Category Archives: Bahamas

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to attend a small college in the United States, in addition to playing on one of the Varsity sports teams on campus. In college sports whether Division I or III, there is a traditional season and an off-season. Here at my school we are blessed to have a dedicated Strength and Conditioning Staff that push all of the athletes to getting better and better every off-season. They recently put up a sign in our weight room, above one of the mirrors that says Look in the mirrorThats your competition. Our coaches encourage us to look in the mirror and hold ourselves and others accountable for pushing one another. This needs to be an honest and objective task; you cannot be biased because youre tired or sore, you have to push yourself to be the best that you can be.

Looking at the current state of our beautiful country, how can any Bahamian that claims they love their country say, You know what, we are in a good place here. The ones who claim this are either delusional or they love themselves more than they love their country, because there is so little that the current administration is doing that is benefiting the country. You cannot tell me that you are able to look at yourself in the mirror, while being true to your honesty and your integrity, and say that we can, as a nation, handle another five years of this administration. If you are still wondering whether we can or cannot, let me assure you its the latter.

Sadly, there is a culture of greed, power and corruption that has engulfed our Bahama Land. Because of this, the coming election is much more than sticking with who your mother or father has voted for in the past. Just because your family has voted for one way in every single election since our independence, this doesnt mean you have to, too. I implore you to look a little further than just what your family has done in the past. Challenge yourself to look at current and potential MPs ethically, morally and objectively; look at what he or she has done for their people or what they are saying they will do. Go another step further, ask them to tell you exactly how they are going to bring about change, what steps are they going to take and most importantly is this beneficial and where is the money coming from?

Residents of Jubilee Gardens, what has your MP done to help you in the past month and what has your Prime Minister done for you and your family? Is it enough? Im going to go out on a limb and argue that nothing meaningful has been done, seeing that your neighbourhood is still exposed to smoke from the dump. Residents of Cat Island, what has your MP done for you other than a cookout and some beers? You cannot honestly say to yourself that what our politicians are doing to our country is sustainable; they can only take so much before we have nothing left and they have everything.

The Bahamas lacks accountability, and it is time that we change that. Wake up Bahamas! How can you look yourself in the mirror and say that an administration spending millions of dollars on Carnival is ok, yet the population of New Providence and the tourists, that we as a country rely on, cannot enjoy our inalienable right to clean air? Dont you like to breathe fresh air; I know I do.

I ask you, how is it acceptable that we do not know how our government has spent the vast amount of VAT money that has been generated? And yes we do have a right to know, because it is our money? How is it ok for the Prime Minister to stand in front of a crowd of people and show them the finger, or defy God himself? That is the man who represents us all over the world.

In order to right the ship, the first step that must be taken is to look ourselves in the mirror and ask that very simply question: Can we as a nation take another five years of this? Five more years of uncontrolled killings. Five more years of dirty water, dirty air and a toxic dump. Five more years of inside jobs and contracts.

We need accountability across all parties and we need it now. Wake up Bahamas!

CONCERNED BAHAMIAN STUDENT

Voting in the US

April 24, 2017.

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Spoiling Our Bahamas - Bahamas Tribune

Its a tale as old as Instagram. Every April like clockwork, eerily similar photos infiltrate your feed. Its impossible to escape all the 22-year-olds wearing slight variations on a bohemian themeand its about to get even harder.

Theres a new festival aiming to improve upon Coachellas desert carnival with a tropical paradise, and anyone with enough money or big enough Instagram following can attend. Recruiting a bevy of influencers and models to promote it, selling out $1,500 tickets before a lineup was even announced, and promising two weekends worth of hip young things island hopping in the exclusive Bahamian archipelago known as the Exumas, the first annual Fyre Festival has promised to turn the end of April into one long block of Insta-babes having a better time than you.

Well, that's the idea, at least. The actual festival starts Friday.

Fyre Festival is a product of Fyre Media, an entertainment booking startup that that rapper Ja Rule launched with his tech partner Billy McFarland in 2015. As noted above, its closest spiritual forefather in the bloated festival-scape is probably Coachella. But while Coachella is a music festival that turned into a series of brand activations, Fyre Festival is a brand activation that plays at being a festival.

We didn't just want to be a tech company that was a pure enterprise with no consumer awareness, McFarland explained to Vanity Fair on a recent phone call. So a festival was a great way to go and do that and beyond people who are attending. Or rather the event is not an end in and of itself, but a means to an end, intended to inflate the Fyre name.

