Home Economy New Chinese mega-resort in Bahamas points way to future
New Chinese mega-resort in Bahamas points way to future
Baha Mar, a $3.5 billion seaside gambling resort, will be the largest such development in and around the Caribbean. Given the boost in Cayman’s tourism numbers and demographics of the Islands’ visitors, the giant hotel and casino is not expected to have much of an impact here.
The tourism industry of an island nation near Cuba and only a short flight from the United States is about to make worldwide news with the opening of a $3.5 billion seaside gambling resort that will become the largest such development in and around the Caribbean.
And by the way, the travel and hotel executives and financiers readying their announcement, chilling bottles of celebratory Champagne and preparing to count proceeds from hundreds, even thousands of new paying visitors don’t have anything to do with the Cayman Islands.
They are, in fact, investors in and employees of Baha Mar, a 1,000-acre super-resort on New Providence island in the Bahamas, a warm, sunny stroll from the Commonwealth’s biggest city, Nassau.
The build-out has been somewhat slow going, and, as with many projects in the Caribbean, developers say, the grand opening has been moved back over and over, and deadlines have been reset time and again. But then, the scope of this particular development is vast. Within the coming months, after the construction dust settles and the roar of earth movers fades, the sprawling site will include:
Some 3,000 feet of manicured beach
A convention, arts and entertainment center comprising 200,000 square feet of flexible space, along with a 30,000-square-foot gallery exhibiting the largest collection of Bahamian art in the island chain
The 100,000-square-foot Baha Mar Casino, described as the largest gaming center in the Caribbean
An attached 1,000-room luxury hotel, the Baha Mar, replete with ocean views and spas, and corridors that zip people onto the gaming floor
The Grand Hyatt at Baha Mar, a 700-room resort hotel
An 18-hole, 72-par Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course
The Rosewood 200-room beach-view hotel with 5,000-square-foot ballroom
The SLS Lux 300-room hotel, including private residences and luxury amenities
The Melia Nassau Beach Resort, an existing 694-room hotel that is undergoing renovation
Residential condominiums priced as high as $10 million
An ocean of swimming pools amid a grove of slender palm trees
And 40 restaurants, bars and lounges encompassing shops and kiosks, all filling 74,000 square feet of what the developers call “the Bahamian Riviera.
Beyond its array of architectural, cultural, commercial, culinary and entertainment features, Baha Mar also has an unexpected genesis.
What has been rising over a wedge-shaped plot since 2011 is the first major resort site conceived, largely financed and designed by both private and state investors from China.
Baha Mar could become the very place that connects the rapidly expanding Asian economic behemoth with one of the great outdoor playgrounds of the Western world – the Caribbean.
Over the last couple of years, this sun-kissed basin between Central America and the Atlantic Ocean, from Florida to the Colombian and Venezuelan coasts, has seen leisure travel heat up from the world’s economic chill. Cruises are more numerous, flights more frequent, and hotel occupancy higher than in the previous seven years, studies show. The Cayman Islands have benefited as well.
Not a threat to Cayman tourism
Does the addition of a giant gambling resort near Nassau threaten tourism prosperity in the rest of the Caribbean? Ken Hydes, president of the Cayman Islands Tourism Association, thinks not.
“To tell the truth, I haven’t thought much about this development in the Bahamas,” he said. Hydes and the CITA board are confident the visitor economy in Cayman is on sound footing, without mega-resorts or mega promotion budgets – and without gambling.
In part, that’s because the travelers Cayman has always attracted still seek a Cayman-like experience, not that of Las-Vegas-by-the-sea. CITA and the government’s Tourism Department have focused on marketing to their traditional demographic niche.
That niche is changing, Hydes acknowledges. Just as the Bahamas expects a flood of visitors from the world’s largest emerging nation, China, “We’ve been seeing more Russians and other Eastern Europeans visiting here” as they move up the economic ladder, he said.
“We’re seeing all kinds of change in this industry, but we’re not threatened by it. I’d be more worried about Baha Mar if I were running Atlantis.”
He was referring to the other Bahamas jumbo-resort with a casino, Atlantis on Paradise Island.
With all the developments, “We think the Caribbean is going to benefit from growth in leisure travel in the years to come,” Hydes said.
The Cayman Islands Department of Tourism also welcomes the gambling resort to the region’s tourism mix. Director of Tourism Rosa Harris said the department “has been aware of the Baha Mar project for many years,” adding, “its introduction will no doubt bring new travelers to the Caribbean.”
She expressed similar confidence to Hydes that “we are able to deliver on a brand experience that cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the world. We call it ‘Caymankind.’”
In short, Harris said, Baha Mar is no threat to Cayman’s tourism success, which has increased significantly in recent years.
Similarities, differences
Technically, the Bahamas archipelago doesn’t rise from the Caribbean Sea. The Commonwealth’s 700-plus islands lie solidly in the Atlantic Ocean. But the demographic mix, economy, culture and political alliances make it a longtime member of the Caribbean community. In fact, its British heritage and principal economic features – dependency on tourism and offshore banking are aspects it has in common with Cayman.
And, in recent history, the visitors who have come to enjoy these two paradises have come from the same places – the U.S., Canada and the U.K., as well as the rest of Western Europe.
Cross-cultural experiment
Travel industry experts, like those at STR, the Nashville, Tennessee-based global brand benchmarking company focused on hotel and travel brands, hint that Baha Mar might be a giant cross-cultural experiment that could change international leisure travel.
“There is this huge rising middle class in China,” notes Bobby Bowers, senior vic president of operations at STR. “It’s only natural that with the Chinese building this big resort in the Caribbean, they will reach out and try to encourage some of their own people, the ones with more wealth and their relatively new freedom to travel internationally, to vacation in the Caribbean.”
Indeed, a year-old report from Oxford Economics, which studies and consults on travel, said China, chief among some other emerging nations, will become the driving force of the travel industry through the mid-2020s.
Now that an international economic crisis has loosened its grip on leisure spending, some citizens of emerging countries like Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia and, of course, China, the biggest of them all, will find the means to roam the globe. Plus, as Bowers said, “Along with their increased wealth, middle class people in China finally have more freedom to travel, too.”
Travel agency giant Amadeus, which helped finance the 2014 Oxford Economics study, said China’s global travel could become a full 20 percent of the total by 2023, crowding the industry beyond what we can now imagine.
For Chinese interests to own and run a gambling resort on the scope of Baha Mar would seem to be part and parcel of this international trend in travel – and a good bet for the resort’s owners.
China’s role in Bahamas resort
China flexed its muscles in many ways during the development of the huge Bahamas resort. In negotiations over how the multi-billion-dollar project would proceed, the Chinese government and companies insisted that they would ship more than 4,000 Asian workers to live in barracks near Nassau and toil at the construction site.
China has used this labor model for a range of projects and in other locales, including in Sri Lanka and Angola.
That was a feature the developers wanted in their deal with the Bahamian government, and it was one to which the host nation agreed, despite the Bahamas having an unemployment rate of 15.7 percent at the beginning of 2015. Further, on the more urbanized island of New Providence, where Baha Mar has been under construction, the unemployment rate reached 16 percent this year.
The Tribune newspaper in the Bahamas reported yet worse economic news: “Youths between 15 and 24” – the ages of many of the construction workers on New Providence – “continued to face a considerably higher rate [of unemployment].”
The paper said that recent data put the unemployment rate for young workers at 31 percent. Meanwhile, at the peak of construction, a study showed that 70 percent of the resort’s labor was made up of foreign nationals, most of them the then-4,200 Chinese brought there by the main contractor, China State Construction Engineering Corp.
However, a 2,900-room resort community requires a lot of resident workers year after year, not just the ones who build the structures.
Kimberly Hanson, a spokeswoman for the Dallas, Texas-based Rosewood Hotel Group, which has a small luxury hotel on the Baha Mar property, said, “We expect visitors from all over the world there, but we do expect lots of Chinese visitors.” Thus, the flow of Chinese nationals as guests, lured to the Caribbean by promotional messages, could make it easy to discount the economic contributions of a few thousand construction workers for a couple of years.
Baha Mar executives also think the China connection will aid the resort in its cross-island competition with Atlantis. Just weeks ago, Brookfield Asset Management, with majority ownership of Atlantis, announced the departure of its top executive, George Markantonis. His replacement, Paul Burke, now serves as president and managing director.
In its published statement about the transition, Atlantis said nothing about the towering Baha Mar buildings taking shape just a few miles away. Markantonis, who left for a job in Las Vegas, expressed his “full confidence the property will continue to flourish under Paul’s leadership.” Meanwhile, the new mega-resort was chugging toward its launch.
Opening delayed
There remains the issue of when, exactly, Baha Mar will open to guests. In 2014, the promise was that the Rosewood, the Grand Hyatt and the Baha Mar Casino & Hotel would open by December 2014, in time for most of the development to reap a fine harvest from the high-impact winter season. Delays shifted the opening to early March, then to late March and now to early May. Rosewood’s Hanson said that is still the target for launching the resort.
The Grand Hyatt says likewise, and so does Baha Mar management.
But why all the delays? Labor issues surfaced for one thing. In January, a hotel workers union voted to strike over compensation. Restaurant and bar management companies along with financial executives and bureaucrats back in China wanted to reduce their gratuities below the standard 15 percent, negatively effecting their wages. The dispute went on for months.
A group of 60 Chinese workers marched on Nassau’s central business district, protesting that some of them had not been paid in months. Another delay.
Day-to-day decisions that, in the Chinese central-government manner, had to be deferred to functionaries in Beijing caused yet further slowdowns. Pretty soon the bitter cold 2015 winter in much of Canada and the Midwest and Northeast United States gave way to signs of spring, when the get-away-to-the-Caribbean season becomes a memory.
After initial delays, resort executives set March 27 as opening day. On March 25, executives blamed construction managers for more delays. “Subsequently,” they said in a statement, “it has become clear that the contractor has not completed the work with an attention to detail consistent with Baha Mar standards of excellence.” Hence, the latest delay until early May.
Also, resort managers said not all four new hotels are guaranteed to open in May. The Grand Hyatt, they said, may open “shortly thereafter,” and renovations on the fifth hotel will continue for an indeterminate time.
The loss of business of its once-planned first high season will cost the development tens of millions, resort executives say. Plus, the setbacks have won Baha Mar some unkind digs.
