“The GSU are a mob and they will escalate the crime in the streets if they don’t change how they are operating,” residents of George Street told us.... Residents of George Street are boiling mad at the brutal, cruel, vicious, senseless and vindictive operation carried out on Friday evening by members of Government’s “goon squad,” the Gang Suppression Unit (GSU), ostensibly against members of what they consider the “George Street Gang.”

Belize and Guatemala await completion of OAS investigation on border incident... In keeping with its habit of fomenting trouble between Belize and Guatemala at their western border, the sensation-seeking Guatemalan newspaper, La Prensa Libre, reported inaccurately that on Monday, August 22, a Guatemalan citizen had been wounded in the Adjacency Zone, on the Guatemalan side of the border, by a Belizean military patrol.

GOB’s concession to the churches... After dropping sections that purport to bar court challenges, Prime Minister Barrow insists: “...the courts cannot hear challenges to the substance of a properly passed Constitutional amendment and eventually strike it down.”

Post-mortem inconclusive, because of body’s advanced state of decomposition... Police said that they have identified a Hispanic man who they found dead, in an advanced state of decomposition, with puncture wounds about an inch and a quarter in circumference on the back of his legs, upper left back thighs, rib cage, and left upper chest.

2 security guards shot; one in the head, the other in the leg... At approximately 1:55 p.m. at the Atlantic Bank Ladyville branch, a team of armed robbers shot two security guards inside the bank during an attempted holdup.

Hecklers ruled at 9th Amendment first hearing... “If, in fact, we are gearing this at whomever, that they cannot come and challenge in court, why not make this more specific to the claiming of utilities as opposed to making it so broad?” questioned NTUCB’s Jackie Sanchez-Willoughby

Controversial 9th Amendment consultations begin... Teachers, businesspersons, social and political activists, attorneys, religious organizations and curious citizens looking for bona fide answers on the controversial Belize Constitution (Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2011, will converge inside the Holy Redeemer Parish Hall in Belize City as the public debate on the bill enters a new round on Wednesday night, August 10, 2011.

Former talk-show host on the Opposition People’s United Party (PUP)’s mouthpiece, Vibes Radio; former chair of the Belize Broadcasting Authority (among other positions held under former Prime Minister Said Musa’s administrations), former columnist for official PUP organ the Belize Times as well as current contributing writer for the National Perspective; and long-standing critic and antagonist of the current Prime Minister, Dean Barrow’s administration, Glenn Tillett, was charged yesterday, Wednesday, by Belmopan police with handling stolen goods, while he was still in his hospital bed recuperating from an attack of “bad health” suffered after lockdown in the Belmopan police “pisshouse.”

Belize is no Pakistan, says Audrey Matura-Shepherd... Amid a storm of public opposition to the 9th Constitutional Amendment Bill, which declares constitutional amendments unchallengeable by any court of law “on any ground whatsoever,” Prime Minister Dean Barrow has, on Friday, July 29, released a letter declaring that as the laws of Belize now stand, Parliament really has no limit in its power to change the Belize Constitution, and the court has no power to investigate or review constitutional amendments, except in cases where such changes are made without adhering to the proper procedures set out in the Constitution, under Section 69.

The force of the blow split the victim’s skull... A young man from Belize City died shortly after 9:00 last night at the Western Regional Hospital after being chopped in the head, allegedly by a minor in the village of Cotton Tree, Cayo District.

A 62-year-old accused sexual predator, a resident of Plues Street, Belize City, got his comeuppance last Thursday night, July 21, when he allegedly tried to rape a 14-year-old youth in San Jose Succotz.

“Homosexuality practices sinful and considered such by God.” –The Belize Council of Churches... “Marriage … between man and woman … ordained by God.” – The Methodist Church... UNIBAM’s suit “heavily influenced by foreign interests who seek to impose a worldview that directly contradicts the supremacy of God…” — Roman Catholic Diocese Bishop Dorick Wright; Anglican Bishop Philip Wright; and Reverend Eugene Crawford, president of the Evangelicals, in May.

Zhou Ang “Tony” Tan, 41, robbed and killed inside his store... In less than a week, two men in Orange Walk were killed in two separate shooting incidents.

Yesterday, Wednesday, at about 4:00 p.m., members of the Belize Defence Force, the police, the Forestry Department and Friends for Conservation and Development on patrol near the Belize-Guatemalan border, ran into a group of Guatemalan loggers illegally cutting mahogany and cedar trees about a mile from the Caracol Maya ruins, in the Chiquibul area of the Cayo District.