FIBA basketball then they would quite understand the reason for him to be able to move and transfer from one country to the next when he has ties to that country.”
“There are many rules and regulations that allows or prohibits a player to do so and he
meets the criteria that would have allowed him to play for The Bahamas.
“So, we cannot waste no time worrying about Argentinians crying over spilled milk, that’s something we don’t waste our time doing.
“We followed the proper protocol and measures with USA Basketball and FIFA.
“They made the decision, and so he played.
“They could cry as much as they want.”
Mr Gordon, the latest NBA professional to play on the Bahamian national team, has a Bahamian mother.
According to article 22 of the FIBA regulations, players cannot change their nationality after participating in an official FIBA competition.
However, at FIBA’s discretion, a player can join a developing national team if the move is deemed “in the best interest of basketball”.
Some Bahamians on social media rebuffed Argentina’s critics, including NBA star Buddy Hield.
Associated Press
THE last part of the speech took less time to deliver than it takes to boil an egg, but “I Have A Dream” is one of American history’s most famous orations and most inspiring.
On Aug. 28, 1963, from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. began by speaking of poverty, segregation and discrimination and how the United States had reneged on its promise of equality for Black Americans.
If anyone remembers that dystopian beginning, they don’t talk about it.
What is etched into people’s memory is the pastoral flourish that marked the last five minutes and presented a soaring vision of what the nation might be and the freedom that equality for all could bring.
As participants prepare to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, that five-minute piece of King’s 16-minute address is the star of that day and today it is the measuring stick of the country’s progress.
How did that memorable moment come to be? Were there other speakers?
King was one of several prominent figures speaking to the many tens of thousands gathered on the National Mall that summer day. Others included A. Phillip Randolph, the march director and founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Roy Wilkins, the NAACP’s executive secretary; Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers; and John Lewis, a 23-yearold who led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later was a longtime congressman.
There were memorable moments before King spoke.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, who today is the District of Columbia’s veteran nonvoting delegate to Congress,
was a SNCC member who helped organize the march. She remembers that march leaders got Lewis to tone down his planned speech because of concern it was too inflammatory. “He had phrases in there about, for example, Sherman marching through Georgia,” Norton said, a reference to Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman burning most of Atlanta during the Civil War. “So we had to work with the leaders of the march to change a little bit of that rhetoric.”
King had no peer at the microphone, she said, acknowledging she does not remember now what others may have said. “I’m afraid that Martin Luther King’s speech drowned out everything. It was so eloquent that it kind of surpassed every other speech.”
Did King deliver the speech off the cuff?
The first two-thirds were from written text. The actual speech he used is on loan now at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, in the “Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom” gallery of the museum, and shows where he broke script.
King lieutenant Andrew Young said in an interview that he worked with King preparing the text and “none of the things that we remember were in his speech. They didn’t give him but nine minutes and he was trying to write a nine-minute speech.”
A King biographer, Jonathan Eig, said King hit the end of his written remarks and kept going because “he was Martin Luther King” and “it was time to do what he loved to do best, and that’s to give a sermon.” Had King talked about a dream before?
Although he set the text aside, his deviation was not extemporaneous in the truest since of the word.
Rocky Mount, North Carolina, with similar themes, including a dream.
In June 1963, King spoke in Detroit and opened with the same recognition of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation before noting that 100 years later, Black people in the US were not free. He talked of the circumstances and sense of urgency but then moved into what he said was a “dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”
The speech mirrored points he would speak of two months later.
Although King used the theme on several occasions “he always made it sound fresh. That’s kind of how he operated,” said Keith Miller, an Arizona State professor who has studied and written extensively about King’s speeches and addresses.
Legend has it that renowned gospel singer Mahalia Jackson prompted King to make the addition?
Whether Jackson was the catalyst or cheered him on after he started, King did not initially intend to speak about a dream and Jackson did say, “Tell them about the dream Martin.” Whatever the close sequence, the two are intertwined now in that moment.
