U.S. grants scholarship to Grinnell College

While journalistic rumour has it that the U.S. government is vex with Belize for turning down its request to use the Voice of America station in Punta Gorda to beam propaganda into Cuba, you’d never know it by the news from Gabourel Lane. A press release from the embassy today indicates that work is nearly complete on one hundred thousand U.S. dollars worth of renovations on the Central Medical Laboratory in Belize City. The project, undertaken by the U.S. Military Liaison Office, is being carried out under the Pentagon’s Humanitarian Assistance Programme. During Hurricane Keith in 2000 the lab of suffered major water damage to both equipment and the building. Since that time both the Pan American Health Organisation and European Union have provided funding to rehabilitate the facility.

In other news from the U.S. embassy, on Monday Russel Freeman met with the winner of a scholarship his government has granted to a Belizean student. Chantalle Clarke will receive a full ride towards a Bachelor of Arts degree at Grinnell College in Iowa courtesy of Uncle Sam and the Luce Foundation. Clarke, a graduate of A.C.C. and Belize Technical College, will major in biology and environmental studies. Grinnell students regularly come to Belize for summer field trips and Ambassador Freeman is himself an alumnus of Grinnell, which has a reputation as one of the finest small colleges in the United States.