On Friday, the House meeting was abbreviated when the Opposition walked out of the House in protest, so the first actual debate on Petrocaribe occurred today in the Senate. The session included discussion on supplementary appropriations for 2014/2015 and 2015/2016, as well as the amended Petrocaribe Bill. It was a lengthy exercise with input from […]
Opposition Leader in the Senate Lisa Shoman asked for a division in votes for the approval of the supplementary appropriations for 2014/2015. That led to the bill being passed with seven, for and five, against. Interestingly, Senator Reverend Noel Leslie is on record voting ‘No’ to the Petrocaribe Loan when it first went before the […]
The debate on the amended Petrocaribe Bill started after two this afternoon. Right off the top it was classified by Senator Lisa Shoman as nothing more than a pig wearing lipstick and a carnival costume. We have part of the opening presentations from that long awaited debate on Petrocaribe. Mark Lizarraga, Senator, Business Sector […]
Senator Patrick Andrews was removed from the House at the instructions of the Speaker, Michael Peyrefitte during last Friday’s House meeting. That measure prompted the opposition representatives to walk out of the House and absent themselves from the debate of the important amendment to the Petrocaribe Loans Act. While the public is split on whether […]
Police have made a huge bust of an arsenal that includes a high powered weapon as well as a hundred and six live rounds of ammunition and have arrested two men. Just before six o’clock on Monday, a passenger bus heading west from Belize City was stopped by the Mobile Interdiction Unit between miles thirty-one […]
Thursday, July second, makes exactly one year since Supreme Court Justice Courtney Abel granted leave for judicial review to the Belize Tourism Industry Association (B.T.I.A.). The B.T.I.A. is challenging the decisions of the Department of the Environment (DOE) and the National Environmental Appraisal Committee (NEAC) to, respectively, approve an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for Harvest […]
While the association anticipates a positive outcome, the fact that the case is still proceeding seems to baffle Senior Counsel Eamon Courtenay. We also spoke with him at the end of the arguments and it is his view that the B.T.I.A. case is not very strong and may be hopelessly faulty. According to Courtenay, even if […]
The man responsible for the brutal attack against a police officer on Monday is tonight behind bars after he was charged and arraigned for the attempted murder of Police Constable Jason Hall. Belize City resident, twenty-eight year old Darren Levi Gillett appeared before Chief Magistrate Anne Marie Smith this afternoon, two days after the incident. […]
The officer was in his uniform when he was physically attacked and robbed of his vehicle. Hall has been working at precinct three of the Belize City police department for quite some time now. His mother says that while her son is in a stable condition, he is still not out of harm’s way. […]
Today, Shelda Patnett was formally acquitted of the charge of Manslaughter by Negligence by a nine member jury who was instructed by Judge Troadio Gonzalez to return a not guilty verdict against her. Back in May 2010, Patnett and her then common-law husband, Leon Lopez, were jointly charged but on indictment, the D.P.P. proceeded to […]
Tonight, Guatemalan national, Mauricio Perez who has been on remand at the Belize Central Prison serving a six month prison term for an immigration offense for being illegal in Belize, has been freed from the offense of keeping an unlicensed firearm without a gun license. In July 2014, just after leaving his workplace as a Security […]
Still on Petrocaribe…It is well known that there’s been bad blood between Prime Minister Barrow and the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The latest fall out was last Friday. Following the special sitting of the House of Representatives, the PM, told the media that the private sector organization is, “playing the fool and disregarding […]
The Chamber has called for transparency, accountability, adherence to the rule of law, and good governance and says that while these may be trivial in political calculations, they are important to Belize’s social and economic wellbeing. The letter written to the prime minister, says Vasquez, remains unanswered. Arturo ‘Tux’ Vasquez, President, BCCI “As we […]
More than one percent of the population is living with HIV/AIDS and that number could very well be higher. The fear of discrimination and confidentiality remain one of the biggest hurdles to testing, especially among men. Since Friday and throughout today, the National AIDS Commission has been promoting a regional initiative to get tested. The […]
Right now at the Mexican Institute, ‘Mario Nandayapa,’ a world famous Mexican Quartet is set to kick off a free show. The family quartet plays Mexican and international selections on their decades old instrument. It’s a showcase of culture at its finest and the Mexican Embassy wants you to attend. The show is set to […]
