Another violent weekend across the country has ended with three murders being reported. Two men were shot and killed in Belize City and San Pedro on Sunday, while another man was hacked to death down south. The most recent of those killings happened on Neal’s Pen Road shortly after nine p.m., when gunshots rang out […]
On Sunday afternoon, in the heart of San Pedro Town, gunfire erupted inside a bar, just a stone’s throw from the Central Park. Thirty-four-year-old Armando Lopez, who was originally from Corozal, was the target of at least one gunman who pounced on him as he had a beer at the bar. News Five’s Duane Moody […]
Four days prior to Lopez’s murder, his friend Scott Charles was targeted inside his home in the Bayside neighborhood. Charles heard a knock and when he opened the front door, a barrage of bullets would be unleashed on him. The twenty-four-year-old was airlifted to the K.H.M.H., but died just after one on Thursday afternoon. But […]
The gun violence on the island began one week ago in the San Pedrito area of town. On August twelfth, Lloyd Tyndall was shot multiple times to the abdomen and left leg and remains in a critical condition at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. During that attack at the Easy Does It A and A […]
Over two hundred rounds of ammunition and six firearms were taken off the streets during operations conducted across the country. A significant amount of those came from San Pedro, for which eighteen-year-old Aureliano Pascual and a seventeen-year-old female have been charged for kept unlicensed and prohibited firearm and ammunition without a gun license. ACP […]
There was also a murder in Santa Cruz Village over the weekend. On Sunday morning, shortly before ten o’clock, Independence police were called out to the roadside community where they observed the lifeless body of a Hispanic man. He was later identified as Juan Jose Ortega. The Salvadoran laborer was seen with several chop wounds, […]
A countrywide law enforcement operation which began at the stroke of twelve last Wednesday morning has resulted in a number of seizures, including contraband alcohol, illegally harvested seafood, firearms and ammunition, as well as illegal immigrants. POSE, short for Police Operations Simultaneous Everywhere, concluded over the weekend, but not before a significant haul on the […]
The House of Representatives’ special session in Belmopan today was chock-full of news inside and outside. There were eight bills presented, one of which was taken through all its stages, and the Auditor General’s Annual Report for 2012 to 2013 was tabled. Our coverage begins with the audit, which was only tabled. It discusses in […]
Five years after the first proposals were made and three years after an officially constituted committee, today G.O.B. brought legislation to the House to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act. The Bill seeks to decriminalize the possession of cannabis or marijuana in amounts not exceeding ten grams or less than half an ounce. The amendment […]
But there will be opposition to the bill, primarily from church groups. They believe that marijuana along with alcohol is a ‘gateway drug’ to harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin and that the amount chosen to regulate is arbitrary. Prime Minister Dean Barrow shied away from direct confrontation with pastor and journalist Louis Wade, […]
The National Evangelical Association of Belize has registered its disagreement with the proposed new legislation, which it says is a wrong move in the wrong direction that will bring wrong results. It cites its own package of scientific studies and reports showing the danger of marijuana use in younger persons and also claims that the […]
By its next session in October, a bill formally legislating the indefinite moratorium against offshore oil exploration activity should be before the House of Representatives. It is considered a major victory for environmental groups including OCEANA. But does this mean a complete ban on exploration of any kind in the future? The Prime Minister says […]
OCEANA in Belize has been lobbying tirelessly for a complete ban on offshore exploration since it established itself in the country under the leadership of Audrey Matura. During that time, the organization partnered with the Belize Coalition to Save Our Natural Heritage to hold a referendum on offshore drilling. While a majority of votes were […]
Going into the weekend, the National Emergency Management Organization, NEMO, has issued its first advisory in respect of Tropical Storm Harvey which continues a westward path in the direction of Belize. TS Harvey is presently one thousand, seven hundred miles away from the country and is moving at a speed of twenty-one miles per hour, […]
The latest murder victim is a tour guide and fisherman from San Pedro killed within days of a shooting that left an adult and two minors injured. On Wednesday night, a group of men went to the Elliott sub division house of Scott Charles where he was with his wife and baby, knocked at his […]
Friday’s meeting of the House of Representatives in Belmopan should see the tabling of the 2012-2013 Auditor General’s Report on which we have been reporting all week. It is all intended to be ventilated by the Public Accounts Committee chaired by Opposition member Julius Espat. But he is not terribly impressed with the quality and […]
Two of the largest ministries in the government service – Finance and Natural Resources – were not included. Coincidentally, the same man, Prime Minister Dean Barrow, is currently directly in charge of both ministries although Lands has been run by Gaspar Vega, Vanessa Retreage and currently Doctor Carla Barnett. In the case of the Ministry […]
Formed last December, the Integrity Commission was intended to provide independent assessment of the assets of Belizeans in public life. But a few weeks ago it was announced that the Commission would only be investigating the declarations from the current year due to pressure from legal authorities and some parliamentarians. Anonymously citing two of his […]
Foreign Minister Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington, in an interview with the media on Wednesday, once again raised the ire of many, including former Foreign Minister Lisa Shoman. While speaking on the issue of going to the International Court of Justice for a resolution on the longstanding border dispute with Guatemala, Elrington reiterated that Belize does not […]
Shoman who has been an advocate for going to the I.C.J. has now changed her position in light of what is being said by the incumbent foreign minister. That is unless a practical Sarstoon Protocol has been established and until Guatemala respects our borders. The notion that Belize would go to the I.C.J. based on […]
Following a round of fruitless bilateral discussions with Guatemala in Istanbul, Turkey in May 2016, which ultimately failed to produce a Sarstoon Protocol, the former foreign minister’s perspective on the matter has shifted to one of skepticism. The pending referendum, she says, will find Belize in a catch twenty-two, since the holding of separate voting […]
There was high drama in the Magistrate Court today when twenty-one-year-old Jafari Castro of Maskall , the son of Minister Edmond “Clear the Land” Castro, eighteen-year-old construction worker Gilbert Franklin Junior of Burrell Boom, and twenty-one-year-old James Young Junior, a boat captain of Belize City, were each read a single charge of harm this afternoon […]
There was loss of life on the Hummingbird Highway this morning. Around six a.m., a terrible accident left one person dead and three others injured. Winston Dawson along with his co-works from Benny’s Home Center left the City en route to Punta Gorda for a delivery of construction material. But near mile thirty-eight near the […]
Thirty-year-old Dwayne Almendarez, an Orange Walk resident of the Union Town area tonight remains in a critical but stable condition at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital after he was shot by a Customs Officer. While the Customs Department denied giving an interview or any information on the incident, today, the Police Department provided further details […]
An audit conducted for the period 2012-2013 by the Auditor General is exposing blatant disregard for the appropriation law and other government regulations. On Tuesday night, we reported on sweetheart deals within the Ministry of Works where Special Effects and Special Effects Performance became the majority provider of supplies to the ministry at prices that […]
