The 2018 Hurricane Season is a couple months away, but that has not stopped UNICEF and its partner agencies to sharpen their disaster management skills. On Wednesday, UNICEF and several organizations gathered at the Biltmore to do a simulation of a flood. Doing the exercise helped the organizations to see how the machinery works and […]
The Caribbean Court of Justice this morning heard dueling applications from the Belize Bank Limited and the Attorney General in Port of Spain concerning the still-outstanding U.H.S. matter. The C.C.J. ordered the forty-million dollar Belize Bank loan to be paid last November. The loan, made to the original owners of U.H.S. and guaranteed by Government, […]
The Belize Bank is tightening the screws. On Monday a U.S. district court judge ordered that the Bank can seize property owned by the government of Belize “in the jurisdictions where such attachment or execution is appropriate.” The ruling was mentioned by Senior Counsel Eamon Courtenay during arguments for the Bank’s case at the C.C.J. […]
Belize and the European Union have reached agreement on nearly twenty-nine million dollars in financing for projects in the health and public finance management sectors. The agreements were signed in Belize City today between Prime Minister Dean Barrow and the E.U.’s Ambassador to Belize, Malgorzata Wasilewska. The majority, about twenty-five-point-six million dollars, is for upgrading […]
The Marion Jones Sporting Complex will boast of a training facility courtesy of our friends from Mexico. The design of the five million Mexico Sports Center was unveiled today in the presence of a visiting Mexican delegation and local Government officials. Mexico also announced it was granting half scholarships and the opening of a high […]
On Wednesday, the National Trade Union Congress of Belize, N.T.U.C.B., issued a terse release soundly criticizing the Government of Belize for the delay in the visit of an UNCAC team of experts. The umbrella organization disparages the island nation of Tuvalu, one of two countries, including Haiti, providing specialists to conduct an evaluation and assessment […]
The Foreign Ministers of Belize and Guatemala were today at the western border for an official visit to the office of the Organization of American States, joined by the new special representative to the O.A.S.’ Secretary General, Washington Abdala. They took in special performances from neighboring children of the area after a bilateral meeting, a […]
Both Foreign Ministers were asked about the positions in both countries concerning taking the claim to the I.C.J. It has been suggested that older Guatemalans are more predisposed to supporting the claim due to indoctrination at the height of tension between the countries; Jovel Polanco spoke on that aspect. Elrington emphasized that the I.C.J. route […]
There is another high level visit coming up. Officials from Mexico are scheduled to arrive this coming Friday. The Undersecretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, and the Executive Director of the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation Agustín García-López Loaeza, will be here for a few hours. The purpose […]
We end the news broadcast tonight with a story close to home. Local fans of NBC’s crime drama Taken were astonished by the plot of a recent episode titled Hammurabi, directed by Lukas Ettlin, in which a laid-off worker kidnaps a high-powered accountant in revenge for his lost pension. The team of Bryan Mills and […]
Over the weekend, there was yet another confrontation in the Sarstoon River. Members of the Guatemalan Armed Forces aggressed a group of Guatemalan and Belizean journalists traveling with the Belize Territorial Volunteers. The group was stopped from going up the river, despite the avowal of Belizean authorities that our half of the Sarstoon is free […]
Trinidad and Tobago’s Law Association and some media houses have found themselves facing legal action from the country’s Chief Justice, Ivor Archie. Archie has been accused of various instances of misconduct in office, but denies the charges. His attorneys have now written the association challenging the investigation in the High Court. They plan to argue […]
An agreement was reached today between the governments of Belize and the United States on Cultural Property. The Memorandum of Understanding commits both governments to work together to fight the looting and trafficking of cultural material found primarily at archaeological sites. As part of the ceremony, the U.S. also returned a number of archaeological pieces […]
This afternoon there was a closing ceremony for a three-day Treaty Body Capacity Building Program for state officials which began on Tuesday. Later this year, Belize is internationally obliged to submit reports on International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the International Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of […]
Participants received their certificates from C.E.O. in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pat Andrews, who stood in for Minister Wilfred Elrington. He told News Five that the government is taking seriously the process of making national reports and also keeping local stakeholders up to date. Pat Andrews, C.E.O., Ministry of Foreign Affairs “Execution, execution. […]
In foreign affairs news, there are sketchy details about an apparent incursion by Guatemalan soldiers into Belizean territory. The question tonight is what authority they had to act. In this case, the pretext was to arrest an alleged robber. Information to News Five is that a Guatemalan money changer was robbed of a large sum […]
Janet Olisa was one of three ambassadors who presented her credentials to Governor General Sir Colville Young on Monday in Belmopan. She is the appointed High Commissioner of Nigeria to Belize, but is officially based in Jamaica. Today, she briefed the local press on the development of the relationship between the two countries, particularly in […]
Also, part of Olisa’s duties will be to minister to the growing Nigerian community in Belize which ranges from nurses in the hospitals to sculptor Stephen Okeke. She told News Five that the Nigerian government is looking for opportunities to export human resources in any area that Belize desires, including education and even the judiciary. […]
Pressure continues to mount on Guyanese President David Granger to indicate the way forward in the appointment of the top two judicial posts. He has offered the post of Chancellor of the Judiciary to Belize’s Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin despite local opposition led by predecessor Bharrat Jagdeo. Today, as the President indicated he would not […]
The pressure is building on Belizeans in the creative industries – broadcasting, both radio and television, and music and the arts – to begin recognizing copyright and intellectual property and pay the requisite fees to satisfy rights holders. Among the first of the major international companies to come calling on Belize is Home Box Office, […]
A young Belizean left for the U.S. today on a short program to play soccer in Phoenix, Arizona. Demille Flores is a fourteen-year-old second form student from Dangriga. He is an exceptional footballer and was selected by the RUSH Program as one of the top sixteen players of his age group to play in the […]
There is some good news coming out of the Ministry of Health that is having an impact in the region. A team from Guyana is currently in the country studying the Belize Health Information System, which is a database of health statistics. The system has been working up to par and the Pan American Health […]
Former president of Guatemala, sixty-six-year-old Alvaro Colom, was detained in Guatemala City along with several of his former cabinet ministers earlier today on charges of fraud and embezzlement dating back to his time in office between 2008 and 2012. Also among those arrested was Juan Alberto Fuentes, Colom’s former finance minister and currently chairman of […]
Alvaro Colom visited Belize in 2010 during the SICA summit in North Ambergris Caye, where he took over the six-month rotating presidency from Prime Minister Dean Barrow. Colom is not the first Guatemalan leader to face corruption accusations. In fact, he is the fourth in the last decade and a half, starting with Alfonso Portillo, […]
A new Guatemalan ambassador has taken up residence in Belize, almost two years after his predecessor Manuel Estuardo Roldan Barillas was abruptly recalled. Roldan returned to a new post as Guatemala’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs amid heightened tension between both countries, following the shooting death of Guatemalan teenager Julio Alvarado Ruano in the Chiquibul […]
