A Year in Review

World Wide Woodard turns one year old tomorrow, so I thought I'd offer a round-up of updates to some of the stories I've covered.

In Iceland -- from which I made my first post -- the financial collapse hasn't stopped the country's ongoing effort to stop using fossil fuels altogether. The country just added ten hydrogen fuel cell cars to their test fleet.

The central figure in the corruption scandal I reported on in the Turks & Caicos apparently hasn't lost his penchant for the high life. According to BET, disgraced Prime Minister Michael Misick tried to crash Beyonce's birthday party in the Dominican Republic but, as he is no longer married to celebrity Lisa Raye, he was turned away as being a nobody.

I reported on the rise of a far right party in Hungary, Jobbik, with an animus against alleged Gypsy criminals. As the party's popularity grew, someone was busy assassinating gypsies in a series of death squad style executions. Some suspected Jobbik, Jobbik suspected the government. This summer I thought we'd get some answers after several men were arrested and charged with the murders, but my former colleagues in Budapest tell me there's been little new information released about them. Does anyone else think that's strange?

Here in Maine, the major media have continued not to ask troubling questions about the Maine State Pier debacle, in which city officials appear to have engineered a sweetheart deal for a politically-connected real estate firm so as to "fix" a public asset that actually didn't need fixing. Meanwhile, the Portland Press-Herald's toughest reporting to date on the ill-conceived Ocean Gateway Terminal was written in verse. (I'm not making this up.)

Looking forward, I'm headed back to the Czech Republic and Austria this month, so expect fresh material from there soon. And there's this book I'm working on......

Pirates of the Turks & Caicos: Part 2

My piece on the ongoing political crisis in the Turks & Caicos is now up at The Christian Science Monitor. Following the interim report of official corruption investigators, the prime minister resigned last month and the United Kingdom announced it intended to suspend the constitution and restore direct rule of the overseas territory.

At hearings earlier this year, investigators heard testimony suggesting what they later called "systemic venality" and "political amorality." Some highlights are in my Monitor piece, but if you've got time on your hands and want to read for yourself, all the transcripts from the Commission on Inquiry are available online.

The former Prime Minister, Michael Misick, declined to speak with me, but his friend (and Turks & Caicos Washington lobbyist) Jeffrey Watson did. You can read his salient remarks in the piece. (Watson surfaced during testimony about the private jets Mr. Misick had used, one of which turned out to be leased from a firm controlled by Mr. Watson.)

Some additional information for politicos: During our interview Watson initially denied that he was a registered lobbyist for the Turks & Caicos, despite having filed this form with Congress. He also suggested he did not have to file a lobbyist's disclosure form under the Department of Justice's Foreign Agents Registration Act on the grounds that the British Overseas Territory has no control over its foreign policy. He said he did not know why many other lobbying firms - including this one - had filed disclosures with FARA for their work for the government of Turks & Caicos.

Pirates of the Turks & Caicos: Part 1

I've been in the Turks & Caicos Islands, a British Overseas Territory, where I gave a talk on the history of the golden age pirates at this private resort island.

As told in my book, The Republic of Pirates, Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, Calico Jack Rackham, and other members of the infamous Nassau-based pirate gang operated throughout the Bahamian archipelago, including the Turks & Caicos (where they enjoyed ambushing Bermuda vessels that came here to rake salt.) I also had an opportunity to compare colonial history notes with my fellow presenters: antique book and map dealer Graham Arader (who let me peruse an original copy of a famous 1655 account of the West Indies) and the erstwhile cocktail aficionado Patrick Costigan (who introduced me to The Hemingway.)

The Turks & Caicos Sporting Club, located on Big Ambergris Cay, is an unusual place: an 1100-acre private island resort with its own international airport, airline, utility company, and desalinization plant. Building lots go for $600,000 to $6 million. It's a world apart from Providenciales, the hub of the Turks & Caicos, where a corruption inquiry has triggered the resignation of the prime minister and prompted the United Kingdom to prepare to suspend the territory's constitution. (More on that later.)