Young said the speech “wasn’t going too well, but everybody was polite listening. But then Mahalia Jackson said, ‘Tell them about the dream Martin’ and he must have heard it or it was in his spirit any way and he took off.”
Arndrea Waters King, King’s daughter-in-law, said Jackson’s suggestion was the moment “that he just really broke out and really started to deliver, if nothing else, what most people remember when they remember the dream.”
Eig, author of “King: A Life,” said he has listened to the master tape made by Motown and she clearly pushes King about the dream, “but it’s only
after he has already begun the dream portion of the speech.” Norton, who was nearby and heard Jackson, agrees that was the sequence. How important was the march to the steps toward equality in the 1960s?
The diversity and size of the crowd and energy were major drivers for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as the fair housing law, Norton said. “It would have been very hard for Congress to ignore 250,000 people coming from all over the country, from every member’s district.”
Aaron Bryant, curator of photography, visual culture and contemporary history at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, said the impact was immediate in some ways.
“After the March on Washington, you had some of the organizers, some of the leaders of the march actually meeting with (President) John Kennedy and (Vice President) Lyndon Johnson, to talk more
strategically about legislation. So it wasn’t just a dream. It was about a plan and then putting that plan into action,” Bryant said.
Historians and other luminaries of that time said tragedies and atrocities fortified those plans.
Those include the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four girls two weeks after the march; the murders of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi, in 1964; and the televised beatings of civil rights activists on Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, in March 1965.
Why the focus on the final five minutes?
Eig believes that focus on hope and not the harsher reality of the day and the lack of progress is due in part to the predominantly white media that chose the inspirational part of the speech over King calling for accountability.
That focus has done a “disservice to King” and his overall message, Eig said, because “we forget about
the challenging part of that speech where he says that there are insufficient funds in the vaults of opportunity in this nation.” Has the dream been achieved?
Bryant said the answer to that probably varies within generations, but a democracy “is always going to be a work in progress. I think particularly as ideas of citizenship and democracy and definitions among different groups change over the course of time.”
Bryant said history shows the progress that followed the march. “The question is how do we compare where we were then to where we are now?”
In the eyes of King’s older son, Martin Luther King III, “Many of us, and I certainly am one, thought that we would be further.” He referred to the rewriting of history today and the rise in public hate and hostility, often driven by political leaders.
“There used to be civility. You could disagree without being disagreeable,” he said.
“They could cry as much as they want.”
- Mario BowlegTHE REV. Martin Luther King Jr, addresses marchers during his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on August 28, 1963. Photo:AP
Sprinter Anthonique
Strachan has all the momentum behind her this track season as she left it all on the track in heat one of the 200m sprint race at the National Athletics Stadium.
Day five was a busy one for Team Bahamas at the 19th World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, with the majority of the 11-member team competing on the track and field.
Joining Charlton and Strachan in action were long jumper LaQuan Nairn, javelin champion Rhema Otabor and jumper Charisma Taylor.
TRACK
Charlton was on a mission from the opening round of the women’s 100m hurdles on Tuesday. She finished heat one behind the United States of America (USA) world record holder Kendra Harrison in recordbreaking fashion, clocking 12.44. After cementing a new national record time, Charlton stepped on the
track one day later and placed second once again, this time stopping the clock at 12.49 seconds to qualify for today’s finals.
ollowing a record-breaking performance on Tuesday, Devynne Charlton remained poised in the 100 metre (m) hurdles semifinals yesterday and booked her ticket to today’s finals.The Bahamian will prepare to be the first of the 11-member team to medal following the unfortunate injuries of Shaunae MillerUibo during training and Steven Gardiner in the men’s 400m semifinals on Tuesday.
Charlton will battle for a spot on the medal podium against Harrison, Ditaji Kambundji, Tobi Amusan, Jamaica’s Ackera Nugent, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, Nia Ali and Jamaica’s Danielle Williams.
