There was an armed robbery in Belize City on Tuesday night, involving an employee of Gas Tomza Ltd. Twenty-four-year-old Irvin Carranza, a Salvadoran national, was at work a fuel depot near mile one and a half on the George Price Highway when a man armed with a knife entered the office. That individual approached the […]
Last month a fire was set that wiped out the Belize Audubon Society’s Education Center in Crooked Tree. Someone deliberately set the structure on fire just hours before the village celebrated its annual cashew fest. Audubon lost everything in the blaze. The organization hasn’t always had a friendly relationship with some members of the village. […]
As we told you on Wednesday, Paul Ku got a Belizean passport with the approval of then-Immigration Director Ruth Meighan and then-Minister Carlos Perdomo, despite issues with his application flagged by retired Immigration Officer, Therese Chavarria. Ku was sponsored by naturalized Belizean, Rina Chiu Hsiang Lo, who has been described in the Senate hearings as […]
The hearing concluded with some fireworks, as Business Senator Mark Lizarraga pressed the former Minister on a particular application for one Mohamed Mohamed Khalil Owemer, a Saudi/Palestinian national who applied for nationality through marriage but was not qualified. Perdomo said he looked for the specific approvals of the Officer in Charge of the Section and […]
Senator for the Churches, Ashley Rocke, has told News Five that he believes he has seen enough of the public testimony for the Senate Special Select Committee. He also opined that public officers are as much to blame as ministers of government for the breakdown in services at the Immigration Department. We spoke to two […]
Driving in Belize can sometimes be a hassle, considering that each municipality and the Department of Transport have its own system for licensing and any cooperation is informal at best. But the Government of Belize wants to change that, and today its Central Information Technology Office and the Ministry of Finance signed a memorandum of […]
The Children’s Agenda 2017-2030 was launched today, but signed on May fifteenth between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. The document is a road map that outlines the development of children and adolescent from ages zero to nineteen for the next fourteen years. The agenda, according to the National Committee for Families […]
Today across the world was observed World Oceans Day. It is a day set aside to highlight the importance of oceans and the need to protect and preserve the natural resource. On Wednesday, OCEANA Belize took journalists for a trip off the waters of Punta Gorda Town. Local journalists got the opportunity to visit the […]
The heat has been very intense over the past few weeks and it is only the beginning of summer. You’ve heard the message countless times about staying hydrated and out of the heat. For those who needed added motivation to increase their water intake, tonight’s healthy living looks at the potential dangers of excessive heat […]
Five murders in just over a month in Corozal have thrown the municipality in the grips of a murder spree. Today, the bodies of a missing couple were found at around two o’clock. Families of Zeidy Orozco and Balthazar Lopez had decided to discontinue their searches in the coming days, when the grim discovery was […]
There have been two double murders reported in the Corozal District within the past six weeks. The first incident involved the gruesome abduction and strangulation of Canadian-American couple Francesca Matus and Drew Thomas DeVoursney. They were similarly reported missing on April twenty-fifth, prior to departing the country. Despite locating their vehicle several days after, the […]
Before the gruesome discovery of Lopez and Orozco, the body of a third murder victim was found. He is a twenty-one-year-old Orange Walk resident who was shot and killed in the Dominguez Layout area of Corozal on Tuesday night. According to his mother, Brandon Lee Tesecum had been receiving death threats since last week. Those […]
In the city, another killer remains on the loose, following the shooting death of twenty-seven-year-old Jerson Carballo on Monday night. The deadly spray of bullets happened at the corners of Electric and Lawrence avenues, in the Saint Martin De Porres area, sometime around midnight, while the Radisson employee was heading home on bicycle. It is […]
The Senate Special Select Committee called former Minister of Immigration and Nationality and National Security Carlos Perdomo as its sole witness today. Perdomo presided over the Ministry during the early part of the period under investigation, 2011-2013. He was questioned about various issues under his tenure, including the case of Paul Ku, who was granted […]
But how would ministers handle request for assistance with passport and nationality applications? Perdomo said he told the auditors that in his time, he would send a note inquiring about the reason behind a delay for a particular application and address it to Director Ruth Meighan, but that he did not consider this interference – […]
The “culture of corruption” has become a theme of the Senate Inquiry. Various Immigration officers have come forward to acknowledge that the department was largely at the mercy of ministers of government and their lackeys who pretty much got what they wanted at double speed. Even those not involved have said they stay far away […]
The minister’s pen proved mightier than any sword in the Immigration Department. Testimony from various officers showed that a minister’s recommendation, whether for passport, visa or nationality, carried significant weight with the Department’s workers, even if the rest of the application was flimsy at best in terms of the truth. The nationality report by the […]
In the wake of the momentous August 2016 decision by Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin to overturn Section fifty-three of the Criminal Code, godly Belizeans raised outrage at what they perceived as a nation turning away from Christian morality. Church leaders from both traditional and evangelical churches united to present their positions to government under the […]
We asked Bishop Wright whether the fundamental differences between the two sides will hurt the Commission, and whether it was all a knee-jerk reaction in the wake of the Section Fifty-three case which is now being partially appealed by the Government. The Belize Council of Churches still has to produce a final position, and so […]
News Five has been covering reports from Toledo about incursions by Guatemalan farmers in the villages of San Benito Poite and Otoxha. As we told you on Tuesday, the Belize Defence Force has done its investigations but has yet to catch up to the invaders. It must also rely on the Police Department and other […]
According to Requeña, government should not be burying its head in the sand on the issue and that all government agencies should join in to put a stop to the incursions which are taking away valuable Belizean territory. Isani Cayetano “Have you as the area representative had an opportunity to visit these areas to […]
Tonight, well-known criminal figure Stanley Moore was handed down another prison sentence after he changed his not guilty plea to guilty for attempted robbery and wounding against a seventy-three-year-old businessman and his friend. Moore is already serving a nine-year prison term for robbing a woman. After he changed his plea to avoid trial, he got […]
On Monday, a robbery of a MoneyGram location in which two robbers took a thousand dollars and escaped took place at its office on the George Price Highway in Santa Elena Town. According to police, cashier Nely Jimenez said two men went into the office walking casually; the first was in a black shirt and […]
The highest performing district of the Primary School Examinations, from an average point of view, is Corozal and the lowest performing is Toledo. The southern part of Belize has consistently ranked after Corozal, Orange Walk, Cayo and Belize – and so it is not often that Stann Creek and Toledo make it on the list […]
While the overall performance in the P.S.E. is considered average, there are some areas that are still lacking. The Ministry of Education says that there is incremental growth despite the overall percentage. Nelson Longsworth, Director of Examination Unit, says that the ministry continues to employ a number of methods to tackle some of the problem […]
