The anticipated results of the Primary School Exams were released this afternoon. Seven thousand two hundred and forty five candidates sat the exams and as has been the trend in the past years, the results show terrible weaknesses in Math, English and Social Studies. In math, a worrisome forty seven percent scored only E’s which […]
According to Citizens Organized for Liberty through Action, COLA, the Auditor-General’s report recommends that Elvin Penner, Director of Immigration Maria Marin and others be charged criminally for their roles in immigration corruption. That report was leaked to COLA earlier this week, and because of an upcoming court case, the organization is not disclosing it in […]
The Auditor General’s report also makes pointed reference to challenges regarding the lack of cooperation during their investigation. In fact, Director of Immigration Maria Marin is named with great prominence in the report – accused of, “blatant disrespect for the Auditor General’s office and lack of regard for the law.” The team stated that they […]
So while Minister Hulse says maximum cooperation, the Auditor-General’s team is saying they received anything but that. That’s actually par for the course where COLA is concerned. They were encouraged by no less than Prime Minister Barrow to pursue private prosecution, but when it came to getting support and assistance from government functionaries, they’re batting […]
There is tension tonight among the farming community of the Valley of Peace. As you know by now, the farmers lost their vegetables when the herbicide Roundup was used in aerial spraying. The company, Green Tropics, was fingered in the spraying but the company says it owns the land. On Wednesday, the farmers received an […]
The Joint Unions Negotiating Team, comprised of the Belize National Teachers Union, the Public Service Union, as well as the Association of Public Service Senior Managers, met with the Ministry of Finance this afternoon to finalize their salary adjustment. The fine-tuning of monthly wages works out to a six percent increase, retroactive to April of […]
Wednesday’s press briefing, hosted by Prime Minister Dean Barrow, lasted three hours and covered much ground. One of the issues which came up is the controversy surrounding SATIIM, drilling by US Capital and a decision by the Supreme Court which all parties are interpreting for their own purposes. We use the word controversy, but for […]
On Wednesday, Belize City Mayor Darrell Bradley announced that he would be running for a second term of municipal office. He took time to laud the team he’s worked with which includes Councillor Eric Chang. Now Eric Chang’s name came up in the Won Hong Kim passport scandal. Chang had left the country for an […]
Who can ever forget the pictures of Minister of Investment Erwin Contreras and Minister of Tourism Manuel Heredia hobnobbing with the rich and famous in Cannes? They were the guests of the movers and shakers in the Puerto Azul project, dubbed a citadel of luxury. While the ministers and their family members who went along […]
In the wake of the prime minister’s pronouncement on the proposed Puerto Azul development project, the coalition of environmental organizations, including Oceana, APAMO and the Belize Audubon Society, has written to the chair of the Ministerial Investment Sub-committee, Godwin Hulse. The release says, “In the spirit of the Prime Minister’s personal commitment to transparency of […]
At the end of May, the Statistical Institute of Belize reported that the economy contracted in the first quarter of 2014. It wasn’t a huge contraction – just zero point four percent, but where the economy is concerned, any contraction is a cause for worry. Not really…says Prime Minister Dean Barrow. He’s disappointed of course, […]
Red Cross Volunteer, Torbjorn Pedersen, who also goes by the name Thor, has been making the headlines in many countries for his mission to travel the world. The thirty-five-year-old resident of Denmark, in the northern part of Europe, is on a “saga,” the Viking word for traveling and adventure. Pedersen is traveling to one hundred […]
The Prime Minister’s son, Shyne, is Belize’s music ambassador, and has been since April 2010. It was officially announced in a ceremony where Shyne was placed as head of the music program at NICH. That never went anywhere, and Shyne left for Israel shortly after. He’s now going by the name Moshe Levi Ben-David, but […]
This morning, the alleged mastermind in an immigration scam, Marleny Castellanos, was slapped with twenty more charges for illegally aiding at least thirty persons to obtain Belizean nationality documents. Castellanos was in good spirits when she was brought to court. The forty-five-year-old housewife was arraigned before Magistrate Dale Cayetano and she pleaded not guilty to […]
We have reported on a rash of shootings, all gang related, in which nine persons were injured. It all happened in Belize City between Saturday and Tuesday. As investigations continue, police have made one arrest in respect of Tuesday’s shooting on Victoria Street where fortunately no one was injured. An eighteen-year-old former student from Wesley […]
An award ceremony was held today for two hundred and ten students who were successful in the popular GREAT program of the Police Department. It was a happy occasion for the students from south side schools who took part and learned to generally make good decisions in the critical issues they confront. News Five’s Duane […]
This June is a special awareness month for a disease you’ve probably never heard about. It’s called Myasthenia Gravis (MG), a very rare auto-immune disease causing muscle weakness which affects all ethnic groups and both genders. It can occur at any age but is most common in young adult women and older men. While little […]
