Portal:Caribbean

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The Caribbean (/ˌkærɪˈbən, kəˈrɪbiən/ KARR-ih-BEE-ən, kə-RIB-ee-ən, locally /ˈkærɪbæn/ KARR-ih-bee-an; Spanish: el Caribe; French: les Caraïbes; Dutch: de Caraïben) is a subregion of the Americas that includes the Caribbean Sea and its islands, some of which are surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some of which border both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean; the nearby coastal areas on the mainland are sometimes also included in the region. The region is south-east of the Gulf of Mexico and Northern America, east of Central America, and north of South America.

Situated largely on the Caribbean Plate, the region has more than 700 islands, islets, reefs, and cays. Island arcs delineate the northern and eastern edges of the Caribbean Sea: the Greater Antilles in the north and the Lesser Antilles, which includes the Leeward Antilles, in the east and south. The nearby Lucayan Archipelago, comprising The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, is considered to be a part of the Caribbean despite not bordering the Caribbean Sea. All the islands in the Antilles plus the Lucayan Archipelago form the West Indies, which is often interchangeable with the term Caribbean. On the mainland, Belize, the eastern and northern coasts of Central and South American countries such as the Bay Islands Department of Honduras, the North and South Caribbean Autonomous Regions of Nicaragua, the Limón Province of Costa Rica, and the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina of Colombia are also considered culturally Caribbean. French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, and Suriname are often included as parts of the Caribbean due to their political and cultural ties with the region.

Geopolitically, the islands of the Caribbean are often regarded as a subregion of North America, though sometimes they are included in Middle America or left as a subregion of their own; alternately, the term "Caribbean" may have the intended exclusion, or even unintentional inclusion, as part of Latin America. Generally the Caribbean area is organized into 33 political entities, including 13 sovereign states, 12 dependencies, historical disputed territories have existed, and seven other overseas territories. From 15 December 1954 to 10 October 2010, there was a territory known as the Netherlands Antilles composed of five islands, all of which were Dutch dependencies. From 3 January 1958 to 31 May 1962, there was also a short-lived political union called the British West Indies Federation composed of ten English-speaking Caribbean territories, all of which were then British dependencies. (Full article...)

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Lenford "Steve" Harvey was a Jamaican activist who campaigned for the rights of those living with HIV/AIDS in Jamaican society. In November 2005, he was abducted from his home and murdered in a robbery that some commentators believed was also a homophobic hate crime. Harvey, an openly gay man, had worked for Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JASL), since 1997 becoming the group's coordinator for Kingston. In this position, he focused on distributing information and services surrounding HIV/AIDS to the most marginalised sectors of Jamaican society, among them prisoners, sex workers, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. In 2005, he was selected as Jamaica's project coordinator for the Latin America and Caribbean Council of AIDS Service Organizations. Harvey was praised for his work. According to Peter Tatchell of the British LGBT rights organisation OutRage!, "It is thanks to the efforts of Steve and his colleagues that many Jamaican men and women - both gay and straight - have not contracted HIV. They have helped save hundreds of lives."

In November 2005, three men carrying guns broke into Harvey's home, removing any valuables they could find. They asked him if he was gay, and when he refused to respond to them, they kidnapped him, later shooting him dead and dumping the body elsewhere. The police subsequently arrested four individuals and charged them with murder in the furtherance of a robbery. The accused remained in police custody for almost ten years before the case came to court. At that point, the police dropped their murder charges against two of the accused. The other two, Dwayne Owen and Andre West, went on trial and were found unanimously guilty of murder by a jury. Although prosecutors had requested capital punishment in the case, the judge instead sentenced them to life in prison with a minimum of thirty years before becoming eligible for parole. They remain in prison, as of 2022. (Full article...)

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Montserrat (/ˌmɒntsəˈræt/ MONT-sə-RAT) is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about 16 km (10 mi) long and 11 km (7 mi) wide, with roughly 40 km (25 mi) of coastline. It is nicknamed "The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean" both for its resemblance to coastal Ireland and for the Irish ancestry of many of its inhabitants. Montserrat is the only non-fully sovereign full member of the Caribbean Community and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.

On 18 July 1995, the previously dormant Soufrière Hills volcano in the southern end of the island became active and its eruptions destroyed Plymouth, Montserrat's Georgian era capital city situated on the west coast. Between 1995 and 2000, two-thirds of the island's population was forced to flee, mostly to the United Kingdom, leaving fewer than 1,200 people on the island in 1997. (The population had increased to nearly 5,000 by 2016). The volcanic activity continues, mostly affecting the vicinity of Plymouth, including its docks, and the eastern side of the island around the former W. H. Bramble Airport, the remnants of which were buried by flows from further volcanic activity on 11 February 2010. (Full article...)

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Moronga
Moronga, rellena, or morcilla is a kind of blood sausage. It is found in Argentina, Cuba, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Central America, and Mexican cuisine. Spices, herbs (such as ruta, oregano, and mint), onions and chili peppers are added and then boiled in the pig's large intestines for casing for several hours. It is served in a sauce, either "chile rojo" or "chile verde". It is also served in central Mexico as a filling in gorditas and tacos after it has been pan-fried with fresh onions and jalapeño peppers. This sausage is called "morcilla" in the Yucatán Peninsula, and it is almost always served along with other sausages (buche) and a mix of pickled onion, cilantro, and spices. (Full article...)

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  • ...that Trenchtown, a neighbourhood in Kingston, Jamaica, gets its name from a large open-trenched sewer that ran through the neighbourhood?

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A beige-colored snake slithers on a branch, among leafy vegetation.
Cascabel dormillon or Cook's tree boa (Corallus ruschenbergerii), Caroni Swamp, Trinidad
Forty-seven species of snake have been recorded in Trinidad and Tobago, making the snake population of this area the most diverse in the Caribbean. Forty-four of these snake species are found in Trinidad and twenty-one in Tobago. Many of these species are South American, most of which are present in Venezuela. (Full article...)

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Interior of Catedral Primada in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Interior of Catedral Primada in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Credit: Lapo Luchini, 2004

Interior of Cathedral Primada in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Calypso rhythm

Calypso is a style of Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the early to mid-19th century and spread to the rest of the Caribbean Antilles by the mid-20th century. Its rhythms can be traced back to West African Kaiso and the arrival of French planters and their slaves from the French Antilles in the 18th century.

It is characterized by highly rhythmic and harmonic vocals, and was historically most often sung in a French creole and led by a griot. As calypso developed, the role of the griot became known as a chantuelle and eventually, calypsonian. As English replaced "patois" (Antillean) as the dominant language, calypso migrated into English, and in so doing it attracted more attention from the government. It allowed the masses to challenge the doings of the unelected Governor and Legislative Council, and the elected town councils of Port of Spain and San Fernando. Calypso continued to play an important role in political expression. (Full article...)

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Caribbean topics

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