The country of the Bahamas is equally invested in this grand brand-building experiment. In the months leading up to the first weekend, Bahamian officials coordinated closely with the organizers. Theyve readied the excursions, provided the jet skis for rent, made the yacht marinas available, and tapped the University of Bahamas culinary division to prepare food. The many businesses involved are depending on Fyres ability to deliver.

To announce a festival without name recognition or a finalized lineup, McFarland and Ja Rule personally invited 400 influencers in various sectors. Their only job, besides attending the festival when it came time, was to post an orange square (orange like fire) to Instagram at a certain time on on a certain day in December, announcing Fyre Festival to the public.

The 400 or so that heeded the call include professional surfers, football players, DJ/producers/founders, a short-lived MTV personality and long-term social media personality, and models and models and models and models and models. You almost certainly could have guessed this already, but each have a healthy Instagram followingfive figures minimum.

The announcement itself was preceded by a photo shoot with top-tier models and Jenner-adjacent ingnuesBella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, and Hailey Baldwin among themwho then posted just prior to the orange takeover. An announcement that there will be an announcement, if you will.

Its influencer inception: Models with niche name recognition spreading word about a more widespread announcement for a high-end festival that itself spreads the word about Ja Rules startup (model/actress Ratajkowski was the only one who included an ad disclaimer with the FTC-required hashtag.)

Fyre takes the music festival concept to its logical extreme: Take the ten-thousand dollar accommodations of the boomer-focused Desert Trip, but with the youth of Coachella and the exclusivity of a tropical yacht club, in which members are permitted to bring the Instagram-famous as dates. Its one of the biggest events the Bahamas has ever hosted, according to a statement from the countrys Ministry of Tourism, and it has used its guest list to draw crowds in the thousands. But what will become of the island chain known for its privacy and exclusivity once the influencers descend?

Fyres Insta-happening in the middle of December helped sell out general admission tickets before any of the performers were announced, which isnt totally unheard of. Coachella regularly breaks ticket sales records before the music lineup is released. But while Coachella sells out on reputation, Fyre sold plenty on a promise: you could have a sexy time on a beach with a pia colada in hand and, oh, maybe Major Lazer will be there, too (they will).

This was the main draw for Chanel Iman, Victorias Secret Angel and partner in the festivals campaign, as she told Vanity Fair on a recent phone call. She had just returned from Coachella, and would be jetting off to Fyre in a couple of weeks. [Festivals are] what I like to do in my free time when Im not working and just go out and have a good time and listen to good music, she explained. Music festivals are just fun.

Iman was there for the promotional photo shoot in November, joined by Hadid, Ratajkowski, Baldwin, Shanina Shaik, Alessandra Ambrosio, Hannah Ferguson, and more. A millennial who has a Twitter account, but prefers Instagram and dabbles in Snapchat might recognize the women in the photos and videos individually, but seeing them all together on a boat is a little more rare. A large and disparate group of TV personalities, models, and beauty pageant winners, the group was differentbut, essentially, all beautifulenough that various fashion and celebrity publications were intrigued. Ja Rule was pleased enough with an article from the fashion Web site Fashionista that pondered Whats Fyre Festival, and Why Are All the Models in the Bahamas Promoting It? to tweet it. The plan, it seemed, was working.

After wrapping the shoot, Iman said they would retire to a bonfire on the beach, where they listened to the ocean under the stars. Those nights were just magical because the stars were just bright and beautiful. And I came with my model friends and we all just enjoyed each other's company around the fire. Read that, scroll through her vacation photos, and try to resist taking out a mortgage to book a villa.

A brief word on the music part of the festival: The line-up is impressive, if a little scattered. Migos, G.O.O.D. Music, Major Lazer, and Blink 182 are among the 40 total acts, and McFarland plans to announce five or ten more before the first weekend. Ja Rule will be performing the first Friday of both weekends.

Much like Coachella, the acts are somewhat incidental, a part of a larger experience. Obviously we think our line-up now is pretty awesome, but the experience is what we're really packaging here, McFarland said. Thats why Fyre is taking over The Exumas; thats why theyre chartering flights from Miami to the islands for every ticket holder; and that's why the organizers are throwing a literal treasure hunt (more on that later).

Its possible to spend in excess of $104,995, per a spokeswoman, to have the Fyre experience. Yachts can be rented for $60,000 on the low end. V.I.P. tickets are $3,500, but you can knock a grand off that price if you B.Y.O.Yacht (the docking fee at the marina, however, is five grand).

Travelers willing to spend this kind of cash are the kind that the Bahamasand especially a more private part of the Bahamas that gets less foot traffic, like The Exumas very much wants to court. According to Lori Pennington-Gray, a tourism professor at University of Florida and consultant, late April is generally considered a post-spring break, pre-summer break shoulder season, and events like music festivals are a tried-and-true way to jack up demand.

