Leaders have failed to tackle invasion of sargassum, which may have a bumper year in 2024

Schools evacuated due to toxic gas. Smelly tap water at home. Tourist operators and fishers struggling to stay in business. Job losses. Power outages affecting tens of thousands of people at a time. Dangerous health problems. Even lives lost.

Such crises were some of the consequences of sargassum seaweed in the islands of the Caribbean in 2023, which have become common in the region since 2011, when massive blooms began inundating the shorelines in the spring and summer months.

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The president of Guyana’s scolding of a BBC reporter struck a chord with many who feel silenced by western dominance and the legacy of economic violence

Caribbean nations have such a long history of economic violence, manipulation and exploitation perpetrated against them by the west that it is generally expected that they take it on the chin. Recently, however, their leaders have been standing up to a spate of condescension and sanctioned bullying.

In an interview with the BBC reporter Stephen Sackur, the president of Guyana, Irfaan Ali, displayed what can only be termed controlled rage. Ali scolded and schooled Sackur on the hypocrisy of the developed world, questioning his agenda and integrity. The interview reverberated around the global south. This was not the first time a British journalist had tried to patronise Ali. Last year, Richard Madeley, on the subject of slavery reparations with Ali, was outrageously disrespectful.

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HMS Trent seized 200kg of cocaine and other drugs in two operations that intercepted speedboats

The Royal Navy has seized nearly £17m worth of drugs after it intercepted smuggling speedboats in the Caribbean Sea.

HMS Trent seized 200kg of cocaine and other drugs with an estimated street value of £16.7m across two operations.

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Complaint accuses 26-year-old Christian ‘King’ Combs of assault aboard yacht chartered by music mogul father in December 2022

Music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs and his 26-year-old son Christian “King” Combs are both named in a lawsuit that accuses the younger man of sexual assault aboard a yacht in December 2022.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles superior court on Thursday and first reported by Rolling Stone , accuses the younger Combs of assault, battery, sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The elder Combs, who is facing several lawsuits alleging sexual abuse and was recently subject to federal raids in a sex-trafficking investigation, is accused of aiding and abetting.

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The writer and journalist recalls Condé’s heartbreakingly beautiful language, incredibly honest books and generous friendship

Life is sometimes like a mediocre novel: full of coincidences. 2 April 2024 marked 20 years since my father died, and on that same day I learned that Maryse Condé had died , too.

Condé wasn’t exactly family, and yet I felt closer to her than to many people who have crossed my path. Before even meeting her – a dream I was able to fulfil a few years ago – I felt I knew her intimately. It is the fate of writers to be known by their readers almost in spite of themselves. I have lived with Condé and with her characters for many long, solitary hours and at different ages of my life. I have read so much by her that her language has become as familiar to me as my mother’s and her obsessions so blurred with mine that I have adopted the Caribbean landscape and discovered and loved the scent of flowers I’ve never seen.

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Trump’s social media company went public relying partly on loans from trust managed by person of interest to prosecutors

Donald Trump’s social media company Trump Media managed to go public last week only after it had been kept afloat in 2022 by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation.

The former US president stands to gain billions of dollars – his stake is currently valued at about $4bn – from the merger between Trump Media and Technology Group and the blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corporation, which took the parent company of Truth Social public.

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Author of novels drawing on African and Caribbean history enjoyed international acclaim, including the New Academy prize, which stood in for the Nobel in 2018

Maryse Condé, the Guadeloupean author of more than 20 novels, activist, academic and sole winner of the New Academy prize in literature , has died aged 90.

Condé, whose books include Ségu and Hérémakhonon was regarded as a giant of the West Indies, writing frankly – as both a novelist and essayist – of colonialism, sexuality and the black diaspora, and introduced readers around the world to a wealth of African and Caribbean history.

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Natricia Duncan’s role, unique to UK news media, is one of seven new appointments – two in the US – since Legacies of Enslavement report

The Guardian has appointed its first Caribbean correspondent, marking one year since the newspaper’s owner issued an apology for the role its founders played in transatlantic slavery.

The position – which is unique among UK news organisations – will focus on the underreported region, alongside a boost to coverage across Africa and South America.

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The San José, sunk in 1708, has been at the center of a dispute over who has rights to the wreck, including $17bn in booty

Since the Colombian navy discovered the final resting place of the Spanish galleon San José in 2015 , its location has remained a state secret, the wreck – and its precious cargo – left deep under the waters of the Caribbean.

Efforts to conserve the ship and recover its precious cargo have been caught up in a complicated string of international legal disputes , with Colombia, Spain, Bolivian indigenous groups and a US salvage company laying claim to the wreck, and the gold, silver and emeralds onboard thought to be worth as much as $17bn.

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