As Dorian approached Atlantic Canada, hurricane and tropical storm warnings were issued for Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. On September 6, the Halifax Regional Municipality encouraged residents living along the eastern shores of Nova Scotia to evacuate, citing expected high winds, heavy rainfall, and waves up to 15 m (49 ft) in height. The Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office implored residents to secure easily dislodged objects to prevent high winds from turning them into projectiles, drawing comparisons to Hurricane Juan in 2003. Nova Scotia Power set up an emergency operations center and mobilized 1,000 personnel, including forestry crews, damage assessors, as well as power line technicians from adjacent provinces, to prepare for Dorian's impacts. WestJet, Air Canada, and Porter Airlines issued travel advisories for the weekend and waived rebooking fees for flights to and from affected areas.
Dorian continued moving west and made landfall at 01:00 UTC on August 27 in Barbados, bringing tropical storm-force winds and heavy rain. It then started moving northwestward toward Saint Lucia. At 11:00 UTC of the same day, Dorian made landfall on the island of Saint Lucia as a tropical storm, briefly disrupting the core of the storm, before entering the Caribbean Sea. The storm underwent a center relocation further north, to the west of Martinique, causing the island to experience tropical storm-force winds as well. Dorian had been predicted to travel northwest and pass over or near the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico, possibly allowing their mountainous terrain to weaken the tropical storm. At that time, dry air and wind shear were expected to prevent Dorian from attaining hurricane status—although just barely. However, Dorian took a more northerly track than expected, causing it to pass to the east of Puerto Rico and hit the US Virgin Islands. On August 28, Dorian intensified into a Category 1 hurricane as it approached the US Virgin Islands, where hurricane-force winds were recorded; at 15:30 UTC that day, Dorian became a hurricane and made landfall in Saint Croix and a few hours later, at 18:00 UTC, Dorian made landfall on Saint Thomas at a slightly higher intensity. However, the hurricane's small size prevented mainland Puerto Rico from experiencing hurricane- or tropical storm-force winds, although this was not the case for the Spanish Virgin Islands.
More InfoDavid Sutton was director of AAT Corporation and EHG Corporation when they held mineral licenses in North Korea and did business with Korean Natural Resources Development and Investment Corporation, which is under United Nations sanctions, and North Korea's "primary arms dealer and main exporter of goods and equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons, responsible for approximately half of the arms exported by North Korea." The geologist, Louis Schurmann, said British billionaire Kevin Leech was key to putting the deal together. Leaked documents also reveal the involvement of another Briton, Gibraltar-based John Lister. According to ABC, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was aware of these mining deals, which had also been brought up in the Australian Senate, but nobody ever referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police.
More InfoIsabel Saint Malo de Alvarado, Vice President of Panama, said in an op-ed piece published April 21 in The Guardian that President Juan Carlos Varela and his administration have strengthened Panama's controls over money-laundering in the twenty months they have been in power, and that "Panama is setting up an independent commission, co-chaired by the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, to evaluate our financial system, determine best practices, and recommend measures to strengthen global financial and legal transparency. We expect its findings within the next six months, and will share the results with the international community."
More InfoAt 16:40 UTC on September 1, Dorian made landfall on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, with one-minute sustained winds of 185 mph (298 km/h), wind gusts over 220 mph (355 km/h), and a central barometric pressure of 910 millibars (27 inHg), as Dorian reached its peak intensity during landfall. Storm chaser Josh Morgerman observed a pressure of 913.4 mbar (26.97 inHg) in Marsh Harbour. Dorian's forward speed decreased around this time, slowing to a westward crawl of 5 mph (8.0 km/h). At 02:00 UTC on September 2, Dorian made landfall on Grand Bahama near the same intensity, with the same sustained wind speed. Afterward, Dorian's forward speed slowed to just 1 knot (1.2 mph; 1.9 km/h), as the Bermuda High that was steering the storm westward weakened. Later that day, the storm began to undergo an eyewall replacement cycle to the north of Grand Bahama; the Bermuda High to the northeast of Dorian also collapsed, causing Dorian to stall just north of Grand Bahama. Around the same time, the combination of the eyewall replacement cycle and upwelling of cold water caused Dorian to begin weakening, with Dorian dropping to Category 4 status at 15:00 UTC. Due to the absence of steering currents, Dorian stalled north of Grand Bahama for about a day. Dorian subsequently weakened to a Category 2 storm on September 3, before beginning to move northwestward at 15:00 UTC, parallel to the east coast of Florida, with Dorian's wind field expanding during this time.
More InfoThe Municipality of Regulation and Supervision of Financial Subjects [not the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF)] initiated a special review of the law firm Mossack Fonseca to determine whether it had followed tax law. Carlamara Sanchez, in charge of this proceeding, said at a press conference that the quartermaster had come to verify whether the firm had complied since April 8 with due diligence, customer knowledge, the final beneficiary and reporting of suspicious transactions to Financial Analysis Unit (UAF) operations. She said that Law 23 of 2015 empowers regulation and supervision and said some firms had been monitored since late last year with special attention after the Panama Papers, and noted that the law carries fines $5,000 to $1 million or even suspension of the firm.
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