Local cable and internet service providers are in a pickle tonight, as they collectively face several issues that will affect what subscribers pay for internet. Government is proposing a twelve and a half percent increase for data which will affect just about everyone across the board except for internet in certain schools. The start of […]
But that is not the only issue that subscribers are facing. The other whammy is the copyright issues. At news time tonight, representatives of twenty-eight cable companies from across the country are concluding a late-evening meeting to forge a way forward in joint negotiations with a team of regional content providers for HBO and other […]
Have you seen this man? Allen Russel Felix is wanted in connection for the murder of sixty-four-year-old Mario Guerrero Senior. Police have since issued a wanted poster for forty-four-year-old Allen Felix better known as “Dhadi” of number sixty Sunset Park Area, Western Paradise Village. Felix has short black hair, stands at five feet five inches […]
The General Revenue and Appropriation Bill and nine others were brought to the upper chamber of the National Assembly, the Senate, for debate. With the galleries empty, it can be argued that the true debate – rather than the mud-fest in the House of Representatives – took place today. It began with Business Senator Mark […]
The Business Senator also zeroed in on how much the Government has had to borrow just to balance the budget. This year’s figure is some one hundred and eighteen million dollars, mostly sourced from Taiwan and draw-downs of previously approved loans and grants. Senator Mark Lizarraga pointed out that as long as Government devotes funds […]
Complaining that the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other social partners had been ignored during the preparations for the announcement of the Budget, Senator Lizarraga reiterated that the frightening national debt and size of Government urgently needs to be addressed. While some have suggested that it may involve retrenchment of public officers, Lizarraga calls […]
Next to speak was the People’s United Party Senate leader, Eamon Courtenay. Echoing Opposition Leader John Briceño’s presentation last week, he described the Budget as lifeless and lacking any meat or muscle to address Belize’s problems. But Courtenay zeroed in the late fiscal strategy paper which had not been prepared as of earlier this year. […]
There are more boots on the ground from the police department and the Belize Defense Force, following an eruption of gun violence among rival gangs on the south side of the city. But over the weekend that didn’t bring any security or peace, instead all hell broke loose on Mayflower Street where the Gang Suppression […]
Deputy Commissioner Chester Williams, whose instructions were to deploy the Gang Suppression Unit into Mayflower Street, has deferred an official comment on the incident. In the aftermath of the madness, however, he took to social media to explain his decision for unleashing the GSU on Ghost Town. According to the Operations Commander, several events involving […]
Just before the mayhem on Mayflower, there was another shooting that could have had dire consequences and could have been catastrophic. The Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital is in crisis undergoing works for a damaged roof and is offering only fifty percent of its usual services, but it has not been spared of pervasive gun violence. […]
There were a total of three murders recorded over the weekend; two in rural Belize District and one in the south. In Lord Bank’s, Ladyville, twenty-eight-year-old Justin Emmanuel Orellana was found by a family member shot dead on Sunday morning inside his home. Residents say they heard shots being fired in the wee hours of […]
A sixty-four-year-old businessman was beaten to death with a barstool in the Sunset Park Community on the George Price Highway. According to police, they were called out to the murder scene after nine on Sunday night where they found Guerrero dead outside in the yard. Unconfirmed reports are that there was a woman along with […]
A Guatemalan national was the third murder victim for the weekend. Thirty-six-year-old Mario Oddulio’s body was discovered in Trio Village, about four miles from the junction with the Southern Highway. Around five on Sunday evening, police were called out to the scene where they found Oddulio’s body dressed in only boxer shorts. The already decomposing […]
The new managers of the Belize Civic Center, Apex Events Services Limited, and its parent company Apex Events Services LLC of Florida, have apparently agreed with Government on a guarantee of around eight hundred and fifty thousand to a million dollars annually to maintain the facility and ration out its use. Above that figure, there […]
The budget debate continued today in the House of Representatives in Belmopan as members of parliament made their contributions and up to news time, the debate continues. But we begin tonight’s newscast with troubling news from one of the main economic pillars, that is, the shrimp industry in the south. Last November, the Statistical Institute […]
The Budget Debate winds down later this evening after a wrap-up by Prime Minister Dean Barrow. Once again absent was former Deputy Prime Minister and Orange Walk North area representative Gaspar Vega. But business continued, and during the debate this afternoon, Minister of Health Pablo Marin issued his first public statement on the matter of […]
At the start of today’s debate, Pickstock area representative and Foreign Affairs Minister Wilfred Elrington said he is not a fan of Thursday’s demonstration outside the National Assembly. But it is not necessarily because he disagrees with the intentions of the Belize National Teachers’ Union, at least according to him. Elrington instead contends that students […]
With less than a month to go, eyes are on the voters of Guatemala, who on April fifteenth will go to the polls to decide whether they accept the International Court of Justice taking charge of the unfounded Guatemalan claim. No one is watching more closely, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilfred Elrington, […]
Cayo South area representative Julius Espat is chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. The Committee met last year with Auditor General Dorothy Bradley to go over the process of compiling the 2012-2013 audit report. But according to committee member Patrick Faber, the last three meetings of the Committee have been canceled. Still yet, Espat says […]
RJB Construction Limited, a company owned and operated by U.D.P. insider Romel Berges, entered into a contractual arrangement with the Belize City Council months prior to former Mayor Darrell Bradley leaving office on February twenty-eighth. The four-year agreement is for works to be done on a number of carriageways, including Raccoon and Ebony streets. The […]
Since being sworn into office on March fourteenth, Mayor Wagner has been reviewing all existing agreements between CitCo and private contractors, a majority of those deals being described as products of campaigning. He contends that the ethical course of action that his forerunner should have taken was to avoid embarking upon capital projects in the […]
Day-one of the budget debate started this morning in Belmopan and up to news time it continues in an energized National Assembly, that had been downgraded from cold to near-Arctic. The 2018-2019 General Revenue and Appropriation Bill was tabled two weeks ago. The P.U.P. leader, John Briceño, assailed the vision of Prime Minister Dean Barrow […]
Is the Government running a game with the share price of Belize Telemedia Limited and what the company is really worth? That’s the thinking in some sectors since G.O.B. is considering selling more shares of B.T.L. to the Social Security Board. In 2017, S.S.B. bought seven million shares at five dollars a share, despite the […]
Lake Independence area representative Cordel Hyde, speaking after Belmopan representative John Saldivar, called the budget a “slap in the face” after the recent municipal election results. According to Hyde, despite the people’s decision on March seventh, the government has insisted it will not alter course, and that may prove to be a fateful decision. […]
Later, former Prime Minister Said Musa went after the Government’s estimation of the economy. Scorning the charge that the economy was “on the rebound,” he noted that Government hoped to cover up the holes in the budget by applying the pressure of more taxes, including the addition of the General Sales Tax to data services […]