A hotel industry blog, “Hotel Chatter,” gave the resort a backhand award for “worst Hotel Hype,” saying its continuing delays seriously undercut the project’s credibility and made it appear bush-league.
But then, common wisdom has it that the Chinese have shown themselves to be patient people. By the end of 2015, another winter will be taking hold, and tourists from cold-climate centers of wealth will be thinking about getting in a round of golf in the Caribbean sunshine or snorkeling and diving in warm waters.
“We think we see diversity in our clientele now,” said Maria Ruiz, a nighttime desk clerk at a tourist hotel in Miami Beach. “We’ve got Brazilians, loads of Latin Americans, Russians, Indians, Japanese, Saudis, Nigerians.
“But in a just a few years, you can bet we’ll be checking in people from absolutely everywhere, Chinese by the thousands, Indonesians, Vietnamese,” she said. “International travel is going to make the world flatter than ever.”
The Cayman Islands will benefit from that flatter world too. Bobby Bowers, with the consulting firm STR, said,
“We track the occupancy of hotels all over the Caribbean – and other places, too,” he said. “[Tourism] was up last year. It’s up this year.
And there’s building going on throughout the region.”
Cayman tourism on the rise
As reported in the Cayman Compass earlier this year, 2014 was a successful year for Cayman Islands tourism and was reflected across the region with almost every island in the Caribbean seeing an increase in visitation in what officials describe as the “best ever year” for the industry. Overall tourism arrival figures for the Caribbean were up just over 5 percent in 2014.
The Cayman Islands, which had a record year, was one of the top performers, seeing gains of just over 10 percent. Further, the Cayman Islands accounted for 1.4 percent of the 26 million visitors to the Caribbean in 2014.
“Last year, we received more visitors than ever before – recording our fifth straight year of growth – and visitors spent more money in the Caribbean than they ever did before,” CTO chairman Richard Sealy said in a state of the industry report. The report indicates that tourists spent US$29.5 billion in the region last year.
Air and cruise arrivals continue to set record levels in Cayman, and the outlook is positive again for this year.
The Caribbean Tourism Organization anticipates tourism growth to continue, forecasting a further 5 percent increase across the region in 2015.
Compass reporter James Whittaker contributed to this article.
Accommodations at ‘the new Riveria.’
Baha Mar Hotel and Casino
Paul Burke, president of Atlantis
Ken Hydes
Rosa Harris
cayman islands department of tourism
cayman islands tourism association
Previous articleWork permits have no negative impact on Caymanian employment
Next articleDart, beyond Camana Bay


« Guest opinion: Lee County st... Reimbursement vote improper...»
Guest opinion: Junior Achievement volunteers offer much to SW Florida students
The term "philanthropy" is often made in reference to monetary donations, but sometimes, it's not just about cutting a check.
Yes, financial assistance is critical, but time is just as important. Eight years ago, I joined a group of successful business, government and nonprofit leaders who offer their time and valuable insight to students through Junior Achievement of Southwest Florida.
Junior Achievement is our way to share tricks of the trade with aspiring business leaders, life lessons we wished someone told us when we were teenagers or pre-teens. It can be advice on picking a college major, why it's important to have a savings account or how to be a leader and winner in life.
Brandon Box
Ten years ago, I started working at IBERIABANK as a commercial banking intern. A decade later, my responsibilities as executive vice president and market president for the Sarasota and Fort Myers markets are vastly different. Yes, I've worked hard in advancing to this position so quickly in my career, but I didn't do it alone. I had help along the way, wisdom and guidance from my colleagues, friends and local business leaders who took the time to guide me down this path.
With my background in banking, most of my discussions with students center around money. Their financial decisions - good and bad - can change their lives for better or worse. Many students don't have a financial expert living in their home, and Money Management 101 isn't part of the standard school curriculum. That's why I help explain debt load, lending and borrowing, the importance of saving, basics of budgeting, paying for college and one element that seems to trip up most Americans - credit card debt.
My advice boils down to making sound financial decisions. Don't spend money that you don't have.
Following our discussions in the classroom, students often pull me aside for questions about complex or personal issues like bankruptcy, foreclosure and options for parents who are out of work. It's questions like these that must be answered, and it's exactly why Junior Achievement is such a critical program for our youth.
On April 25, Junior Achievement of Southwest Florida will recognize two of my colleagues who graciously have given their time to the organization and area schoolchildren. Pason Gaddis, co-founder and CEO of Florida Media Group, LLC, and Gary Griffin, P.E., president and CEO of B & I Contractors, Inc., will be inducted into the 2018 Business Hall of Fame, Lee County. Since it was established in 1999, the Business Hall of Fame has recognized outstanding entrepreneurs and role models who demonstrate a strong commitment to the community and our next generation of leaders.
I invite you to share in this fantastic event and help make a difference in the lives of local students. The Business Hall of Fame event will take place Wednesday, April 25, at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa, 5001 Coconut Road in Bonita Springs. A cocktail reception at 5 p.m. kicks off the event, followed by dinner at 6:30 p.m. and the induction ceremony.
To reserve tables, purchase individual tickets or become a sponsor, call the Junior Achievement office at 239-225-2590 or visit www.JASWFL.org. Proceeds benefit local Junior Achievement programs.
Brandon Box is executive vice president and market president for IBERIABANK's Sarasota and Fort Myers markets. Box is a regular volunteer for Junior Achievement and serves on the JA Hall of Fame board of directors.


Scandalous vote result annulled in North Caucasus
Published time: 4 Dec, 2009 13:50 Edited time: 4 Dec, 2009 20:38
Mayoral election results have been annulled in the city of Derbent, in Russia’s Dagestan, the first such case in the North Caucasus and the first time a vote’s outcome has been cancelled not in favor of the ruling party.
On December 3, the Derbent city court in the Republic of Dagestan nullified the results of the October 11 election, which was marked by a number of scandals and violations.
According to official results, Felix Kaziahkmedov from the pro-Kremlin United Russia party won the mayoral seat for a second term with 67.5 per cent of the vote.
The action against the outcome of the vote was brought by three other candidates for the mayor’s post, including Kaziahkmedov’s main opponent, former prosecutor of the republic Imamali Yaraliev. The court ruling was based on Elkhan Kazimov’s and Salikh Ramazanov’s complaints, whilst the court hearing on Yaraliev’s complain is yet to be held.
It’s most likely that that the court’s decision will be appealed by the opposite side and the case will be brought before the Supreme Court, Yaraliev’s representative told gzt.ru.
“In the lawsuit we filed, we presented proof that the elections were held with serious violations of the law – there was administrative pressure. For no reason, citizens were robbed of their right to vote. In other words, their constitutional right,” Khadir Yusupov is quoted as saying.
According to official data, out of 36 polling stations in Derbent, only 23 opened on the Election Day. Yusupov, however, claims 20 polling places had their doors opened for the voters.
“Moreover, they [the polling stations] repeatedly interrupted their work, explaining it by different reasons, including a bomb threat,” he said. Yusupov also added that there were cases when voters were expelled and said that evidence of that was provided to the court.
So far, the only reaction issued from Russia’s Central Election Commission has been a short statement on its website saying that the Derbent court’s decision can be appealed within 10 days.
Earlier, the CEC Chairman Vladimir Churov said that after the voting in Derbent, eight criminal cases were launched, including alleged bribery of electors by one of the candidates, forged ballots and threats to a chairman of one of local election commissions.
“It was not easy to hold elections there by a long way,” he said in an interview with “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” paper. The situation in Derbent is really complicated because of political infighting among the candidates and a “special economic situation”, he said back in October
Show case?
The Derbent case is, in a way, unique and some are calling it “symbolic”. So far, despite opposition protests and claims of violations, no other October 11 election results have been annulled.
“Court decisions like that are generally pretty rare,” political analyst Aleksandr Kynev is quoted as saying by Kommersant daily. It’s the first time ever in the North Caucasus – “where elections are always held with violations”- that the vote result has been cancelled.
The federal power, he said, intended to show that outrageous violations did not slip through the cracks and that consequences will follow even when United Russia candidates are involved.
Some other observers go even further, saying that the Derbent case is a bad sign for Dagestan President Mukhu Aliyev, since he failed to prove he controls the situation in the republic. Aliyev’s term ends in February 2010 and chances that he will remain the Dagestan’s leader are not that high now.
Earlier, a court in Moscow ordered a ballot recount and the city election committee filed a request to instigate a case against certain wrongdoings. The reason for the recount was a complaint by Sergey Mitrokhin – the leader of the opposition party Yabloko – who discovered that not a single vote had been cast for his party in the Khamovniki District in central Moscow where he and his family voted.
Opposition protests
On October 11, about 7,000 elections for local and municipal legislatures of all levels were held in 76 of 83 constituent parts of the Russian Federation, most of them very small scale though. United Russia’s victory in almost all regions didn’t come as a surprise and the Communist Party came second in most elections, but, as usual, with a huge gap between them.
Three days after the voting day, in protest against the election results, all three opposition parties – The Communists, the Liberal Democrats and Fair Russia – refused to take part in the State Duma session and walked out of the lower house of parliament. They claimed widespread voting irregularities and demanded an urgent meeting with President Medvedev.
Two days later, the Liberal Democrats and the Fair Russia party ended their boycott, whilst the Communists remained defiant, demanding an investigation into alleged vote-rigging.
In order to calm the opposition, Medvedev held a meeting with the three parties’ representatives on October 24 – three days earlier than the meeting was initially scheduled for.
“There are special rules in the Constitution for disputing voting results. This is essential. There can be no electoral system without it,” Dmitry Medvedev said.
Following the meeting, the Russian leader asked the CEC chief to look into the alleged fraud claims.
There have been very few cases in Russia’s modern history when city or regional vote results have been annulled.
First post-Soviet local elections held in Chechnya
Two opposition parties end boycott
Russian parliamentary protest lingers into second week
Election inconsistencies to no effect
Opposition wants answers from president
Election fraud claims must be investigated - Medvedev
United Russia party should change itself – Russian president
Elections in Ukraine restrict revolutionary icon
Ukrainian minister loses same job twice in two days
Belarus opposition fail to find common ground ahead of race for presidency


Ryan D. Lewellyn
Carlos P. Evans
Max J. Myers
Lindel R. Larison
Tyson Williams
Finance & Accounting Team
Chief Financial Officer | Founding Partner
Mr. Myers has more than 20 years of experience in the Energy sector. In his role as CFO of Tall Oak Midstream, Mr. Myers is responsible for leading the finance, accounting, risk management and capital formation aspects of Tall Oak Midstream. Prior to forming Tall Oak, Mr. Myers was treasurer of OGE Energy Corp. In this role he had oversight responsibility for cash management, corporate finance, insurance and corporate development. OGE owns the regulated utility OG&E and has a 50 percent governance interest in Enable Midstream Partners.
