Take a guess "SP". Charcoal is not the hard rock from underground (coal) but partly burned wood used habitually by a people inhabiting the western part of an island south of Inagua. The people of that country share the island with another nation and the border between the two nations is easily discernible from an aircraft since there is virtually no vegetation on the western side of the border between the two nations.
Why the reporter does not provide some information about the people carrying out the operation seems to fall into the same category as the police in Sweden not identifying the national origin of the perpetrators of the crime wave assaulting that nation.

Let us recall that Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is still in power and ruling over his starving people at the ripe old age of 90 years if the recent news reports are to be trusted.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the majority of Bahamians have become accustomed to living on a little more than a handful of peanuts and a glass of water each day while their leaders build mansions and feed them a line of hogwash intended to fill their empty bellies.
While it is true that Bahamians are not accustomed to seeing politicians hauled before the courts for alleged crimes against the public purse it is also true that many countries have convicted their former leaders of massive corruption. Brazil and their former president Lula is just one example.
Like the gangster in Rio de Janeiro told the reporter (in Portuguese, of course): "The politicians steal with a pen, I steal with a gun".

An interesting idea but "The Abaconian" newspaper only appears twice a month with those all- important real estate advertisements in full colour so it will not be as convenient as it used to be in Cuba when the party newspaper "Granma" was in the habit of printing Horarios de Apagones (a schedule of power cuts) so as to forewarn the populace.

The threat of using the death penalty has reared its head again and once more the general public needs to be reminded of one of the main reasons the UK ceased using the death penalty decades ago. Read up the infamous case of John Reginald Halliday Christie who testified at the trial of Timothy Evans accused of murdering his wife and his baby daughter Geraldine. Evans was found guilty and promptly hanged. A few years later the bodies Christie had hidden in the walls and back garden of his house at 10 Rillington Place were discovered by new tenants. Christie was arrested while on the run and was hanged for his numerous crimes. However, this outcome did not benefit Timothy Evans in any way.

With these rating agencies it could come down to a choice between: A. introducing an income tax, B. Increasing the VAT to perhaps 20%, or C. Drastically reducing the public payroll and/or trying to sell off a few government subsidized corporations, or a combination of the above.
Perhaps we shall hear a communication on this matter from our DPM in the relatively near future. Personally, I find it hard to believe that a Minister of Finance will have an easy time in deciding upon a course of action that will prove palatable to the general public.

People are asking how could it happen. It happened because too many Bahamians have come to believe that anything "foreign" is either better in some strange way or easy to milk for money. Perhaps both of these "beliefs" are widespread. However, both beliefs should make any thinking person very sad since they reveal a deep-seated lack of confidence in the people by the powers that be as well as a lack of confidence and pride on the part of many Bahamians who see their country as worthy only of being sold to the highest bidder.

How many of you readers remember the famous (or infamous) refrain from the days of Pindling and Wallace-Whitfield: "prosecute your backside straight to jail"? What came of that except for the phrase to be used as club with which to punish Wallace-Whitfield whose party suffered defeat at election time.
Threats to expose a previous administration's perceived wrongdoing can be made freely during an election campaign but following up those threats with action is a different matter entirely.
I don't know what the rest of you were expecting but this old head was skeptical from the very beginning.

Perhaps they were never certain of an election victory and so have been, in a sense, taken by surprise.
Of course, these are early days yet but the voters are somewhat surprised to hear about BAMSI spending continuing as if the PLP were still in office after all that criticism directed toward the project.
BMSI will never be able to feed this country. That is a simple fact. No government is or ever has been seriously committed to this country achieving agricultural self sufficiency. After all, they cannot impose customs duties on locally grown crops.
The rest of us can only hope that we haven't jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Only time will tell.

As they say in Italian: Tutte e questione di soldi: Everything is a question of money. Not many people can afford a new car for 40 or 50 thousand dollars so they look to the used car market, especially in Japan where they know the standards are high. There can be problems with spare parts but this obstacle is not insurmountable. When you stick with Toyota, Honda or Nissan and maintain the vehicle to the recommended standard you can expect a long service life from your purchase. Perhaps one day when everyone is rich there will be a majority of new vehicles on the roads. Until then, check the Japanese used car websites in Tokyo and Yokohama.

And let's have LNG for electricity generation so that a certain person is stripped of the contract for the supply of diesel oil and bunker C for BPL.
The outcome of this election was truly startling and I have seen elections from 1962 onward.
The FNM must understand that the people have shifted their allegiance to them in what can only be called an act of faith. Do not disappoint them.