World News

Afrobeats superstar, Ayra Starr, announced via social media that she will be bringing her World Tour to Barbados for the highly anticipated Barbados Food and Rum Festival this October. It is the only Caribbean island featured on the tour schedule.

The Nigerian performer, who has taken the world by storm with her hit songs ‘Rush’, ‘Bloody Samaritan’ and others, recently celebrated her birthday with friends in Barbados. Now she is returning to take the stage at the island’s famous Festival which runs from October 19-22, 2023.

Red alerts were issued for 16 cities across Italy as extreme heat continued to affect southern Europe. The alerts, which indicate risks even for healthy people, apply to tourist hotspots including Rome, Florence, and Bologna for the coming days.

The heatwave has already lasted longer than usual and night-time temperatures have remained high. More high temperatures are expected in Europe this week as another heatwave approaches.

Today marks Bastille Day, the day at the start of the French Revolution in 1789 when the French people stormed the Bastille, a Parisian prison that embodied the injustice of the Bourbon monarchy.

Soon after, the French people gave the Marquis de Lafayette, who had helped the United States gain independence from Great Britain, the key to the Bastille as a gesture of good faith, entrusting him to protect France’s newly won liberties.

If you have an emergency in a toilet you better be in Hong Kong attending an event at he Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre is not only ready for more world-class conventions, but it will also roll out a new AI Life Sense Alert System in 61 accessible toilets.

In 2020, Irene Mositol often stayed up until the early hours of the morning to complete training for her participation in the U.S. Department of State’s Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE).

Living in the rural community of Kampung Bundu Tuhan, Malaysia, Mositol lacked consistent internet service and studied when her connection was strongest.

Jamaica’s energy ministry released the country’s first electric vehicle policy as part of the island’s push to increase energy security, diversify supply and decarbonise.

The roadmap’s main goals are the development of an enabling regulatory environment, deployment of efficient charging infrastructure, establishment of guidelines related to standards and batteries, training and public engagement. The policy highlights penetration targets established in the Strategic Framework for Electric Mobility, with 12% of electric vehicles being privately owned by 2030 and 16% being public transport.

For some Indian people, begging provides them with some help as they desperately struggle but this is not the case for Bharat Jain, who is said to be the world’s richest beggar. He has turned begging into a profitable and lucrative profession, taking begging to a new level.

Bharat can be seen begging on the streets of Mumbai, receiving money from unsuspecting citizens. Due to financial instability, Bharat was unable to pursue formal education and resorted to begging in order to get money.

Uganda Wildlife Authority UWA the body in charge of managing Uganda’s National parks and protected areas organized a stakeholder engagement. The meeting took place on Friday at the Skyz Hotel in the suburbs of Kampala on Naguru Hill.

Present at the meeting were representatives from the Uganda Tourist Association (UTA)  Association of Uganda Tour Operators( AUTO) Uganda Safari Guides Association (USAGA), Exclusive Sustainable Tour Operators Association (ESTOA ) Tour Guides Forum Uganda  (TOGOFU), freelance Guides and Concessionaires. Presiding over the engagement was UWA Executive Director Sam Mwandha, Business Development Director, Stephen Saanyi Masaba, and Paul Ninsiima Sales and Marketing Manager who were later joined by The State Minister for Wildlife and Antiquities Hon. Martin Mugarra Bahinduka.

Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett (right) led discussion with Reggae Sumfest organiser and CEO of Downsound Entertainment, Joe Bogdanovich (left) about this year’s staging and the future of the festival.

Mr Bogdanovich shared that he and his team are considering taking the Reggae Sumfest brand into overseas markets, creating an additional pull factor for visitors to Jamaica. In keeping with this, Minister Bartlett emphasized that as Sumfest’s strategic vision becomes clearer, the Ministry would be better positioned to plan and provide support towards the festival’s success.

A 44-foot-long Japanese style handscroll painted by a famous Indian blind artist nearly 100 years ago has resurfaced and gone on public display for the first time in the city of his birth, Kolkata. Benodebehari Mukherjee, born in 1904, was blind in one eye and severely myopic in the other. He lost his vision entirely at 53. Mukherjee, who died in 1980, created trailblazing works as a painter of landscapes and frescos. He was also a sculptor and muralist and came to define modern art in 20th Century India.

African Tourism Board president Mr. Cuthbert Ncube arrived in Western Tanzania to attend a special tourism Beach Round Table Conference and an award-giving ceremony over this weekend.

Together with other tourism and travel executives from Tanzania and East Africa, Mr. Ncube will receive the Lake Victoria Super Kalemera Tourism Award at a Gala Dinner to be hosted in Bukoba town on the shores of Lake Victoria in Western Tanzania. The ATB President arrived in Bukoba town a day ago and then visited various tourist attraction sites shared by Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and partly Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 

Attorney-at-law John S. Bassie was recently elected as president of the Jamaican Bar Association. He replaces Alexander Williams who served as president for one term.

Bassie was nominated and elected unopposed at the annual general meeting of the Jamaican Bar Association, on June 24 at the Norman Manley Law School Lecture Theatre in Mona, St Andrew. His vice-president is attorney-at-law Kevin Powell.

The president of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) appealed to Caribbean tourism leaders to craft their own fate in the vital travel and tourism sector and not be driven by the agendas of interests outside the region.

Nicola Madden-Greig noted that although overall tourism activity in the Caribbean is almost back to pre-pandemic levels, with some destinations growing by “leaps and bounds”, others are lingering in recovery mode, largely because of an imbalance in the dispersal of flights and insufficient marketing resources.

There are an estimated 1 billion people with disabilities worldwide. Their contributions benefit us all. In the United States, July is Disability Pride Month. It marks the 1990 enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a landmark U.S. rights law that extended civil rights protections to persons with disabilities and assured that all Americans would benefit from their talents.

COP28 President-Designate, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, today addressed the Conference of the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in Trinidad and Tobago, where he said Caribbean nations will play a critical role at COP28 in aligning support for climate action, and that old models must be challenged to ensure that climate diplomacy delivers results for Caribbean nations.

The Government of St. Eustatius has announced that its financial performance for 2022 exceeded expectations, with a budget surplus of US$1.4 million.

This represents a US$2.1 million turnaround from the US$700,000 deficit recorded by the tiny Dutch Caribbean island in 2021. This improvement owes much to a better-than-projected US$7 million increase in revenue.