Take Indio Valley. In 2016, the city netted $3.18 million in ticket taxes from both Coachella and its subsequent country sister festival, Stagecoach, according to estimates commissioned by the Palm Springs visitors bureau. The estimated spending in the greater Coachella area was $403 million. The two festivals span April, making a final, giant push in the latter end of the areas peak tourism season.

Can Fyre turn an Exumas destination into a tropical Palm Springs, the way Coachella has brought a patina of desert chic to the classic resort town? Though scale of the festivals are much different (last year, Coachella welcomed an estimated 99,000, while Fyre ticket-holder numbers are much lower in the thousands, per a festival spokeswoman), the two host destinations have some things in common. Theyre both easy enough to get to from New York or Los Angeles; they both had a long history in the tourism industry on which these events are built on top of; and they both cater to high-end visitors even without the festivals added boost.

Exumas does Palm Springs one better, however. Besides the clear blue water and unrelenting sunshine, one of its major natural resources is near-total privacy. David Copperfield, Faith Hill, and Muslim spiritual leader Aga Khan are among the wealthy individuals that own entire islands or multiple islands in the chain. The exclusivity helps set it apart from the neighboring Freeport and Grand Bahamas, which bring to mind family vacations and Carnival cruise drop-off points.

One risk of Fyre Festival is that it would compromise the islands exclusivity. As Dr. Pennington-Gray said, You dont want to have a cookie-cutter approach across all destinations [in the Bahamas], so as things like this grow in popularity, you want to really make it your own and kind of customize it to the island. Even if the festival doubles as a summit of the incredibly wealthy partiers, itll still bring a bulk of tourists to an area that relies on privacy to set it apart from its neighbors. An infusion of the Instagram famous, rather than just the moneyed few that can afford traveling to the destination, certainly widens the pool.

Copperfield, for one, is not too worried. He owns Musha Cay, and the luxury retreat on it. I think its terrific, our own Coachella in The Exumas the magician told Vanity Fair.

I think that [Fyre] is definitely a festival that's special and unique just because it's very private. . . , Iman started to explain, trailing off for just a second to find the right description. And kind of like a luxury-type festival. If one were casting around for an identity of a festival before anyone has yet Fyre-d, luxury-type is just as good a description as any. In addition to the yachts and the fitness classes and catering and massages and the pigs (the same pigs that made a cameo on Ben Higgins Bachelor season), there will be a literal treasure hunt. McFarland and Ja Rule developed intellectual and physical challenges with the help of Spartan Races, and theyll reward an adventurous soul willing to explore the cays by foot and by jet ski with prizes valued at more than $1,000,000 in hidden treasures from luxury jewelry and watches to cash and valuable goods, per the ticketing site. The winner of both weekends will get a piece of land on a private beach on Great Exuma Island.

Dr. Pennington-Gray says the ideal attendee, and one the Bahamas is willing to invest in, is a guest that stays for a while and spends a lot. The 400 influencers are a place to start; they will be at the festival for at least the first weekend. Expect another wave of social media brand awareness in the form of bikinis, frozen drinks, hair, and, maybe, actual bands.

Iman, for one, doesnt quite know what to expect. I know that this is their first time doing this, so Im hoping that everything will go as planned, she said. I like adventure, and this is definitely an adventure for me.

She plans to head out after the first weekend. Or maybe not. I might return for the second weekend. I'll see how the first one is and figure out if for the second weekend I am even available.

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Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photography by Justin Bishop.

Photography by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photography by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

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Can a Critical Mass of Victoria's Secret Models and a Hadid Give Bahamas Tourism an Insta-Boost? - Vanity Fair

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

ALTHOUGH the fans showed their appreciation in cheering them on for their efforts, day one of the IAAF/BTC World Relays did not turn out as expected from Team Bahamas.

But there were much celebration for the two-time defending Golden Baton champions, the United States, who emerged on top of the standings with 22 points, double the tally of their nearest rivals, Australia. Jamaica is in third with eight with Germany, Barbados and Belarus tied for fourth with seven and the Peoples Republic of China and France in eighth, both with seven points as well.

In the first final of the two-day competition, the women's 4x800m, the Americans led from start to finish to take the title in 8min 16.36sec for a seasons best to share the top prize of $50,000 after taking their victory lap.

Belarus had to settle for the silver in 8:20.07 and Australia picked up the bronze in 8:21.08.

