Prince Charles Says Slavery Stains U.K. as Barbados Sheds Crown
(Bloomberg) -- The Prince of Wales said slavery is a blot on the U.K.'s history as Barbados became the world's newest republic, removing Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state.
President Sandra Mason, who had been serving as the island's governor general, was sworn in as its first president on Monday night amid fireworks and a 21-gun salute, and the country became a republic as of Tuesday.
Read More: Barbados to Ditch Monarchy, Cut ‘Umbilical Cord' With U.K.
“From the darkest days of our past and the appalling atrocity of slavery, which forever stains our history, the people of this island forged their path with extraordinary fortitude,” Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, said during the event in Bridgetown.
His mother, Queen Elizabeth, remains the honorary head of 15 other “commonwealth realms,” more than half of them in the Caribbean.
In her inaugural address, Mason, 72, said the new republic would have to make its way in a “complex, fractured and turbulent” world and asked the nation of 287,000 to “dream big dreams.”
Barbados, along with other tourism-dependent economies in the region, suffered a deep slump during the pandemic, and is grappling with one of the world's heaviest debt burdens. The economy is expected to grow 3.3% this year, after collapsing 18% in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
-
Indians Are Travelling, But Not Every Journey Is A Holiday | The Week In Whys
Pilgrims, patients and working women are the real travellers, and the system hasn't quite caught up with them.
-
Getting To Work Costs Women More | The Reason Why
It is not just about women paying more than men. It is about women paying much more in cities than in villages.
-
AI Bias In Investing Cannot Be Eliminated, But It Can Be Governed
Framing is a particularly important example as identical financial information presented in terms of gains rather than losses can lead an LLM to reach a different assessment.
-
Joining The Dots | Dark Skies, Steady Diya: Why Hope Holds This Diwali
With war, a weak rupee and foreign outflows weighing on sentiment, policymakers at the NDTV World Summit and market veterans at NDTV Profit Ignite: Diwali Edition offered the same advice: stay invested and filter out the noise.
-
The Curious Case of Equitas Small Finance Bank And A CEO Who Quit For Stock
PN Vasudevan believes persistent investor concerns over a perceived conflict of interest had become a governance overhang on Equitas Small Finance Bank's stock, even as the lender improved profitability and asset quality.
-
Talking Points This Week: AI Cash Burn, A Tiger Comeback And An India That Still Finds Its Own Path
India is not immune to higher oil or tighter global liquidity, yet its earnings base is broader, its domestic policy levers are still available.
-
Foreign Investors Own Half Of HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. An LTCG Cut Could Matter Most Here
Foreign portfolio investors have US$115 billion parked in HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank. If the government cuts long-term capital gains tax, Jefferies says returning foreign money could land here first.
