Before departing Belize last Friday, the Secretary General of the O.A.S., Luis Almagro, held a press briefing. While Almagro did not take questions from the press relying only on a written statement, Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington did. One answer in respect of the maritime borders, however, has landed Elrington in trouble. In a statement today, […]
Earlier this week the CZMAI launched its third Coastal Awareness Week and we showed you how they kicked off the activities with a trivia challenge for Belize City primary schoolers. Today, they took the awareness in a different direction; engaging the private sector in a forum with regional and local experts on how they can […]
This morning in the courtroom of Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin, colleagues in the legal fraternity convened a special sitting in honor of the late attorney Philip Palacio. The former People’s United Party candidate for the Mesopotamia Division passed away earlier this month in the United States after a bout with cancer. The forty-two-year-old has been […]
Tonight, villages in central Cayo District are on edge after another gruesome discovery was made around two this afternoon. A group of boys hunting iguana on the banks of the Belize River in Blackman Eddy village came across far bigger prey – the remains of what appeared to be severed human hands and feet. So […]
In the case of another gruesome murder, Elijah Burke, a Belize City resident, is in police hands awaiting arraignment in court for the hacking of his sister. It is not known what triggered the savage murder of Julian Burke by her brother. On Sunday, Elijah waylaid his sister and pounced on her as she entered […]
In financial news….The government has been celebrating the restructuring of the Super Bond 3.0. But the credit rating agency, Standards and Poor’s Global ratings, is downgrading Belize’s long-term currency rating from CC to SD. According to the agency it downgraded the rating from eminent default with possibility to recover to Selective Default as part of […]
Government is proposing to increase departure tax for visitors to Belize to forty US dollars from thirty-five. It intends to raise as much as eleven million dollars from this tax alone. The rise forms part of its plan to raise eighty million dollars in new tax revenue for the financial year beginning April first. But […]
The Washington Post and other U.S. news organizations have published a huge story which places a former campaign chairman for President Donald Trump to an offshore company in Belize which is linked all the way to the East European country of Ukraine. The report states that a Ukrainian lawmaker has released new financial documents allegedly […]
In a classic case of “progress brings problems,” the Department of Immigration and Nationality has responded to concerns that its nineteen-member staff at the Philip Goldson International Airport in Ladyville has been overwhelmed with the higher proportion of tourist arrivals in the ongoing high season. Despite the boasts of the Ministry of Tourism and Civil […]
Thirty-year-old Mario Makin of San Marcus, Toledo, says that four cops beat him and left him for dead in August 2016 and nothing has been done about it. The construction worker says he had only stopped at a shop on August thirteenth when he encountered four officers at a shop. He said the officers were […]
In October 2015, Judge Troadio “John” Gonzalez ruled that three Belize City men accused of the 2012 shooting murder of B.D.F. Soldier James Noralez had no case to answer. The trio Tyrone Meighan, Brandon Baptist and Orel Leslie Junior were freed after Judge Gonzalez concluded that the evidence the prosecution relied on was circumstantial evidence […]
Two months after the incident was first reported to police, twenty-seven year old Kenzle Hulse has been charged with harm. It was announced late this evening that the businessman from Cohune Walk Area is accused of assaulting Alberto Santos Lopez on January twenty-second at a gas station in Belmopan. There had been concerns that Minister […]
The Government of Belize has signed into a major insurance agreement with Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, known as CCRIF. The signing took place today in Belize City and will benefit the work of the National Meteorological Service. CCRIF has been providing funding for post hurricane relief. News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports. Isani Cayetano, […]
The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has approved ten million U.S. dollars to the Government in support of strengthening the Belize Social Investment Fund in order for it to continue providing services to poor and vulnerable communities across Belize. In a release issued by the Ministry of Economic Development, C.E.O. Yvonne Hyde said, “the four-year loan […]
Today, the Human Services Department services joined the rest of the world to observe World Social Work Day. Since 1983, the day has been celebrated around the world on March twenty-first to showcase achievements of social work and increase its visibility, but also to highlight its synergies with social development. This year, the day is […]
The 2017 budget which outlines government’s projected expenditure for the upcoming fiscal year will be debated in the House of Representatives at length on Thursday and Friday. Ahead of that examination by parliamentarians on both sides of the floor, a number of economists have perused the financial plan and concerns have been raised on several […]
This week, the Coastal Zone Management Authority Institute is observing Coastal Awareness Week. In its third year, the event draws attention to the importance of sustainable coastal management and at the same time it connects partners. We spoke with Marketing Officer of the Coastal Zone Management Authority Chad Bowman, who says that this year they […]
As part of the activities, today the Coastal Zone Authority held a trivia competition that saw the participation from schools across the city. The purpose is to raise awareness and the organizers say that the children demonstrated understanding and knowledge of the topics surrounding coastal zones and sustainability. At the end of the competition, Saint […]
Tonight there is a most disturbing case of fratricide to report involving a pair of siblings in the King’s Park community. A brother reportedly hacked his sister with a machete and within twenty-four hours she was dead. On Sunday, twenty-nine-year-old Julian Burke was entering her home near the corners of First and Saint Peter Streets […]
The second murder over the weekend took place on Friday night in the West. A father of three lost his life at Champon at the adjacency zone area when he was taken down execution style in front of his wife and brother. The gunman is said to have fled across the border to Melchor de […]
The hit on the well-known bus driver, as well as the vicinity of the deadly spray of bullets on Belize’s side of the Adjacency Zone, has raised serious concerns about border security, outside of the business hours of the Belize Western Border. This morning, Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Elrington shared details of the harrowing […]
We asked Foreign Minister Elrington if there will be a protest note sent to the Guatemalan government in the wake of the fatal shooting. According to the F.M., it is not the normal practice of the ministry to issue protest notes in cases involving civilian-related crimes. The question was posed in the context of the […]
“We will appeal…we don’t think that judgment can stand.” So said Prime Minister Dean Barrow on January twenty-first, 2016, upon hearing that the Supreme Court had awarded Titan International Securities nearly nine million Belize dollars in damages. The award is in respect of a raid at their Matalon Business Center offices on Coney Drive in […]
As you would know by now, the working relationship between the media and the police, is somewhere at its lowest ebb. Police are now only providing bulletins scanty of details to the media since verbal communications were suspended. The situation has become exasperating because we are unable to provide official information on the work of […]
While Elrington is of the firm belief that commanding officers often misspoke during interviews, he also agreed that information channeled to the media via the press release is ineffective. In fact, the flow of information has been difficult to come by from the police press officer. Elrington says that there is a dire need for […]
