Rights groups throughout the Caribbean are raising the alarm  on the persistence of racist attacks in the Dominican Republic, charging they are being actively encouraged by authorities. On June 3, in the neighborhood of Matanzas in Santiago de los Caballeros, the country's second city, a racist mob carried out yet another lynching of two Haitian workers. Investigators have determined that the incident began when local businessman Gabriel Beato Burgos, apparently motivated by anti-Haitian xenophobia, fired shots at two local Haitian men, with a stray bullet killing a young Dominican man, Daniel Espejo. To cover up his crime, Burgos accused the Haitian men he'd shot at of having killed Espejo. Incited by the false story, a mob attacked Victor Pierre and Esil'homme Atul, two Haitian workers who were passing by and had no connection with the first incident. This mob killed Pierre and seriously injured Atul. Several Haitian families living in the community were also threatened.

Puerto Rico on Aug. 7 swore in its third governor in less than a week, Wanda Vázquez Garced, after the removal of Pedro Pierluisi by order of the commonwealth's Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that his appointment was unconstitutional. Pierluisi had been the chosen successor of Ricardo Rosselló of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP), who stepped down Aug. 2 following two weeks of mass protests. The protest wave began after group chats between Rosselló and his staff were made public, disclosing ugly homophobic and misogynistic comments aimed at political rivals, including San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz of the opposition Popular Democratic Party (PPD). The comments also included cruel "humor" aimed at victims of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in 2017.

Activists in Havana held Cuba's first independent gay pride march May 11, after authorities cancelled the officially sanctioned event. The march assembled in Old Havana'a Parque Central, where the official event had been scheduled to start. Accompanied by a large escort of riot police and State Security agents, including some with dogs, the activists headed down the Paseo del Prado, waving rainbow flag. Upon arrival at the Malecón, Havana's seaside promenade, plainclothes agents moved in on the march, arresting at least six.

Thousands of Haitians filled the streets of Port-au-Prince and several provincial cities to demand the resignation of President Jovenel Moise on Feb, 7—anniversary of the 1986 ouster of long-ruling dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Demonstrators also called for the arrest of officials responsible for the plundering of monies from the Venezuela-provided PetroCaribe fund over the past 10 years. At least two were reported dead in the protests, with vehicles burned, a police station attacked, some 40 arrested, and many wounded, including 14 police officers. Haiti faces a fast-deepening crisis, with hunger, unemployment and inflation all growing. The cost of food and other necessities is increasing daily as the national currency depreciates. In 1986, the gourde was fixed at five to one dollar. Now 83 gourdes buys a dollar, up from 65 when Jovenel Moïse came to power two years ago. (Haiti Liberté)

Ex-CIA asset Luis Posada Carriles, wanted by Cuba and Venezuela for deadly armed attacks, died a fee man in Miami on May 23 at the age of 90. In the news reports of his passing, he was called a "militant" by the Miami Herald, more forthrightly (and predictably) a "terrorist" by TeleSur, and, with extreme perversity, an "actvist" by the BBC. Exiled from his native Cuba after the 1959 Revolution, Posada Carriles dedicated his life to armed counter-revolutionary activity. He was wanted by Cuba for a string of bombings of Havana hotels, and by Venezuela for masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner in which 73 were killed. The US refused to extradite, and he had been for years living openly in the Miami area. In 2014, he was given a medal by the Cuban History Academy at Miami Dade College. He did face some legal trouble when he was accused of lying to immigration officers about how he got into the US before applying for asylum in 2005, but was acquitted in 2011 and spent his remaining years in a comfortable South Florida existence. In the 1980s, he worked with the CIA in covert resupply operations for the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

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From Cuba, we initiate this May 5, 2018 a new phase in the process of self-emancipation, with the opening by a group of Cubans of ABRA: Social Center and Libertarian Library. This endeavor of the Alfredo López Libertarian Workshop (an anarchist, anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist initiative launched in 2012, which forms part of the Anarchist Federation of the Caribbean and Central America),  with the effective and vital involvement of allied collectives such as the Cuban Critical Observatory, Guardabosques, as well as some other individual energies, seeks to build an autonomous and sustainable space in today's Cuba.

After 13 years of occupying the country—during which they fired on protesters and accidentally introduced cholera to the island, setting off an epidemic—UN "peacekeepers" were finally withdrawn from Haiti in October. To take up the slack in figting drug gangs in the capital Port-au-Prince, the United Nations has called for increased international support for the 15,000-strong Haitian National Police.

Hurricane Maria's destruction on Puerto Rico could spawn one of the largest mass migration events in the United States' recent history, as tens of thousands of storm victims flee the island territory to rebuild their lives on the mainland. Some 97% of the island's 3.4 million residents are still without power. About half of the island's residents do not have running water. And no one knows when things will be fixed. Scientific American warns that the displaced islanders, thousands now awaiting flights from San Juan's Luis Muñoz Marín airport, might be among the United States' newest "climate refugees," a demographic that includes former residents of the Louisiana coast and of shrinking islands in Alaska's Bering Strait.