The 27-year-old will no doubt have to hit the next gear in the race after notching the third fastest time in the semifinals. The record holder Harrison blitzed the competition, clocking the fastest time of the semifinals combined with 12.33.
Additionally, in the opening round on Tuesday, Harrison ran a swift 12.24 to lead the world.
The second fastest time of the semifinals belongs to Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico who ran 12.41 to lead heat three yesterday.
Ultimately, Charlton has the full support of The Bahamas in her quest to medal today in lane six of the 100m hurdles at 3:22pm local time.
ANTHONIQUE STRACHAN, of The Bahamas, left, hugs with Daryll Neita, of Great Britain, after winning their women’s 200-metres heat during the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, yesterday.
USA BASKETBALL TEAM GETS ITS FIRST LOOK AT WORLD CUP VENUE
JOHNATHON Lucius will represent The Bahamas for the second time at the International Esports Federation’s (IESF) World Esports Championship.
The event is slated to begin today and continue until September 4 in Romania. The Bahamas continues to push the mark in traditional and nontraditional sports, proving to be a dominant small nation.
The 2022 national Tekken champion won the qualifiers and represented the country in Bali, Indonesia, last year.
Lucius said he felt excited to compete for the second consecutive year at the IESF World Esports Championship. The Tekken 7 player talked about his first introduction
to the sport at the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute (BTVI).
“It all started when I was in college at BTVI studying IT, there was a gaming club at school which showed and taught some of us what Esports was. I first started out trying different games because I didn’t know better at first but as soon as I got in the fighting genre for Esports, something clicked,” he said.
Lucius is quite familiar with the Tekken series because it was a game he played a lot growing up. A childhood game led to him placing fourth out of five players in Group E last year.
He will compete in Group M this time around against Norway, Iraq and Greece. The competition will begin for him at 7am on Friday against Norway. On the same day, he will
also play Iraq at 7:40am and last will be Vietnam at 10am.
The 2022 national Tekken champion’s expectations are to simply remain focused on his competitors in Group M. “My expectations for right now is to focus on
the group stage that I am currently in right now, and then as I pass each stage or challenge, I would lean more into that,” he said.
Although Esports is a relatively unorthodox concept to some, Lucius had words of encouragement for those passionate about gaming.
“I would say to everyone that gaming is becoming the next big thing globally in this era now. When I started it was more of a niché market but now to see it thrive today I would say to any person passionate in games such as Fortnite, Apex, to give it a chance or to attend an Esports event, it will really amaze you,” he added.
With this upcoming competition at the forefront of his mind, Lucius also has his sights set on the Evolution Championship Series 2024 in Tokoyo, Japan.
By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer
MANILA, Philippines
(AP) — Anthony Edwards took a shot from half-court, watched it swish and then turned around and started yelling in celebration.
It seemed like the USA Basketball World Cup team rather enjoyed its first trip to Mall of Asia Arena.
The Americans got their first look at their World Cup venue last night with a short practice inside the arena. They will play every game of their run in the tournament there, starting with Saturday’s opener against New Zealand and, they hope, stretching all the way through the gold-medal game on September 10.
“Very helpful,” US coach Steve Kerr said. “I think all the guys liked to see the arena, feel the hoops, see
the backdrop. It’s good to come over here.”
Wednesday’s was the only practice the Americans have planned at the arena before Saturday. There’s a full basketball facility at their hotel, and that’s what they’ll be using for workouts on their way to completing preparations for New Zealand.
“It feels good,” US guard Austin Reaves said. “Hopefully we play eight games here and obviously win all of them. It’s good to get here and run around. We had a good practice yesterday, a good one today, and hopefully we’ll keep building throughout this week for Saturday’s game.”
