New Zealand tour operators told to pay $7.8 million in fines and reparations over volcanic eruption

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Tour booking agents and managers of a New Zealand island where a volcanic eruption killed 22 people in 2019 were ordered Friday to pay nearly $13 million (US$7.8 million) in fines and reparations. The holding company of the island’s owners, a boat tour operator and three companies that operated helicopter tours … Read more

Brazil, facing calls for reparations, wrangles with its painful legacy of slavery

RIO DE JANEIRO — The executive manager for institutional relations at a Brazilian state bank took the microphone before roughly 150 people at a forum on slavery’s legacy in his country, which kidnapped more Africans for forced labor than any other nation. “Today’s Bank of Brazil asks Black people for forgiveness,” André Machado said to … Read more

An oil exec, a climate crisis, and reparations: what’s going down at the United Nations summit in Dubai

Tens of thousands of negotiators, activists, and corporate execs have descended upon Dubai to wrangle over the future of fossil fuels. Namely, should they even have a future? Can governments broker a deal to phase out the oil, coal, and gas causing climate change? Countries have already suffered deep losses as a result of the … Read more

A Ghana reparations summit agrees on a global fund to compensate Africans for the slave trade

ACCRA, Ghana — Delegates at a reparations summit in Ghana agreed Thursday to establish a Global Reparation Fund to push for overdue compensation for millions of Africans enslaved centuries ago during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Accra Reparation Conference adds to the growing demands for reparations after about 12 million Africans were forcefully taken by … Read more

Prosecutors want Brazil’s oldest bank to pay reparations for slavery

Comment on this storyCommentAdd to your saved storiesSave RIO DE JANEIRO — In the mid-1800s, the most prolific slaver in Brazil was a man named José Bernardino de Sá. The transatlantic slave trade was banned in Brazil and abroad, but Bernardino nonetheless financed the trafficking of nearly 20,000 Africans to Brazil — and became one … Read more

Descendants of a British proprietor of slaves in Guyana apologize as Caribbean nation seeks reparations

GEORGETOWN, Guyana — The descendants of a Nineteenth-century Scottish sugar and low planter who owned 1000’s of slaves in Guyana apologized Friday for the sins of their ancestor, calling slavery a criminal offense towards humanity with lasting adverse impacts. Charles Gladstone, a descendant of former plantation proprietor John Gladstone, traveled to Guyana from Britain with … Read more