Anyone has got to be better than Mitchell...so hateful and xenophobic...the irony of him being Minister of Foreign Affairs when he hates foreigners. I guess his love of spending millions of dollars of taxpayers' money flying first class all over the world must outweigh his hatred of foreigners. In a First World country the amount he, and Brave, spend on unnecessary, luxurious travel here there and everywhere would be a career-ending scandal. But let's face it, whoever replaces him will probably do the same thing, just with a little less hate.

Town Planning and DEPP all going crazy in recent years...happy to change zoning and ignore local concerns in several cases, always ruling in favour of the deep-pockets developer who wants to put up 8 or 9 storeys in the middle of low-rise residential. People of Goodman's Bay got screwed and more screwing probably to come; people in Balmoral about to get screwed and even the wealthy in Lyford Cay getting screwed...in that case it's ironically by one of their own...I guess the love of money is greater than the love of community in that case. The decisions these bodies have allowed have all been contrary to local resident wishes and contrary to the stated mission of these bodies...and obviously so. I hope there hasn't been any secret "incentivising" of the decision makers.

Shame to see any government brazenly and wantonly breaking the law...shows we are nothing but a third world banana republic...and then the "politicians" who behave in such a childish and disrespectful way expect to be respected by their citizens and by other world leaders. What an embarrassment. Still, the vulture lawyers will be happy to tell the FNM they can win, then bill them extortionate fees to keep enriching themselves no matter the final result in court.

Very happy to see PM fighting back at the immoral, greedy and hypocritical actions of the EU.
Not so happy with the rubbish response on the question of exorbitant travel costs...once again deflecting from the issue. Of course we, the People, want our country to look outward and make relationships...the obvious point is that to do that you don't need to send "gussie mae" sized delegations of cronies all over the world, flying first class and staying in 5 star hotels everywhere. Send just the minimum people to get the job done, and send the right people, not the cronies and tag-alongs.

So your argument is "if you cannot fix everything, don't try to fix anything". That won't get us very far. I'd take an environmental lawyer trying to do good, for free, any day over all the other blood-sucking lawyers preying on clients, telling them they have a good case and then sucking them dry even when they lose. Lawyers are the greatest toxic substance in our country.

One country, two systems...haha...that's working out really well for Hong Kong.

The fact that we were willing as a country to go further than the bare minimum that CITES could reach an agreement on is a good thing, not a bad one. After decades of turtles disappearing, finally seeing turtles in the wild has become a common thing and long may it continue.
The fact that neighbouring countries do something differently doesn't mean that what we did was wrong...in this case it means that what we did was better, more forward thinking, more ethical and better for our country, our future generations and our planet. It means that our government wasn't scared by a tiny minority of people who wanted to continue killing turtles...can you guess who...the commercial fisherman who, surprise, surprise, were in favour of the petition to start killing turtles again!
My fellow Bahamians in general, unfortunately, don't seem to care much for the environment. They happily litter, clear protected land, harvest undersized conch, take lobster and grouper out of season and basically do whatever they want without any regard for the future of our environment. They have proven that if there is a rule that tries to conserve a natural resource, they will find ways to bend that rule or ignore it. The only viable way of protecting the turtles in our seas was and remains a total ban.
Thank God for people like Kim Aranha.

Ok, then. Point taken. So if the rest of us can manage to sort out our own travel arrangements, testing where necessary, Verifly, passenger locator forms, travel health visas etc in our own time when we aren’t working and dealing with all the other stresses of life, travel agents whose full time jobs are to deal with travel related issues should find it a breeze to deal with the simple (my kids can do it themselves) requirements to come here. And why do they keep implying that our requirements are so incredibly strict when the requirements to enter their own countries are more strict?

Another ridiculous, deceitful “travel agent” letter. I hope the US government will also be forthcoming with information about the hundreds of visitors to the US who die every year!
The idea that people are cancelling trips because they haven’t heard the private details of these unfortunate deaths is absurd. Nobody would ever travel to the US if they worried about all the crime and violent deaths there…and there wasn’t even any foul play in this case. Quite frankly the idea that anyone still uses a travel agency to book a simple flight and a hotel stay is also laughable, as laughable as the whining complaints about “unrealistic and expensive rules”…seriously? The Bahamas gives you 3 days to get a test done…the US gives you one day, so tell me, who is being unreasonable here. If it is “so difficult” to come to The Bahamas, why are the hotels now operating at 90%+ occupancy and why are the flights so full that any seats left cost a fortune? Stop whining, stop being a hypocrite and please grow up.

Don’t watch US media unless it is to laugh at Fox News from time to time.

Not that it will ever happen now, but isn’t it obvious that Ukraine, after having Crimea invaded and suffering from Russian-backed insurrection in the Eastern Donbas, might think it a good idea to try and protect itself from further Russian aggression? And as for Sweden and Finland…hello? They have just seen Russia invade a European sovereign country and not surprisingly are also a little bit concerned for their own protection as long as a dictator like Putin remains in control (by locking up or murdering anyone who opposes him).
Where is the threat from Russia? This cannot be a serious question. Yes, China is a big threat, but the existence of the Chinese threat does not negate the existence of the Russian threat…that would be like saying we don’t need to worry about ebola because haven’t you heard about malaria…ie absurd.
Agree 100% that China is a big, malevolent threat to the free, democratic world, but you can make that case much more strongly if you don’t undermine yourself with other absurdities.