Last Tuesday, the District Association of Village Councils, led by president Gabriel Edwards, convened a meeting with residents of Midway, in the Toledo District, to discuss the issue of oil exploration within the Sarstoon Temash National Park. Midway, which falls under the representation of SATIIM, is one of six buffer communities fringing the protected area. […]
As we told you, one of the straws which broke the proverbial camel’s back was the disqualification of Belize from the champions League. CONCACAF refused to certify the football pitch for international play because it simply was not adequate. But while nobody argued the lack of readiness of the field, there was some agitation when […]
Barranco Village, which is also one of six buffer communities surrounding the Sarstoon Temash National Park, is a founding member of SATIIM. Over the years, there seem to have been discord over the direction in which the organization was headed, particularly where it concerns the representation of that predominantly Garifuna community. Today we asked incoming […]
It’s been a couple weeks since the clash between the workers of Belize Maintenance Limited and the Belize City Council. Things came to a head after City Hall went into arrears for nineteen weeks, which amounts to about one point five million dollars. The company couldn’t continue to pay the workers, and the workers demonstrated […]
On Sunday, a barge belonging to Belize Sugar Industries capsized off the coast of Corozal. Sinking along with the faulty vessel was almost a hundred and twenty-five tons of sugar destined for the global market. While the value of the loss has not been disclosed, it is estimated to be in the thousands. The sinking […]
On Thursday, a group of journalists from across the local media participated in a round-table with U.S. Ambassador Carlos Moreno at the embassy in Belmopan. During the forum a range of issues were discussed, including financial assistance offered to UNIBAM to advance its awareness campaign on stigma and discrimination, gay marriage, Belize’s border dispute with Guatemala, the justice […]
About thirty-four million dollars is being spent on road works in the Old Capital. Today, Belize City Mayor Darrell Bradley, along with the Taiwanese Ambassador launched another project to complement the ongoing infrastructure works, as well as the aesthetics of the downtown area. The official renovation of the Commercial Center is taking off immediately and […]
Sanitation has been in the news incessantly, with the B.M.L. situation threatening to blow up and out of control. A very timely intervention by Prime Minister Barrow in the form of a financial bailout saved the day. It’s not the first time the PM has provided some serious cash assistance to the Belize City Council, […]
Phase one of the infrastructure program in Orange Walk Town is underway, including paving of the Belize/Corozal Road, sidewalks and drainage. It’s a huge project, about four miles of road from one end of town to the other. It’s also been a long time in coming, much to the frustration of residents and the municipal […]
Mayor Bernard is so happy about the road work that he’s not even making much noise about the infamous San Antonio Road. U.D.P. contractor of choice, Imer Hernandez, who happens to be the nephew of Deputy Prime Minister Gaspar Vega, has gotten the two-million-dollar contract to pave the stretch of road. It’s not the first […]
There is a lot to report tonight from the court, including the all-day arraignment of forty-one BML sanitation workers and a near confrontation between those workers and Mayor Darrell Bradley. The workers were in court to be formally charged with loitering, littering and taking part in an unlawful public meeting – charges which stem from […]
As we told you sanitation workers were at court this morning and there, a near-confrontation between angry BML workers and Mayor Darrell Bradley happened in front of Magistrate’s Court number one. Bradley dropped into the courtroom to deal with another matter just before eleven this morning. First the media found him, and then word filtered […]
At the heart of the ongoing sanitation crisis is an outstanding balance of one point four million dollars which City Hall owes to Belize Maintenance Limited for eighteen weeks of garbage collection. Despite admitting that keeping up with weekly payments at this time of year is problematic, the Belize City Council is yet to issue […]
Mayor Bradley has maintained his hard line where Belize Maintenance Limited is concerned. BML’s contract is worth seventy-eight thousand dollars a week, and Bradley says that CitCo can take over that work – and do it better, for just a fraction of that cost. But BML’s Operation’s Manager Mitchell Danderson isn’t convinced. He started out […]
There is an apparent dissention within the Maya community to report on tonight, following a release from the elected leaders of Conejo, Crique Sarco, Midway and Graham Creek. The group of four, having met to discuss recent statements in the media by representatives of U.S. Capital Energy, says that it flatly rejects the decision and […]
The Forestry Department is currently investigating the killing of a jaguar up north. Two officers of the department are currently in Sarteneja Village, in the Corozal district where the vicious act occurred. Today, on the social media, a picture of the dead animal was posted by a resident of that area. According to that post, […]
As we told you, a seventeen year old Wesley High School graduate has been charged with the murder of sixteen year old Chryslin Gladden. That has sparked a vigil for the fallen youth. This morning, a group of former Wesley College students was also at the Raccoon Street police station. Their purpose was to acquire […]
It has not been a good year for manatees; a growing number of the endangered mammals has been killed in boating accidents. Over the weekend, a mature female manatee perished after she was hit by a Caye Caulker Water Taxi in the area of the tourist village. Conservationists, who were alerted by a passenger on […]
U.S. Capital Energy is tonight one step closer to drilling for oil in the Sarstoon Temash National Park. On Thursday, a convoy of vehicles carrying heavy equipment used to set up a drill rig entered the country at the northern border. The fleet is the first of several containing the necessary items to be used […]
There are still more questions than answers where the Puerto Azul mega-tourism project is concerned. Government has maintained that it can’t provide much information because the concept is still in a very preliminary phase; it is fluid and is yet to get a green light. But concern over the project is not going away, and […]
Two weeks after survey pegs were discovered on Goff’s Caye, signalling some sort of planned development, there is still no clue who placed the pegs there. The Ministry tried to pass it off on tour operator Ramon Cervantes, who got a lease for a small portion of the island in 2002, but Cervantes quickly cleared […]
Goff’s Caye is one of the most popular and accessible public beaches to Belizeans so when rangers detected the survey pegs in June, it immediately raised eyebrows. So who is placing pegs at the caye? We have been trying to find out for days and today we asked the Coastal Zone Management Authority which is […]
We further quizzed the CZMAI on the survey and there was one possible explanation coming from C.E.O. Gillett. That is that someone, whose identity is still a mystery, may be interested in starting concessions in the island. Duane Moody “My question now is sir that how is it that someone would have the barefaced […]
In April 2014 Orange Walk resident Jose Novelo came to the media for help after a lease to a piece of land he had claimed and farmed for over forty years was given to somebody else. That prompted the Lands Department to look into the matter, and they promised Novelo they would investigate. But the […]
The Novelo incident is not an isolated case, and it seems that not a week goes by without some land dispute or the other in some corner of the country. Very often it’s caused by what we’ll call a glitch in the Ministry of Natural Resources – in a nutshell, somebody owns a piece of […]