After that performance, the Jamaican 4x200m team anchored by Olympic double sprint champion Elaine Thompson got their fans in a frenzy as they celebrated from start to finish in smashing the championship record in a new time of 1min 29.04sec.

The night closed with the mens 4x100m final as Justin Gatlin sped home well ahead of the field in 38.43 seconds. Barbados moved up for the silver in their seasons best of 39.18 and the Peoples Republic of China got the bronze in 39.22.

But it was what happened during the race that mattered the most. Great Britain, the Netherlands and Canada, featuring Olympic star Andre de Grasse, all failed to finish as they experienced the same fate as Jamaica, with former world champion Yohan Blake, on anchor in the heats as they failed to advance to the final.

After falling short of qualifying for the final, the Bahamas held a slight lead going into the final leg of the B final, but on the home stretch, Adrian Griffith missed out on the opportunity to celebrate as he was caught in the closing metres by Trinidad & Tobago and Germany.

Griffith, anchoring the trio of Warren Fraser, Shavez Hart and Cliff Resias, ended up third in a seasons best of 39.18 seconds as Trinidad & Tobago surged to the front for victory in 39.04 chased by Germany in 39.18, a seasons best as well.

The same quartet of Fraser, Hart, Resias and Griffith ran 39.36sec for fourth in their heat and 10th overall. But they had their share of problems as well as the exchange between Hart and Resias was not that smooth and it cost the Bahamas the lead.

Its something that we will have to work on, said Fraser about the teams performance in the B final. We definitely have a lot of work to do if we want to go to London. Fraser was referring to the IAAF World Championships in London, England in August. The top eight teams in both the men's and women's 4x100m and 4x400m automatically qualify.

While the mens 4 x 100m fell short, Olympic gold medallist Shaunae Miller-Uibo ran a superb opening leg and world 400m leader Steven Gardiner an exceptional anchor leg, but it wasnt enough to get the two 4x400m teams into the final and an automatic berth into London.

Miller-Uibo, running in lane seven in the second of three heats, powered past Canadian Carline Muir in the first 200m and gave the rest of the team what seemed like an insurmountable lead.

But that wasnt enough as Anthonique Strachan held on to it on the second leg, but coming into the exchange, the Bahamas dropped into second. The Bahamas continued to lag as veteran Christine Amertil made her way around the track.

On the final exchange to rookie Rashan Brown, the Bahamas eventually faded into fourth coming onto the home stretch. Their time of 3min 34.40sec was good for 11th overall and out of the final.

Despite the fantastic comeback on the anchor leg by Gardiner, which he started fifth, he and the combination of Michael Mathieu, Demetrius Pinder and Andretti Bain ran a seasons best of 3min 05.37sec for third in their heat, but ninth overall as they missed the final spot to get into the final.

The Bahamas mens team will run in lane four in Sundays B final and the womens team will be in lane five in their B final.

In the men's sprint event, The Netherlands went on to secure the win in the heat in 38.71 for the first of two automatic times into the final. The other was the Peoples Republic of China in second in 38.97. The Bahamas, however, was 10th overall and just missed out like the men and women 4 x 400m in qualifying for the final and a berth into the World Championships at home.

But both the Bahamas men and women 4x400m teams will get a chance to redeem themselves when they compete in the B finals on Sunday.

The championships will conclude on Sunday starting at 7.35pm with the preliminaries of the mens 4x200m and ending with the introduction of the much anticipated mixed 4 x 400m (with two men and two women).

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Bahamas Miss Out On Finals At Iaaf World Relays - Bahamas Tribune

This article originally appeared in the July 2011 issue of Architectural Digest.

While out on an evening stroll during a visit to Lyford Cay, Bahamas, a few summers ago, John Knott and John Fondas scoped out a modest gabled cottage that a friend had suggested they see. The single-story house, near the ocean and painted the cotton-candy Nassau-pink typical of dwellings in this celebrated resort community on the island of New Providence, was surrounded by dense thickets of areca palms and Norfolk pines. A shady terrace in the back overlooked the rolling greens of Lyford Cay's golf course. It was a quiet and magical setting on what seemed like the edge of a jungle, recalls Knott, owner and creative director of the venerable fabric and wallpaper firms Quadrille, China Seas, and Alan Campbell. He and Fondas, Quadrille's marketing director, tiptoed around the vine-covered house, peered through its windows, and decided to buy it on the spotnever even having set foot inside. The landscape and views really did it, explains Knott. We aren't golfersit's purely visual. Somehow, the sea of green brings calm.