The US World Cup team played in four different cities during the 2019 tournament in China — going
TEAM Bahamas’ 40-member swimming team with their medals won after winning the Goodwill Games for the first time over the weekend in Kingston, Jamaica. The historic feat followed on the heels of the island nation’s fifth straight title at CARIFTA Swimming
Championships in April in Curacao. Team Bahamas collected a total of 129 medals, including 55 gold, 45 silver and 29 bronze, well ahead of Barbados, who was second with 23 gold, 16 silver and 18 bronze for 57 medals. Trinidad & Tobago followed with 21 gold, 18
silver and 19 bronze for 58 medals. The Bahamas, which produced over 20 records, also accumulated the total amount of points with 1,418.50. Jamaica was second with 1,143.50 and Trinidad & Tobago came in third with 970.50.
NEW YORK (AP) —
Aaron Judge was used to the ribbing from Kyle Higashioka and Anthony Rizzo, a levity that has been missing of late as the New York Yankees sank from contention.
They had three-homer games and Judge had none.
“He would always remind me, every game I’d have two and I couldn’t get the third one: ‘Hey, one of these days, kid, you’ll join my club.’” Judge said with a smile.
He earned his membership last night at a most opportune time.
Judge homered three times and tied his career high with six RBIs, almost single-handedly breaking the Yankees’ first nine-game losing streak in 41 years with a 9-1 victory over the Washington Nationals.
“We’ve kind of been waiting for that for a long time,” Higashioka said.
“Now we have nothing to hold over his head.”
Two hours after general manager Brian Cashman called the season “a disaster,” Judge drove a first-inning curveball from MacKenzie Gore (6-10) to the opposite field over the Yankees bullpen in right-centre.
Judge opened a 6-0 lead in the second with his fifth career grand slam, a shot into the netting above Monument Park in centre field.
“I left some pitches over the heart of the plate,” Gore said.
Then in the seventh Judge combined with DJ LeMahieu for back-toback homers against Jose A. Ferrer, popping the ball over the right-field short porch just inside the foul pole.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who had a pair of three-homer games two decades ago, at first thought Judge accomplished the feat last season. Then the manager was corrected.
“So I had to welcome him to the club,” Boone said.
Judge is hitting .279 with 27 homers and 54 RBIs in 72 games. The reigning AL MVP, who had his 32nd multihomer game, entered in a 3-for19 slide. He missed nearly eight weeks after spraining his right big toe against the Dodger Stadium fence on June 3 and returned before the injury fully healed.
“That hurt us,” Boone said. “Obviously you understand the blow that that was for us.”
Last-place New York (61-65) had been within a loss of what would have been its first 10-game losing streak since 1913, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Before Judge’s first homer, the Yankees had gone 61 innings without leading since August 14 at Atlanta, the third-longest stretch in franchise history behind 63 from August 16-23, 1906, and 62 from September 25 to October 1, 2000.
Luis Severino (3-8) allowed one hit and matched a season high with 6 2/3 innings, ending an 0-4 stretch since he beat Kansas City on July 23. Severino lowered his ERA from 7.98 to 7.26. Catcher Keibert Ruiz had Washington’s lone hit against Severino, lining a two-out single to right in the fourth. Severino was given a big ovation when he left the mound.
RHEMA OTABOR, of The Bahamas, competes in the women’s javelin throw qualification during the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, yesterday. NCAA javelin champion Otabor, the youngest member of Team Bahamas, came into the international competition with a personal best throw of 59.75 metres. The 20-year-old wrapped up her competition debut ranked 15th in Group B with a final throwing distance of 53.62 metres.
ANTHONIQUE STRACHAN, of The Bahamas, left, wins flanked by Daryll Neita, of Great Britain, during a women’s 200-metres heat yesterday during World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
WORLDS FROM PAGE 14
Strachan has had a fantastic track season leading up to round one of the 200m heats yesterday.
In the morning session, The Bahamian sprinter crossed the finish line first with a time of 22.31 to qualify for the semifinals today. She finished ahead of Daryll Neita, hailing from Great Britain, and Jaël Bestuè of Spain. The two clocked 22.39 and 22.58 respectively. Strachan is hoping to advance and enter her first global finals on the big stage.