Prior to joining OGE in 2005, Mr. Myers was with Westar Energy in Kansas as director of finance and corporate development. While at Westar, he spent three years in France, where he managed Westar's unregulated investment in Protection One Europe.
Mr. Myers has an undergraduate degree in business with a concentration in geology and a Master of Business Administration degree, both from the University of Kansas. He currently serves on the KU Business School's Dean's Advisory Board. In Oklahoma City he currently serves as the Treasurer of Allied Arts and is a member of the Board of Junior Achievement of OKC, where he is a former Chairman of the Board. Mr. Myers previously served on the Board of Directors of the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. Mr. Myers and his wife Janie have two boys and live in Edmond, Oklahoma.
Website by TEN|10 Group
Copyright © 2019 Tall Oak Midstream
2575 Kelley Pointe Parkway, Suite 340


Case Name EEOC v. FEDERAL EXPRESS CORPORATION aka FEDEX EE-TN-0042
Docket / Court 98-2235GA ( W.D. Tenn. )
State/Territory Tennessee
Case Type(s) Disability Rights-Pub. Accom.
Equal Employment
On March 9, 1998, the Washington D.C. and Memphis offices of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit under Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act against Federal Express Corporation in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. The EEOC alleged ... read more >
On March 9, 1998, the Washington D.C. and Memphis offices of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit under Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act against Federal Express Corporation in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. The EEOC alleged that the defendants had violated the rights of the complainant by discriminating against him on the basis of his deafness.
On July 9, 1998, the complainant intervened in the lawsuit, but on January 12, 1999, he agreed to a stipulated dismissal of his private claims against the defendants. On April 8, 1999, the parties reached a consent decree. Under the terms of the decree, the defendants were prohibited from discriminating or retaliating against any individual who complained of discrimination. The defendants agreed to revise their recruitment and application practices to accommodate applicants who were hearing impaired. The defendant also agreed to post notice of employment discrimination laws in a conspicuous place for their employees. Within 30 days of the execution of the consent decree, the defendant agreed to write a letter to the Regional Attorney in this litigation detailing all measures that they took to comply with the decree.
Justin Kanter - 02/22/2008
Discrimination Prohibition
Follow recruitment, hiring, or promotion protocols
Other requirements regarding hiring, promotion, retention
Post/Distribute Notice of Rights / EE Law
Retaliation Prohibition
Utilize objective hiring/promotion criteria
Accommodation / Leave
Disability (inc. reasonable accommodations)
Private Party intervened in EEOC suit
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12111 et seq.
Defendant(s) Federal Express Corporation
Nature of Relief Injunction / Injunctive-like Settlement
2:98-cv-02235-jsg (W.D. Tenn.)
EE-TN-0042-9000.pdf | Detail
Stipulated Order of Dismissal as to Intervening Plaintiff, Robert H. Cook, Jr. [ECF# 28] (W.D. Tenn.)
Order on Plaintiff's Motion to Compel [ECF# 36] (W.D. Tenn.)
Consent Decree [ECF# 55]


Britain's Stateless Citizens
by Daniel Simpson
An ongoing crime ignored by U.S. media
Diego Garcia: The Special Relationship's Dirty Secret
CRAWLEY, England - Allen Vincatassin is an immigrant with a difference: he wants to go back to where he came from but the British government won't let him. So he's importing his compatriots instead.
Five hundred have joined this exodus since the chilly September dawn that greeted Vincatassin and the 18 friends and relatives he'd persuaded to trade tropical sunshine for a one-way ticket to Gatwick airport, where they hunkered under strip lighting by the toilets while he badgered officials to find them a hotel. The letter he'd received from London a few days earlier failed to deter him. "There is no question of our offering any temporary accommodation or other means of short term financial support," a Foreign Office minister had insisted. No matter. After three days of belligerent phone calls and eating out of cans, they were given 30 pounds each for food and rooms in the airport Travelodge. Vincatassin's audacity had paid off; their bills were covered for six months until they'd cobbled together enough cash between them to decamp to suburbia.
This was no asylum-seeking stunt, however, and it drew none of the usual tabloid newspaper hysteria about refugees exposing Britain as a "soft touch". All 19 carried British passports, thanks to an Act of Parliament offering them the right to settle in a country they'd never seen, although its flag still flies over the coral atolls they called home until their families were expelled to make way for an American military base. For decades, these dispossessed exiles have demanded the right to return to their islands in the Indian Ocean, but to no avail. Most remain where the retreating British Empire dumped them: in the shantytowns of Mauritius and the Seychelles. Appeals for assistance have gone unheeded since 1982, when a meagre payout was authorised on the condition it would never be repeated.
"The passport came as a lifejacket," Vincatassin reflects. A short man of 35, given to grandiloquence, he puffs out his chest and surveys the living room of a squat terraced house he shares with his wife and brother in Crawley, a drab commuter belt New Town, barely five miles from the London runway where they landed three years ago. "It was like enlightenment for me and I said, yes! At least if we are on their doorstep they'll have to do something."
Not all of his fellow islanders are impressed by Vincatassin's quest to secure welfare payments for new arrivals to a community dispersed across the cul-de-sacs and crescents of Crawley's post-war housing estates. To some, it's a distraction from their ongoing struggle to resettle the depopulated Chagos archipelago and, as such, a symptom of identity crisis. The disputes over how best to seek redress from the British establishment reflect conflicting notions of what it means to be Chagossian; whether suffering is something to escape or to exhibit, whether a felicitous future lies in reviving a bygone way of life or in making the most of present opportunities.
Olivier Bancoult, chairman of the Mauritian-based Chagos Refugee Group and claimant in a legal challenge to Britain's decree that the islands should remain uninhabited, is clear on how he sees it. "Here is not our country," he said during a recess at his High Court hearing in London, which he's flown in from Port Louis to attend. "If Allen Vincatassin cared about his fundamental right to return to his homeland, he should have taken up the case against the British government, not come here and settled."
Of the two-dozen Chagossian visitors shivering alongside Bancoult in the court's public gallery this winter, just three speak enough English to have more than the faintest idea what's going on. The case unfolding beneath them turns on arcane constitutional principles and its two judges have no power to send them home, but might just reinstate a theoretical right of return that Bancoult's lawyers have already established once, before the government revoked it. Anything further-reaching is almost unthinkable: the island of Diego Garcia hosts a precious Pentagon outpost and the United States remains as opposed to the presence of indigenous people as it was when it ordered Britain to deport them 40 years ago.
"Our view," wrote Eric Newsom, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, in a letter to British officials in 2000, "is that any settlement of a resident civilian population even on the outer islands of the archipelago would significantly degrade the strategic importance of a vital military asset unique in the region to both our governments." In other words, forget about it. Four years later, Britain duly obliged. Although the High Court had ruled in November 2000 that the original expulsion of the Chagos islanders constituted "an abject legal failure", ministers simply reinstated the law that banished them, only this time it was even tougher. Magna Carta be damned; "No person has the right of abode," declared the July 2004 ordinance. To bypass Parliament, which would almost certainly have slapped down the legislation, the government used the Queen's ancient Prerogative power as a rubber stamp. As Britain has no written constitution, it is now up to the courts to determine whether, as the government insists, Her Majesty still has the right to do whatever she pleases to her subjects in colonial dominions.
"There is no precedent that we have been able to find in statute, case law, or indeed in history for what has been done," argues Bancoult's barrister, Sir Sydney Kentridge, who made his name defending Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko in their struggles against apartheid. Kentridge's opposite number says he has "a knockout blow", however, in the form of an 1865 statute granting the Queen unlimited power under colonial law unless Parliament expressly forbids a particular course of action. Regardless of which side the judges take when they hand down their decision later this year, the losing party is almost certain to appeal. An eventual Chagossian victory would be virtually meaningless in any case, the islanders' solicitor concedes, because it would change nothing in practice. "I don't see any hope that the government will take anything approaching a humane view or what one might call a rational view of these people's rights," regrets Richard Gifford, a London lawyer who has devoted much of the past eight years to preparing Bancoult's two cases and an unsuccessful class action for compensation. "I think they've made a policy decision: the exercise is simply to serve their master as best they can."
The United States itself has long since washed its hands of its role in what the Washington Post described in 1975 as an "act of mass kidnapping". Even if there were no legal duty to recompense the Chagossians, the chairman of a House of Representatives committee stressed later the same year, "it is certainly not a glorious chapter in the compassion of the United States to deny responsibility for those people." Three decades later, following Bancoult's initial victory in London, an American attorney filed a lawsuit against a string of secretaries of defence, from Robert McNamara to Donald Rumsfeld, but a judge ruled they had immunity against litigation by foreigners. Either way, both the Pentagon and the State Department lay the blame for what happened at Britain's door and refer probing questions to Whitehall. "Every time the British government feels uncomfortable they point the finger at the United States and every time the American government feels uncomfortable they point it at the United Kingdom," says Bancoult's Washington lawyer, Michael Tigar, who is appealing the decision against his client. "The two parties acted in concert all along the way."
Undeterred by all the stonewalling, Olivier Bancoult swears he'll never give up. An electrician by trade, he sill lives within walking distance of the tin-shack slum where he grew up in Mauritius, juggling his campaigning work with appointments to read meters. His family lost its hut on the Peros Banhos atoll, 100 miles north of Diego Garcia, when he was four. After a cart ran over his youngest sister's leg, Bancoult, his eight siblings and their parents boarded a boat for the nearest hospital, 1,000 miles away in Port Louis. When they tried to return home, they learned the local shipping company had cancelled all departures. Their island was officially off-limits; it had been "sold" to the U.S. military. This was depopulation by stealth: like hundreds of others in the late 1960s, the family had inadvertently signed up for a one-way passage. Their possessions were lost, their future bleak. Bancoult's father, an unskilled coconut farmer like his peers, failed to find work in Mauritius and died within a few years. One of his sisters set herself ablaze in despair. Two brothers drank themselves to death. "Animals have better treatment than us," he protests. "We have never asked for the closure of the base. As far as we are concerned we should just have the same rights as all human beings."
