And the very active COLA, represented by its vocal president Giovanni Brackett, weighed in on the rosewood issue this afternoon as well. He says his organization is outraged, and will do whatever is necessary to call out the government to right what they see as an egregious wrong. Giovanni Brackett, President, COLA “There are […]
Belmopan-based Plus TV is being sued for libel by the area representative, Minister John Saldivar over a response made by Rise and Shine co-host, Patrick Andrews to a question posed by Minister of Education, Patrick Faber late last year. Now, libel suits are considered par for the course to media houses, but Louis Wade and […]
In the Belize City Courts, on Tuesday, forty-seven year old Kirk Nicholas began serving a two-year sentence for aggravated assault, following a psychiatric evaluation during which he was determined fit to stand trial. On May eighth, 2012, he was accused of attacking fifty-two year old businesswoman Jackie Roe with a knife, as she was walking […]
GST Supervisor, Reynaldo Verde, remains behind bars tonight waiting for a bail application to be heard by the Supreme Court. On Easter Sunday, Verde was detained by police for shooting a man with his licensed firearm. He was arraigned in the San Pedro Magistrate Court last Wednesday and remanded to the Belize Central Prison since […]
Guilty! That’s the verdict against thirty-nine year old Arden Middleton, a shop keeper who was accused of carnally knowing a fourteen year old girl. It took the jury of six men and three women only three hours to reach a unanimous decision. Inside the courtroom of Justice Troadio Gonzalez, Middleton appeared sad and shook his […]
The harvesting of rosewood is illegal and there is a moratorium in place since March sixteenth, 2012, but that has not stopped the highly lucrative trade to markets in China, where there is a huge demand for the precious hardwood. On Monday afternoon, confiscated flitches of rosewood held at the Forestry compound in Belmopan were […]
But while there are certainly more questions than answers, the clouds are beginning to clear away from what is actually taking place on the rosewood scene. This afternoon a release from the Forest Department, sans official letterhead, declared that an amnesty period is in effect for rosewood harvested before March fourteenth, 2013. The release states […]
And tonight’s question is: Do you believe there is official involvement in the illegal harvesting of rosewood? 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 is some good news tonight that will affect households across the country. The price of butane is going down significantly effective this Wednesday. A release from the Supplies Control Unit says that prices are going down by three dollars when you buy a hundred pound cylinder. The lowest prices are for Belize City and […]
Earlier today, there was information circulating of a murder on the streets of the Old Capital. And while we can say that there was no life lost to the street violence, a man was severely beaten and left for dead on the street. Lionel Ramos was found lying on a boardwalk behind a house on […]
Last Friday, the Unions’ Joint Negotiation Team met with G.O.B. and received a counterproposal to their counterproposal, and even though word was that the unions were to have issued a release, they have remained absolutely silent. But tonight, News Five has gotten some details of government’s counterproposal. From what we can see, government is buying […]
The National Executive of the People’s United Party met this morning. It took a decision in respect of the new Guatemalan passports which are causing a firestorm among Belizeans. As it stands, the Guatemalan government is proposing to print four million passports over the next ten years. But what is irking Belizeans is that the […]
Earlier in the newscast we told you about this past weekend’s trip by the Belize Territorial Volunteers to the Dolores area to which the Organization of American States responded positively to an invitation to act as observers on the expedition. And representatives from the OAS were present indeed, but rather than maintaining a prudent distance […]
At the end of February the Belize Territorial Volunteers, led by Wil Maheia, travelled from the village of Jalacte in the deep-south to the border with the Guatemalan village of Santa Cruz. That expedition was without incident, and buoyed on that success, and on an undeniable sentiment of patriotism, the group headed back to the […]
Currently relations between Belize and Guatemala are at what could be called an impasse, with the O.A.S. somewhat in the middle. Latest word from Guatemala is that the country will ask the O.A.S. to intercede with Belize to postpone the referendum, and that is likely what’s on the agenda for a meeting scheduled this week […]
There was a mid morning fire on Sunday afternoon at the corner of Mahogany and Causarina Street. The victims are both elderly persons who lived in two small wooden homes. Antonette Velasquez is unable to walk and a neighbor grabbed her out of her home. The other victim, eighty six year old Shedrock Mckoy also […]
After its spectacular performances at the Copa Centro Americana, the Belize National Football Team is getting ready for participation at the July Gold Cup in the United States. Belize will be playing against the powerhouses of the United States, Cuba and Costa Rica in three US cities. But on the ground here, the Football Federation […]
A Lord’s Bank resident is tonight in critical condition at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital following a near fatal traffic accident in the Lord’s Bank Village in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Forty-five year old Horace Nicodemus Williams Junior is tonight being kept alive in the Intensive Care Unit at the K.H.M.H. Around twelve-thirty […]
Twenty year-old Devon Vasquez is tonight on remand at the Belize Central Prison after failing to pay a fine when he was found guilty of robbing a woman of her purse. Vasquez appeared before Chief Magistrate Anne Marie Smith, who flatly rejected his testimony, as well as that of his alibi witness, who testified that […]
At around four-thirty Thursday afternoon, eight Chinese nationals, seven men and one woman arrived in Belize on a TACA flight. They proceeded through Immigration on the travel documents they held, but as they stepped out through the departure doors at the airport, they were greeted not by their compatriots who were waiting for them, but […]
As we told you before, the smuggling of Chinese nationals into Belize is known to be a very lucrative and very active trade, where local agents act as middle-men between officials in the Immigration and other government departments and prominent Chinese businessmen who mastermind the ring. News Five was reliably informed that the route of […]
There is another very serious complaint against a group of police officers. A Belize City businesswoman who went away for the Easter had to cut her trip short and rush back home because her house had been robbed of some twenty thousand dollars in cash and valuables. To add to her woes, her common-law-husband had […]
A group of four, residents of Roaring Creek Village, was arraigned before Senior Magistrate Lindsbert Willis in Belmopan today on a joint charge of murder. Thirty-four year old Juvencio Herrera, his elder brother, forty-one year old Elilo Herrera, twenty-six year old Gregory Martinez and twenty-eight year old Steven Garbutt are all accused of killing police […]
The anticipated meeting between the Joint Negotiating Team, representing the Belize National Teachers Union, the Association of Public Service Senior Managers and the Public Service Union, met with Prime Minister Barrow today in Belmopan. Today’s second round of discussions on the issue of salary adjustment started at about ten this morning and concluded around four […]
In March 2013, public outrage was aroused when a black howler monkey was badly beaten by four third form students at the Belize High School of Agriculture in southern Orange Walk. And worse than that, they allegedly did it because a teacher told them to. The Forest Department was involved from the start and an […]
