Belize Blog

Belmopan, Belize 21 April - (BelizeBlog.com) Three days after the Belize News Blog Belizean broke the story, a Belize T.V. station has confirmed that U.S. President Barack Obama wants to visit Belize.

In today's broadcast, TV7 which has close connections to Belize's United Democratic Party, reported that: US President Barack Obama and Belize's Prime Minister Dean Barrow shared a table at the official Summit of the Americas dinner in Port of Spain, Trinidad on Saturday night and it seems they hit it off. This picture of President Obama kissing Prime Minister Dean Barrow's wife, Kim Simplis-Barrow taken at that event made the paper in Trinidad and has also appeared on the internet, most notably the much-trafficked blog, the Huffington Post.

Today's Amandala cites Prime Minister Barrow saying that, quote, "He said that he'd love to come to Belize." And more than that, he says that President Obama will nominate a very good friend to be ambassador to Belize and, quote, "that will make it easier for him to work on the logistics of coming to Belize.

4 April 2008 - (BelizeBlog.com) -  Some years ago LOVE FM opened up a Belmopan forward station - building, tower, studio etc. About three years ago they shuttered it and retreated to the media capital Belize City. Bad move in my mind.

Since then Belmopan media has evolved with PLUS TV and OPEN TV.

Today  I saw a segment on PLUS TV that detonated a land mind under the feet of the Belmopan Mayor that I have not seen in other sections of the mainstream press. The Belmopan City Council appears to be full of hubris now and is now kicking Belmopanese around where before the elections they were very Goody Two-shoes.

Bad move.

16 February Belmopan, Belize (BelizeBlog.com) Bruce Barcott's Belize-based book, Last Flight of The Scarlet Macaw, takes an unabashed look at the only English-speaking country in Belize and its corrupt government and destructive policies that run counter to its official posture as an eco-friendly tourism destination. Unregulated development that runs counter to conservation efforts are detailed in this book reviewed by the San Franciso Chronicle.

In it, the author reviews how development takes priority over the needs and greed of developers in their quest to develop the country while circumventing conservation efforts that continue to deciminate native species of Belize wildlife such as the Scarlet Macaw. 

4 February 2009 (BelizeBlog)  Prime Minister Dean Barrow left Belize today en route to the U.S.A. leaving behind a country in turmoil with it's major industry in chaos, the unresolved shooting death of a cane farmer by the police and a strike by sugar cane farmers entering its second week.

TV5 reported that "Tension has cooled down and things were quiet in Orange Walk today even though the thousands of cane farmers continue to strike. Belize Sugar Industries have remained mum and we have not been able to contact Financial Director Belizario Carballo to get a comment on the demand that the core sampler be removed... but we do know that there was no smoke billowing from the factory at Tower Hill as the company remains closed.

"Speaking today with C.E.O. of the Cane Farmer's Association, Carlos Magana, it appears that some inroads in communication have been made as News Five was told that S.C.F.A. is looking at methodologies for quality control that does not include core sampling. Magana declined to say with whom he was discussing those methodologies, but sounded optimistic that a resolution to the strike can be reached."

TV5 Contrasted the stance taken by Prime Prime Minister Barrow with that when he was an opposition politician trying to gain power
 

Belmopan, Belize 22 January - (BelizeBlog) - It has been reliably informed that this morning a team of Police Officers from Orange Walk Town was called in to Town Hall to investigate how copies of certain vouchers could have been leaked to the media recently. Those vouchers were aired on a local Orange Walk news station, CTV-3, and the unintended disclosure has allegedly cause the Town Council to go on high alert.

Belmopan, Belize 6 December 2008 (BelizeBlog.com) - The recently released October 2008 Country Report on Belize published by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), based in London, UK, confirms that the Belizean economy will continue to face serious challenges, but it brought welcome news that there should be no recession in Belize, at least for the foreseeable future, even though it was clear on the point that cost of living pressures, crime, a growing import bill - which has grown by 26% to US$1 billion, and declining revenues from oil, all make for a not-so-pretty economic landscape here at home.

Belize is considered the murder capital of Central America. But the government has decreed that citizens can no longer wear bullet proof vests for protection. The penalties are severe and no bail is offered to alleged transgressors who immediately go to jail until their trial wends its way through a backlogged court system:

A computer technician was charged for presumably wanting to preserve his life. Today, twenty-five year old Paul Gibson of Nurse Seay Street was charged with possession of a prohibited material.

Gibson pleaded not guilty to the charge, but admitted that he wore a bullet-proof vest for protection because he had been robbed four times this year. Chief Magistrate Margaret McKenzie explained that no bail could be offered and Gibson will spend Christmas behind bars until his case is heard on December twenty-ninth.

The incident occurred shortly after ten last night when police saw Gibson on Mahogany Street and conducted a searched on him for drugs and firearms. The search revealed he was wearing a white bullet-proof vest with no markings which should not be in a civilian's possession.

Belmopan, Belize, 22 November 2008 (BelizeBlog) - Pen Cayetano, one of the founders of the Belize Punta Rock Music genre visited Belize this month along with his family for the Garifuna Settlement Day Festivities on 19 November 2008. Pen did various performances throughout Belize during his visit and also mounted a display of some of his more recent paintings. This short video was taken during a street performance in downtown Dangriga, also known as Culture Capital in Belize.

The editor of Belize's leading newspaper this week tried to draw parallels between Belize's current economic woes to that of the Leeson Barrings scandal that brought down one of the most important banks in Britain. And that perhaps was a precursor to the current financial crisis in the United States of America.

Like a new strain of an infectious disease, crime is spreading across the English-speaking Caribbean with no sign of a cure. Regrettably, Caribbean Governments' response to rising crime is often knee-jerk and sophomoric. As rising cost of living, crime, HIV-Aids, hurricanes and free trade pressurize the small economies of Caricom, the idea of a political union might not seem so far-fetched after all.