“I feel very excited. I pulled out of the 100 metres just to do the 200 metres
so I have basically been sitting down here for five days waiting to run. I hope to produce way faster times and hopefully make my first global finals,” she said.
Following a quad injury at the 18th World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, Strachan said she used the heartbreaking moment to fuel her momentum this season.
“Last year I was very heartbroken in Oregon so it sort of changed my method in how I looked at things and made me look at myself and see what I actually did wrong and what I have constantly been doing wrong so I have been trying to revamp those things there,” she said.
Going to the semifinals round with Strachan is
none other than the newest 100m world champion from the USA, Sha’Carri Richardson.
The latter has been on a mission all season long, having quite the comeback year following a disappointing stint last time around.
The sprinter reeled off the fastest time of the opening round with a blistering 22.16 to win heat two.
Nonetheless, a motivated and rejuvenated Strachan will compete in the semifinals in lane seven at 1:45pm today (local time).
ON THE FIELD
NCAA javelin champion Otabor, the youngest member of Team Bahamas, made her global debut in Group B of the women’s javelin. She came into the international competition
with a personal best throw of 59.75m and has been on a mission to cross the 60m mark all season long.
Ultimately, the 20-yearold wrapped up her competition debut ranked 15th in Group B with a final throwing distance of 53.62m.
Despite the event not turning out the way the second best women’s javelin thrower in Bahamian history wanted, Otabor is taking it as a learning experience. “It felt amazing being able to compete with the world’s greatest at this time. I was really excited and a bit nervous but I felt like I was ready to go.
“Things didn’t turn out how I wanted but I guess it’s still a learning experience,” she said.
University of Tennessee collegiate athlete Taylor got in on the action in the women’s triple jump qualification.
The automatic qualifying mark was 14.30 or at least the best 12 qualify for the finals.
Taylor came up short in Group B after jumping to 13.51m in the competition.
Injuries once again got the best of Team Bahamas, this time targeting LaQuan Nairn in the long jump.
The former Commonwealth Games champion went down with an apparent ankle injury in the event during Wednesday’s morning session.
The World Athletics Championships 2023 will wrap up this Sunday, August 27.
LAQUAN NAIRN, of The Bahamas, leaves on a wheelchair after injuring himself in an attempt in the men’s long jump qualification during the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, August 23, 2023. Injuries once again got the best of Team Bahamas, this time targeting Nairn in the long jump. The former Commonwealth Games champion went down with an apparent ankle injury during yesterday morning’s session.
(AP Photos/ Bernat Armangue)
A VEHICLE passes a giant FIBA Basketball World Cup themed display near one of the venues at the Mall of Asia Arena Thursday, August 17 in Pasay city Philippines. Basketball’s World Cup starts on Friday, August 25, spread out over three nations — the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia. It’ll be centred in Manila.
FROM PAGE 14
from Shanghai to Shenzhen to Dongguan to Beijing. There won’t be any travel this time; the Americans are among the 16 teams that start the tournament in Manila
while eight are opening play in Okinawa, Japan, and eight others in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The medal rounds will be in Manila.
“We just scrimmaged and the lid was on the rim.
I missed like my first three shots,” said Edwards, who led the US with 34 points in its exhibition-season finale against Germany, in
which the Americans rallied from 16 down to win 99-91.
“But I ended up making like three straight. Just trying to take the lid off the rim, that’s the main thing.”
The half-court shot convinced Edwards that the Mall of Asia Arena lid is no more.
“It’s off now,” he said.
BUDAPEST, Hungary
(AP) — A look at how 10 top athletes are faring at track and field world championships after Day 5:
MARILEIDY
PAULINO
The 400 metres was thought to be wide open with Sydney McLaughlinLevrone withdrawing from the event because of a minor knee issue. Paulino, who represents the Dominican Republic, has the second-fastest time this season behind McLaughlinLevrone. Paulino finished runner-up to Shaunae Miller-Uibo at last year’s worlds. RESULTS: Won 400 metres yesterday. UP NEXT: 4x400 relay set for Aug. 27.
