Turning to the senate hearings…Did former Minister of State for Immigration and Nationality, Elvin Penner, act alone in granting both passport and Belizean nationality to South Korean businessman turned fugitive Won Hong Kim, to help him escape a Taiwanese jail? While the full answer to that may not be known until Penner appears before the […]
As a result of the Won Hong Kim passport and Belizean nationality scandal, the Immigration Department was nearly turned upside down as both Police and internal probes took place. In the end, the blame for the granting of nationality was placed on three officers: Sharon Neal, Omar Phillips and Erwin Robinson. They were tried before […]
In Wednesday’s coverage of the Senate Special Select Committee, we highlighted the comments of former head of Services for the Immigration Department, Edgar Cano, who also served for a brief time as chief officer at the Western Border. Most of his questions had to do with the eight missing visa foils that somehow moved from […]
Perhaps the most depressing bit of information coming out of the Senate’s public hearings is how easily the Immigration Department’s plans and schemes were broken by just about anyone with a shred of a connection. Former C.E.O. of the Ministry of Immigration, Candelaria Saldivar-Morter, says that she and Minister Godwin Hulse were very much aware […]
Interdicted police officer, Urbie Alamilla, who back in June 2016 was charged with discharging a firearm in the Jade Restaurant located between miles eight and nine on the Phillip Goldson Highway, is home free tonight. Today, the prosecution chose not to offer any evidence at what was expected to be his trial in the matter. […]
In January, the Social Security Board announced that they would be going on a country-wide public consultation to discuss increase in benefits; for those making contributions, it means that those will increase. The reasoning behind this proposed increase is that when those who earn more than three hundred and twenty dollars weekly retire, they will […]
Just after seven on Wednesday night, a fire broke inside a wooden house on Victoria Street in north side Belize City. Inside at the time of the blaze was an elderly woman; she was pulled out of the house by relatives who were alerted by the smoke that spread through the small house. Police officers […]
While investigations continue into the cause of the Victoria Street fire, what of the San Pedro fire in the San Juan area on Ambergris Caye? Calvin Young and his two sons were not on the island when the blaze consumed their home and all their possessions. In his interview with News Five, Young maintained that […]
Today, eight feeding programs received cheques from the Social Security Board under its annual Ride Across Belize program. The funds collected during the 2016 Ride will be used to feed underprivileged children across the country. A little over fifty thousand dollars was handed over today among the recipients – those monies represent funds collected and […]
The Department of Environment is executing the project called Belize Chemicals and Waste Management (BCWM) Project. One of goals of this project is the management and disposal of existing stockpiles of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), obsolete pesticides and other chemicals. So, in order to do this the DOE is holding a two day session with […]
It’s common knowledge that too much stress is bad for your health. Just last month scientists were able to identify the biological link between specifically the heart and stress. They revealed that heightened activity in the amygdala, a region of the brain involved in stress, is associated with a greater risk of heart disease and […]
The ruling United Democratic Party has issued a call for the Opposition People’s United Party to remove its lead Senator, Eamon Courtenay, for what it calls an “outright betrayal of Belize’s national interests, and extreme conflict of interest.” According to the U.D.P., Courtenay as Senior Counsel filed a constitutional challenge to strike down the Central […]
The Senate Special Select Committee met with three witnesses today at its public hearings in Belmopan. These were senior Immigration Officer Edgar Cano; Finance Officer Teresita Castellanos, and the now-retired, former C.E.O. in the Ministry of Immigration, Candelaria Saldivar-Morter. The sister of Belmopan area representative and Minister John Saldivar was sent on paid leave for […]
All the senior officers who have visited the Senate Special Select Committee complained that there was little to guide them other than their own judgment, and in some cases, the wishes of the Ministers of Government and their hangers-on. But Saldivar-Morter today contended that the standard manuals for each section of the Department – minus […]
But what of Saldivar-Morter herself? At one point in the Auditor General’s Report, she was mentioned as one of the persons who asked for the Department to facilitate visas for selected persons, and there is an appendix in the report listing the names in question. But Saldivar-Morter insists that she knows better than that; as […]
The first witness to be called today was Edgar Cano, the former head of the Services Section of the Immigration Department and briefly posted to the Western Border. Cano, accompanied by attorney Richard “Dickie” Bradley, has been a public officer for thirty-two years and with the Department for twenty-eight years. But one incident appears to […]
Further questioning by the Committee established that Edgar Cano did not leave Belize during his vacation and that he was contacted about the missing visa foils by a Department employee, whom he advised to report the matter to the then-Director. The matter even went to the Public Service Commission, whom Cano says could not determine […]
The matter of Ministerial influence in writing recommendations for passports, visas and even nationality has been a continued topic of discussion in the Senate’s public hearings. But to a man, or woman, the senior Immigration officers called so far have insisted that they did not treat applicants who had a Minister’s ear any different from […]
Over a week ago, you heard Senator Valerie Woods raised concerns in the Senate over a proposed beach development at Caye Chapel. The proposed works include a beach club and beach area measuring nine hundred and eighty-five feet long by ninety-eight feet wid. The concern centered on the point that the project was green-lighted by […]
On Monday, the Forestry Department announced amendments to the Forest Act that provide for stiffer penalties for illegal logging. The increase in fines will be imposed on persons found with woods like Rosewood, Zericote and Mahogany and based on three key indicators. But the Department is giving the public a grace period to take in […]
It has been an uphill battle for police and the community, because most of the residents work within the city and often times leave their homes unattended and open to crime. According to James, there has been cooperation from the police to try and nip this perennial issue in the bud. Voice of: Lisa […]
Police believe that twenty-seven-year old Enfield Fitzgibbon is the gunman who pulled the trigger in the murder of nineteen-year-old Keimar Nicholas. Nicholas was shot on the night of January twenty-third, 2017 in the vicinity of Lindo’s Alley in the Conch Shell Bay area, Belize City and succumbed on February third. Late on Tuesday, Fitzgibbon was taken […]
Belize City police have detained one person and are looking for two others, following Tuesday’s mid-morning armed robbery of the UNO Gas Station on Youth for the Future Drive. A Honda accord car with no license plates, believed to have been the getaway car used by the two armed and masked robbers, has also been […]
An uncle and nephew charged with illegal possession of female hicatee turtles and hicatee nets were freed of four charges today before a planned trial. Magistrate Carlon Mendoza agreed with defense attorney Leeroy Banner that the Fisheries Department officials should not get another adjournment in the case of fifty-six-year-old Goldburn Seguro, and his nephew, twenty-two-year-old Hilberto Stanford Seguro. […]
In more fisheries news…five fishers caught big fines in the Magistrate’s Court for possession of undersized conch and fishing without a license, but it could have easily been worse. The quintet – Enrique Perez; Victor Martinez; brothers Tony and Jeronimo Matura and repeat offender Idelfonso Sho – appeared before Magistrates Carlon Mendoza and Norman Rodriguez […]