The pair soon discovered the house had a pedigree and good bones as well as charm. It was built in the early 1960s by British developer and racehorse aficionado Sir Gerald Glover and his wife in the Caribbean style popularized by Robertson Happy Ward, architect of such legendary escapes as the Cotton Bay Club in nearby Eleuthera, the Sandy Lane hotel in Barbados, and Bunny and Paul Mellon's home at Antigua's Mill Reef Club (which Ward cofounded in the late '40s). Rather ambitiously christened Pytchley Lodge after the village of Pytchley, England, where Glover was a member of the hunt, the cottage was laid out like a Georgian manor house in miniature: A central volume with a hipped roof contains the entrance hall, living room, and terrace, and wings to either side hold a dining room and two bedrooms. It had been altered over the decades, but not irrevocably so; the new owners stepped in to remove incongruous additionsincluding '70s track lighting and a screened porch that blocked their view of the 13th greenand returned the house to its original appearance. When they were done, only concrete walls and floors paved with sandy-color Cuban tiles remained.

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In Lyford Cay, Bahamas, textile impresario John Knott and his partner, John Fondas, worked on their island getaway with designer Andrew Raquet. Fabrics by Alan Campbell and China Seas add vivid accents to the living room; the desk is vintage Armani/Casa.

Though hardly decorating novices, Knott and Fondas brought aboard New York interior designer Andrew Raquet to help them take the next step. Everyone needs a referee, jokes Bahamian-bred Fondas, who owns the Lyford Cay home-furnishings shop Bamboo-Bamboo. Knott and Fondas wanted a departure from their other residencesan antiques-filled apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side and an 1839 Greek Revival home in Columbia County, New Yorkand naturally they wanted to dip into the fabric and wallpaper archives of Knott's companies, where they found a few tropical-hued patterns that looked appropriately resorty and befitting a '60s beach cottage, Fondas says.

While respectful of the past, Raquet and his clients felt no compunctions about tweaking certain traditions. The Bahamas are full of blue-and-white rooms, lots of Mark Hampton, Raquet observes. We wanted to do something different. And so they found themselves updating archival prints, recoloring them in sometimes eyebrow-raising palettes, to great effect. In the master bedroom, for instance, Raquet cleverly took an Alan Campbell floral fabric called Potalla, originally produced in muted blues, and had it recast as a wallpaperwith chalk-white flowers and leaves against a vibrant French-blue ground. The reimagined pattern lends the entire room a Matissean insouciance. The designer also reconceived a green Alan Campbell fern-motif fabric in a rich cinnamon-brown for a bolder, more modern look; it now generates a warm glow against woven-straw-covered walls and faux-bamboo screens in the graciously proportioned living room. The wall covering and the screens, Raquet acknowledges, are both classic Billy Baldwin decorating signatures that reflect the traditional side of Lyford Cay, where the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Stavros Niarchos, and Sean Connery have all been habitus (Connery still is).

The furnishings in the cottage hew to this more old-school style. American antiques from dealers in Hudson, New York, near the pair's country house, mingle with Empire mahogany pieces. And Fondas's collections19th-century shell trees and sailors' valentines, and portrait miniatures dating from the 18th century through the 1920sadd another layer while speaking to the island's storied past.

The result of the trio's witty decorating? A lively little house that's nothing short of a pink paradise, deliciously caught between seas of blue and green.

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See How a Renovated Cottage in the Bahamas Is Transformed Into the Ultimate Vacation Home - Architectural Digest

22 APR 2017 Report Nassau, The Bahamas

No surprises emerged from a competitive opening round, with defending champions USA, and perennial powers Jamaica and Poland looking the strongest ahead of tomorrow evening's final.

After running close with Australia over the opening two laps in heat one, Quanera Hayes, currently the world leader in the 400m, took command for the US quartet with a 50.73 split, the second fastest of the round. That allowed Natasha Hastings to come home on cruise control to seal the 3:29.27 win, the fastest of the three heats.

Stringing together a consistent series of 52-second legs, Australia finished a strong runner-up in 3:30.31 to also advance.

The second heat brought the crowd to life as Shaunae Miller-Uibo, the host country's biggest sporting star, led the Bahamian quartet onto the track -- and again several minutes later when she was formally introduced, and again a minute after that when the Olympic champion led off for the hosts.

Running in lane seven, Miller-Uibo made up the stagger on Canadian Carline Muir after 250 metres, giving her squad a three-stride lead after an impressive 50.25 leg, the fastest of the evening. They held their lead through legs two and three but the pressure was too much for anchor Rashan Brown, who eventually faded to fourth and out of contention for a spot in the final.

