A San Pedro resident has been missing for over two weeks. Ervil McCauley, a father of two daughters, one seven months old and the other two years old, has not been seen since October fourteenth. McCauley, better known as Pecans, left home to go on a fishing trip with friends. One of his sisters, Wendy […]
An incident this morning at a Teakettle school has puzzled the entire community. Soon after classes began, several standard six students, who use the church as a classroom, fell ill; some of them fainted and had to be rushed to the Western Regional Hospital. All shared similar symptoms of dizziness, nausea and severe headaches. The […]
Badih “Bob” Bou-Nahra departs Belize over the weekend for Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker. He is among eight other finalists competing to take home the pot of more than eight million US dollars. Locally, excitement has been growing and a large contingent of Belizeans will accompany Bob to the grand event at […]
Back in January a little over three hundred police officers of various ranks sat a promotion exam and the results were very poor. Despite the unsatisfactory performance many of them, including those who actually passed the test, eagerly anticipated the publishing of a promotional list with the names of officers who will ascend in rank. […]
A giant in the agriculture industry has passed. Jamaican-Belizean Pat Polack passed away on Monday of this week in the Cayman Islands after a short illness. Polack, known by most as ‘Sheriff’ a name he got years ago because of his love for boots and a Stetson hat, was one of the biggest citrus growers […]
If your attention has been drawn to some dramatic television ads of three young women on a top secret mission, it really has to do with Smart upgrading to its new 3G service. The new service has been in the making for SpeedNet for some time and now with all the legal hurdles finally behind, […]
This weekend, Halloween bashes will be taking place all over the country. But there is a tradition to celebrate “El Dia Los Muertos” that is a main feature in Mexico and the rest of the Americas. The Day of the Dead is really a tradition that combines ancient culture with Catholicism. Locally, in Benque Viejo […]
Before the battle over the amendment to the constitution, there was always debate on private property and property rights. On January twelfth, 2010, a Benque Viejo Del Carmen resident was watching television when he heard Minister of Economic Development, Erwin Contreras say that his property would be acquired and given to the Mount Carmel High […]
The man at the center of the land case, Sam Bruce, says it was a surreal experience because he had done charity and community based work for the past two decades in Benque Viejo. He says he couldn’t believe that a hard working taxpayer, who used his own capital to develop his land for community […]
In Cancun and Cozumel, residents and visitors are preparing for Rina, which has been downgraded from hurricane to a tropical storm. Belize was spared of Rina when it proceeded on the projected path towards the Yucatan Peninsula. In Corozal, where the effects would have been felt, fortunately, it never happened and Wednesday night was calm […]
The three thousand plus residents of San Pedro and Caye Caulker who left their homes for higher ground when Hurricane Rina threatened the coast returned home today. During evacuation, NEMO footed the bill for the boat rides on San Pedro Belize Express, Caye Caulker Water Taxi and the Belize Bus Owners Cooperative, which also ferried […]
Earlier this month it was announced that the Belize Family Life Association, a pillar in the Belizean society for over twenty-five years, is in a disastrous financial predicament. The organization has been on the forefront of promoting sexual and reproductive health but it remains severely cash strapped and is facing the very real possibility of […]
The Gulf of Honduras Project; not much is known about it, but it is an initiative that involves three countries that share marine ecosystems. Its goal is to reverse the degradation in the Gulf of Honduras through a coordinated plan of action that involves a range of components. You have heard about it on the […]
The Pan American Health Organization has played a key role in the development of Belize’s health system. And while a few representatives are often in the spotlight, there are staff members working behind the scenes to keep the operations sailing smoothly. For that, employees of PAHO/WHO are recognized annually at a local and regional level […]
The threat of Hurricane Rina has been called off but there are many stories that show the preparedness of residents. At San Pedro, the prime tourist destination, residents and visitors took precautions. Those that stayed on the island boarded up their windows and stocked up their pantries, but thousands left the island for high ground. […]
In news from Belmopan, there is a major political move in the United Democratic Party. Word to News Five is that Minister of Defence and Immigration, Carlos Perdomo, is stepping out of the political arena. Perdomo, who is the area rep for Caribbean Shores has had a stormy tenure as a minister. He was stung […]
Those who left San Pedro arrived in Belize City by boat. News Five’s Jose Sanchez was at the Water Taxi terminal when the evacuees came ashore. Jose Sanchez, Reporting San Pedro was calm because it was short of three thousand residents. NEMO provided free boat rides for residents who heeded the call for evacuation. And […]
As we said at the top of the newscast, evacuations are taking place from San Pedro and Caye Caulker, bringing residents to the mainland. Residents from the cayes were transferred to Belize City today from where they are heading to higher ground. Most persons we met were calm and glad to get out of harm’s […]
The Senate met on Monday in Belmopan. The urgency was for the ratification of the ninth amendment. That did pass, though with a small majority. But there were other issues to deal with. In his Independence Day speech on September twenty-first, Prime Minister Dean Barrow announced that he was forgiving sixty-million dollars in housing loans […]
The post of the Auditor General that became vacant on August thirty-first when Edmund Zuniga reached retirement age has been filled. But while the new appointment of Dorothy Bradley on September twenty-fourth comes highly recommended, some Senators believe that the former auditor general’s reports should have been clarified and vetted before he retired. In the […]
The nationalization of Telemedia has led to the ninth amendment and just when the Government thought the litigation was dying down, another lawsuit has landed at its doorstep. On Friday, whilst the ninth was being debated in the House, Fortis filed a constitutional challenge against the nationalization of Belize Electricity Limited which took place on […]
While the Court of Appeal was hearing submissions on behalf of Vaughan Gill and Ricardo Castillo, in Belmopan the Senate was meeting as scheduled. By midday the Ninth was ratified albeit with a slim majority. Here is how that happened. Two senators did not make it to the Belmopan and a third seat was vacant […]
Senator Henry Gordon on behalf of the Council of Churches also abstained from the vote siding with business senator Godwin Hulse. Senator Liza Shoman was the only opposition representative in the Senate. She did not support passage of the Ninth saying that there is danger when parliament is given absolute power. Lisa Shoman, Senator “More […]
Up north, the house of prominent Corozal doctor and former P.U.P. area representative, Gregorio Garcia and his wife Narda, came under attack early this morning. At around two-thirty a.m. the caretaker was alerted by the barking dogs that policemen from the Anti-Drug Unit who were outside the yard. The officers reportedly barged into Garcia’s property […]
Just after the four o’clock this afternoon, the ninth Amendment Bill to the constitution, which was touted around the country in a highly politicized road show, came to pass. The governments super majority in the House, all twenty-four voted yah, there were three no’s from the Opposition’s side, and one abstention from Orange Walk East […]