Fighting talk and faith may not be enough to sustain the expectations generated by Bancoult's original success in court. Five years on, fewer and fewer Chagossians believe they'll ever set foot on their islands again. "Many people want to move here," their leader acknowledges over dinner at his suburban hotel, "but the ticket from Mauritius is very expensive. Life in London is very expensive." Supporters in Britain chipped in to pay for Bancoult and his party to fly over to watch the case; another local sympathiser cooked the chicken and rice they're devouring in a corner of the hotel restaurant; all they've eaten since the morning are the leftovers they pocketed from the breakfast table. One of their number is here to stay; unlike most of the other Chagossians in the room, Jean-Paul Selmour is not wearing a woolly hat; he's acclimatising. "I think England will become my second country," he says. "I will take any job I can find. My 12-year-old daughter wants a better education."
Most mornings, from first light, Crawley's extravagantly named central artery plays host to impromptu gatherings of Chagossians. Singularly lacking in greenery, The Boulevard is landscaped out of concrete and tarmac and flanked by poky discount retailers. In the shadow of the T.J. Hughes department store, and its prominently displayed sales pitch: "Because everybody loves a bargain", two recent immigrants swap job-hunting tips. An open-air public telephone stands beside the bench where they've congregated; across the street lies an employment agency specialising in temporary work. Dieson Tiatous, a sprightly 19-year-old, has just finished his first night shift at a bakery. Already, he's looking for something different. "It was the same thing all night – very boring," he says. "I went to this office now," he nods in the direction of the agency, "and I asked them if they have other work and they told me yes, come back at one o'clock. Every day I need to come here in the morning and afternoon. I like it here but it's difficult to find a job."
Apart from the language barrier – Chagossians speak a Creole dialect and many, especially the elderly, are illiterate – there's paperwork to process and bureaucracy to negotiate. Enter Allen Vincatassin, pioneer of the Crawley community and now a one-man citizens' advice bureau, dispensing the insights he's gleaned from his own struggle to navigate his way around the system. Whether you need a translator, a new house, or guidance on getting a national insurance number, Vincatassin's your man. And he's indignant at the rumours that he charges for his services. "It's my mission," he says. "I help this community and I do it with joy." It's not just Chagossians who benefit, either. Other immigrants seek him out, so well established is his reputation as a fixer at the local social security office. "Everybody knows Allen," the duty manager says. When his mobile phone rings, Vincatassin flips into a different gear. "Do you have any witnesses?" he asks a woman from the Cayman Islands, who's just been evicted by her landlord and wants help finding temporary accommodation. "Is it your first year in the country? Tell them that you don't know the rules on how it works here."
Judging by the religious references that pepper his speech, including a self-conscious comparison of himself to Moses, Vincatassin derives much of his inspiration from his Catholic faith, bequeathed to Chagossians in part by their original colonial masters, the French. The rest seems to stem from the memory of his grandfather Michel, who put his name to the first attempt to claim compensation from Britain in 1975. "Every time my grandfather talked about the islands, he would cry," Vincatassin recalls. "I remember one day he stopped me and said Allen, if there is one thing that you need to do, the most important thing in your life and that's where success lies, it's to fight for this cause."
Michel Vincatassin's writ against the British government was filed on the strength of an eviction notice. As a supervisor on the Diego Garcian coconut plantation, he'd been summoned by the island's administrator and told there'd be no work once the Americans arrived: everyone still remaining would have to leave. Michel insisted on having the order in writing; when a prominent Mauritian lawyer got wind of this document several years later, he contacted Michel and took up the appeal. Although Britain had awarded the Chagossians £650,000 in 1973, the money was paid to the Mauritian government, which waited five years to pass it on. Inflation had eaten away most of its value in the meantime and nobody had given any thought to the housing projects it was supposed to fund. After protracted legal hearings and a series of rejected offers, Britain eventually agreed to a second payout of £4 million in 1982, provided Michel Vincatassin dropped his case. He reluctantly agreed. There was another proviso, however: to qualify for compensation, the Chagossians had to sign a document waiving their rights both to future claims and to return to their islands. Debate has raged ever since as to whether they understood the papers they marked with inky thumbprints. Either way, at less than £3,000 a head, the payout was a pittance, considering the indebted and impoverished state of its recipients.
"If you're thirsty, the first glass of water that appears before you, you are going to drink," muses Allen Vincatassin. "You won't take into consideration whether there is any poison in it." Arguments such as these drew little sympathy from the British legal establishment when the Chagossians filed a fresh suit in 2002. "Justice does not require an obviously unmeritorious case to be allowed to proceed," ruled the judge who threw out the claim, dismissing testimony from witnesses who swore they had no clue what they were supposed to have renounced. "Ill-treatment does not require a hopeless case to be allowed to continue." Mindful of these damning statements, Vincatassin has focused his attention on a different form of financial assistance: benefit payments.
Under the 1948 National Assistance Act, a cornerstone of Britain's welfare state, local authorities are obliged to house adults "who by reason of age, illness, disability or any other circumstances are in need of care and attention which is not otherwise available to them." This was the safety net that caught Vincatassin when he landed at Gatwick: West Sussex County Council stepped in to foot his bills. It set an expensive precedent that's cost more than £750,000 as fellow nationals flock to the same destination. Many recent arrivals have found work at the airport itself and the vast majority have settled within a 10-mile radius. Since more than 5,000 Chagossians remain eligible to relocate to the United Kingdom, local politicians are worried about the long-term implications. "Plainly the British government owes the Chagos islanders a substantial moral debt," says Crispin Blunt, the Conservative MP for Reigate and Banstead, "but if repaying this debt is left to a very small proportion of the British population then the goodwill these people deserve may rapidly dissipate."
Vincatassin agrees this is a concern, although he reports no hostility from Crawley residents. He's taking the government to court later this year to appeal against its ruling that Chagossians need to live here for six months before they're eligible to sign on for unemployment benefit and other centrally administered welfare payments, as he himself has done. Having been awarded full British citizenship in 2002, the islanders should be entitled to the same rights as UK natives, he argues: "I'm a British islander born on Diego Garcia, therefore a British Diego Garcian." When the council sought to cut its costs by offering people plane tickets back to Mauritius, Vincatassin was incensed. "I said if you want to send us back, send us back to Diego Garcia," he recalls. "If you can't send us there then we will settle here."
Paradise is a vision debased by countless package holiday brochures, but the U.S. Navy wasn't exaggerating when it dubbed Diego Garcia "Fantasy Island". Its vast deep-water lagoon, framed by a palm-clad horseshoe of coral limestone, offers "unbelievable recreational facilities and exquisite natural beauty," a Pentagon website boasts; living conditions on "the Best Kept Secret in the Navy" are described as "outstanding". Of this the former inhabitants are well aware. They once led simple lives there, husking the bountiful supply of coconuts and drying their kernels in kilns to yield a substance called copra, which they ground in donkey-driven mills to extract an oil used in cosmetics and confectionary. Although they owned no title to their land, the plantation managers let them build houses where they liked, providing sheets of tin and wooden planks, straw for the roofs and the stone that paved their floors, as well as rations of rice and corn. They kept chickens, pigs and goats, planted sweet potatoes and manioc in the fertile soil and cooked fresh fish over fires on the beach. Many never had to buy anything except clothes.
Life was not always so idyllic, however: the original Chagossians were slaves, imported from east Africa by French plantation owners. After defeating Napoleon in the early 19th century, Britain took control of the 65 "Oil Islands", as the archipelago was then known, and supplemented the workforce with contracted labourers from its newly acquired colonies in Mauritius and the Seychelles. When slavery was abolished, these groups inter-married and their children mostly remained on Diego Garcia and the neighbouring clusters of atolls, Peros Banhos and Salomon. By the 1960s, when American strategists were scouring the Indian Ocean for a foothold to replace bases the British could no longer afford, the permanent population of the Chagos islands had swelled to about 2,000. This was unacceptable to military planners, who feared they would be obliged, under Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter, to honour their "sacred trust … to develop self-government" for these people, thereby handing them the power to veto a foreign presence. Once the United States had decided to build what it euphemistically termed "an austere communications facility" on Diego Garcia, diplomats preoccupied themselves with the question of how to rid the island of its inhabitants without attracting worldwide condemnation.
"We must surely be very tough about this," declared Sir Paul Gore-Booth, the permanent under-secretary at Britain's Colonial Office, in a 1966 briefing. "There will be no indigenous population except seagulls." A junior colleague appended a hand-written note to this document, presumably amused at its wit: "Unfortunately along with the birds go some few Tarzans or Men Fridays whose origins are obscure and who are being hopefully wished on to Mauritius." A £3 million backhander and the promise of independence secured the latter objective; the Chagos islands were duly hived off and reconstituted as the British Indian Ocean Territory, complete with its own flag: a bastardised Stars and Stripes featuring a Union Jack in the top left corner, 13 blue-and-white wavy bars and a palm tree embellished with a crown. Reclassifying the resident population as Mauritian migrant workers was more complicated, but Britain's willingness to "make up the rules as we go along", to quote a Foreign Office legal adviser, ensured it was done. In return, Washington rewarded Harold Wilson's Labour government with a $14 million discount on the Polaris nuclear missile system, which the Prime Minister had previously pledged not to buy. These agreements were concealed from Parliament and Congress, while officials concocted "a whopping fib", as one memo put it, to tell the United Nations. All that remained was to evict the islanders.
It would be difficult to find a Chagossian who could not recount in detail what happened next, regardless of whether it actually happened to them; their "deracinement", or uprooting, defines them as a people. It was a piecemeal process, drawn out over five years, in part to keep the plantations active for as long as possible so the cost of removing the workforce might be defrayed. Rations were gradually run down to persuade people to leave and those who ventured offshore found it impossible to return. Eventually, in 1971, a ship docked at Diego Garcia to evacuate those who remained. Before their eyes, the island's administrator demanded that their dogs, numbering around a thousand, be rounded up and poisoned with strychnine. So gruesome was the sight of the animals' plight, however, that he changed his mind and ordered them to be shot by an advance detachment of U.S. Navy Seabees, who had landed earlier in the year to bulldoze a runway. When this proved too difficult to accomplish quickly, the dogs were herded into a shed used to dry copra and gassed with exhaust fumes from military vehicles. Distraught, the Diego Garcians boarded their boat with a few bags of possessions and crammed into the hold for a 10-day voyage in the company of a cargo of fertiliser. Two years later, the Peros Banhos plantation closed and the final group of islanders set sail for Port Louis, where they, like the others, were simply left on the wharf to fend for themselves.