The race for the win came down to Great Britain and Nigeria with Margaret Bamgbose out-dueling Briton Kelly Massey over the waning stages to take the victory in 3:31.97. The British squad were next in 3:33.00 to move on as well.

Poland produced the most entertaining victory of the round, battling with Jamaica leg-for-leg, with anchor Justyna Swiety even tossing in an impressive come-from-behind flourish to overtake Anneisha McLaughlin-Whilby over the final 40 metres. Poland clocked 3:29.42 and Jamaica 3:29.93 to easily claim their spots in the final.

Botswana was next in 3:31.61 with Germany fourth in 3:34.34 to take the last two lanes in the final.

Bob Ramsak for the IAAF

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Women's 4x400m heats - IAAF/BTC World Relays Bahamas 2017 - International Association of Athletics Federations

Three sprinters two University of Houston students and an alumnus have been invited to the IAAF World Relays to represent their countries on the track. | Ajani Stewart/The Cougar

The chance to run on the worlds stage and bring glory to their country: That is what awaits two current athletes on the Cougar track & field team and one graduate who has remained on campus to train with the Olympic coaching staff.

Sophomore sprinter Mario Burke, freshman sprinter Brianne Bethel and Class of 2016 Cougar LeShon Collins have been invited to run in the 4x100m relays for their respective nations at the International Association of Athletics FederationsWorld Relays in Nassau, Bahamas.

The meet is a precursor to the IAAF World Championships in London. The top eight times in the 4x100m and 4x200m relays automatically qualify for the World Championships this August.

I think (making top eight)would be an amazing accomplishment because, in my opinion, thats one of the easiest qualifications you can have for the World Championships, said assistant coach Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie. All you have to be is the top eight, and youre in. It doesnt get any easier than that.

For Burke, an international student from Barbados, his desire to qualify for the World Championships has been public. After finishing third in the 100m at the U20 World Championships this summer, Burke put on record that he wanted to get to London.

He is well on his way to being one of the top three athletes in his country and qualifying individually for the World Championships in addition to being a member of the relay team.

Assistant coach Carl Lewis said that Burke would have gone to the Rio Olympics last summer if he had not held him back, citing the fact he was only 19 years old.

In the meantime, Burke made a trip to the NCAA Indoor Championships, ran on a 4x400m relay team that set the school record and ran on a 4x100m team that has the second-fastest time in the country.

After spending the last two summers representing his country in Houston, Burke is on pace to do so again.

(Going to the relays is) a very huge confidence booster because I get to run against guys I used to watch on my television, Burke said. I feel really good because Ive been progressing in this program and its given me a lot of opportunities.

For freshman Brianne Bethel, the relays in Nassau stand for more than just a chance to represent her country. They are also a chance to run on her home track while wearing the black, yellow and aquamarine of the Bahamas.

I feel honored, Bethel said. I appreciate that they trust me enough to be on the team no matter how young I am. They have faith in me, and I have faith in myself as well. I just want to go there and represent my country as best I can and bring home a medal.

Bethel has been a key part of the freshman class that helped propel the women to a top three conference finish.

Her success has helped Bethel earn her way onto the Bahamas relay team, something her coach Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie, an Olympic gold medalist for the Bahamas, knows from firsthand experience.

Ferguson-McKenzie ran with Bethel at the 2015 relays. She and the rest of the coaching staff said they knew Bethel has the talent to make this team. Now, she just has to perform.

You have a lot of kids who dont have that opportunity, Ferguson-McKenzi said. I just want her to not take it for granted and to make the most of it.

2016 graduate LeShon Collins was a force during his time for the Cougars. Qualifying for nationals in the 60, 100, 200 and 4x100m relays, he did anything and everything in the sprints. Now as a pro, he has remained at Houston as a member of assistant coach Carl Lewis Team Perfect Method.

In his first year as a professional, Collins placed second in the 60m at the USATF Indoor Championships. He finished second behind last years national champion, Ronnie Baker.

Collins performance at the championships is what earned him a call up to the relay team. There, he will be joined by Baker, Olympic gold medalist Justin Gatlin and defending World Relays champion Mike Rodgers.

To see two kids that are at UH going to the World Relays representing us internationally, and then one athlete that has gone on and is representing the United States post-collegiately, it (realizes) our vision, Lewis said. So all these young recruits that come to us that want to go to the Olympics, were actually physically showing them the path. You can do it in school while youre here, and you can do it post-collegiately.

