Since we've made a decades long comittment to run LNG when are we going to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement? (as clearly we have no intention of getting off fossil fuels)

Funny how with VAT, VAT hikes, tax hikes, bond holders have not been asked to contribute anything to this great new future the commenter speaks about. I presume in this bright new future, all will have to pay more for less except again of course the bond holders?

When will he be asking the bondholders to become "incentivized" and "get with the times"?

No manufacturing is ever coming to the Bahamas, we've chosen a cruise based tourism product that nets almost nothing to the country/the treasury, and now he is advocating giving up the one clear advantage the Bahamas has for nothing in return? For what? More cruise lines to come here? LOL

For the record, before the cruise ships got bigger, and we acted against the banking industry starting in 2000 the Bahamas did well enough without needing VAT or income taxes! So perhaps time to revisit those decisions I'd say.

Remind me again what part about increasing cruise ship visitors and building new cruise ship terminals is sustainable? Cruise lines have a plan to be fossil fuel free by what date again?

>Carnival and its subsidiaries repeatedly falsified records, as recently as September 2018,

1. Its not a training problem.
2. If it was an honest failure to know where the ship was there would have been no need to falsify or destroy records.

Its clear the whole industry is a ruse to avoid regulation, and labour and environmental standards which mean anything. Consequently, I would suggest you apply to run a land based hotel in the Bahamas whereby it won't be necessary for everyone to worry about how to avoid regulations, create false records and to deal with court orders etc. I think this is a solution that will work better for all concerned.

Fine them. Kick Carnival and the other cruise lines out forever. Their allegiance is to profit, and completely at odds with growing with a host country as everything they do is designed to avoid any form of meaningful regulation. It is a toxic industry which never should have been allowed to grow to where it is today. Everyone who has said its a toxic industry is proved right by all this.

If the Bahamas can't get come to the realization on the above then it might as well put the Carnival logo on its flag and recognize it no longer controls its economy or environment in any meaningful way.

Well IT IS our backyard and the Bahamas sets the rules. Its so simple really. Do we want dumping cruise ships that bring little money to the real economy or a land based hotel economy that is accountable to the people and the laws of the land?

And if you want the latter, just kick out the former and reclaim the country, its all not even hard to do to, just invite them to leave and pay their fines on the way out.

The government should be kicking them of the Bahamas for good along with the other cruise lines. And the court should impound one of their ships for security against damages/fines to prevent them just fleeing justice. If it ends up being less than the value of the ship, or they are innocent of all the allegations of dumping, they can have the ship back upon payment of the damages and fines or upon being found not guilty of all of this.

We surrender all pretense of legal and economic soverignty if the current cruise ship status quo continues. Clearly laws and regulations mean nothing if they can get away with all this. If breaking their US probation rules mean nothing, then we are a rule of the cruise ships, not of democracy and law. I mean if that's what people want, then lets just be honest about it.

The court report shows how futile trying to regulate them is. This was all part of a period they were supposedly under watch/probation event. The judge will give them no real punishment. The only solution is to ban them permanently from the Bahamas, an ideally in concert with other island nations too.

Amazing. Does the Bahamas not have to consider compliance with regulators in other places to allow Carnival to operate here? And did any of these incidents occur in the Bahamas? And if so, what action was taken?

Hmmm. Well, ELITES benefit with Carnival as a few foreign shareholders then make all the profits off our tourism, and foreign workers aboard the ships are paid peanuts to do what Bahamian workers would do if tourists visited via hotels at proper wages. So not wanting Carnival hurts these elites, and is in fact to the betterment of the common Bahamian person. Have never understood why the transformation of our tourism into a cruise based product is not met with more opposition for the toxic development it really is.