"The Chagossian cultural identity is all about suffering," stresses Steffen Johannessen, a Norwegian anthropologist who spent a year living with exiles in Mauritius. "In order to change their situation they have to expose it, because they're dependent on other people to help them." Most Mauritians treat "les Ilois", as the islanders are known in Creole, with disdain. On arrival, they received no practical assistance to integrate themselves into local society; nobody provided training that might have helped them find work. It is hardly surprising that many turned to drugs and prostitution, or that "sadness" is blamed for a spate of deaths and suicides in the 1970s. The communal sense of grief can take on a life of its own, as the Chagossians found to their cost when the judge who dismissed their compensation claim accused witnesses of falsifying evidence. "There was an element of 'collective' or 'folk memory'," he ruled. "Stories went round which became lodged in people's minds as events which had happened and then as events which they had witnessed."
For a while, a few years back, it seemed their luck might finally be turning. After declining to appeal a High Court judgement that invoked Tacitus ("They make a desert and call it peace") to declare the expulsions unlawful, the British government agreed in 2000 to investigate how to repopulate the archipelago's outer islands. The first phase of their study concluded resettlement was only feasible if the Chagossians had transport links to the outside world. Diego Garcia's 2.5-mile runway is reserved for the stealth bombers and B-52s stationed on what U.S. officials regard as "an all but indispensable platform" for policing the world. Without another airstrip elsewhere, it would be difficult to exploit the islands' tourist appeal, although they're already a popular yachting stopover. It's rare to find less than a dozen boats moored in the lagoons of Peros Banhos and Salomon, where they're allowed to lay anchor for months at a time on payment of daily fees to British officials. An organisation funded by the Foreign Office even publishes a leaflet suggesting visitors step ashore. "There is nowhere in the world like Chagos," it proclaims. "Get out and look for yourself."
The islanders themselves yearn for such an opportunity. For five years they've been waiting for Britain to honour a promise to let 100 of them visit the graveyards where, in a uniquely Chagossian tradition, they buried their umbilical cords beside the bodies of their ancestors. On five separate occasions, a date has been set, only for the trip to be cancelled at the last minute. In the meantime, phase two of the feasibility study on their resettlement concluded it would cost too much. The report ignored potential funding from a €20 billion European development budget for overseas territories and said rising sea levels caused by global warming would make human habitation "highly precarious". There are no plans to evacuate Diego Garcia, however, where two thirds of the 3,500 personnel at "Camp Justice" are Filipino civilians hired to work on the base. Chagossians who apply for jobs there are routinely rejected, as are their requests to return to the eastern half of the island, a designated nature reserve unused by the military. For them, the options are limited: lives of penury in Mauritius and the Seychelles or a struggle to escape by whatever means possible. "If I were Chagossian," ventures a retired British diplomat, "I would make for the UK and derive all the benefits of living here, with a future for myself and my children."
Even the Grande Dame of the struggle has lost hope. Tired of wrestling policemen and starving herself on the British ambassador's lawn, Charlesia Alexis has come to Crawley to die. She spends her days sleeping, or squinting at the television in a Turkish-run guesthouse under the flight path into Gatwick. "I don't have a future, that's why I say the future is here," she announces, as if addressing a crowd. "What else can I do? The British government owes me." At the age of 71, she may be little more than a figurehead, albeit one with the thickset neck and splayed nostrils of a prize fighter, but she remains an inspiration and a whack of her palm is still enough to shake a table. "When I met Charlesia at the airport I had goose bumps," remembers Allen Vincatassin, who is helping her apply for a pension that will buy plane tickets for her family. "I had tears in my eyes because she represents the old battles." Back in the 1970s, a return to her birthplace on Diego Garcia seemed as improbable to Alexis as it does today, but the hunger strikes and street protests she coordinated persuaded British officials to improve their original compensation offer. She sees her decision to move here in the same light. "I have come to open a door for my children so they can join me," she explains. "If they don't, their children will always have problems."
Vincatassin agrees. "This is the place they should have sent us originally," he says. "That decision would have been wrong too, but at least the islanders who are in the UK are in a better position." Over the past three years, he's personally welcomed seven parties of Chagossians to this enclave on the outskirts of London; others have arrived independently after learning of the example he set. "My role is to force the authorities to do what needs to be done," he stresses. Instead of spending more than £1.5 million on fighting the islanders in court, the government could have paid for their airfares and taught them all English, argues Xavier Siatous, who arrived in Crawley last summer, and promptly ran up a £600 phone bill speaking to the children he left behind. It's a moot point, but one that would resonate with Chagossians in Mauritius who can't afford to take advantage of their right to full British citizenship. Were it possible to resettle the islands tomorrow, only a minority of exiles would be likely to return, primarily the 900 or so survivors who were born there. Four decades on, even they are divided. "You can't undo a crime against humanity," says Siatous, once a fisherman on Peros Banhos. "When something like this happens you look for the way to go back, but really you have to find the way forward."
Charlesia Alexis still dreams about her island every day. A diet of fresh seafood would cure her diabetes instantly, she quips. But her days of shouting: "Give us back our Diego!" are past. Instead, she writes songs about her loss and awaits the free bus pass that will come with her pension. Her latest composition describes the journey to Britain, which was funded in part by royalties from a CD she recorded a couple of years ago. "Here, I will get my compensation," her husky lament concludes. "I will eat until I die." Although she's lonely without her three remaining children, and the 16 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren they've spawned, she prefers life in Crawley to the hardships of Mauritius and believes the other islanders would be wise to follow her. "I'm not saying they're leaving hell and coming to heaven," she cautions. "It's kind of purgatory here unless you can speak the language." For now, she copes by looking forward to a reunion with her family, although the memory of her mortality is never far away, and with it her fear that the campaign she started will wither once she's gone. "It's very sad," she reflects, looking vulnerable for the first time since she lowered herself into a chair. "To struggle you need natives, but we're dying every month. In a few years there won't be any native Chagossians left."
Photo in header by Steffen Johannessen
UPDATE (March 2015)
To keep in touch with this story, and to help, consult the UK Chagos Support Association.
Fake Financial Times
Inspired by The Yes Men, I printed a fake Financial Times. Its satire had serious messages. Working for Reuters and the New York Times, I saw how governments and big business skew the news. Journalistic objectivity is a myth. Unless reporters set agendas themselves, they serve someone else’s. It’s “objective” to take dictation from officials, but disputing what they say is seen as “biased”. This limits how we think about alternatives. If they're framed as they look to those who run the world, not much changes.
Posted in Writing, World
tagged with Chagos


Where is McMafia filmed? - Complete and updated filming locations for the BBC series
The new BBC eight-part drama is based on the book by The Guardian journalist Misha Glenny. McMafia is a thriller about how corporations are becoming international criminal organisations. You can expect a cocktail of money-laundering, drugs, violence and -of course- Russian mafias.
Iranian-British screenwriter Hossein Amini directs the series, starring James Norton as Alex Godman (Grantchester, War & Peace). Most actors have a background that matches the country of their character. This way, the cast is composed by a multicultural troupe with Aleksey Serebryakov, Maria Shukshina, David Dencik, Merab Ninidze, Juliet Rylance, Oshri Cohen, Karel Roden and Caio Blat.
This expensive production has travelled all over the world. McMafia was filmed primarily in England and Croatia, but the filming location list also includes Russia, India, Turkey, Israel, Qatar, Czech Republic, Serbia, Slovenia, Belize and Egypt:
Only in London 75 different locations were used. Lancaster House in the West End is a 19th century mansion that doubled as the Palace of Versailles in France. Image courtesy of BBC and Andrew - Map
The exterior shots were filmed at the Waddesdon Manor country house in Buckinghamshire.
Image courtesy of BBC and National Trust - Map
The top-floor restaurant Sky Garden served as the venue for the Sydney Bloom Foundation event.
Image courtesy of BBC and Martin Pettitt - Map
In the first episode a charity gala is held at the Victoria & Albert Museum (image with director Hossein Amini and James Norton at the John Madejski Garden). Image courtesy of BBC and Giles Moss - Map
A scene was filmed at Hyde Park with the Royal Albert Hall providing the backdrop.
Image courtesy of BBC
The Victorian pub Crocker's Folly (24 Aberdeen Pl) was used in the 7th and 8th episodes.
Image courtesy of BBC and Edwardx - Map
Some scenes were filmed in the luxurious hotels The Langham (pictured) and the The Dorchester, in central London. Image courtesy of BBC and Andrew - Map 1 - Map 2
McMafia was also filming in the British Museum, Heathrow Airport and Ravenscourt Park tube station. According to The Guardian, Alex and Rebecca's place was set in a real Victorian house in Wandsworth, south London.
Image courtesy of BBC and Mike Peel - Map
McMafia Filming Locations in Croatia
The next filming locations are set in Croatia, although none of the action takes place in this country. Depending on the context of the episode, Zagreb is doubling as Moscow, Prague and Tel Aviv. Several scenes were filmed at the landmarks of the city: St. Mark's Church (pictured), Kamenita Vrata, Dverce Palace, the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Strossmayer Square and several streets in the center.
The party in Moscow from the seventh episode takes place in the Mestrovic Pavilion, also known as the Home of Croatian Artists. Image courtesy of BBC and Diego Delso
The crew was also shooting in one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world, Mirogoj.
Image courtesy of BBC and Atlas of Wonders
Some other locations across the country include the Hotel Milenij in Opatija. Boat scenes where filmed around the Rovinj Riviera. Also, according to a local newspaper, the production was filming for a couple of days in the Port of Koper (Slovenia). Image by Google Maps
The house of Israeli businessman Semiyon Kleiman (David Strathairn), were shot at Golden Rays Luxury Resort in Primosten near Sibenik. Image by Google Maps
The hotel in the French Riviera from the 3rd episode is the Villa Dalmacija in Split.