FAITH KIPYEGON
The 29-year-old Kenyan broke three different world records — mile, 1,500 and 5,000 — over a 50-day stretch this year. Kipyegon won the 1,500 and is now gearing in on the 5,000 at the worlds, a double she
might repeat a year from now at the Paris Games.
RESULTS: Defended her 1,500-metre title, winning in a time of 3:54.87, finished second to Sifan Hassan in 5,000-metre heat. UP
NEXT: 5,000 final: Aug. 26.
KATIE MOON
To think, the reigning world and Olympic champion pole vaulter was nearly a gymnast instead. Moon, who is from Ohio, has the top clearance in the world this season. Competing last season at the worlds as Katie Nageotte — she got married — she won on countback over US teammate Sandi Morris. RESULTS: Tied for gold with Australia’s Nina Kennedy.
ANNA HALL
The fun-loving, candychomping American is knocking on the door of the 7,000-point plateau in the heptathlon — a mark only four women have achieved.
Hall’s top score in the sevenevent competition is 6,988 points, which she set in May.
The world record is held by Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who accumulated 7,291 points in winning at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. RESULTS: Finished second, 20 points behind Katarina JohnsonThompson in the tightest heptathlon in world-championship history.
NOAH LYLES
At last year’s world championships, Lyles broke the long-hallowed American 200-metre record of 19.32 seconds held since 1996 by Michael Johnson. Lyles has set 19.10 as a goal, which would shatter Usain Bolt’s mark of 19.19. RESULTS: Won 100 in 9.83 seconds. Won opening heat in 200 on Wednesday. UP NEXT: 200 metres, Aug. 24-25; 4x100 relay, Aug. 25-26.
PAWEL FAJDEK
The Polish hammer thrower tries for his sixth straight world title. If he wins it, he would match Sergey Bubka with the most world golds in an individual event. RESULTS: Finished
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Middle-distance runner Josh Kerr mounted an upset victory in the men’s 1,500 metre at world championships on Wednesday, pulling ahead of favourite Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway in a dramatic backstretch comeback that keeps the title in British hands for the second straight year. The Scottish-born Kerr spent most of the race in the middle of the pack, while Ingebrigtsen, who took Olympic gold in the 1,500 in Tokyo and silver at the worlds last year, set the
pace for nearly the entire race. But with 200 metres to go, Kerr pulled past the Norwegian’s right shoulder, and pushed through to the finish for a season best at 3:29.38.
“I needed every single ounce that I had today,” Kerr said.
“I threw everything I had at that last 50. I don’t think there was anyone in the world that was going to want that more than me today.”
The performance marks the second worlds in a row where a British runner has won gold in the 1,500. Jake
Wightman took the title last year.
In preparation for this year’s worlds, Kerr swore off using his mobile phone for two weeks to keep himself focused on training — though he said he would still occasionally look at the Premier League app to follow soccer and a
MARILEIDY PAULINO, of Dominican Republic, celebrates after winning the gold medal in the final of the women’s 400-metres at the World Athletics Championships yesterday.
fourth to snap streak of five straight wins at worlds.
MONDO DUPLANTIS
Since first breaking the world record three years ago, the Louisiana-born pole vaulter who competes for his mother’s native Sweden, has upped the mark by a centimetre five more times. It now stands at 6.22 metres (20 feet, 4 3/4 inches). RESULTS: Qualified for finals Wednesday. UP NEXT: Finals Aug. 26.
FRED KERLEY
The American sprinter is the defending world champion at 100 metres. His best time this year is 9.88 seconds — pedestrian for this race — but Kerley is a favourite in an event where no one has cracked 9.8 this year.
RESULTS: Finished third in 100-metre semifinals and did not advance to finals. UP NEXT: 4x100 relay, Aug. 25-26.
