This evening police are trying to discover the identity of a body found in an advanced state of decomposition floating in a latrine at an abandoned site in the Mount Pleasant area, located between Miles 44 and 45 on the Western Highway.
Last night, police received a call around 8:30 p.m. from someone in the area, who complained that a foul stench was coming from somewhere nearby.
Today, Chief Magistrate Herbert Lord said that he would be returning with his ruling next week Tuesday, August 23, at 10:00 a.m., on the submission of bail application made today by defense counsel, Senator Dickie Bradley, for Andrew ?Pawpa? Brown, 39, who is presently on extradition trial, and his brother, Floyd Brown, still awaiting trial on similar charges.
Bradley?s first reason for requesting bail was because the indictment that allowed the brothers to be delivered with a warrant of apprehension was sent for three persons and not only the brothers. He noted also that the third person was here in Belize on July 15, the day the Brown brothers were detained.
Having received a positive ruling in the Miami court this week, the Government of Belize will ?move forward expeditiously? to close negotiations with Lord Michael Ashcroft for the further sale of at least 12% of shares in Belize Telecommunications Limited?a sale that is likely to return Ashcroft to a controlling position in BTL a year and seven months after his exit from the company. Ministers Godfrey Smith (Tourism) and Francis Fonseca (Education/Attorney General) briefed the media on the ruling and its implications at the Central Bank on Wednesday afternoon.
A mother of two children, Rosalie Parham Gordon, 29, a housewife, is greatly in need of public assistance in acquiring funds to seek medical attention for open-heart surgery.
Amandala spoke with Rosalie, who is experiencing a lot of pain in the chest due to a mitral valve prolapse in her heart that is thickening. This can lead to abnormal heart rhythms or heart failure.
The Government of Belize announced last week Friday that it would repurchase the 82.68% shareholding in the Belize Water Services, which it had sold to the British/Dutch company, CASCAL, in 2001. It?s a US$28.6 million deal, and the biggest question has been, where will the cash-strapped Government with limited borrowing capacity find the money?
?Through diplomatic efforts with friendly governments, we hope to find the appropriate mechanism,? Minister of Information and Foreign Affairs, Hon. Godfrey Smith, told the media in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. Smith would not be more specific than that.
October 2003 ? GOB and Prosser sign Memorandum of Understanding for BTL sale
February 17, 2004 ? CHL sells 52.45% to GOB
March 31, 2004 ? GOB enters into Master Agreement and Share Purchase Agreements with ICC. BT issues GOB two unsecured Promissory Notes: (1) US$57 million due April 30, 2004, and (2) US$32.7 million due August 31, 2004. No collateral backed these notes but ICC guaranteed them.
The Government of Belize announced on Friday that it would repurchase majority interest in the Belize Water Services from CASCAL B.V., a British/Dutch company, and sell the shares to Belizeans.
GOB said Friday that it would give CASCAL a down payment of US$14.9 million when the share purchase agreement is completed on or before October 3, 2005. The CASCAL shares would then be transferred to GOB. Subsequently, GOB would pay the US$9.9 million balance by installments over the next 4 years at interest of 10% per annum. The money would be paid to CASCAL in US dollars.
Tragedy struck in La Democracia, in the Cayo District, around 2:50 p.m. on Tuesday, August 9, when Wilbur Calderon, 15, was struck by lightning and fell deeper into a pond at the Fresh Catch Belize Limited.
According to police?s initial investigation, Julio Sarce?o, 16, a fisherman who experienced a little of the shock of lightning, reported to them that around 1:45 p.m. that day, Tuesday, three other workers were along with him and Calderon, working in the pond, standing in the water during a heavy thunder and lightning storm.
Chief Magistrate to make important ruling on Monday
Today, the court hearing for Andrew ?Pawpa? Brown, 39, wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges, continued before Chief Magistrate Herbert Lord, in the Belize Magistrate?s Court #1.
Solicitor General Elson Kaseke today made an application to the Chief Magistrate regarding his ruling on Tuesday, August 9, in which he ruled that he was not going to accept a second affidavit Kaseke had tried to tender through an employee from the Attorney General?s office, Priscilla Banner.
In a baffling move, police last Thursday, August 4, charged two girls, ages 11 and 13, with the kidnapping of a 19-year-old youth in April of this year.
The charge provoked public outcry, and today, Thursday, in the Belize City Magistrate?s Court, the 11-year-old had her charge reduced from kidnapping to abetment to kidnapping. The 13-year-old, charged in absentia, had already left the country for her native home, Honduras.
Aaron Juan, 24, accused of raping three British teenagers early Monday morning, August 1, has not yet turned himself into police, according to his father, Nazim Juan, who spoke extensively with our newspaper tonight.
According to Juan, he has not seen Aaron, his only son, in a week, nor has he heard from him since last Friday or Saturday?he is not sure. He told us, though, that his son promises that he will eventually turn himself in to police, presumably with his attorney, Hubert Elrington.
Fifty-four-year-old Justice of the Peace (J.P.), Modesto Madrill, reported to police that around 9:00 p.m. yesterday, Monday, he was inside his place of business, located at #30 Magazine Road, when a male person entered his shop, pulled out a small handgun and demanded money.
Madrill told Amandala that he saw the young man on a beach cruiser slow down and thought that he wanted to purchase something from the shop, but when Madrill, who was outside, reached the shop?s counter, the youth didn?t follow.
In one of the strangest cases ever seen in this country, two young girls, 11 and 13, have been arrested and charged this morning in connection with their involvement, police say, in the kidnapping of a 19-year-old youth, one of two young men, the girls say, who had kidnapped and raped them earlier this year, on April 18.
On April 24, after the girls were found in Orange Walk, they told their families that they had been abducted and raped by two young men, ages 16 and 19.
The Government?s latest maneuver to depose American investor, Jeffrey Prosser, from an influential position on the board of Belize Telecommunications Limited (BTL) by amending the Laws of Belize, and to pave the way for the foreseeable return of British mogul, Lord Michael Ashcroft, may bring serious repercussions for the Government and people of Belize.
Already the Government?s decision to take back BTL on February 9 this year is costing Belize taxpayers US$50,000 a day in fines in the United States District Court, Southern District of Florida. Today, the meter stands at US$6.3 million or BZ$12.6 million.
