During the Prime Minister’s Business Forum on February twenty-first, the head of government took advantage of an opportunity to chide the court system, taking particular aim at a sitting judge. PM Barrow’s keynote address dealt with a deprivation of roughly fourteen million from government’s treasury, monies that were offset from Belize Bank’s taxes. Not only […]
Many questions have been asked relating to Assad Shoman’s recently formed non-governmental organization. Citizens for the Defense of Sovereignty was formed less than three months ago and its primary objective is to ‘promote the sovereignty of peoples and the struggle for freedom, justice, and equality.’ In fact, the most urgent object of the movement today […]
During the forum today, Ambassador Assad Shoman explained what steps will be followed if a YES vote is secured on April tenth. According to Shoman, Belize will exercise its rights to ask the ICJ to implement provisional measures such as issuing a stop order to Guatemala from aggressing Belizeans who traverse the Sarstoon. Assad […]
Tonight there are more details about a suit against the government. Leader of the Opposition John Briceño and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Julius Espat have launched a lawsuit against Prime Minister Dean Barrow, Finance Secretary Joseph Waight, and Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte. PM Barrow is named as the first defendant as the Minister […]
The fiscal year ends on March thirty-first, which means government has to present a budget for the new financial year. Espat also touched on the upcoming budget. According to Espat, the presentation of the General Revenue and Appropriation Bill 2019-2020 was originally scheduled for Friday, March eight, but the budget reading was pushed back to […]
Less than a year after the murder of Ghost Town boss, Kendis Flowers, the accused gunman walked free this afternoon from the courtroom of Senior Magistrate Tricia-Pitts Anderson. The notorious Kevin Bodden was charged months after the murder that caused tensions to rise in the Mayflower area. Five charges were withdrawn at the instructions of […]
Tonight forty-year-old Elario Frank Elijio was also freed after an appeal filed against him in February of this year challenging his acquittal was discontinued. Elijio had been acquitted of the murder of his buddy, John Myers, which occurred in late February 2012 on Mahogany Street. On February twenty-eighth, 2019, the Crown submitted a notice of […]
Since last week we’ve been reporting on the brutal killing of a young, pregnant mother Joan Gabourel from Valley of Peace, Cayo. She went missing and was found dead several days later on March third. She was stabbed, chopped and bludgeoned to death. As we told you, two persons were detained, including a relative on […]
On Wednesday, a number of cops were honored for the capturing of six robbers who held up money changers at the northern border a week ago. Those cops happened to be in the area on a separate mission when they were alerted of the robbery. Of the robbers they detained, four have already been slapped […]
On Monday members of the Christian Workers Union, who are employees of the Social Security Board, participated in an organized in-office show of solidarity against the administration of the Board. Employees are not happy with the Board’s plan to convert their pension scheme into a private company. They say that the process is moving too […]
The People’s United Party filed two weighty claims this week. First, the Special Agreement. This morning papers were delivered at the Supreme Court in which the P.U.P. is seeking a hearing to determine certitude and clearness on whether Foreign Minister Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington had legal authority to bind Belize to the 2008 Compromis. Now, over […]
While some argue that the Special Agreement is legit because it went to the Senate, Bradley and the legal team are of the view that Foreign Minister Elrington did not have the power to sign such a treaty without prior legislative approval. Richard ‘Dickie’ Bradley, Attorney-at-law “I learned that the Special Agreement signed in […]
The claimants in this case are parliamentarians: Rodwell Ferguson, Mike Espat, Oscar Requeña, Julius Espat and Cordel Hyde, as well as Anthony Mahler. The filing of the claim and its possible hearing comes at the eleventh hour, since the referendum is four weeks away. An application for an injunction has also been lodged before the […]
In 2015, Prime Minister Dean Barrow was forced to pass the Petrocaribe Loans Act retroactively. This was after it was pointed out that the hundreds of millions of dollars that the government received as a loan from the Venezuelan Government through the Petrocaribe initiative needed parliamentary approval. The law stipulates that the government must get […]
Espat explains says that the claim is seeking a permanent injunction restraining PM Barrow as Minister of Finance and second defendant Financial Secretary Joseph Waight from authorizing the allocation and expenditure of public monies without prior approval of the National Assembly of Belize. Julius Espat, Chairman, Public Accounts Committee “We are asking that the […]
Now to a traffic fatality…eighty-seven-year-old Gudiela Estevez passed away this morning, exactly two weeks after she and her grandson, eight-year-old Nikolai Tun, were knocked down at the corner of King Street and Amara Avenue in Belize City. Estevez was taking her grandson to Saint Ignatius Primary School on February twenty-second when they were hit by […]
After languishing behind bars awaiting a verdict for more than three years, a trio of siblings got their freedom today. The Pook brothers: Michael, Ryan and Adrian, walked out of the Supreme as free men from a charge of murder. The siblings were tried in 2015 before Justice Troadio Gonzalez, but the justice retired leaving […]
Things got chaotic on Monday night at the Isidoro Beaton Stadium in Belmopan. A football match was underway between Galen University and the University of Belize when a fight broke out between players from both teams. Seconds after, an-off duty police officer is caught on camera pulling out a firearm and blasting two shots in […]
But there is another incident in Belmopan that landed a resident in the hospital. Clement Mangar of Maya Mopan in Belmopan is lucky to be alive tonight. The fifty-five-year-old man was targeted by a gunman at around nine o’clock on Monday night while he made his way home on Tul Street. Mangar was shot twice […]
A home invasion almost turned deadly on Monday night in Ladyville Village. A family of five was about to retire for the night when a gunman attacked them inside their house on Compassion Lane in the village. The two adults and their three children are still shaken up after the frightening ordeal. Today, owner of […]
There are two recent legal opinions relating to the Guatemalan territorial dispute; one by international expert Stephen Vascannie, which has just been made public and the other is by attorneys Kareem Musa, Anthony Sylvester and Dickie Bradley, which looks at the Special Agreement of December eighth, 2008. The latter was released two weeks ago and […]
Turning to the legal opinion provided by Professor Stephen Vasciannie, as commissioned by the Bar Association. The international law professor at the University of the West Indies has put forward an expert view on the Belize/Guatemala Dispute, identifying both the strengths and weaknesses of the case, should it go to the I.C.J. for arbitration. The […]
Professor Vasciannie’s opinion also focuses on recent developments pertaining to the Sarstoon River and Sarstoon Island, arising from activities of the Guatemalan Armed Forces. While he says that the GAF is not recognizing the boundaries set out in Article One of the 1859 Treaty, they are in contravention of international law. Likewise, in speaking on […]
Billboards of well-known Belizeans, including national heroes Phillip Goldson and most recently George Price, have sprung up across the country as the I.C.J. awareness campaign continues to be rolled out by the Referendum Unit. In Belize City, a giant display of George Price overlooks Central American Boulevard near its intersection with North Creek. The use […]
The body of a pregnant eighteen-year-old woman was found on Saturday afternoon in Valley of Peace, Cayo. Joan Gabourel had been brutally murdered and her body left to rot in some bushes adjacent to a cane field on the Valley of Peace road. Gabourel was stabbed, chopped and bludgeoned and her family believes it happened […]
