On his return to Belize from over a week in Asia, Prime Minister Said Musa immediately immersed himself in the education summit, delivering the keynote address at Monday night’s opening. But the trip to the Far East was not without its rewards. According to a government press release, officials in Singapore have expressed satisfaction with […]
Meanwhile, in related news, residents of Melchor de Mencos, the Guatemalan town just across the border from Benque Viejo, are complaining about their community’s electricity supply–and are looking to Belize to solve their problems. A report in today’s edition of the Guatemalan daily, Prensa Libre, quotes Melchor residents as beginning negotiations with Belizean authorities for […]
Sworn in today for a second four-year term as President of Taiwan was Chen Shui-bian and among the foreign leaders gathered for the occasion was Belizean Prime Minister Said Musa. Prior to the event, Musa and Chen held a short private meeting at which Chen accepted an invitation to visit Belize before the end of […]
Prime Minister Said Musa left Singapore today en route to Taiwan where he will attend the inauguration of re-elected President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu on Thursday. Meanwhile, halfway around the world in Geneva Belize was providing Taiwan with diplomatic payback for the generous economic support that country provides. The occasion was the […]
He’s been at the centre of a number of controversies including the B.T.L. share sale, a twice-promised cruise port, and a passport scandal that refuses to die. But on Thursday Prime Minister Said Musa began what will be a ten-day change of scenery as he tends to the nation’s business in Asia. The main event […]
The Organisation of American States has concluded its investigation into an incident last month in which a Guatemalan was wounded by a B.D.F. patrol…and found that the Belizeans were not at fault. The report, summarized today in a release on the O.A.S. website, concluded that the April seventh shooting occurred sixteen kilometres inside of Belize […]
With the conviction this week of Jorge Manuel Torres Teyer, the leader of a Juarez Mexican drugs and stolen vehicle ring which did business in Belize, it is perhaps most timely that Belize join a regional effort to track down hot wheels. Today the Ambassador of Taiwan, Charles Tsai, handed over a check for almost […]
The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Belize and Guatemala are meeting today and tomorrow at the headquarters of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. The ministerial meeting between Godfrey Smith and Jorge Briz is focusing on a new set of confidence building measures to replace the ones which expire on Thursday. According to […]
In early May, a Belize delegation headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence, Godfrey Smith, will meet with its Guatemalan counterpart in Washington, D.C. for an official “where we are” in the negotiation process. While the primary discussion topic will be an agreement on confidence building measures, recent cross-border incursions will no doubt receive […]
Belize was represented by Minster of Foreign Affairs, Defence, and National Emergency Management Godfrey Smith at the CARICOM Foreign Ministers meeting in Barbados last week. Items on the agenda included: developments in Haiti, the Caribbean’s Relationship with the United States, the Fourth United Kingdom-Caribbean Ministerial Forum, and border issues. At a previous meeting, the CARICOM […]
Foreign Minister Godfrey Smith is in Barbados attending the seventh meeting of the CARICOM Council for Foreign and Community Relations. While most of the meeting will be taken up with discussion of the situation in Haiti, Smith took time out today to sign a memorandum of understanding with Antigua and Barbuda under which Belize’s Embassy […]
A group of Guatemalan officials spent more than two hours today at the Hattieville Prison. And while visits from embassy officials to check up on the condition of jailed Guatemalans are routine, today’s twelve-member delegation included representatives of Guatemala’s Human Rights Commission and press corps. Prison officials tell News 5 that originally the group had […]
Relations between Belize and Guatemala have been simmering on the diplomatic back burner over the last few months, but the heat was turned up last week when a group of Guatemalan xate farmers attacked a Belizean patrol unit inside the Chiquibul Forest Reserve. The joint B.D.F./Police patrol took one of the Guatemalans into custody. The […]
CARICOM Heads of Government met at the fifteenth Inter-sessional Meeting of the Conference in Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis on March twenty-sixth. The delegates considered the recent developments in Haiti, reaffirming their commitment to the fundamental principles underpinning governance and democracy in the region and the hemisphere. They also called, once more, for a U.N. […]
They are one of our best friends in Asia, and tonight, the president and vice president of Taiwan are lucky to be alive, having survived an apparent assassination attempt. President Chen Shui-bian and his deputy, Annette Lu, were shot on Thursday as they campaigned for Saturday’s national election in the city of Tainan, south of […]
In a world where e-marketing, e-shopping, and e-spending is already business as usual, it was only a matter of time before e-government and e-diplomacy became a reality. And Belize is jumping into the electronic waters with both feet. This afternoon, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched its official website. According to Minister of Foreign Affairs, […]
In related news, we took the opportunity of the website launch to have the Minister of Foreign Affairs give us an update on recent developments in two ongoing issues: the crisis in Haiti and bi-lateral relations with Guatemala following national elections in that country. Godfrey Smith “Latest information is that the government of Jamaica, through […]
Minister of Foreign Affairs Godfrey Smith this afternoon hosted his Mexican counterpart, Doctor Luis Ernesto Derbez, to a meeting in Belize City. The session was closed to reporters, but a release from the Government Press Office says that the meeting, which also had the participation of Prime Minister Said Musa and Mexico’s Under Secretary of […]
The release from Belmopan will no doubt arrive on Monday, but the Foreign and Commonwealth Office today announced the appointment of a new British High Commissioner to Belize. According to the F.C.O. website, Alan Jones will succeed current High Commissioner Philip Priestly. Jones, who entered the diplomatic service in 1971, will take up his new […]
Leaders of the Caribbean Community will meet in an emergency session in Jamaica on Tuesday to discuss the region’s involvement in peacekeeping and other assistance to Haiti following the departure of the country’s president. Jean Bertrand Aristide resigned on Sunday under pressure from rebels, the political opposition, the United States, and France. CARICOM leaders are […]
By international standards it is a tempest in a teapot, but these days anything even remotely touching the explosive Middle East situation seems to be hit by bomb fragments. How Belize got involved in the latest controversy at the International Court of Justice at The Hague is somewhat murky, but we somehow wound up as […]
Beginning March first, Belizeans needing visas to go to the U.K., may need to stop off in New York first. The British High Commission has announced that they will no longer be processing visa applications here in Belize, and these will be handled by the British Consulate-General in New York. The release says applications can […]
A release from the Government Press Office indicates that Great Britain has granted Belize debt relief in the amount of almost one point five million pounds. The funds, amounting to over five point three million Belize dollars, apply to the year running from July 2002 to June 2003. A letter from the British Ministry of […]
For the Belizean public in the wake of failure of the facilitation process, the issue of settling the Guatemalan claim isn’t just on the back burner–it’s not even on the stove. As for the Guatemalans, evidence suggests that any serious attempts at a settlement never made it to the kitchen. But you’d never know that […]
Prime Minister Said Musa has held his first meeting with Guatemalan President Oscar Berger. The two leaders exchange views this morning, a day after Berger’s inauguration in Guatemala City. Prior to meeting with Berger, Musa met with O.A.S. Secretary General, Cesar Gaviria, to discuss the continuation of the facilitation process as a way of resolving […]
