The family of eighteen-year old Keonia Ara of Blackman Eddy continues to reel over her gruesome murder over the weekend. Ara was stabbed multiple times, her throat slit and then her body set on fire at the Belmopan dump. A second post mortem is to be held since it is suspected that she was also […]
On Monday, the Prime Minister presented the new budget. For the first time, the Government is proposing to collect over one billion dollars in tax revenues, an increase of eighty-eight million dollars from last year. To improve revenue, there has been some tightening of the belt with cuts here and there in ministries. But we […]
The Belize Tourism Board has been asked by industry operators to account for its sizable income and revenue, especially as it relates to tourism marketing. So, what would a cut into the B.T.B.’s income mean for the work that they do for the tourism industry? Executive Director Burgos says that they are unclear about the […]
The Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation is reporting minimal cuts in its budget for the fiscal year. However, there has been increased taxation on the industry in the form of the environmental tax on imported goods and the increase in departure tax for visitors. The Tourism Board, despite the Prime Minister’s commendations in an […]
Two of the scheduled three witnesses for today’s public hearings of the Senate Special Select Committee on Immigration testified. They are current information technology manager Rodolfo Bol and former database administrator, now Acting Director of the Central Information Technology Office (CITO), Francisco Gonzalez. Bol, as former systems administrator for the Department, was in charge at […]
Bol disputed the Auditor General’s assertion that inactive users were not removed from the system under his tenure. He pointed out that he and his successor as Systems Administrator, Georgia Bowen, held sole power to change the passwords and user roles of fellow Department employees, but in practice they only changed passwords and occasionally user […]
We reported on Tuesday night, that the O.A.S. Secretary General Luis Miguel Almagro arrives in Belize on Thursday though the nature of his visit has not been confirmed. A number of high-level meetings are on the agenda for the overnight visit, including one with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. Almagro is heading here […]
The house belonging to the Scott family of Prince Street, Belize City was struck by fire this morning. Six family members occupied the upper flat of the two-storey wooden building where the fire broke. Arliee Scott, who lives on the ground floor cried out for help and the fire department soon arrived on the scene […]
Over the past three weekends, there has been a considerable increase in homicides across the country; the most recent being a string of unrelated murders, including that of sixty-six-year-old Elbert Gillett. The elderly cab driver was shot and killed, before being dumped in a secluded area near Belizean Beach. His body was found in an […]
When will Belize City get a functioning cruise port? It has been a favourite question of tour operators who see potential in the cruise product whether at Stake Bank off the north coast or in Port Loyola on Southside. The former has been at a standstill since developer Michael Feinstein asked for an exclusive contract […]
Still on the tourism industry…Is the honeymoon over for Norwegian Cruise Lines? Their Harvest Caye project was intended as an exclusive footprint in Belize for the cruise line, which shared the Belize City port with rivals Carnival and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines among others. But the company has, for unknown reasons, reduced its port calls […]
An American national lost his life on Tuesday evening when he drowned in Placencia. Fifty-three-year-old Steven Gail Wine, from his hometown of Erie, Colorado, was vacationing on the peninsula when he decided to go swimming. Sometime around six-thirty p.m., Wine left his common-law wife Annie Berrardi and other members of his family at the Barefoot […]
There is a most disturbing report of cyber bullying against a minor by an alleged sexual predator. A thirteen-year-old student from the Belmopan area has reported to police that man from the Camalote area whom she knew and had been communicating with, asked her to send him nude photos of herself. The incident happened last […]
Back to the senate hearings…The second witness at today’s public hearing, Francisco Gonzalez, was a busy man for most of 2013 and early in 2014. He was point man for the Audit team investigating the Immigration Department for their special audit and had been working with them around the clock as a database administrator with […]
Gonzalez spent most of the session leading Senators through an explanation of how technological failures with the machine readable passport system were an underlying cause of the problems within the Immigration Department at the time of the audit report. With news of the Government’s plans to purchase a new machine and the concurrent problems with […]
The village of Biscayne stretches for five miles on the Philip Goldson Highway. Anyone travelling on the highway will detect the hustle and bustle among the population of over seven hundred. But the villagers have had one major setback…for decades they haven’t had potable water. This morning, a water system was finally inaugurated which brings […]
To raise awareness of the rights of consumers, March fifteenth is set aside to commemorate World Consumer Rights Day. Since the early 1980’s, the day is celebrated annually to instigate action among citizens for the international consumer movement. It provides a platform for consumers to voice challenges they face and ensures that their rights are […]
There’s been a lot tonight on the tourism industry…Saturday’s Southwest Airlines’ touchdown at the Philip Goldson International Airport will not be the last arrival of an airline in Belize for the year. Apart from Southwest’s own introduction of a Fort Lauderdale to Belize flight in June, two other well-known airlines will launch new flights, one […]
