Separation of church and state is what developing societies decided was the right thing to do centuries ago. Anyone wanting to re-join the two wants to take us back to the dark ages.

Mitchell is quite simply the worst thing that has ever happened to this country. He has no respect for the rule of law, he thinks he IS the law and he further smears excrement on the reputation of The Bahamas with virtually every word he speaks, or every xenophobic order that he gives to his Immigration henchmen, not to mention the millions of taxpayer dollars he wastes every year travelling all over the world, first class, staying in 5 star hotels and throwing parties in expensive restaurants. You cannot try to encourage foreign investment with one hand and treat them like crap with the other...it is so simple a 5 year old could understand it...why can't Mitchell?

Pay increase? Let's not forget the $100,000+ of free first class travel and hotels they all get through the ridiculous number of foreign trips they all go on. Considering the PLP dislikes foreigners, it's surprising how much they love to travel abroad! And let's not even start to talk about all the kick backs and pay offs from their Chinese masters and others. When their entire "benefits" package is added up, these guys are in the top 1% of Bahamians. But here's a legitimate suggestion: give them all a pay rise, but end ALL foreign travel apart from, let's say, 5 trips a year for each of the PM and FM, plus two people to travel with them...that way they could all have their pay rise and the taxpayer would save millions.

Absolutely disgusting! The amount the "Government" and especially Fred Mitchell spends on carrying their bloated entourages on all kinds of ridiculous trips, flying first class and living it up in the best hotels in the world...and they pay our war veterans $11 a month. Absolutely disgusting. Cancel just one of Fred's trips and they would have enough money to multiply the pension of every living veteran ten times or more. Sickening, self-serving, pocket-lining politicians.

Yes, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, but where there is a will there is a way. Mr. Coulson correctly, in my view, correctly identifies the main villain in all of this as being CCA and he also makes the valid point that Baha Mar will never reach its potential unless its original visionary remains involved with the project in some way.

OMG, why do some Bahamians always have to play the race card?! Yes, there are many well educated Bahamians; most of them (1) wouldn't belittle themselves by playing the race card and (2) have more sense than to believe Government's propaganda that Izmirlian, the evil foreigner, is to blame for all the mess. The word on the street is that two high ranking Government officials received multi-million dollar payments from their Chinese paymasters to get rid of Izmirlian the day after the Chapter 11 filing...looks like they earned it.

CCA seems to admit that they only care about completing projects on time and to high standards if THEY are the ones who own the development. No wonder they performed so appallingly on Baha Mar...they didn't have the ownership incentive (although they are now getting their pals in the PLP to try to sort that out for them). Now that CCA has skin in the game on Bay Street, the Government should turn the screw and tell them they will cancel all their permits if CCA doesn't pull its finger out and get Baha Mar finished first.

The Developers of Baker's Bay continue to desecrate the local environment, pollute the reef and fail to live up to the promises they made before their development was approved. And there go our politicians, more focused on rubbing shoulders with celebrities and getting their free lunch from the Developer than in protecting our environment for future generations of Bahamians and tourists. It's sickening.

Dare I state the obvious that a pension is not supposed to be a living wage. You are supposed to have actually made some personal savings over those 40 years of employment, I'm afraid, and your pension is just supposed to help out, not replace your salary. I hate going down to National Insurance as much as the next person, and maybe there has been some miscalculation in this particular case. But even if this was resolved, it's not like this gentleman's pension is going to jump from $400 per month to $2,000 per month. People need to learn to live within their means and save money religiously for their retirement.

It must be a cold day in hell...a union leader who actually tells the truth and states publicly that a strike is nonsensical and that it is all about "greedy people". Hallelujah! Stop press: sensible comments issue forth from lips of a Trade Union leader...first time in history!