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Tags: Brianne Bethel, IAAF World Relays, Leshon Collins, Mario Burke, Olympics

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Sprinters head to Bahamas with world championship goals - The Daily Cougar

Trinidad Guardian

Bahamas starts payouts to Clico policyholders Monday Trinidad Guardian NASSAU Starting on Monday, Clico policyholders in the Bahamas are set to receive long overdue payments. After failing to deliver monies as promised back in January, the Government issued a statement on Tuesday assuring that qualified policyholders ... and more »

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Bahamas starts payouts to Clico policyholders Monday - Trinidad Guardian

What has been described as The Bahamas governments latest attack on local NGOs has been denounced as reckless, dangerous and a clear sign of how desperate the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) party has become.

Over the last year, the PLP has steadily escalated its assault on Save The Bays (STB), after the noted environmental group took legal action against the partys major funder, developer Peter Nygard. As unrest grew over its mismanagement of the economy, lack of transparency and increasingly authoritarian behaviour, the party also began to attack social commentators, bloggers and protest organizers.

Now, on the eve of an election, an extremely unpopular government is frantic to appease Nygard, presumably to gain access to campaign funding, so they have taken the reckless, extremely dangerous decision to officially accuse us of being terrorists, said STB legal director, Fred Smith, QC.

Worst of all, in an effort to disguise their true intentions, they have leveled the same accusation at scores of other NGOs many of which have never locked horns with the government.

He was referring to the fact that on Friday, March 31, STB received a letter from the Registrar of Companies demanding that the NGO turn over its financial records in accordance with the section of the law regarding suspected funding for terrorism.

STB has since filed a constitutional challenge alleging a violation the groups right to privacy. In response, the Registrar claimed that the move was a routine request and had been issued to more than 100 NGOs.

Smith stressed that STB and any other group that chooses to resist this demand cannot be accused of unreasonably withholding information or rejecting a reasonable request.

There is nothing routine or reasonable about this, Smith said. The fact of the matter is, the Registrar specifically requested the information under the Companies (Non-Profit Organization) Regulations, 2014, Article 13(2), which only requires for the provision of such information to assess the extent to which the registered non-profit organization is being used to assist terrorist financing.

The government has basically announced that they suspect the entire NGO community of funding terrorism, without presenting a single shred of evidence. This wild and dangerous accusation represents a fundamental violation of due process. What happened to being innocent until proven guilty?

According to Smith, other NGOs have been recklessly maligned by this request tarred with the same brush simply in an attempt cover up the PLPs attack on STB and a handful of other groups which have sought to hold the government accountable.

We are not in the slightest convinced the government even wants our financial records; the point of this whole exercise is to tarnish our names and reputations by painting us as terrorists in an effort to intimidate us in to silence, he said.

The pattern is clear first, they unlawfully accessed STBs emails and tried to paint us as seditionists. That backfired with the Supreme Courts fining a Cabinet minister $150,000 for violating our privacy.

Then, agents of the state colluded with individuals in the Nygard camp to threaten our lives and safety, but that also blew up in their face, with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issuing official precautionary measures for members of STB and ordering the government to ensure our safety.

The PLP is now clearly at the end of its rope and senior members have become dangerously unhinged, actually accusing respected members of civil society of terrorism as happens in the worst and most brutal tin-pot dictatorships around the world.

He said STB has launched judicial review proceedings over the attorney generals decision to make the bogus accusation and, in doing so, hopes to lay bare the unholy alliance between the PLP and certain developers, once and for all.

Aside from being an unconstitutional breach of freedom of expression the Registrars demand is a clear attempt to intimidate and oppress STB and others into silence, as the groups challenges to unregulated development have upset the governing partys wealthy foreign funders in particular Peter Nygard.

Smith went on to accuse the PLP of placing the country on the road to failed state status over the past five years.

He said the public should be alarmed by the lengths the party is willing to go to neutralize perceived opponents, as paranoid leaders can target anyone and everyone unpredictably. Meanwhile, he said the country is being severely embarrassed on the international stage.

All Bahamians should be extremely concerned. If they can accuse us with a straight face of something so preposterous as terrorism, literally anyone could be next, he said.

The idea that STBs esteemed international board of directors including individuals such as former US Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady and renowned environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are secretly e.g. members of ISIS is patently ridiculous, laughable if it were not such a serious accusation! Yet it will have a critical and lasting effect on our international relations. That the PLP would stoop to this level, just to win an election, is shameful, unpatriotic and should be contemned by all right thinking Bahamians.

Smith urged Bahamians to see the attacks on STB and other NGOs in the wider context of a wide scale anti-democratic trend under the PLP.

