Two tourists spending the holidays in Belize met untimely deaths in our waters within hours of each other on Boxing Day. The body of Paul Hooker, 54, of the U.S.A., awaits a post-mortem at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital after he apparently died trying to save a fellow tourist on Boxing Day morning.
A driver for the Customs Department’s Benedict Palacio, one Michael Cain, is listed as stable at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital after he was unexpectedly stabbed this morning near his workplace.
I know I’m cheating, but I use the newspaper to communicate with my friends abroad. I did it last week for Christmas, and I’m doing it now for the New Year’s
Port Loyola man dead; Lake I man critical! A laborer and father of three, Jermaine Sanjay Trapp, 29, of #2909 Fabers Road, is dead and Cameron Blease, 18, of Ebony Street is in a critical condition tonight at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital after a Boxing Day attack on them in the Newtown Barracks area.
P.M. Barrow says GOB holding back on payment because of “legal issues”... Prime Minister Dean Barrow has confirmed to Amandala that NEWCO Ltd. has sought to enforce against the Government of Belize the US$4.26 million judgment awarded in June at the conclusion of arbitration proceedings in Miami. That’s because, since the judgment was handed down in Miami six months ago, the money has not been paid. Barrow told us today that Government had not paid the monies – demanded in July – because of “legal issues” he says need to be sorted out.
Police say they arrived just as Lionel Eaghan unzipped his pants... Lionel Eaghan, 22, of a Belama Phase III address in Belize City, is out on bail of $1,500 after appearing in court today on a charge of unlawful imprisonment.
Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, Hon. Marcel Cardona, today fired off a press release challenging the legality of an agreement between the National Institute of Culture and History (NICH) and tourism investor, David Gegg, for a half-a-million dollar restaurant and shopping facility at a major cave tubing destination for cruise tourists - the Nohoch Che’en Caves Branch Archaeological Reserve in Cayo, adjacent to the popular Jaguar Paw Jungle Resort.
Way back in August, the Government of Belize recouped the US$10 million grant from Venezuela, secretly diverted to the Belize Bank by the last administration, but even as the year closes, those funds – which Prime Minister Dean Barrow had indicated would be disbursed by Christmas – have still not reached the intended recipients.
Leading the news going into May of this year was the disclosure of yet another secret deal granted by the former administration of Said Musa, this time to Belize Telecommunications Limited (now Belize Telemedia Limited). Prime Minister Dean Barrow disclosed what was termed an “accommodation agreement” at a meeting of the House of Representatives, under which BTL was allowed to withhold taxes if the company did not earn guaranteed profits. In the ensuing months, BTL and the Government were engaged in a series of legal skirmishes over tax payments, with the Supreme Court upholding the Government’s position on the matter. The agreement continues to be a subject of dispute between the parties.
In principle, the peoples across the world should have the right to choose their own form of government, without interference from outside powers. Colonization and the enslavement of Africans did not acknowledge that universal right, and did not respect the supremacy of the will of the people. However, the principle of self-determination was one of the key arguments used by proponents of decolonization, citing the right of a people to exist as a separate state. It is a right now acknowledged in international law, despite continued violations across the globe.
After 188 years of war, from 1519 until 1707, on this piece of land we call Belize, the Spaniards could have finally removed a part of the Tipuans from the town of Tipu and took them to Lake Itza, Peten, Guatemala. Many of the Tipuans had run into the bushes up to the Yalbac hills where they started a new village and life. The culture and language of the Tipuans was similar to their neighbors, the Icaiches. There existed no boundaries in the Maya World, and my people had no concept of private property. For them this land was God’s land, and there was no way they could have gotten a signed document or title from the invisible parents of the universe. Except, of course, the Spaniards, who had a representative on earth with the name of His Holiness, Pope Borgia Alejandro VI, who, they claimed, gave this land to them.
Mrs. Martha Williams signed all the documents involved in the transactions involving the purchase of Mortgage Loans and the Assignment of Mortgages between St. James and SSB, SSB and the RMB, as well as between the SSB and the DFC.
We started the year in shame; we repeated the disgrace in mid-year; and then ended the year in a distasteful controversy. First, our national football team played its “home” game in Guatemala on February 6; then our national football champions played their “home” game in Guatemala on September 3; and, finally, our FFB/BPFL national playoffs were marked by gross inconsistencies and remain steeped in controversy.
