General
Sol Gen Kaseke arrested in U.S. for ?interfering with the operation of an aircraft?
BELIZE CITY, Wed. July 28, 2004
United States federal agents arrested Belize?s Solicitor General, Elson Kaseke, on Sunday, July 25, 2004, for failure to comply with United States federal regulations.
An American Airlines? flight crew reported to their administrative personnel that Kaseke was involved in a verbal exchange with a passenger seated next to him in the business class section of the aircraft, and Kaseke insisted on changing seats.
Killer bees? attack ends in death of family dog
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. July 29, 2004
A frenzied attack from a swarm of bees, believed to be Africanized bees, has left a family dog dead and has injured a yard cutter in the Buttonwood Bay area of Belize City.
Ms. Julia McDonald, a resident of Second Street, Belize City, said that she screamed out when a large swarm of what appeared to be killer Africanized bees attacked her while she was in her front yard around 10:30 a.m. yesterday.
Public finances (SSB): private business (Intelco)
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. July 29, 2004
In 2002, when relations between the Government of Belize and Sir Michael Ashcroft took a downward turn, Lord Ashcroft publicly charged the Government of Belize with attempting to use $17 million of Social Security Board and Development Finance Corporation (DFC) funds to finance Intelco.
Ashcroft made the statements publicly at a Belize Telecommunications Limited (BTL) AGM, to explain his stern objection to the way the Government of Belize was introducing competition into the telecommunications market. He charged that Government was not creating a level playing field for competition, since what Government was in effect doing was creating what he called ?subsidized competition.?
Rhoda Hyde Coye, R.I.P.
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. July 29, 2004
Rhoda Serena Hyde Coye, 93, passed away this evening at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital from natural causes.
Her greatest attributes were her passionate belief in God, her instrumental role in the formation of the People?s United Party in 1950, and the remarkable amount of love and commitment she had for her family.
OAS prods Bze, Guate to resume talks
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. July 22, 2004
A high-ranking official of the Organization of American States (OAS) is in Belize today, meeting with Belizean officials to advance talks on the Belize-Guatemala border dispute, which have apparently stalled yet another time.
Guatemala has changed its stance once again, and Guatemalan President, Oscar Berger, who had this year formally rejected a set of proposals crafted under the OAS to settle the dispute, now supports a national referendum, so that his people can decide whether they would accept or reject the Ramphal/Reichler proposals.
Grandmother, 57, hangs herself
BELIZE CITY, Wed. July 21, 2004
Seventeen-year-old Ashman Wiltshire found his 57-year-old grandmother, Mary Chavez, hanging from a yellow nylon rope tied to a beam in her house shortly after 7:00 this morning.
According to Chavez?s family, she woke up very early this morning and carried out her usual duties, which included waking up her oldest daughter, Bernadine Wiltshire, to prepare for work. Chavez even washed a load of clothes before taking a bath, after which she took care of the injured hand of her youngest grandson, Herbert Wiltshire.
Novelo?s and Belitur mess up, blame each other!
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. July 22, 2004
When Carnival?s cruise ships, Elation and Inspiration, docked in the Belize Harbor early this morning, there were no buses waiting to take passengers on their scheduled tours.
Calls came in to the various morning radio talk shows attesting to the absence of the tour buses and the increasing frustration of the tour guides, who had reported to the Tourist Village by 5:30 this morning.
?Stonecrab? Jones alleges wrongful arrest by Caye Caulker police
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. July 22, 2004
A man from ?La Isla Carinosa,? Caye Caulker, is alleging wrongful arrest and police brutality.
On Tuesday, July 20, Levi ?Stonecrab? Jones, 59, visited Amandala to make a complaint against the police. Jones, a boat captain, has been residing on the island for the last 25 years. According to Jones, he usually runs tourists and locals from one part of the island to the other. He was doing just that, he says, when the officer in charge (OC) on the island, along with a woman police constable (WPC), arrested him for, as he says, ??no reason at all.?
Belize from ?stable? to ?negative? ? Standard and Poor?s
BELIZE CITY, Wed. July 21, 2004
With the demand for the United States dollar expected to surge in the second half of the year and foreign reserves at a new low, another cash crunch could hit the economy shortly.
According a July 20, 2004, report from Standard and Poor?s (S&P), an international credit ratings agency, Belize needs more than four times its foreign reserves?US$305 million?just to meet its current account deficit (the difference between what Government earns from its routine operations and what it needs to finance them), medium- and long-term amortization (principal payments on loans), and short-term debt.
Supreme Court upholds Robert Hertular?s extradition to the U.S.!
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. July 22, 2004
The Robert Hertular legal saga has reached another milestone when, temporary Supreme Court Judge, Denys Barrow, S.C., yesterday handed down a decision upholding an earlier ruling made by Chief Magistrate Herbert Lord to extradite him to the United States to answer a four-count federal indictment.
On June 4, Lord, after listening to arguments made by Hertular?s defense attorney, Michael Peyrefitte, and Solicitor General, Elson Kaseke, acting for the Belize and United States Governments in the extradition hearing, ruled that Robert James Hertular has a prima facie case to answer in the Southern District Court of New York, where he was indicted by a grand jury. As a consequence U.S. judge Nathaniel J. Fox signed a warrant for his arrest on January 7, 2004.