For five long years, the party has failed to deliver on its promise to pass and enact a progressive Freedom of Information Act; meanwhile under the cover of night, they brought forward the notorious Spy Bill and were seeking to force it through Parliament without the public having any say.

In a nutshell, what this means is that while the citizenry are being denied their right to transparency and accountability, the government is seeking to give itself the power to tap your phone, hack your emails, break into your home and install cameras and listening devices.

Whats more, the Spy Bill would allow them to target individuals for perceived violations of public morality and public health. Literally anyone can be made to fit this description and you can guarantee that political opponents and anyone who has questioned the government will be the first to have their privacy violated.

This is the same government that accepted riot gear, armored cars and tear gas grenades from the Chinese government, the only possible intent being to use this brutal equipment on their own population. And, they have put military personnel on the streets of the capital with the excuse that they are needed to help in the fight against crime. The PLP are following a well established road map to repressive dictatorship through the threat of force and a sinister surveillance culture designed to intimidate anyone who would seek to exercise their freedom of expression.

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A frantic Bahamas government comes unhinged, says environmental group - Antigua Observer

19 APR 2017 Preview Nassau, The Bahamas

Two years ago, the US scored a decisive victory over arch rivals Jamaica in the mens 4x100m at the IAAF World Relays, the throat-slitting celebration gesture of Ryan Bailey afterwards proving as memorable as the race itself.

To many, it was considered a significant, cataclysmic win, the US men finally interrupting Jamaicas relay dominance four months out from the IAAF World Championships in Beijing. In the end, of course, that proved to be misguided, given Jamaica returned to the top by winning the world title in Beijing then going on to win the Olympic title with ease in Rio.

In both of those finals, the US men faced embarrassment and frustration, disqualified after botched exchanges resulted in zone infringements.

Which leads us here, with the US men returning to Nassau trying to successfully defend the one title they still hold over their Caribbean rivals.

The race will bring down the curtain on the first day of events in Nassau on Saturday night (22), with a typically strong selection from the US set for action. It includes Justin Gatlin, Marvin Bracy, Mike Rodgers, Ronnie Baker and Leshon Collins.

With Usain Bolt not in attendance, Jamaica looks even more vulnerable than they did in 2015, though they still go into battle with an assembly of seasoned sprinters of the highest calibre.

None more so than Yohan Blake, the 2011 world champion who finished fourth in the Olympic 100m final in Rio. He will be joined by Asafa Powell, who, at 34, may well be past his best but is still an opponent no rival team will wish to see in opposition. Powell opened his outdoor season with a comfortable 100m win in 10.18 at the Grenada Invitational earlier this month.

Kemar Bailey-Cole, Everton Clarke, Julian Forte and Jevaughn Minzie are the other four Jamaicans listed in their 4x100m squad.

Olympic silver medallists Japan will also be in attendance, though they will be missing all four athletes who comprised their final quartet in Rio so may struggle to match those heroics. Canada looks a more likely bet to challenge the US and Jamaica, with all four of their bronze-medal-winning team in Rio slated to run in Nassau.

Their star, of course, will be Andre De Grasse, the 22-year-old Olympic 100m bronze and 200m silver medallist, who will be joined by teammates Akeem Haynes, Aaron Brown and Brendon Rodney.

Of the rest, the British quartet looks the strongest, with Adam Gemilli, Chijindu Ujah and Richard Kilty all slated to compete.

Cathal Dennehy for the IAAF

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Men's 4x100m preview IAAF/BTC World Relays Bahamas 2017 - International Association of Athletics Federations

PT Usha, coach of womens relay team (4x400m), has refused to let trainees participate in the world relay event in Bahamas, scheduled to be held later this week.

The national relay teams are already struggling to get the US transit visa to compete in the world relays to be held in Nassau, Bahamas on April 22-23.

On top of the uncertainty over whether they will participate, the womens relay team (4x400m) suffered a setback with former track great PT Usha refusing to let her wards Tintu Lukka and Jisna Mathew go. Usha, who was named the womens team coach, has also opted out.

Tintu Luka and Jisna Mathew are trainees at the Usha School of Athletics in Kozhikode and are among the six athletes selected for the womens relay team. Since there was delay in getting the travel documents, the duo wants to focus on the Asian Grand Prix series to be held on April 24, 27 (both China) and April 30 (Chinese Taipei).

However, the other four members of the relay team, including national 400m champion, MR Poovamma, arrived in the Capital on Thursday to get the US transit visa.

Ideally, the national team should have left latest by Thursday to compete in the $1.26 million prize money event.

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PT Usha pulls out trainees from world relay event in Bahamas | other ... - Hindustan Times