P.U.P. Leader Francis Fonseca told us that he has a team ready to go to work collecting signatures, but he decided as a courtesy to give Penner a chance to do the right thing. In the meantime, Fonseca is applying pressure in another quarter. Today, P.U.P. Senator Lisa Shoman called for a Senate inquiry into […]
Deputy Mayor Eric Chang returns from Taiwan on Thursday to face the blaring music of his alleged involvement in the existing passport scandal. Chang is accused of being the courier of a fraudulent Belizean passport to imprisoned South Korean businessman, Kim Wonhong, a few weeks ago. While Belize City Mayor Darrell Bradley has gone on […]
Belmopan Police believe that they have in custody the two persons who murdered American David Reichel and Filipino Alry Rose Sardido on Saturday in Roaring Creek. But even as they prepare to lay charges, they have been faced with two additional murders. Those murders occurred in Camalote on Monday evening and claimed the lives of […]
Within an hour, Honduran Oscar Leonel Benitez was murdered to protect the identity of the man who killed Juan Carlos Olmedo. In a tragic twist of fate, both killer and victim chose the same trail in the bushes behind Camalote – one was fleeing after a murder and the other was simply returning home after […]
There is another case that could turn out to be murder as a family from the Arizona area of Teakettle is convinced that their father and husband, Pedro Ruben Andrade Luna, is dead. The forty-nine year old farmer left home on Thursday afternoon to gather contrive, which he would then sell in Belize City on […]
While the overnight murders of two Camalote residents are making headlines tonight, the brutal slaying of a Guatemalan national, who was killed in Jalacte Village over the weekend, has gone below the radar. On Saturday, a pair of men from the neighboring country visited the residence of sixty-one year old Fernando Sacul where they sought […]
It has been twelve days since we first broke the story on the issuance of a Belize passport to a South Korean national who had never set foot in Belize and who obtained a passport while he was sitting in a Taiwanese jail. Cayo Representative Elvin Penner was dismissed from cabinet for his involvement. Last […]
On Monday, Minister of Immigration Godwin Hulse commented on the ongoing investigation into the recent passport scandal involving junior minister Elvin Penner who has since been dismissed from cabinet. While a internal inquiry has is taking place, there are controversies surrounding the investigation since it is being spearheaded by the substantive minister. Today, outspoken legal […]
But will there be a criminal investigation into the current passport scandal? There should since there is enough to suggest that a crime was committed in the issuance of a passport to South Korean national, Kim Wonhong, who was behind bars in Taipei when he got the passport on September ninth. Elvin Penner lost his […]
Primary school teachers across the country, employed under the Catholic Public Schools system, are tonight awaiting the processing of salaries through their respective banks, following a delay in the payment schedule for the month of September. Wages are often deposited by the last Friday of every month; however, a problem with the payroll, which went […]
While the hiccup caused a delay in payment, there were teachers from several districts, including Orange Walk, who stayed away from their classrooms today. Their abstention, says Faber, was unwarranted. Reporter “Did this particular problem affect pensioners as well, past teachers?” Patrick Faber “You know, I am not certain. I think that once […]
The current passport scandal involving the fraudulent issuance of an official Belizean travel document to imprisoned South Korean businessman, Kim Wonhong, in Taiwan has seen the dismissal of Cayo Northeast area representative Elvin Penner from Cabinet. While the prime minister’s decision to fire Penner from his post as Minister of State in the Ministry of […]
The media also got an update from the Minister of Immigration himself today on the investigations into the passport scandal. But while Godwin Hulse commended the new and improved systems in place at both the Immigration and Nationality Department, he chided the ousted minister for his involvement in facilitating the issuance of a Belizean passport […]
The relative peace of the capital has been shattered by a double murder which it is believed occurred on Saturday morning. And by four-thirty this afternoon, another murder was reported, this time in neighboring Camalote village. Details are still sketchy, but information received says that a masked man shot another individual multiple times, killing him. […]
Alry Rose Sardido was murdered on Saturday, and later that night another woman from Roaring Creek narrowly escaped the same fate. Just after ten that night Police were called to a house where they observed bloodstains on the front steps. Their investigation led them to the Western Regional Hospital where they found Joanna Longsworth fighting […]
The House of Representatives met today in Belmopan where a number of laws, including the High Seas Fishing and Medical Practice bills, were tabled. The introduction of the former legislation is to make new and improved conditions for the management and control of fishing in the open sea. Likewise, the presentation of the Medical Practice […]
According to the prime minister, the inquiry cannot focus on the nationality section of the department since it is the minister’s signature that was affixed to the document. Prime Minister Dean Barrow “With respect to the nationality section of the department, the situation is completely different. It is the minister who signs the nationality […]
Leader of the Opposition Francis Fonseca, in raising the matter, says that responsibility for what has transpired falls squarely at the feet of Prime Minister Barrow since he appointed Penner the portfolio of Minister of State in the Ministry of Immigration fully aware of allegations made against him leading up to the last general elections. […]
The last demonstration on Independence Hill in Belmopan was held in February, so it’s safe to say that in light of the recent controversies one was overdue. There have been a number of salacious scandals in the past two weeks, including the SIF Dangriga Market and the passport fiasco. The combination of those burning issues […]
On Thursday, the Belize Bank froze the accounts of the Orange Walk Town Council, bringing its daily operations to a screeching halt. The issue is an overdraft facility acquired and operated by the previous administration. The debt was to have been paid off in 2012, but it wasn’t. That outstanding bill was classified as a […]
The Prime Minister also punctuated his tongue-lashing of the Orange Walk Town Council with a personal jab at Mayor Kevin Bernard. In questioning the managing of the town’s finances by the Council, the PM has raised his eyebrows at a vehicle being driven by the Mayor. Today we reached Mayor Kevin Bernard, who reacted to […]
While former Minister of State Elvin Penner was nowhere to be seen today, his colleague Edmund Castro took his usual seat in the House. Castro has thus far escaped official sanction after allegations that he acted improperly towards a woman while on a trip to Taiwan last week. It is said that the female protocol […]
Documents proving that former Minister of State Elvin Penner participated in every step of the current passport scandal have surfaced. Those documents are the nationality certificate and the recommender declaration for one Kim Wonhong, a national of the Republic of Korea. Both of them bear Penner’s signature, and one bears his certification that he is […]
Tonight, former Minister of State Elvin Penner has removed himself from scrutiny even as calls for his head continue to saturate the public arena. Government bureaucrats at the highest level seem intent on complicating the issue. But with the emergence of documentary proof, Penner’s complicity cannot be questioned. They say the proof is in the […]
To recall or not to recall…that is the question. Or at least it’s the political issue. That option remains open to the Opposition which hasn’t said much at all on the matter. In general elections 2012, the U.D.P. won by a narrow margin of seventeen to fourteen seats, which means that if two U.D.P. representatives […]
