Bahamas – The New York Times | Futurist Transhuman News Blog

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A new climate study warning of abrupt coastal flooding gets dipped in the acid bath of open peer review.

To celebrate turning 29, the designer made a Bahamian getaway with his boyfriend, Paul Arnhold, and their cockapoo, Bird.

By JULIE BAUMGARDNER

From aristocratic roots to a peaceful beachside existence on Harbour Island, the model-turned-designers new lifestyle brand reveals no shortage of inspiration.

By EVIANA HARTMAN

Raids on places where Haitians live have swept up hundreds of people since a new policy took effect, requiring everyone to hold a passport.

Many buyers of high-end condos in Manhattan have started shopping for beachfront retreats in the Bahamas, some developed by New Yorkers.

By JULIE SATOW

Baha Mar, a luxury resort scheduled to open next year in Nassau in the Bahamas, will have four different hotel brands in separate towers.

By SHIVANI VORA

About 20 years ago, the beautiful and otherworldly red lionfish started showing up in south Florida and the Caribbean. Now theyre a plague.

As the plane was touching down in Nassau, flames were spotted near the lefthand engine. All 93 on board escaped safely.

The wind was picking up here Thursday afternoon as Hurricane Frances worked its way up the Bahamas, kicking up 15-foot waves in the sparsely populated southeastern islands. But Mervyn Taylor, a graying civil servant, was playing a leisurely game of dominoes outside the Columbus Primary School with some friends who, like himself, had boarded up their houses and now were just waiting for the storm. Mr. Taylor and the others had heard the reports of hundreds of thousands of Floridians clogging the highways in an urgent exodus from the beaches. But, he said, having lived all his life on one or another of the 700 islands that make up the Bahamas, the idea of trying to run from a hurricane never occurred to him.

SHIFTING FORTUNES -- New figures show how sharply the fortunes of the big airlines and their low-cost rivals have diverged since the industry's peak year of 2000. The discount carriers flew 20 percent more seats in May than four years earlier, according to a report by the Transportation Department's Office of Inspector General, while the network airlines capacity was down 16 percent. Reflecting the relentless pressure that low-cost carriers have kept on their bigger competitors, average air fares for a 1,000-mile trip dropped to $116 from $147 over that period. Underlining the trend toward driving rather than flying short distances, the report said that there were 27 percent fewer scheduled flights of under 250 miles in May than in May 2000, but there were 9 percent more flights of over 1,000 miles. Southwest had a 59 percent share of the low-cost market in May, followed by America West with 12 percent and Air Tran with 8 percent. Meanwhile, the propeller-driven airplane is rapidly becoming scarce on commercial flights. Flights by turboprop and piston-engine aircraft fell 63 percent in May over May 2000. Flights by regional jet increased 180 percent.

The plane crash on Aug. 25 in the Bahamas that killed Aaliyah, the 22-year-old singer and actress, followed a decision by the officials managing her travel not to use two professional charter services with planes nearby and instead to rely on a small charter company. A reconstruction of the days leading up to the crash at the Bahamian island of Abaco suggests a disorganized and confused effort to set up the filming of a video for Aaliyah. On the flight there, an official from the cargo company that loaded the planes said, the managers who supervised the travel were warned that their attempts to overload their aircraft could lead to disaster.

A fire in Nassau that raged for hours as it crept along rooftops destroyed the capital's renowned handicrafts market as well as the offices of the Tourism Ministry. The blaze, which took eight hours to control, started Tuesday afternoon in the Straw Market, a crowded and popular tourist destination. No one was reported injured, although the authorities had to evacuate 300 guests from a hotel, as well as remove artifacts from the nearby national museum, which is in an 18th-century building. David Gonzalez (NYT)

A sailboat packed with perhaps as many as 156 Haitians trying to get to the United States ran aground on the reefs surrounding Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas during the past week, leaving six dead and possibly dozens more missing, American and Bahamian authorities said today. Helicopters and boats combed the waters off Great Inagua, the southernmost island of the Bahamas, on Tuesday looking for signs of life and evacuating 69 survivors from the island. Based on interviews with survivors, the authorities could be looking for as many as 81 others.

William Morris Bain walked barefoot and somberly today through his house, where the tile floors were slick and silty from the surge of sea water that swept inside when Hurricane Floyd struck. Outside, piles of debris were all that remained of his tool shop and storehouse. The rushing water had also ripped through his two sons' homes next door, where their wives now hung damp clothes to dry on a fallen tree trunk. ''There ain't going to be no drying,'' he said as he showed a visitor a waterlogged mattress. ''We got to start all over again.''

Around 7:30 on the morning after Christmas, Orlando Hernandez, one of the best pitchers ever on the Cuban national baseball team, and seven companions got into a small sailboat with four oars. They loaded four cans of Spam, bread, sugar and drinking water onto the craft and guided it into the calm azure Caribbean water off the Cuban coast. Hernandez, known in his homeland as El Duque (The Duke), was banned from the baseball team in August 1996 because the Government believed he was about to defect and had aided in the defection of other baseball players, including his half brother, Livan, who is a pitcher for the Florida Marlins and was the World Series most valuable player last season.

In 1988, eight Democratic members of Congress formed a company to buy a tiny island in the Bahamas -- an old pirates' lair with pink beaches and palm trees -- with the idea of turning it into a resort. One of them was Matthew F. McHugh, the upstate New York Representative who is now leading the ethics committee investigation of the House bank affair. Two of the others were Robert J. Mrazek of Long Island and Edward F. Feighan of Ohio, who figure prominently in that affair and who are now appealing to Mr. McHugh's panel for exoneration on the ground that they did not "routinely and repeatedly" overdraw their accounts by significant amounts.

LEAD: Eight members of Congress are buying a Bahamian island.

The Commonwealth conference here, now in its second day, has developed into a lobbying session on South Africa, with Britain trying to persuade most of the other members that discussion is likely to be more effective than sanctions in eliminating apartheid Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher avoided the subject of South Africa when she opened today's closed-door meeting with a wide-ranging speech on world issues. But she had previously spent 45 minutes talking mainly about South Africa with Prime Minister Robert Hawke of Australia. Sir Geoffrey Howe, the British Foreign Secretary, had lunch with several Caribbean foreign ministers and others in the 21-member British delegation had fanned out among the conference participants.

The heads of government of the Commonwealth nations opened a weeklong meeting here today with an apparent majority seeking to increase pressure on South Africa to end apartheid. But Britain, which once dictated policy to the Commonwealth members when they were colonies or dominions of the British Empire, has indicated that it is opposed to taking further measures against South Afica. Thus, in the meetings over the next few days, which are to take place behind closed doors, as is customary at these conferences, many of the heads of government will try to persuade Britain to shift its position. Terrorism and Drugs In initial remarks, Lynden O. Pindling, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, said the heads of government would also take up the issues of terrorism, drug trafficking and economic problems.