[ISL] Five notes about islands: Greenland, South China Sea, Bangladesh, Caribbean, Puerto Rico

[rfmcdonald]

• The slow melt of the Greenland icecap will eventually release a Cold War American military base into the open air. VICE reports.


• Robert Farley suggests at The National Interest that China's artificial islands in the South China Sea would not be of much use in an actual conflict.


• Reuters notes that a mud island in the Bay of Bengal lucky not to be overwhelmed by high tides is being expanded into a compound to hold Rohingya refugees.


• A new study suggests that there was some genetic continuing between pre- and post-Columbian populations in the Caribbean, that as family and local histories suggest at least some Taino did survive the catastrophes of colonialism. National Geographic reports.


• This account from NACLA of Puerto Rico's perennial problems with the American mainland and the history of migration, culminating in an ongoing disastrous mass emigration after Maria, is pro-independence. Might this viewpoint become more common among Puerto Ricans?