Image courtesy of BBC - Map
Also it would be interesting to see if we can recognise the moonlike landscape of the unique island of Pag, that can be used for scenes in barren and desertic countries. Image Public Domain
A production unit was filming on location during a week in the city of Mumbai (India).
Image by courtesy of BBC
Stablishing shots were filmed in Moscow (pictured, one of the Seven Sisters: the Moscow State University), Prague, Cairo and other minor filming locations. Image by courtesy of BBC
Belgrade doubled as Moscow on episode 8. Alex goes out the metro near the iconic Hotel Moskva, and later on walks in the popular street Kneza Mihaila. Image by courtesy of BBC and Jorge Láscar
Can you help to improve this article about the filming locations of McMafia? To complete and correct this report, any feedback, info or images that you may have are more than welcome, thank you!
For further information we recommend the original book by Misha Glenny that inspired the series, McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld . It is also available as an audiobook:
In the 5th episode Hotel Amber in Tel Aviv is actually Hotel Ambasador in Opatija/Croatia.
Richard_Gough February 4, 2018 at 2:16 PM
The circular building at the end of episode 7 is the House of Artists in Zagreb, Croatia
Ra Moon February 5, 2018 at 10:57 AM
Thanks, updated!
Clive O as Doctor Fixit February 6, 2018 at 3:47 PM
I believe that the scenes in the cafe where Alex and his dad met the
guy from the Russian embassy in ep7 was shot at Crockers Folly, Aberdeen Place London NW8.It's a Victorian/Edwardian pub now a Lebanese restaurant
I was at a party there recently.
Paul Eyre February 13, 2018 at 7:12 AM
Thanks you’re absolutely right - looks amazing !
Ra Moon February 14, 2018 at 11:05 PM
Cool, thanks for your help!
Where is the bar that Alex father and the Russian embassy guy meet in episode 8
GlobalEagle February 20, 2018 at 9:53 AM
In the opening sequence, there is a desert (urban) coastline, looks like it could be somehere in the Gulf - where is it?
...found it: it's Doha, looking south.
I recognized the White Palace in Belgrade Serbia. I believe it was used in the episode when Alex and Vadim were signing an agreement.


Sir Peter Bazalgette: " The Empathy Instinct" | Talks at Google
Sir Peter Bazalgette in conversation with VP Comms, Peter Barron. Sir Peter was instrumental in creating the independent TV production sector in the United Kingdom. He was Chief Creative Officer at Endemol, President of the Royal Television Society, Deputy Chairman of the National Film School, Chair of Arts Council England, and is now Chair of the UK broadcaster ITV. He’s spent his career arguing for the role and importance of the arts and creative expression.
He joined us at Google to talk about his new book, The Empathy Instinct, which seeks to address the essential question of how we create a more civil society when so many of us are divided.


One hundred days of broken promises – Troy
Posted on July 13, 2011 in News
No amount of spin will disguise the fact that Fine Gael and Labour have reneged on a litany of election promises within their first 100 days in office, according to Fianna Fáil TD Robert Troy.
Deputy Troy commented, “The Fine Gael/Labour Government set themselves the deadline of 100 days for the delivery of a series of election promises. It was the Fine Gael Leader Enda Kenny who set the time-frame of 100 days, in which his Government could be judged on their performance. But now we are 100 days on and a litany of promises, which were unleashed to secure the maximum number of votes, have been broken.
“Over the past 100 days, we have seen some spectacular u-turns from Ministers who were elected to office on the basis of the promises they made. There has been immense public concern about Finance Minister Michael Noonan’s refusal to rule out hikes in income tax, Education Minister Ruairí Quinn’s u-turn on college fees, and the confusion over extra household and water charges next year.
“The Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has rowed back on protecting social welfare rates and child benefit, causing serious concern among Donegal families who are fearful of cuts to payments next year. Despite the clear pledge in the Programme for Government that Fine Gael and Labour would protect social welfare rates, Minister Burton refused to stand by this commitment when questioned in the Dáil by Fianna Fáil this week.
“On jobs, Fine Gael and Labour also promised to set up a NewERA company with billions in funding and ready to create 100,000 jobs. Where have these promises disappeared to?
“These issues affect every single family in the country, and each of them represents a key promise made by Fine Gael and Labour during the general election campaign in a bid to win votes. Now that they are in Government, they are only too willing to forget these promises.
Deputy Troy concluded: “In reality, it is early days. We would not be judging this Government on its first 100 days in office if they hadn’t set this deadline themselves. Enda Kenny set out a list of 25 solemn promises for delivery in 100 days, and unfortunately he and his Government colleagues have ignored most of them.”


United Nation’s World Interfaith Harmony Week
In News by February 7, 2012
FEB 13 Posted by youthpeacecouncil
By Robin Marsh
Last night Universal Peace Federation -UK held a meeting in Parliament to remember the Holocaust, to examine the dynamics of forgiveness, reconciliation and remorse. This was held to comemorate the UN’s World Interfaith Harmony week. There were many precious contributions and stirring testimonies.Chaired by Rev. Dr. Marcus Braybrooke, President of World Congress of Faiths, the event featured presentations by Marina Cantacuzio, founder of the Forgiveness Project, Jack Lynes, Chair of Harrow Bereavement Care and a leading member of the Jewish community for interfaith, Shaykh Dr Hazim Fazlic, a Bosnian Imam now in Birmingham, Ruth Barnett, a Holocaust & Genocide Educator as well as a Kindertransport child, Jack Corley, Chairman of the Universal Peace Federation-UK and Sukhbir Singh who introduced the Forgiveness Charter on behalf of Bhai Mohinder Sahib Singh, spiritual leader of Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha – Birmingham UK.
Imam Dr Abduljalil Sajid JP attended the meeting and presented a paper on ‘Forgiveness and Reconciliation: From an Islamic Perspective’ to accompany the report.
Marina Cantacuzio writes on her website, ‘Forgiveness is an inspiring, complex, exasperating subject, which provokes strong feeling in just about everyone. Having spent all of 2003 collecting stories of reconciliation and forgiveness for an exhibition of words and images which I created with the photographer, Brian Moody, I began to see that for many people forgiveness is no soft option, but rather the ultimate revenge. For many it is a liberating route out of victimhood; a choice, a process, the final victory over those who have done you harm. As Mariane Pearl, the wife of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, said of her husband’s killers, “The only way to oppose them is by demonstrating the strength that they think they have taken from you.”
The exhibition tells some extraordinary stories – stories of victims who have become friends with perpetrators, murderers who have turned their mind to peace building.
As I talked to friends, colleagues and strangers about this exhibition, I noticed that forgiveness cuts public opinion down the middle like a guillotine. There are those who see forgiveness as an immensely noble and humbling response to atrocity – and then there are those who simply laugh it out of court. For the first group, forgiveness is a value strong enough to put an end to the tit-for-tat settling of scores that has wreaked havoc over generations. But for the second group, forgiveness is just a copout, a weak gesture, which lets the violator off the hook and encourages only further violence. This is why we called the exhibition, The F Word. For some people forgiveness is a very dirty word indeed.
She added in her paper on ‘Forgiveness’, ‘Forgiving someone does not mean you reconcile with them, it means taking hold of your painful emotions and deciding to let them go. (It means) a refusal to let the pain of past dictate the path of the future healing the memory of the harm, but not erasing it (not forgive & forget). If F is a struggle for understanding, then it’s a realisation that, “if I had lived your life perhaps I would have made your choices”. Forgiveness is not forgetting that something painful happened. By forgiving the people who hurt you, you do not erase painful past experiences from your memory. Those experiences have a great deal to teach you, both about not being victimized again and about not victimizing others.’
Jack Corley explained Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s perspective on ‘Forgiveness and Reconciliation’ particularly in his meeting with the late North Korean President Kim Il Sung. He also elucidated the principles behind the forgiveness earned by Jacob from his older Brother Esau.
He added that gestures are very important in higher levels of forgiveness, reconciliation and peace building. He highlighted the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland in 2011 that won her great respect from the Irish people. The 1977 visit of Anwar Sadat to the Israeli Knesset was a gesture that opened the way to peace between two nations that had been frequently at war.
He asked where the religious leaders were when there are efforts for peace? Universal Peace Federation’s founder Rev. Dr Sun Myung Moon has promoted the establishment of an Interreligious Council at the UN. There religious leaders, who business is peace, centred on the wisdom of their faith built up over many generations, can take an innovative approach from politicians whose agenda and focus is different.
The Universal Peace Federation seeks reconciliation on many levels. However as we are now sitting in Parliament we do want to urge our political leaders to establish or maintain the moral foundation that is necessary for peace and reconciliation. (Full Speech)
Rev Dr Marcus Braybrooke introduced the evening with a prepared speech saying, ‘Interfaith Harmony week is so important. Sadly so often in the past religious exclusivism and contempt for the other has been a contributory factor in the genocidal killings that scar human history. It is time for people of faith to make deep apology to members of other faiths whom they have hurt and offended as Pope John Paul II did at the Western Wall in Jerusalem It is also vital that as people of faith we work together for a more just and peaceful world. Some people have expressed surprise that we should link a belated observance of Holocaust Memorial day and World Interfaith Harmony Week. At first, I felt the same, but increasingly I have seen how appropriate it is. Rightly in a time of silence we shall remember the six million Jews and many others who died in the Holocaust and many more who have been slaughtered in terrible genocides – especially we pray for comfort to those whose family members died, and those who were injured.But perhaps the least we can do in memory of the voluntary and involuntary sacrifice of so many people is to pray and act to ensure that such horrors are never repeated.This is why Interfaith Harmony week is so important. Sadly so often in the past religious exclusivism and contempt for the other has been a contributory factor in the genocidal killings that scar human history. It is time for people of faith to make deep apology to members of other faiths whom they have hurt and offended as Pope John Paul II did at the Western Wall in Jerusalem It is also vital that as people of faith we work together for a more just and peaceful world
In a speech entitled HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY, INTERFAITH HARMONY, FORGIVENESS AND HEALING, Ruth Barnett explained that ‘Forgiveness is an extremely complex issue which I see very much in terms of an individual process of self-acceptance. By this I mean acceptance of the aspects of our self that we would rather not own.’