MUTAZ ESSA BARSHIM
It might not ever get better for the high jumper nicknamed “The Falcon,” than when he won world gold in his home country of Qatar in 2019. But Barshim has won gold in the last four major competitions, including the famous tie for first with Gianmarco Tamberi at the Tokyo Olympics two years ago. RESULTS: Finished with bronze medal.
JOSH KERR, of Great Britain, reacts after winning the men’s 1500-metres final during the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, yesterday. (AP
language-learning app he’s using to study Spanish. But before forsaking communication technology, Kerr spoke to Wightman, a personal friend, who offered to give him any advice he needed ahead of the championships.
“I told him it’s our title, it’s Great Britain’s title, and
I’m looking to keep that in our country,” Kerr said.
And he did, in a sign that British middle distance runners are looking to be a force to be reckoned with in an event where they’ve not performed so successfully in decades.
When Wightman took gold last year, it made him the first British male to win a title in the 1,500 since Seb Coe — president of World Athletics — took gold at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
It was Coe who presented Kerr with the gold medal yesterday in Budapest
— two British runners a generation apart who fought to bring the same prize to their country.
Kerr said he has flashbacks of “the early, early mornings, all the late nights and all the sacrifices” involved with his training. As he attends school at University of New Mexico, he doesn’t live in the same country as his family, nor in the same state as his fiancee.
But the champion runner is clear on why he does it all: “To be the best 1,500 meter runner in the world,” he said.
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — For the world’s fastest hurdler and a pair of pole-vaulting buddies, this felt like a fun repeat of track and field’s greatest hits.
Norway’s Karsten Warholm powered to victory in the 400-metre hurdles last night, then put on his trademark Viking horns to celebrate his third gold medal at the world championships.
His win came only moments after pole vaulters Katie Moon of America and Nina Kennedy of Australia, in a scene similar to one that played out two years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, chose to share two gold medals instead of jump in a tiebreaker for one.
“We’ve been friends for so long,” Kennedy said. “So, super special.”
Warholm’s story goes back to six years ago at worlds, where he became a meme when he crossed the line first and reacted with a look of pure shock (think Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” ). He celebrated a gold medal he didn’t fully expect by donning Viking horns for his post-race celebration.
Two years ago at the Olympics, Warholm was far more established — his post-race celebrations expected fare — when he
set the world record (45.94) in what remains one of the fastest races in the history of track.
But coming into this week, there were questions, mainly because of injuries that made him a non-factor at worlds last year in Oregon.
“You build yourself up, the media builds you up, and afterward, they need a disaster story to start to talk you down,” Warholm said. “And I just find a lot of motivation in that.”
He found plenty in the story bubbling through the championships this week about how Warholm might have gone around, not over, a hurdle in Monday’s semifinal round. The evidence looks different from different angles. Alas, no protest was filed in the 30-minute window after that race, so no appeal was ever considered.
It was, in retrospect, the only way anyone would’ve stopped him. Warholm ran 46.89 for a three-stride and .45-second blowout over surprise silver medallist
Kyron McMaster of the British Virgin Islands. Rai Benjamin added bronze to go with silvers at two worlds and the Olympics and defending champion Alison Dos Santos of Brazil clipped two hurdles down the stretch and finished fifth.
“I just said ‘If you can’t beat them, DQ them,’” Warholm said.
Over in the pole vault pit, exhaustion was setting in after Moon and Kennedy each missed their three attempts at 4.95 metres (16 feet, 2 3/4 inches).
Both were thinking about the good vibes that flowed in Tokyo two years ago when high jumpers Mutaz Barshim (Qatar) and Gianmarco Tamberi (Italy) were in the same situation and were told it would fine if they stayed tied for first
instead of going into a gruelling jump-off. They agreed, and much hugging and bedlam ensued, along with heartfelt declarations about the true Olympic spirit. This time, as the pole vaulters huddled, with the referees and cameras poking in, there were hugs, too. But it was as much about sportsmanship as a sense of relief on a hot, humid night in which neither athlete had much
more to give. “I’m at a point where I’ve given it my all,” Moon said. “We went out and we both did pretty much the exact same thing and it just felt right. We both won today, so it was the right call.”
