On June fourth, Prime Minister Dean Barrow released a pre-recorded video statement announcing the launch of a thirty-million U.S.-dollar treasury note. The PM said it is the first-of-its-kind Central Bank initiative that aims to fix Belize’s foreign exchange woes. Barrow said that the monetary instrument is a special offering with a tenor of five years and […]
Opposition Leader John Briceño says he was left in the dark on the treasury note and that Prime Minister Dean Barrow failed to discuss it with the National Oversight Committee or with members of the Economic Oversight Team. With debt at record levels, Briceño says that the note raises many questions and concerns, including what […]
The government’s U.S. thirty-million-dollar treasury note is a means to attract much needed foreign exchange. The aim, according to the PM, is to attract Belizeans who hold U.S. dollar accounts overseas to “relocate this capital to a safe, fixed-income asset of the highest credit quality available in Belize.” According to the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry, […]
On Tuesday night, you heard about the financial troubles of the owners of night clubs that remain closed due to the COVID-19 lockdown. On the entertainment strip on Princess Margaret Drive, the once booming businesses are facing loss of income and possibly permanent closure. Food vending and other small businesses owned by enterprising individuals remain […]
Earlier this week, the Belize Tourism Industry Association commenced a polling exercise among its members to determine their position regarding the reopening of the Philip Goldson International Airport. The survey also required participants to share their views on the medical safeguards that should be put in place once the P.G.I.A. is reopened to reduce the […]
A group of Belizeans was repatriated into the country today. About fifteen Belizeans entered through the northern border with Mexico. We understand that they flew from Houston in the U.S. to Cancun before touching down in Chetumal. They arrived this morning and were met by Ministry of Health and Foreign Affairs officials. The repatriates were […]
Belize today recorded its twentieth COVID-19 case. The patient was caught illegally entering the country in the south. The twenty-two-year-old Belizean woman was swabbed and tested after she was caught entering Belize illegally on Sunday, June seventh. The Ministry of Health says that the female was traveling with a one-year-old child and a sixty-three-year-old female, […]
Earlier today, the Director of Health Services gave an update on Ask the Experts webcast on the persons being allowed into the country legally at the border points. These persons, he noted, were overseas for medical reasons. Moving forward, the Ministry of Health has modified the way it will be conducting testing, particularly for those […]
Most businesses are now open, from hotels to casinos to boledo, but tonight, we have the story of those that are not. Along the entertainment strip on Princess Margaret Drive, Belize City, night life has come to halt. Since the COVID-19 lockdown was imposed at the beginning of April, night clubs were shuttered and have […]
A mother from Ontario Village, Cayo is struggling to come to terms with the gruesome death of her son, and it is suspected he was the victim of a vicious murder. In September 2018, Gerardo Vasquez went missing; he was seventeen-years-old and gay and was the victim of constant bullying. Searches for him came up […]
Two men remain hospitalized after enduring a horrible and dangerous incident on Monday. A pair of linesmen, employed by the Cayo Television Network, was electrocuted while they were working on cable lines in San Jose Succotz in the west. The men were jolted by electricity when their ladder touched a high tension wire. The two […]
There is now case number twenty of the coronavirus and as you heard, the Belizean woman is a border jumper. Earlier today, before number twenty was known, the Ministry of Health said that case nineteen that was detected last Saturday, doesn’t signal a second wave of COVID-19 for Belize. That person, according to the Director […]
Director of Health Services, Doctor Marvin Manzanero was asked for his expert opinion on the opening of schools. He says that while the world is experiencing a pandemic, education must continue. Today, he shared why he believes Belize should do it earlier than August. Here is how he explains it. Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director […]
The Director of Health Services also gave an update on the increase in cases in Mexico, particularly Quintana Roo. Here’s what he had to say: Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services “I think they changed color through the weekend, only behind Cancun area. That is something we have to look at closely and […]
There is a tentative date for students to return to the classrooms. Today, the Ministry of Education announced that the current school year officially ends this month and a tentative date for the reopening of the upcoming school year is August tenth. The ministry says it is earlier than in the past, but offers students […]
Minister Faber also called on secondary school teachers and counselors to return to classrooms from June fifteenth to thirtieth, to close out the current school year. They are to prepare for the upcoming CSEC exams and plan for the new school year. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education “We are also going to be requiring […]
Education Minister Patrick Faber also spoke on the programmes that are being affected as a result of budget cuts. These initiatives that stand to be affected are text books; school transport; school feeding programme; high school subsidy programme; six CSEC tuition scholarship programme; the six CSEC payment for students for the 2021 sitting of the […]
Tonight there is new information coming out the B.D.F.’s internal investigation into the fatal helicopter crash. News Five has learnt that the investigation has uncovered a series dereliction of duties, which resulted in some cases in the failure to carry out standard operational checks. Now, sources say that the B.D.F. is looking at four persons […]
In the crime blotter, a bitter rivalry between two groups in Punta Gorda has led to the shooting death of Silvio Flores Junior. He was in the company of a friend at a home on Pampana Street when someone reportedly called out to him by name and whistled for Flores to come out. When he […]
A Guatemalan national is hospitalized after he was shot on the leg inside the Chiquibul Forest Reserve. Porfilio Ramirez Tirgeros, from the border community of La Rejoya, was along with another individual when they were caught poaching illegally, by an F.C.D. patrol. Ramirez Tirgeros is said to have advanced toward the patrol and this is […]
While schools are now preparing to reopen, there is yet no date for the reopening of Philip Goldson International Airport and stakeholders in the tourism industry are divided on the idea of a July first reopening. On Sunday, Tropic Air President Steven Schulte wrote to the Belize Tourism Industry Association asking for support in the […]
The government has assured public officers that their salaries will remain untouched despite the present economic crisis but it education subsides will be facing cut backs. But what about the private sector? According to Burgos, B.T.I.A. has approached the Development Finance Corporation to see what can be done to assist tourism stakeholders with much needed […]
After a record fifty-three days without a positive case of COVID-19, a new case was confirmed today by the Ministry of Health. It involves a twenty-seven-year-old Belizean man who returned to the country on May twenty-third on the Rhapsody of the Sea ship, of the Royal Caribbean fleet. The Belizean had spent seventy days at […]
DHS Doctor Marvin Manzanero says that the release of this group of persons has now been pushed back as contact tracing is underway. He says that this affirms the importance of the quarantine process because the ministry can then contain a case, if and when a returning person tests positive. On the Phone: Dr. […]
In respect of repatriation, hundreds of Belizeans remain struck overseas in nearby or far flung countries due to travel restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Five hundred and seventy Belizeans have applied to return to the country; one hundred and sixty eight have been approved. The bulk of applicants are in the U.S., as many […]
