In the early hours of this morning, a small house in the Antelope Street Extension area of Belize City was engulfed in flames. The Fire Department responded and extinguished the fire before it could spread to neighboring houses. Shortly after, they made the gruesome discovery of a body inside the home, burnt beyond recognition. The […]
Activist Phillip ‘Faada’ Henry was on center stage in Battlefield Park this morning. He is enraged at the passport fiasco and calling for the U.D.P. to pack up and leave. And he had a lot more to say besides that. Much of it was unfit for national television, but the man is passionate about his […]
Three persons are in Police lockdown after an operation this morning netted a large amount of marijuana. Between six and nine a.m., Placencia Police and the Special Branch conducted searches of several homes on the peninsula. At the home of eighteen year old student Julian Diego, Police hit the jackpot. In a bedroom they found […]
Eric Chang has not been back to Belize since his name came up in the passport scandal that has been dogging the government. It has been a little over a month and a half since Chang departed for Taiwan along with a delegation from City Hall for the Asia Pacific City Summit. But he stayed […]
According to Mayor Bradley, there are statutes within the City Council Act which prohibit councilors from prolonged, unexplained absences from office. In this case, Chang has not maintained sufficient contact with City Hall to keep the mayor abreast of his extended stay. The mood among fellow councilors during this morning’s meeting was one of uncertainty, […]
The sale of visas to Asian nationals and others by agents has been ongoing for years facilitated by high level officials. Last Thursday, the Prime Minister told the media that he has told ministers involved to “for God’s sakes” stop it because this could bring down the government. Earlier this year, Belizean Carlos Murga, was […]
Minister Elrington says that despite his secretary not having any involvement in the sale or facilitation of Belizean visas, direct measures were taken to transfer her from Foreign Affairs. The ministry, he says, has a strict policy against any allegations of misconduct. Isani Cayetano “Very recently or sometime ago, there was an incident involving […]
Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington has also weighed in on the passport scandal. His position is that despite the severe infractions that have taken place at the Immigration Department at the hands of former Minister of State Elvin Penner, those wrongdoings pale in comparison to what has been taking place in the ministry all along. Elrington […]
The investigation into the passport scandal is in its thirtieth day. There have been two major press conferences during that time. The Financial Intelligence Unit is on the case. The Police are on the case. And with all that, there is still absolutely no official clarification of what has been found. Elvin Penner is at […]
We first reported on Huang Maoru in May 2008. Maoru caught our attention because he was the first Belizean to make it as the richest man on Forbes Magazine. Huang is a native from Shenzen, Mainland China. We don’t know who signed his nationality papers or passport, but it is believed he obtained those legally […]
Prime Minister Dean Barrow left the country today for Los Angeles California and was hoping that he would have accepted Elvin Penner’s resignation from the U.D.P. and as area representative for Cayo Northeast. Well, Elvin has left the building…but contrary to reports that he will not be coming back to Belize to face the music […]
As we told you, Penner will be back in Belize on Sunday and he is not resigning as yet. Via phone today, he also told News Five that he will be meeting with his constituents in next week. The Prime Minister points out that the Constitution makes it clear that barring resignation or crossing the […]
On Tuesday, attorney Arthur Saldivar handed over a bagful of immigration documents to Police – including files and binders. Those documents were allegedly in Saldivar’s possession for over a week. He claimed that he salvaged them after a cover-up operation was launched in the Immigration Department to destroy them. Those documents, in fact, are what […]
By midday Thursday, Eric Chang will probably no longer be the Deputy Mayor of Belize City. That’s the word coming out of City Hall today. Chang had been given an ultimatum by the Council that he needed to let them know his position by last Friday. He did speak to the Mayor, but News Five […]
Prime Minister Dean Barrow has made it abundantly clear that his initial position to give former Minister of State Elvin Penner a second chance, has now changed following disclosure of further irregularities at the immigration department. While Barrow has asked for Penner’s resignation that is not forthcoming since Penner has indicated that he will remain […]
But the prospects, according to August, are less than likely that the People’s United Party will emerge victorious if a bye-election should be called since he claims that the opposition is struggling to garner the required thirty percent of signatures necessary to trigger Penner’s recall. The three-step process, August says, will see the P.U.P. grappling […]
Tonight’s question is: Even if Elvin Penner resigns as Area Representative should be still face criminal charges? Yes or No. Send your comments and responses using your SMART phones to 8686 or post your vote on our e-poll at channel5belize.com. You can also send an email with your comments to questions@channel5belize.com.
There are new developments from the ongoing immigration corruption saga which makes a bye-election in Cayo Northeast a strong possibility. But here’s the biggest, first…Elvin Penner has been asked to resign as area representative of Cayo Northeast, effective immediately. That bombshell was delivered by his political boss this morning at a press briefing in Belmopan. […]
We’ll get to the recall process in a few, but first the evidence. According to the PM, it was enough for him to act immediately, and he has the unanimous agreement of his Cabinet who flanked him this morning at the press conference. So it must have been damning indeed. But we can only speculate, […]
So what of the man in the hot, dark seat? Elvin Penner earned distinction in 2008 when he became the first Mennonite to be elected to the House of Representatives. But now he is a public and political pariah – caught up in the middle of an immigration scam which may eventually result in criminal […]
If Penner does the unthinkable and refuses to resign that leaves a recall as the only process to get rid of him. For the past week, the P.U.P. has been trying to get the eighteen hundred signatures to trigger the recall. In that week, the U.D.P. has been actively campaigning to derail the recall process. […]
With the decision, the evidence and the recall out of the way, the PM also fielded other queries and suggestions. One of those is that Penner has enjoyed the protection of the U.D.P. thus far because if he falls, he might not go alone. There are persistent and credible reports that other ministers are partaking […]
Within two hours of the Prime Minister’s disclosure that there were more irregularities in the issuance of passports and the involvement of the former minister of state, the Opposition held a scheduled press conference. There are three scenarios playing out right now: a recall in Cayo Northeast, Penner’s resignation and both would result in a […]
Former P.U.P. standard bearer Orlando Habet lost to Elvin Penner by a mere seventeen votes in the last general elections. Habet has maintained all along that the elections were stolen because of the mass nationalization and subsequent registration of Guatemalan nationals and other Central Americans by Penner to vote in the 2012 elections. In the […]
Former Minister of State Elvin Penner is not the subject of any investigation, administrative or criminal. That was confirmed today by Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie. It’s a stunning revelation. It was announced that the Police entered the picture on Tuesday at four thirty. Since then the media has been trying to find out if […]
