The flag monument inside the roundabout by the Save U Plaza is a welcoming landmark at the Philip Goldson Highway entrance to Belize City. The colorful flags of the Caribbean normally fly at the monument. But about three a.m., someone took down the flags and replaced them with white flags that had a very clear […]
On the day the campaign was launched in Belize, the popular Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre lashed out on the Government of Belize. The article claims that the government intentionally changed the legislation to increase the voter participation to sixty percent to make the referendum valid. Belize’s Ambassador to Guatemala, Fred Martinez, was asked about the […]
The head of the Belmopan Branch of the Belize National Teachers Union, Corland Galvez and her membership are up in arms over a letter from the Ministry of Education authorizing the closure of schools at noon today. The letter asked parents pick up their children because teachers would be attending a meeting with Minister of […]
We also asked Minister Finnegan to weigh in on the issue and he says he supports a national demonstration which is well within their democratic rights. Michael Finnegan, Mesopotamia Area Representative “If the teachers feel aggrieve, the teachers have a right to demonstrate. This is how our democracy work in our country and I […]
The campaign for U.D.P. Party Leader is heating up and it was all on the airwaves this morning. Party Chairman, Patrick Faber, is challenging sitting Deputy Party Leader, Gaspar Vega. Faber has released a campaign ad and has been making his media rounds, both on the impending B.N.T.U. demonstration and his bid for deputy leader […]
At the same time, Minister Faber was on Love FM and stunned by the pronouncement he maintained that the Prime Minister has confidence in him. Patrick Faber, Party Chairman, U.D.P. “My boss, the Prime Minister, has indicated publicly that he believes that I; he supports me to be the next leader of the party. […]
Copa Centro Americana has been an experience for National Selection A Team as the competition has been anything but easy. In the first game versus Costa Rica, team Belize lost, in a one to zero game. The second game against Guatemala ended in a draw making the third game to be played against Nicaragua a […]
After a two week reprieve in gun violence, there was an execution style murder this morning in the City. Majdi Agha, the well-known owner of the King Kabab restaurant was gunned down as he and his family returned home from a doctor’s appointment. In the past three months, three Lebanese nationals have been murdered in […]
Two persons have been detained in connection with the murder of an elderly man in Maskall Village. Sometime between ten a.m. and twelve-thirty p.m. on Saturday, sixty year old Ervin Morales was murdered inside his bedroom. The discovery was made by a neighbor after being alerted that Morales had not showed up for lunch […]
What does the Minister of National Security have to do with the salary adjustments that teacher’s have been pressing for over the past years? We don’t know either but John Saldivar has successfully lobbied the Ministry of Education to cancel classes in the nation’s capital on Wednesday afternoon so he can meet with teachers who […]
While News Five spoke to the president of the Belmopan branch, the national President of the B.N.T.U. Luke Palacio was in a session with the President of the Public Service Union Marilyn Blades and the President of the Association of Public Service Senior Managers Jose Castellanos. This meeting also took place in the capital. The […]
The planned demonstration and possible strike are not the only issues facing the Ministry of Education. The Association of Student Governments of the University of Belize is resisting a cut in government subsidies to the university which means that registration fees for new students stand to go up. The association has written to Minister Faber […]
With violence so prevalent in daily newscasts, there is a sense in some quarters that television images of the bodies and the accompanied bloodbath, contribute to the trauma of society. Last week we asked, should the media censor coverage of gang related murders or violent crime? It was an extremely close call among those who […]
The government said today that a deal will soon be struck in re-negotiating the five hundred and fifty million dollars U.S. bond. In 2012, it appeared that a default was imminent, and then the government offered only a partial payment in September. There was a sixty day extension period which expired in November, and then […]
The P.M. said the debt flow relief will not eliminate the country’s fiscal or financial gap. While Barrow believes this pending agreement mends the relationship with the external financial community he was also hopeful that debt servicing will be sustainable. AJ Mediratta, a senior partner of Greylock Capital Management told the media that they represent […]
The hundreds of millions in dollars of relief brought by a restructured bond may have given teachers hope that the government will be able to grant pending salary adjustments. But the Prime Minister has crushed all hopes of those salary increases occurring in the near future. Following today’s press conference with the chairman of the […]
It is not known how it will factor in the superbond savings but the London Court of International Arbitration recently issued an award in favour of the Belize Bank Limited in arbitration proceedings commenced by the Bank against the Government. Word to News5 is that the arbitration concerned the breach by the Government of a […]
There has not been a murder since the massacre of four gang affiliates in Belize City two weeks ago, but over the weekend, a senior citizen, who is an epileptic, was found dead in his house in Maskall off the Philip Goldson Highway. Ervin Morales lived alone in a two bedroom house; his body was […]
Dialogue between the Barrow Administration and the Belize National Teachers Union, the Public Service Union, as well as the Association of Public Service Senior Managers concerning the long overdue salary adjustment resumed in mid 2012, following a four year suspension. Since then the parties have been in negotiations; but have failed to arrive at an […]
With the impending national demonstration and possible strike action at government’s front door, Patrick Faber, who leads a ministerial committee on collective bargaining agreement with the unions, said last Friday that government does not have the finances to support the adjustment. This morning, Faber likened the adjustment to an increase and further warned that it […]
Teachers countrywide have voted resoundingly to hold a national demonstration in Belmopan on January twenty-ninth. And if that doesn’t get government’s attention, then they are prepared to go on strike. The biggest issue on the table is a salary adjustment of thirty percent requested by teachers due to the high cost of living. Government says […]
Negotiations for a collective bargain agreement have been ongoing since 2008, but teachers are unhappy that they have not been able to move forward on the thirty percent salary adjustment .With that threat looming ahead for the government, Minister Patrick Faber, who is the head of the ministerial negotiation team says that government has been […]
As the clock ticks toward February twenty-ninth, Faber says the ministerial committee is not planning on meeting again until the next scheduled meeting because he believes there is no impasse. Still yet, the Prime Minister is expected to make a presentation to the nation next week providing details of the economic picture. Patrick Faber, […]
In the wake of the brutal slaying of four reputed George Street Gang affiliates last week, government has come under attack in many quarters for what is considered as the state negotiating with criminals instead of taking the hard line. Just after the bodies were discovered, gang leaders from George Street were escorted to a […]
The prime minister also spoke of the recent shooting of his predecessor Said Musa on Tuesday night. Musa told the media at a solidarity gathering at P.U.P. Headquarters that the threats he received in December were not related to the actual attack. He claimed that his gut instinct was that the shooting was not for […]