‘Reverend Braybrooke opened the evening by expressing the horror we all feel at the utter brutality and depravity of what was perpetrated in the Holocuast – and, sadly, in so many genocides and atrocities since. Expressing horror at such evil is natural and human but at the same time locates the atrocities outside ourselves. Forgiveness begins, in my opinion, by owning the capacity in oneself (which is part of every human being) for acting in this same evil manner. Only by owning our darkest thoughts, urges, ideas and interest in evil, are we in a position to take control and choose not to act violently but responsibly, not to retaliate or exact revenge but to seek understanding through dialogue.
‘We need to develop the courage to care and the will to act before it is too late when atrocities against humanity are developing. In my opinion, the Holocaust could have been prevented if the Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks under cover of WWI, had been brought to justice and closure. In the 50 years after the end of WWII, silence and disbelief inhibited the process of Holocaust acknowledgement and healing, which is even now not yet complete. This has created impunity for further violence and genocides, further traumatisation and retreat into ignorance and indifference.’
‘A part of the Holocaust has yet to be fully acknowledged, memorialised, compensated and closure through acceptance of the survivors. At least half a million Sinti and other Gypsies were deliberately murdered by the Nazis for the same reason that Jews were murdered – because the Nazis decided they could not fit into the Aryan ‘master-race’. Since 1945 Roma/Gypsy/Travellers have been persistently and increasingly persecuted, evicted, deported, their homes torched or bull-dozed, and murdered Gypsies not considered important enough by police to find the perpetrators. We have another genocide emerging under our noses all over Europe, including England. Are we going to develop the Courage to Care and the Will to intervene this time? Or are we going to allow the persecution and injustices suffered by Gypsies to continue until the massacres begin?’
Imam Dr Abduljalil Sajid commented in his paper, ‘Forgiveness and Reconciliation: An Islamic Perspective’ that, ‘The God, Allah is the ultimate power Who can forgive. Forgiveness means closing an account of offense against God or any of His creation. However, forgiveness must meet the criteria of sincerity. God, the All-Knowing, has the knowledge of everything including whatever a person thinks but does not express in words or deeds. An offense may be against (a) a person, (b) a group of persons or society, (c) other creation of God such as animals, plants, land, atmosphere, bodies of water and the life therein, and (d) God, Allah. Muslims understand that an offense against the creation of God is an offense against God.’


UPDATED — In Wake of Vegas Massacre, Massachusetts Lawmakers On Verge of Passing “Bump Fire Stock” Ban
By State House News Service | October 11, 2017, 12:48 EDT
Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2017/10/11/in-wake-of-vegas-massacre-massachusetts-lawmakers-on-verge-of-passing-bump-fire-stock-ban/
Las Vegas Police Department file photo of the room where gunman Stephen Paddock allegedly carried out his massacre. (Contributed)
(4:30 p.m. update — the House has passed this legislation)
By Matt Murphy
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
STATE HOUSE, OCT. 11, 2017…..Legislation banning devices known as bump stocks that may have been used in the Oct. 1 Las Vegas massacre and can enable a semi-automatic weapon to fire like an automatic weapon is expected to surface for a House vote Wednesday afternoon, according to a senior House official.
Following the Las Vegas shooting, Rep. David Linksy filed legislation to ban bump stocks in Massachusetts, as well as high-capacity magazines that carry more than 10 rounds of ammunition. That legislation has not emerged for a public hearing yet, but Linsky has filed an amendment to a $123 million budget bill that the House plans to take up on Wednesday afternoon.
The amendment does not address high-capacity magazines but would ban the possession or sale of any device “which attaches to a rifle, shotgun, or firearm, except a magazine, that is designed to increase the rate of discharge of the rifle, shotgun or firearm.”
Those who violate the proposed law would face a mandatory minimum sentence of three years in state prison, with a 20-year maximum allowable sentence.
Bump stocks are devices that can be used to modify semi-automatic weapons to get them to act as automatic weapons. The stock uses the recoil action of the firearm to slide the weapon back and forth allowing it to fire rapidly. The devices escape the state’s ban on automatic weapons because the user’s finger technically remains on the trigger, pulling to initiate each shot.
“I’ve yet to find any legitimate reason for someone to own a bump stock or any other device that turns semi-automatic rifles into automatic rifles. Frankly, I can’t come up with a legitimate reason,” Linsky said.
The Gun Owners Action League, which is the local affiliate of the National Rifle Association, has so far raised no objections to banning bump stocks. House and Senate Republicans have also said they support the measure.
And Gov. Charlie Baker said last week he would sign such a bill if it landed on his desk.
Socialists Call For Abolishing Prisons
$15 Minimum Wage, Paid Family and Medical Leave Pass…
Conversion Therapy Ban Fails in Massachusetts Legislature


Alaska Could be the First State to Allow On-Site Marijuana Consumption
Fight at Unlicensed Dispensary Over Free Sample Hospitalizes Man
California Ad Campaign Targets Unlicensed Marijuana Dispensaries
Cannabis Banking in California is One Step Away From Being Legalized
Canadian Dispensaries Can’t Keep CBD In Stock
Jeff Chiu/AP Photo
Home » News » Alaska Could be the First State to Allow On-Site Marijuana Consumption
Certain cities have allowed on-site consumption but Alaska is on the road to becoming the first place where it is permitted statewide.
Alaska could be close to making marijuana history. More specifically, it could soon become the first state to allow for on-site cannabis consumption at dispensaries. State lawmakers are currently looking at a bill that would make this type of on-site consumption legal. But given that the bill is still in the early stages of legislation, it’s unclear whether or not on-site consumption will become a reality.
Alaska Considering New Marijuana Laws
Yesterday, lawmakers in Alaska approved rules that could allow people to legally consume weed at state-approved dispensaries.
Before the proposal becomes law it still needs to pass through a few other rounds of review and approval. Most notably, the Alaska Department of Law will need to do a thorough review of the new rules.
But if the bill is eventually passed into law it will introduce a number of new changes. For starters, dispensaries that receive state and local approval will be allowed to have a separate space set aside for consumption.
Customers will then be able to go the shop, purchase weed or other weed products, and then consume their purchases in the consumption space.
At this point, the proposal would allow dispensaries to establish separate consumption rooms. Additionally, weed shops could also allow customers to smoke weed or consume edibles in outdoor spaces like rooftops or patios.
If the bill passes into law, Alaska will be the first state to establish a legal framework for on-site dispensary consumption. Currently, there are certain locations in different parts of the country that allow for on-site consumption. But nothing at the statewide level.
Regulations and Restrictions for On-Site Consumption
Of course, as with any cannabis regulations, the new laws come with a number of new regulations and requirements. For starters, shops will be required to apply for a special license for on-site consumption.
In order to receive approval, dispensaries must meet the following requirements:
Consumption spaces must be separated from the retail portion of the shop.
Customers will only be allowed to consume products purchased at that dispensary.
Customers who want to consume at the shop can only purchase up to one gram of flower or edibles with no more than 10 mg of THC.
Shops must have a smoke-free room where employees can monitor consumption spaces.
Outdoor consumption places must not interfere with neighboring buildings.
Indoor consumption rooms must have their own ventilation systems.
The scent of weed cannot reach beyond the shop’s property line.
Even though the new bill is being considered at the state level, USA Today reports that local jurisdictions will still be able to ban on-site consumption. Additionally, local governments can also institute their own specific requirements or restrictions.
Currently, there are 76 cannabis retail shops in Alaska. At this point, it’s unclear how many of those shops might choose to apply for an on-site consumption license.
Either way, the question of on-site consumption has been on the table for a while now in Alaska. The issue first picked up traction in 2016. Then, last year, the idea was abandoned.
But this time around things could be different. At least for now, the bill for on-site consumption has cleared its first legislative hurdle. It will now move on to additional reviews by multiple lawmaking bodies.
Related Topics:Alaska, Dispensary, Featured, Public Consumption
By Tim Kohut 07/12/2019
That's over 4,000 pounds of the good stuff.
A Denver CO was caught allegedly trying to smuggle a burrito with all the fixings into...
There was apparently a 60 percent spike in sales during the holiday.
The crackdown on businesses selling CBD foods and drinks is beginning.


Saint Mother Théodore Guérin
Feast Day October 3
Today people fly from Paris to New York City on the Concorde in hours. In 1840 Saint Mother Théodore Guérin left France on July 27. She and five other Sisters of Providence traveled by ship, train, steamboat, canal boat, and horse-drawn carriage. They arrived in Vincennes, Indiana, on October 22. The journey across the ocean took 26 days, going overland and by river another six weeks.
Why did the sisters make this long, difficult journey? The bishop of Vincennes begged the superior of the Sisters of Providence in France to send sisters to open schools and to care for poor sick people. Forty-two-year-old Sister Theodore was chosen to lead the group. When the sisters arrived, they went directly to the log cabin chapel in the deeply forested hills. There Mother Theodore dedicated their mission to Mary, and named it St. Mary-of-the-Woods.
Pioneer life is very hard. The sisters struggled to survive the first winter in a drafty little farmhouse. It was very cold, they were very poor, and food was scarce. They worked hard at learning English. By the following summer, they welcomed their first student. Within a year they opened three schools. Other young women saw the good work they were doing and joined them.
The community dealt with many difficulties. Once a fire destroyed their barn and the harvested crops. They faced prejudice against Catholics, especially Catholic religious women. But they persevered. When Mother Theodore died 16 years after the community was founded, the sisters had many schools, two orphanages, and two pharmacies to dispense free medicines to the poor.
As a girl, Mother Theodore was named Anne-Thérèse. She was home schooled by her mother. Her father was an officer in the French navy. When Anne Thérèse was 10 years old, she knew that she wanted to be a nun. Anne-Thérèse liked to go to the rocky shore near her home to pray. When she was 15, her father was killed by bandits on his way home. After that, Anne-Thérèse took charge of the house and garden, and cared for her sick mother and younger sister.
She joined the Sisters of Providence when she was 25 years old. For years she taught and received a medal of honor for excellence in teaching. She also studied medicine in order to care for people who could not afford a doctor. Then she was assigned to America. She thought there must be someone else who would be much better suited for the job.
Mother Theodore always told her sisters, “Put yourself gently into the hands of Providence.” Mother Theodore Guerin was declared Blessed in 1988 and canonized in 2006. She was the right person for this incredible journey after all.
Draw Your Prayer Place
Remind the children that when Mother Theodore was a child, she liked to pray on the rocky shore near her home. Ask them to think about their favorite place to pray, and then have each student draw a picture of himself or herself in that place.
