A Belize City cab driver is lucky to have escaped grave injury during a carjacking on Tuesday night not far from the Lord Ridge Cemetery. Sometime around eight-thirty, taxi man Ernesto Robinson was driving his vehicle when he was flogged down by a man. Robinson was then held at knifepoint and injured to the neck […]
The Belize National Teachers’ Union Annual Convention began today at Escuela Mexico in San Roman. But on Thursday, stakes are high with the election of a majority of its National Executive. The Union is electing a new president to succeed the tried and tested Luke Palacio as well as a first vice-president, secretary and treasurer. […]
In his statement at the Convention, national president of the B.N.T.U. Luke Palacio made reference to the “stories” he, his Executive and teachers generally have heard in the past few weeks. It is that Government operatives are organizing against Senator Elena Smith, the considered favourite in Thursday’s election. Union members have already been told to […]
Nominations were officially tendered for the election as of a month ago but were officially submitted this afternoon to the chair of the Election Committee, Kathleen Flowers. Flowers is B.N.T.U.’s second vice president and president of the Belize District Branch, where presidential candidate Elena Smith is from. Campaign speeches will be made early on Thursday […]
Officially, according to the Ministry of Education, the million-dollar honorarium for non-striking teachers has not been issued as planned for before the Easter break because it has not gotten the list of teachers that would qualify. But unofficially, News Five has received reports that some payments were made to teachers in an attempt to secure […]
Peace is holding in the streets since last week’s committal to a gang truce among the string of opposing gangs in the city. There are still hurdles to cross, but for the past week there has not been any gang-related murder. The latest gathering of the gangs was held on Tuesday. Deshawn ‘Jawhi’ Morris is […]
The life of one person was cut short at the start of the Easter holidays in the City and it was a mentally challenged woman. Indira “Princess” Thompson lived her life on the streets when she was not at the Welcome Resource Center located in Lake Independence. Early Friday morning, she was stabbed multiple times […]
There has been a noticeable calm in the streets of the Old Capital since last Wednesday, when leaders of various Belize City gangs took the streets for a first-of-its-kind peace walk. Behind the scenes, a lot has been happening in an attempt to broker a truce, including a series of meetings that have been called […]
Jawhi, along with Brother Nuri Muhammad, has been busy with the leadership of the respective groups hammering out the terms of the peace treaty. While he has chosen, at this juncture, not to elaborate on those specific conditions, he says that the men are firmly committed to putting down the guns. We also spoke with […]
The International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol, has fingered six Belizeans among two hundred fifty-seven Caribbean nationals wanted this Easter by the agency, according to website News Americas Now. Boris Vostry is a national of both Belize and the Czech Republic who is wanted by the Czech Republic to serve a sentence for fraud. […]
Weeks ago, we reported that a leaked progress report by a consultant in Guatemala was pushing the idea to officially include Belize as part of Guatemala in that country’s map. The report was done by a consultant who was on contract to perform certain activities for a year. In his report for January, he makes […]
Two brothers perished in a well on their family farm on Good Friday in Tower Hill, Orange Walk. The Coyock brothers were cleaning out an old well when one of them started to suffocate and the other tried to help. Unfortunately, neither of the brothers survived the incident. While the details of the post-mortem have […]
There was a near fatal accident on the George Price Highway just before seven on Thursday night. An elderly man was hit by a 2008 Toyota Four-Runner driven at the time by twenty-seven-year-old Nory Novelo. Novelo was traveling to Belize City and upon reaching between miles eight and nine on the highway, she saw two […]
The move to bring together various Belize City gangs to discuss a possible peace treaty is being facilitated by the Belize Police Department, as well as the Youth Apprenticeship Program, an initiative led by Diane Finnegan. Over the years, the wife of the U.D.P. area representative for Mesopotamia has played an integral role in enabling […]
With peace talks underway and another ceasefire in the days ahead, is there any optimism that the truce can be lasting? That’s what we asked Finnegan at the peace march on Wednesday. Isani Cayetano “How confident are you that an initiative such as this, given the fact that we’ve seen several truces in the […]
On Wednesday evening, the Government of Belize, through the Ministry of Finance, dismissed any suggestion of manipulation by senior management of the General Sales Tax Department of audits carried out by lower-level employees. The Government disclosed a letter from Solicitor General Nigel Hawke, addressing a senior G.S.T. officer from the south who questioned if any […]
Despite the Government’s belt-tightening measures, if the allegations being made from within the G.S.T. Department have substance, do they not go against the stated intentions of limiting the pain of the tax-paying public? Speaking earlier this week, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s president, Nikita Usher, was willing to give the Government the benefit of […]
Since breaking news of imminent transfers within the Eastern Division jurisdiction a few weeks ago, there has been speculation whether ACP Chester Williams’ relocation to Belmopan is politically motivated. The commander of Eastern Division South will be assigned to a desk job at the Professional Standards Branch, which many believe is a demotion of sorts, […]
ACP Edward Broaster is moving on up. It was announced over a week ago that he is taking over as the Commander of Operations, a promotion that will see him move from Regional Commander of the Rural Eastern Division where has been for the last two years to the Capital City in a position that […]
A truce is in the making among rival gangs in the City. Going into the Easter holidays, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams, whose work in community policing has been bearing fruits, brought gangs together, today. It is not the first time that a truce has been tried, but Williams hopes that this time it […]
As we mentioned, ED-South Commander Chester Williams has played a critical role in bringing the gangs together and negotiating a truce. While the noble attempt is nothing we haven’t seen before, the initiative must be attributed to the respective leaders. According to ACP Williams, the idea was borne out of a mediation held earlier this […]
The Ministry of Education confirmed this afternoon that the million-dollar honorarium promised by the Government to non-striking teachers will not go in on time. This is because several school managements have not submitted their list of teachers who attended school for make-up days in January and did not strike with their fellow teachers in October. […]
In the B.N.T.U.’s convention, Senator Elena Smith, Troy Coleman and Mario Mesh are vying to replace retiring three-term president Luke Palacio. Smith has the highest profile and is seen as the strongest candidate and she is outspoken against the government. Senator Eamon Courtenay believes that the million-dollar bonus is being used to influence teachers to […]
The condemnation of the Government’s plans has been widespread, from business to civil society to activist organizations to all major political organizations apart from the U.D.P. So what happens next? Eamon Courtenay, not normally one for rabble-rousing, told us today that the honorarium issue is serious enough that a campaign of civil disobedience – though […]
B.T.L. employees across the country staged a walkout this afternoon in protest of what is being reported as a refusal to properly address a two-pronged labor issue with the Belize Communications Workers Union. In a communiqué released to members of the B.C.W.U. on March twenty-fourth, the executive of the union informed that it is aware […]
