There is outrage tonight in the conservation community as well as in other sectors due to a recent large kill of sharks near the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of the Blue Hole and Half Moon Caye at Lighthouse Reef Atoll. Images of dozens of dead sharks went viral on social media and according to the […]
A search and rescue operation, led by personnel from the Belize National Coast Guard on Sunday afternoon, ended with the successful return of a Belize City family of ten persons, including four adults and six children. The party set out to sea earlier in the day and began experiencing mechanical difficulties. The captain of the […]
The Football Federation of Belize is deeply divided tonight and its president Ruperto Vicente is under threat from his own executive. On Thursday night in Belmopan, three executive members made a move to suspend the embattled Vicente who was elected to the post four years ago. They claim he is taking unilateral decisions which do […]
While F.F.B. President Ruperto Vicente is preparing to run against members of his existing administration, the trio of executives opposing his presidency maintains that it is the final opportunity to have him deposed from his office. Vicente is telling them in no uncertain terms to relinquish their posts if they are unhappy with the way […]
Lay-offs at Fruta Bomba and Belize Food Packers Limited are taking place up north. The companies which are located in San Joaquin Village and Corozal Town will be letting go, in the first phase, one hundred and twenty three of its two hundred and fifty employees in its workforce as it begins to pull out […]
There is a development tonight in the rice industry, which does not have to do with importer Jack Charles. The Belize Bureau of Standards says it has served what is a rare Notice of Detention to a rice producer, who the Bureau is not naming, but we know him to be from Shipyard, Orange Walk […]
Today, members of the Bar and the Bench gathered at the Belize Biltmore Plaza for a forum of sorts. It was dubbed a law conference, but the focus wasn’t law, legal matters or the judiciary. Convened by the Bar Association, the session was entitled – The Belize Guatemala Border Dispute – When and How Do […]
There is a critical backlog in the justice system and while it’s nothing new, it seems to be getting much worse. It has become commonplace for accused criminals to spend up to five years on remand before their Court session is called. As you can imagine, that causes no end of problem at every level […]
In September 2014 Government moved legislation to amend the Legal Profession Act. That legislation removed mandatory membership in the Bar Association and paved the way for attorneys to form or join a new Association…or not. The amendment was sparked by a period of hostilities between then Attorney-General Wilfred Elrington and the Bar Association, which he […]
There is trouble brewing at the government owned Belize Telemedia Limited. This afternoon during their lunch break, dozens of staffers, members of the Belize Communication Workers Union, assembled outside of the Esquivel Telecom Center, the company’s headquarters on Saint Thomas Street. They met for approximately thirty minutes to discuss a range of issues affecting workers […]
The Twenty-Seventh Intersessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM concluded in Placencia on Wednesday. Much of the discussions during the three-day event centered around major regional concerns, including the issues of correspondent banking and the Zika virus. While those topics remained at the front of the agenda, the CARICOM Development Fund, […]
According to the economist, CDF’s directives come from sessions such as those recently held in Belize where keen attention is paid to the needs of lesser developed countries. Isani Cayetano “You’re in Belize on a working visit that goes along with the recent CARICOM Heads of Government, the intersessional meeting. Can you speak to […]
Police continue to search for a person of interest in the murder of Honduran national Johana Samantha Mendez Barrios. The waitress of Compadres Bar in San Pedro was cut to the throat inside her apartment on Tuesday morning at the Basil Paris Apartment Complex. Mendez Barrios sought assistance from her friend on the lower flat […]
An independent study shows that about six percent of newborns are not formally registered and that presents difficulties for the individuals later on in life, especially in accessing health care and education. But there is another side to that coin because a number of Belizeans in bordering towns are registered locally, as well as across […]
If you’ve visited the Vital Statistics Unit recently to request a birth certificate, a marriage license or even a death certificate then you would be quite familiar with the apparent chaos at the Hydes Lane office. The perennial complaint is that files are haphazardly deposited and employees of that department are largely inefficient in accessing […]
As we reported last week, Fruta Bomba Limited and Belize Food Packers are packing up and leaving Belize for other destinations. The exporters of Caribbean red papaya say labour costs are cheaper in places such as Dominican Republic, despite the many duty exemptions granted to the company. The company expects to take six months to […]
The day and a half long Intersessional Meeting of CARICOM Regional Heads of Government concluded in the Placencia peninsula today. It was a short, but comprehensive meeting of the region’s leaders with a focus on coming up with a concrete structure and timeline to dealing with the most critical issues facing the Caribbean Community. Certainly […]
The loss of correspondent banking relations has been called a potentially huge crisis for Belize, and it is already affecting to a major extent smaller countries in the region. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and one option put on the table at the session was the possible pooling of resources in all member countries […]
Prime Minister Barrow and a delegation of high-level financial experts have concluded a round of meetings in the U.S. with regulatory and federal agencies. Nothing concrete came out of those meetings in terms of new correspondent banking relationships or the mending of old ones. But what has come out, according to the PM, is an […]
The Conference of Parties 21, recently convened and concluded in Paris, has been dubbed a milestone session of world leaders where a concerted effort to understand, address and mitigate climate change is concerned. The challenge for CARICOM now lies in working out the tangible nuts and bolts which lead to binding treaty mechanisms and legislation. […]
Turning to crime…There were two shootings on the south side of Belize City over the weekend, but details have just become available from the police. The first was the shooting of nineteen year old Raheem Bailey who was injured at his home on Allan Pitts Crescent. A lone gunman reportedly rode up on bicycle and […]
The second shooting on south side Belize City occurred an hour later on Boots Crescent near the Saint John Vianney Primary School. As we reported on Monday, a seventeen year old was shot from behind by a lone gunman on bicycle as he headed towards Rivero Street Extension. Police said today that within hours, they […]
In the Supreme Court today, the rape trial of B.D.F. Lieutenant Ruhesi Elijio was abruptly stopped and the jury discharged. Elijio will remain on interdiction from the force since his case has been traversed to the next sitting of Supreme Court in April of this year. His trial began since Monday of this week, but this […]
The looming threat of the Zika virus and its potential impact on the Caribbean was the subject of a presentation earlier today, before an audience of CARICOM heads of government in Placencia. While microcephaly and other disorders affecting the nervous system are possibly linked to the spread of the mosquito-borne disease, Zika has been declared […]
The opening ceremony for a gathering of CARICOM heads of government in southern Belize, complete with cultural presentations showcasing the ethnic diversity of the Jewel, was held in Placencia on Monday evening. In attendance were government ministers, as well as other senior representatives from fourteen member states. While the delegates were all treated to music, […]