The evening’s other unexpected moment came courtesy of Josh Kerr, who became the second British runner in two years to knock off heavy favourite Jakob Ingebrigtsen
of Norway in the 1,500. Coming into the race as a 1-7 betting favourite, Ingebrigtsen woke up with a scratchy throat that kept getting worse. By the time he got to the start, he knew he was not at 100%. “I feel very unlucky being in this situation,” Ingebrigtsen said.
The 22-year-old, who is expected to defend his title in the 5,000 later this week, surged to the lead at about the 500-meter mark and led for the next two laps.
But Kerr stayed right on his heels, and with a half-lap to go, he pulled even. Then, he passed and held on for the win by .27 seconds.
Kerr finished in 3 minutes, 29.28 seconds and now joins Jake Wightman, who was injured this year, in a pantheon of British middledistance champions that also includes Sebastian Coe, the leader of World Athletics who was on the track to give Kerr his medal.
“If he was sick, it’s such a shame that he wasn’t able to put together a performance he was proud of,” Kerr said. “But I did, and that’s just the reality of it.”
In the night’s other final, the women’s 400 metres was a runaway for Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic, who won in 48.76.
She beat Natalia Kaczmarek, who finished in 49.57 to become the first man or woman from Poland to take a world medal in the 400.
FAMILY Islanders are once again appealing for better baseball facilities to aid in the development of youth on the respective islands.
Yesterday, residents of Abaco, Bimini and Cat Island all spoke out against the lack of adequate infrastructure available for baseball on their islands.
A representative of San Salvador has now reached out to speak on their plights as it relates to the baseball facilities on the southeastern island.
Stephen Brown, chairman of the San Salvador Sports Council, said the island is seeking funding or assistance for the development of their baseball field.
“Some of the biggest issues are based on space. We have not had any good facilities in a very long time and we still do not have any.
We are hoping to get some funding or assistance to build the right size mounds because we are really lacking the right size pitching mound,” Brown said.
Similar to the other Family Islanders that spoke to Tribune Sports on Tuesday, Brown believes the youth of San Salvador are the ones affected the most by the lack of sufficient facilities for play.
“Without the facilities and without the equipment, we can’t get them to really perform to the best of their abilities.
“I believe that if we would get some of these stuff in place on a timely basis, we would be able to
produce some great talent,” the chairman added. Despite sending letters to the government in attempts to receive some assistance in prioritising the development of the sporting facilities, the chairman is just hopeful that after the sixth Bahamas Games, help will soon be on the way.
Brown noted that if better infrastructure was in place, development of the youth would happen at a quicker pace.
“We have the personnel who could help with the development. I am very acquainted with men who are also willing to come down and give their assistance in teaching the game of baseball,” he said.
Although things are at a standstill on the island, Brown is optimistic about the future once the funding is provided or facilities are designed and developed.
“I believe if we get these things in place you would see great things happening.
“San Salvador is gonna make a play at it as long as we have the opportunity,” he ended.
Following the sixth edition of the Bahamas Golden Jubilee Games, Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture (MOYSC) Mario Bowleg vowed to not only establish associations on islands without one, but also look into adding more facilities on the Family Islands.
At the time, Bowleg said $40 million dollars had been allocated over the next decade - $4 million per year - to repair the facilities on the islands outside of New Providence.
Family Islanders are hoping for some help in
ANTHONIQUE STRACHAN, of The Bahamas, competes in the women’s 200-metre heat yesterday at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. She has all the momentum behind her this season as she left it all on the track in heat one of the sprint race at the National Athletics Stadium. She advanced to the semifinals.
