The latest Fair-trade audit of the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association turned up four major areas of non-compliance, three of them centred on the touchy topic of child labour. Auditors found that there are children working in cane-fields in the north, and that is a no-no where the certification body is concerned. It’s also something […]
The 2013-2014 crop season that almost wasn’t, will come to a close on Tuesday, July eighth. It started two months late, a delay caused by a combination of incessant rains, impassable roads and a near-strike situation over bagasse payment to farmers. But better late than never…and today we can report that this year farmers actually […]
The crop season started with an uneasy truce between BSI and the BSCFA, based on commitments in good faith to immediately commence negotiations on bagasse payment. Those negotiations were to have concluded by the end of the season. Now the season ends in a few days, so that will not happen. The farmers asked for […]
The Belize Youth Movement, which is the youth arm of the People’s United Party, today held a high achievers forum at the Best Western Belize Biltmore Plaza. The meeting saw the top performers from secondary institutions throughout the city being brought together to voice their opinions, share their ideas on issues affecting the country including […]
At the beginning of June, the Ministry of Health, through its National Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other STIs Program, released its 2013 report for the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the country. The results were damning. It showed that over the past three years, the number of new cases of the virus has remained almost constant. Two […]
A two-day cancer consultation concluded today at the Radisson Fort George Hotel. Stakeholders from various agencies and ministry officials convened to look at the cancer plan that was developed in 2013 and to create the medium-term and long-term actions that need to be implemented given the limited renounces in the country. Along with the Pan […]
Twenty days ago, baby Laureny Pena was born to Corozal resident, Laura Pena, by cesarean section. She was past the due date by a week, but nothing seemed amiss and the mother and newborn were discharged from the Northern Regional Hospital in Orange Walk Town. All seemed well until Saturday night when the couple had […]
Police are investigating the discovery of skull seen inside a broken tomb at the Lord Ridge Cemetery in Belize City. It was detected on Monday evening by mourners attending a funeral. They reported a foul smell coming from the tomb, even though the burial date of the person in the tomb was back in 1990. […]
Tonight there is a significant drug bust to report in the village of Teakettle in the Cayo district. Belmopan Police say that on Monday afternoon at around four-thirty, officers staged a surprise search in an area near the home of a known drug dealer in Teakettle. They found two plastic bags carrying eight hundred and […]
For decades the Krooman Lagoon has been designated as an important reserve for wildlife in Belize City. The area is a catchment for rainwater and was once teeming with birdlife and aquatic species. But a lot has changed over the past years, as the location has been filled by developers and settled by squatters. This […]
There is another death to report tonight and it involves a man who was mauled to death in Independence in southern Belize. Jeffrey O’brien was returning home from a fishing trip when he was attached by two pit bulls after eleven on Saturday night. It is not clear who are the owners of the […]
On Friday we told you about Martin Cal, a candidate on the People’s United Party municipal slate in Belmopan. Cal was asked to step down by party officials after his name came up in the Auditor-General’s report. He and another person were recommenders for at least four foreign nationals who were named in the Won […]
An employee of the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association has been terminated, and five others are in the hot seat after an audit turned up the misappropriation of funds. It happened between the end of 2012 and April 2014. Apparently those six employees worked out a scheme to give themselves extra money every payday, to […]
At D’Silva Camp in Mountain Pine Ridge, volunteers of the Belize Defense Force and soldiers of the Louisiana National Guard are engaged in Battle Camp 2014. They are undergoing rigorous training on how to fight the enemy, but they are also fighting the mountainous terrain and the humidity. They are about to take on the […]
The Christian Workers’ Union has signed a collective bargaining agreement with the Citrus Products of Belize Limited. It covers only about one hundred workers, but it is an achievement for the union which has shown some movement after a long period of stagnation. Today, President Audrey Matura-Shepherd told us more about the agreement signed with […]
At the top of the newscast, we told you about three traffic accidents, but there is one more to report. A near-fatal collision on Saturday morning, involving well-known Belizean cyclist Byron Pope, has resulted in the hospitalization of the young athlete after sustaining multiple physical injuries. Pope, who is a member of the Benny’s Megabytes […]
Pope says that if it was not for his helmet, a safety precaution mandated for use by all cyclists, he could have lost his life upon impact. There is no certainty whether he will be fully recovered in time to defend his championship for the Krem New Year’s Cycling Classic six months from now. In […]
On Thursday night, we took at brief look at the twenty-seven page interim Auditor-General’s report. The document chronicles an attempt at an intensive investigation into the corruption at the Immigration Department. We say attempt because the team states that they had trouble accessing records and were given the run-around by Director of Immigration Maria Marin. […]
The Auditor-General’s report has had no visible repercussions on the man at the front and centre of the scandal, former Minister of State Elvin Penner. But it has had serious political repercussions for aspiring politician Martin Cal. Cal’s name surfaced repeatedly in the report, after he and another man were named as the recommenders of […]
A tourist collapsed and died while on a diving trip at the Blue Hole Natural Monument. The U.S. visitor, Larry Smith, was along a group of nineteen tourists who left from the Ramon’s Village dock. According to dive master, Marcus Alamina, of San Pedro, the trip started at about six-thirty on Thursday morning. On arrival at […]
One of the events by which you can tell that the national celebrations are upon us, is the selection of the theme that guides the festivities. This year to mark the two hundred and sixteenth anniversary of the Battle of St. George’s Caye and the thirty-third anniversary of Belize’s Independence, a young mother came up […]
There is no shortage of disputes in the work place that involve employers and employees. This morning at the auditorium of the Belize Elementary School, representatives of the private sector gathered for an informational seminar titled Employers and Workers Rights and Responsibilities. A slew of relevant issues were ventilated including the Labor Act, Factories Act, […]
A battalion of four hundred and fifteen volunteer soldiers attached to the Belize Defense Force and the Louisiana National Guard is currently on an annual military training exercise in the Mountain Pine Ridge. Battle Camp 2014, as it is called, is a joint operation in which personnel from both armed forces are conducting mock jungle […]
A historic ceremony was held at court today when Monica Coc was called to the bar. Coc is from the Toledo District and is the first Mayan woman to ever be called to the Bar. The young lawyer studied in the U.S. and qualified in Jamaica to be able to practice in the local courts. […]
We have been contacted by the Attorney for Sergeant Octavino Victorin of the San Ignacio Formation in respect of a story aired earlier this week. Sergeant Victorin is requesting that we clarify that he is not having an affair and never had one with Violetta Chan. According to the communication from Victorin’s attorney, Chan was […]
