The People’s United Party held its leadership Convention on Sunday in Belmopan. Three candidates were vying for the post – Francis Fonseca, John Briceño and Cordel Hyde. The winner would be selected through a historic process where two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-three delegates from thirty-one constituencies would be afforded the chance to vote. In […]
But while all eyes were on the leadership race, both John Briceño and Francis Fonseca also fielded slates for the positions available. Those were Chairman, Deputy Leader North and South and National Communications Director. For the Chairman’s post, Henry Charles Usher from the Briceño camp contested Oscar Requeña from the Fonseca camp. For Deputy Leader […]
With the loss of some existing correspondent bank relationships, the country is facing what Prime Minister Dean Barrow has called an existential threat and a potentially huge crisis. To stave off that threat, the PM headed off to Washington last week, accompanied by Financial Secretary Joseph Waight, Governor of the Central Bank Glen Ysaguirre and […]
The delegation then met with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, another regulatory body which regulates banks that are chartered by states and have not joined the Federal Reserve System. According to the PM the feedback from the FDIC was a little more in the way of affirmative action. Prime Minister Dean Barrow “We met […]
The delegation also met with the Secretary of the Treasury. PM Barrow says the message from that quarter was the same – that there is nothing wrong with the Belize jurisdiction. Secretary Jacob Lew, says Barrow, has promised to spread that word among banks which Belize will now be targeting. Prime Minister Dean Barrow […]
At around four-thirty this afternoon, two teenagers were gunned down on Cristock Street in Orange Walk Town. Minutes ago, the bodies were still on the ground while investigators scoured the scene. Police sources tell News Five that three youths who are well known to them were on Cristock Street when a man on a bicycle […]
There’s another murder to report for which three men charged in the home invasion of Sarkis Abou Nehra are prime suspects. This weekend in Belize City, thirty-two year old Marian Castillo of Georgetown, Stann Creek District was fatally stabbed just before one o’clock on Saturday morning, as he walked with a female friend on Mahogany […]
CIBC First Caribbean International Bank officially exited Belize today. All its branches across the country also closed and banking transactions are shutting down as of tonight to make way for a flawless transition. In August of 2015, the bank announced that it was selling its assets to Heritage Bank and pulling out of Belize. While […]
But according to CWU president Audrey Matura-Shepherd, the union did not authorize the signing of the MOA. In a text sent to News Five, Matura-Shepherd asserts that she was “shocked to find out about it and even more so how come the signing was kept to secret until one week later.” The CWU executive will […]
The strange legal tangles of US national Bradley Paumen, the owner of Dark Knight et al remain very fluid tonight. In a nutshell, three persons were formally arraigned on Thursday – Bradley Paumen, Jahangir Abadi and Haung Chong Park. Magistrate Albert Hoare refused to arraign Lisburn Anderson because Magistrate Ladonna John had already accepted a […]
But back to Bradley Paumen….He’s a millionaire investor, owner of Dark Night Tours and a resort in Hopkins, but is tonight behind bars at the Belize Central Prison. On Thursday evening, he was unceremoniously placed in the back of a police pickup just outside Court in Belmopan. Paumen was arrested on January sixth and arraigned […]
It was not until after two p.m. today that eighteen-year-old Windell Thurton, twenty-one-year-old Max Orosco and nineteen-year-old Byron Flowers, all of Belize City, were arraigned before Magistrate Deborah Rogers for the murder of thirty-seven year old Ian Blair. The trio arrived handcuffed to each other along with two others detainees. Thurton, Orosco and Flowers were […]
On Thursday, January fourteenth, ABC7 Chicago Executive Producer Anne Swaney was murdered on the grounds of the Nabitunich Resort in San Jose Succotz. Her senseless and brutal killing created shockwaves locally and internationally, and at one point F.B.I. investigators combed the grounds to assist with the investigation. But two weeks later, there is nothing new […]
There are far more questions than answers available tonight from the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital where various persons have died in the past four months due to an unknown illness. What we know so far is the following. The matter came to light during a meeting of the Hospital’s management this Wednesday. Four persons died […]
As we said…Today, in an amazingly protracted and confounding Courtroom drama, it took two Magistrates, the D.P.P., a Police prosecutor and five defense attorneys eight hours and two separate courtrooms to formally arraign three men and one woman. In February 2015, a vehicle driven by businessman Michael Modiri was searched at a checkpoint, and officers […]
Businessman Jahan Abadi and Haung Chong Park were arraigned for conspiracy to the crime of perverting the course of justice. They allegedly solicited the services of Solomon Moss to plant the rifle in the vehicle of Michael Modiri. Both were remanded to prison until a bail hearing before the Magistrate on Friday morning. Paumen and […]
A joint law enforcement operation in the vicinity of Consejo, in the Corozal District, has resulted in the seizure of a quantity of high-grade marijuana believed to have been smuggled from neighboring Mexico. On Wednesday afternoon, coast guard, B.D.F. and customs personnel were patrolling the Rio Hondo River in an area known as Estereo when […]
The area of Consejo has been designated by the Belize Defense Force and the National Coast Guard as a hotspot for the transshipment of drugs and other contraband. Despite ramping up efforts to police the area and maintain a presence in Consejo, Soberanis says an interagency approach that is being implemented has been instrumental in […]
Late this evening the Eastern Division North Police levied charges against a trio of men for the stabbing murder of thirty-seven year old Ian Blair. Eighteen-year-old Windell Thurton of Freetown Road, twenty-one-year-old Max Orosco of New Road and nineteen-year-old Byron Flowers of Consuelo Street, Belize City have been jointly charged for the crimes of Murder, […]
The hunt for fifty-nine year old Juan Carlos Gutierrez has come to an end. The Salvadoran national, who was wanted by Orange Walk Police for the cold-blooded murder of Indian Church Vice-Chairman, fifty-one year old Francisco Arevalo, was captured this afternoon by Mexican and Belize police in Allende, Mexico. Gutierrez is believed to have accosted […]
And from crime to the financial sector…Prime Minister Dean Barrow is away on an official visit to Washington where he is attending a series of high-level meetings with officials from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve, as well as the IMF and World Bank. Government is attempting to solve the issue of correspondent […]
There was a deadly home invasion at about one-thirty this morning in Belize City. Ian Robert Blair of a Lizarraga Street address was visiting with Doctor Marcos Christopher Rugama Miranda at the doctor’s house on Simon Lamb Street when he was fatally stabbed on the chest and succumbed in a bedroom. According to the investigators, […]
Murder victim number twelve is from Corozal Town where the second murder for today took place in broad daylight. Around eight-thirty this morning several shots rang out in the Skeleton Town area of the northern municipality. Twenty-eight year old Paul Massam had been executed; he was shot twice to the head by a lone gunman […]
There was chaos on a Westline Bus this afternoon as a passenger was attacked. Early reports to News Five indicate that San Ignacio resident Conrad Thomas boarded the two-thirty-bus at the Welcome Center in San Ignacio, bound for Belmopan. Somewhere around Esperanza, about fifteen minutes out of San Ignacio, Thomas was approached by another man […]
As we’ve told you, there is some confusion coming out of the crowded bus, and Police are being kept busy finding out exactly what happened. Several persons have allegedly claimed that there was a weapon with what looked like a silencer attached. That would account for the lack of noise. The badly bleeding Thomas was […]
