A current and a former Immigration officer both appeared before today’s public hearing of the Senate Special Select Committee in Belmopan. The first, Inez Casanova, has not been directly accused of any wrongdoing. However, other witnesses have claimed that she had accompanied self-styled Immigration agent Barton Middleton to the Princess Hotel’s Calypso Restaurant in early […]
We will come to more of the Orange Walk-based immigration officer’s relationship with Middleton later on, but first, she revealed that she assisted Immigration officers who came to her asking about Middleton. Barton has a brother Eugene, who is a former Immigration officer; so which one was it? Officers, including Mark Tench, who were on […]
Casanova claims that her relationship with Barton Middleton did not go past occasional conversations while she was driving him to town, and never about Immigration-related matters. But Senators seized on a comment by Middleton to Casanova that she did not have to worry about anything. Wise words, but what would she have had to worry […]
How well can you really know a person – especially one to whom you would occasionally allow access to ride in your personal vehicle? In the case of Inez Casanova, the Senate panel was satisfied that she was not directly accused of involvement – but to a man they had trouble with the seeming casualness […]
Former data entry clerk at the Immigration Department, Erwin Robinson, spent six years in the Public Service, five of those in Immigration, until he was suspended over the Won Hong Kim case. The jailed South Korean businessman was the recipient of Belizean nationality and a passport half-way across the world in Taiwan until a scheme […]
They have been flying under the radar, but today months after they were charged for setting a bonfire at the BelCan Bridge, a group of activists went back to court on what was their final appearance. They soon exited the courtroom of Magistrate Carlon Mendoza freed of charges due to lack of evidence. The COLA […]
Tonight, villages in central Cayo District are on edge after another gruesome discovery was made around two this afternoon. A group of boys hunting iguana on the banks of the Belize River in Blackman Eddy village came across far bigger prey – the remains of what appeared to be severed human hands and feet. So […]
In the case of another gruesome murder, Elijah Burke, a Belize City resident, is in police hands awaiting arraignment in court for the hacking of his sister. It is not known what triggered the savage murder of Julian Burke by her brother. On Sunday, Elijah waylaid his sister and pounced on her as she entered […]
In financial news….The government has been celebrating the restructuring of the Super Bond 3.0. But the credit rating agency, Standards and Poor’s Global ratings, is downgrading Belize’s long-term currency rating from CC to SD. According to the agency it downgraded the rating from eminent default with possibility to recover to Selective Default as part of […]
Government is proposing to increase departure tax for visitors to Belize to forty US dollars from thirty-five. It intends to raise as much as eleven million dollars from this tax alone. The rise forms part of its plan to raise eighty million dollars in new tax revenue for the financial year beginning April first. But […]
The Washington Post and other U.S. news organizations have published a huge story which places a former campaign chairman for President Donald Trump to an offshore company in Belize which is linked all the way to the East European country of Ukraine. The report states that a Ukrainian lawmaker has released new financial documents allegedly […]
In a classic case of “progress brings problems,” the Department of Immigration and Nationality has responded to concerns that its nineteen-member staff at the Philip Goldson International Airport in Ladyville has been overwhelmed with the higher proportion of tourist arrivals in the ongoing high season. Despite the boasts of the Ministry of Tourism and Civil […]
Thirty-year-old Mario Makin of San Marcus, Toledo, says that four cops beat him and left him for dead in August 2016 and nothing has been done about it. The construction worker says he had only stopped at a shop on August thirteenth when he encountered four officers at a shop. He said the officers were […]
Tonight there is a most disturbing case of fratricide to report involving a pair of siblings in the King’s Park community. A brother reportedly hacked his sister with a machete and within twenty-four hours she was dead. On Sunday, twenty-nine-year-old Julian Burke was entering her home near the corners of First and Saint Peter Streets […]
The second murder over the weekend took place on Friday night in the West. A father of three lost his life at Champon at the adjacency zone area when he was taken down execution style in front of his wife and brother. The gunman is said to have fled across the border to Melchor de […]
The hit on the well-known bus driver, as well as the vicinity of the deadly spray of bullets on Belize’s side of the Adjacency Zone, has raised serious concerns about border security, outside of the business hours of the Belize Western Border. This morning, Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Elrington shared details of the harrowing […]
We asked Foreign Minister Elrington if there will be a protest note sent to the Guatemalan government in the wake of the fatal shooting. According to the F.M., it is not the normal practice of the ministry to issue protest notes in cases involving civilian-related crimes. The question was posed in the context of the […]
“We will appeal…we don’t think that judgment can stand.” So said Prime Minister Dean Barrow on January twenty-first, 2016, upon hearing that the Supreme Court had awarded Titan International Securities nearly nine million Belize dollars in damages. The award is in respect of a raid at their Matalon Business Center offices on Coney Drive in […]
As you would know by now, the working relationship between the media and the police, is somewhere at its lowest ebb. Police are now only providing bulletins scanty of details to the media since verbal communications were suspended. The situation has become exasperating because we are unable to provide official information on the work of […]
While Elrington is of the firm belief that commanding officers often misspoke during interviews, he also agreed that information channeled to the media via the press release is ineffective. In fact, the flow of information has been difficult to come by from the police press officer. Elrington says that there is a dire need for […]
There was a meeting earlier this week between Belize and Guatemala’s Foreign Ministers. The last time they met was in June 2016 at the O.A.S. Headquarters in Washington when tensions built up considerably over the Guatemalan’s presence in the Sarstoon. But before that, relations soured following the death of thirteen-year-old Guatemalan Julio Rene Alvarado in […]
Speaking on the occasion of the visit of the Secretary General of the O.A.S., Elrington told the media that contrary to information widely reported in the media in early March, the Guatemalan Ambassador to Belize, Manuel Estuardo Roldan had not had not returned to duties in Belize after he was called back to his Ministry […]
The June 2016 meeting in Washington discussed the heavy presence of the Guatemalan Military in the Sarstoon. At the time Guatemala committed to the Sarstoon Protocol to ease tensions since the military was preventing the free flow of travel by Belizeans up the southernmost river. Despite several rounds of diplomatic meetings, the rules that will […]
Now to the visit of Secretary General Luis Almagro. Prior to his arrival in Belize, Ambassador Almagro was in neighboring Guatemala where he also met with high-level government officials in that country. While there, a meeting with foreign ministers Elrington and Morales was held to apprise the Sec Gen on the latest developments between both […]
As we’ve mentioned, Almagro arrived to Belize from Guatemala. While there, he was accompanied by Foreign Minister Carlos Raul Morales to several communities, including Monte Los Olivos and Las Flores. According to Almagro, being on the ground has given him a better appreciation of the challenges that the border communities are faced with. Luis […]