Make Up Skits
Unlike some educators of her time, Mother Theodore believed in gentle discipline for her students. Ask the children to think of common infractions in the classroom and act out skits showing how they could be corrected with fairness and gentleness.
from Saints and Feast Days, by Sisters of Notre Dame of Chardon, Ohio
Image credit: Mother Theodore Guerin by unknown artist, unknown date. Public Domain via Wikimedia.
This Week's Stories
Saint Kateri Tekakwitha
Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks, was a Mohawk Indian. Learn about Saint Kateri Tekakwitha’s life as a Christian.
Blessed Anne-Marie Javouhey
Imagine a Mother Teresa in the France of Napoleon’s day and you will have a picture of Anne-Marie Javouhey.
Saint Bonaventure’s feast day is July 15. Read his story here.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel’s feast day is July 16. Read about it here.
Saint Camillus de Lellis
Saint Camillus de Lellis’s feast day is July 18. Read his story here.
Saint Macrina
Saint Macrina’s feast day is July 19. Read her story here.
Saints Main Page


BWW Review: HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED at Pyramid Theatre: An Evening of Reflection
by DC Felton
BroadwayWorld.com Jun. 9, 2019
Have you ever taken the time to look back at the people who have influenced your life? What has those influences taught us? They teach us what to do and what not to do. Pyramid Theatre's production of "How I Learned What I Learned," which opened on June 8, ask us to do just that. But they ask in a unique way, by letting us look at a playwright telling the stories that influenced the plays he wrote. That playwright is one of America's most prolific playwrights, August Wilson.
August Wilson was born in April 1945 in Pittsburgh, PA. He dropped out of High School in 1960. He would later receive an honorary high school diploma. He started working different odd jobs he could find, which you hear about in the play. Eventually, August became a poet, which led him down the path of becoming a playwright. He is best known for his series of 10 plays, known as the Pittsburgh Cycle. Each of the plays in this series centers around the African American experience in a different decade of the 20th century. Some of the most known plays in this series are "Fences" and "The Piano Lesson." His play "Fences" is listed as the first show produced by Pyramid Theatre.
In the lead role of Troy Maxon in Pyramid's production of "Fences" was Aaron Smith. So it was very fitting that he played the role of August Wilson for this production. Aaron expertly weaves his way through this 90-minute play telling stories from August Wilson's life. He does an amazing job of bringing out the humor in the show but also brings heart to the challenging lessons he learned in his life. One of the lessons is that something is not always better than nothing. This is a story about August Wilson's mother winning a washing machine. I don't want to give the story away, but it is the part of the show that to me showed how rooted Aaron was in the performance. The way he delivered the story showed his full range of emotions as an actor.
The acting was not the only highlight of the evening. I found myself enjoying the projections used as part of the play. The projections are used to tell the tiles of each section of the show. They come up as though they are being written on a typewriter, which considering the author talking about his life, was very fitting. As the show goes on, the titles became a character. Some of them told exactly what was going to happen and others the theme of what August was about to discuss. There is one moment where the title of a section is humorously skipped over.
The most poignant and timely lesson came from the night for me came at the beginning of the show. August talks about a job where he was mowing lawns and a lady whose lawn was mowing didn't want him mowing her lawn because of the color of his skin. His boss at the time told him to just go on to the next yard to mow. His boss could have said if he doesn't mow your lawn then it isn't going to be mowed but chose to send him on. The lesson he took from this, was that the people were good honest American's but due to the way they grew up and how they learned, they became the people they were today. It made me think about how quick we are to judge people today. We often think people are terrible if they have an opposing view from us, but how often do we take the time to think about how they came to that view.
There are many more things that people can learn from the life of August Wilson. "How I Learned What I Learned," challenges us to take a look at not only ourselves but the people around us and ask how we got to the place we are today. I appreciate Pyramid Theatre Company for presenting us with this story and with this challenge. As this show continues over the next few weeks, if you have not seen it, I would recommend that you make plans to. Performances will continue June 14 and 21 at 7:30 PM and June 23 at 2:00 PM. To find out more about this production, visit http://pyramidtheatre.org/how-i-learned-what-i-learned
Related Articles View More Des Moines Stories Shows
BWW Review: NEWSIES at Des Moines Playhouse: A New Generation is Giving Audiences Something to Believe in.
BWW Review: WOZZECK at Des Moines Metro Opera: A Thought Provoking Work of Art
BWW Review: LA BOHEME at Des Moines Metro Opera: A Breathtaking, Beautiful and Tragic Production
BWW Review: CANDIDE at Des Moines Metro Opera: A Beautiful Kaleidoscope That Makes the Best of all Possible Shows
From This Author DC Felton
David Felton has been involved in theatre since his middle school production of The Wizard of Oz. Throughout high school he stayed onstage, and once (read more...)
BWW Review: THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG at Des Moines Performing Arts, An Evening of Theatre That Goes Right!
BWW Review: MACBETH at Iowa Stage: The Joy of Seeing Shakespeare Performed Outside
Review: THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG at Des Moines Performing Arts, An Evening of Theatre That Goes Right!
DES MOINES SHOWS More
DISNEY'S FROZEN JR
THEATRE CEDAR RAPIDS (8/2 - 8/3)
SOUTHWEST IOWA THEATRE GROUP (7/26 - 7/26)
NORTH SCOTT HIGH SCHOOL (3/27 - 4/5)
Mirrorbox Theatre (11/14 - 11/16)
BURLINGTON COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL (11/15 - 11/17)
Des Moines Email Alerts


Trevor Dunbar
Samuel Ellison
Dana Giordano
Kaitlin Goodman
Christian Harrison
Erika Kemp
Katie Newton
Elaina Tabb
Jacob Thomson
Masters Racing Team
Program Tiers
BAA.ORG
May 14, 2019 Comments Off on B.A.A. Runners Ramble on at the USATF Masters 10K Championships Featured, News
B.A.A. Runners Ramble on at the USATF Masters 10K Championships
Karolyn Bowley repeats her runner-up finish in the Women’s Masters USATF 10K Championships.
In 2018, Karolyn Bowley was new to the B.A.A. team and just getting her feet wet in the New England Masters racing scene at age 49. Since her 2nd place finish in 2018 at the USATF Masters 10k Championships, Bowley has been posting noteworthy performances in the 45-49 age division showing off her range of ability from placing 4th in the 2019 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix Masters Mile in 5:10.91 to her 2:55:01 personal best in the marathon at Hartford last fall.
The 2019 edition of the James Joyce Ramble proved to be her best performance of the past year lowering her personal best in the 10k from 37:38 to 37:17. While Bowley was able to beat last year’s winning time of 37:19, younger legs prevailed with Melissa Hardesty of Binghamton winning the women’s Masters 10k in 37:06. Still, a gutty performance by Bowley as she prepares to move into a new age category this summer.
The B.A.A. Masters Men were also runner-up finishers in the 2018 10k team competition behind rival CMS. The B.A.A. and CMS Masters Men are constant companions on the New England team racing circuit with no shortage of talent on either side. In this year’s race, Kevin Castille, of Baton Rogue, ran away from the competition finishing 1st in 30:47 and ninety seconds ahead of the runner-up finisher and former B.A.A. athlete, Eric Blake of West Hartford. Blake, who turned 40 in January, stayed ahead of the 2017 and 2018 Masters 10k winner, David Angell to finish in 32:17.
B.A.A.’s Brendan Prindiville was the first of the three B.A.A. team scorers to finish in 4th place with a time of 33:14. David Bedoya who finished 5th in 2018 crossed the line in 6th place this year in 33:28, the exact finish time Bedoya clocked in 2018. Andy Gardiner who missed the Boston Marathon this year due to a late season injury used his marathon training strength to finish strong with a top ten place in 9th overall in 33:44 and good for 1st place in the 50+ senior division. With three in the top ten, the B.A.A. Masters returned the 10k team title to the B.A.A. Running Club.
While the team scoring for National USATF Masters races only count the top three, notable performances were notched by two new, and former, B.A.A. runners. Chris Georgules who recently returned to racing finished 11th in 33:49 and Donal O’Sullivan, recently relocated back to Mass, finished 12th in 33:58. Both Georgules and O’Sullivan ran for the B.A.A. in the early 2000 years. Welcome back!
The B.A.A. was also represented by Harry Carter who won the 80-84 age division finishing in 56:03 and part of the B.A.A. Men’s Senior Team finishing in 7th place. Also on the team were Dennis Herman who finished in 49:30 and Kevin Grant in 52:22.
In the James Joyce Ramble 10K Open race, B.A.A.’s Eric Ashe finished in 30:53 in the runner-up position behind Hugh Armstrong of Providence, RI. In the women’s race, B.A.A.’s Ashley Busa placed third overall in 37:16. Nicole Borofski made her 10K debut finishing in 38:21 good for 5th place overall.
Congrats to all of the B.A.A. athletes competing in the Ramble 10K!
News (View All)
Olympic Trials Marathon Warm-Up: Bo Waggoner and Matt Fischer
Seven Team B.A.A. Athletes Compete in the USA Olympic Team...
B.A.A. High Performance Team in Mammoth Lakes
B.A.A. Athletes Qualify for the 2016 US Olympic Marathon Trials...
B.A.A. Runners Cruise at Fast Westfield 5K
B.A.A. Running Club Competes in the 123rd Boston Marathon
B.A.A. Athletes Race to Top Finishes at the B.A.A. 5K
B.A.A. competes in the 31st Annual Jim Kane Sugar Bowl...
B.A.A. Masters and Open Athletes Compete in James Joyce Ramble...
Olympic Trials Marathon Warm-Up: Rachel Hyland
B.A.A. Athletes Shine on Rainy Day at Hartford Marathon and...
185 Dartmouth Street, 6th Floor
E-mail: teambaa@baa.org
Interested in joining the B.A.A. Running Club?
Inquire here
Boston Athletic Association
Congrats to #TeamBAA’s @EricAshe, Alex Taylor, Dan Harper, and @mhackett95 for achieving the Olympic Marathon Trial… https://t.co/zX8IEkSfQ6
Vimeo Feed
The B.A.A. from Boston Athletic Association on Vimeo.
Learn what the B.A.A. is all about, and what our mission represents.
© 2018 B.A.A. Running Club | Designed and developed by romanelli communications