Edition 152 Vol.3 week 47 Sunday, July 24th , 2011

BIAS TOWARDS NONE !!

The true voice of the silent majority

www.nationalperspectivebz.org

‘Barrow’ feeling the heat!

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2 Chinese-Belizean business-men fall victim to Honduras’ ‘preventative detention laws’!

…Belize heading the same route!!!By: Omar SilvaThursday, July 21, 2011BELIZE CITY - Two well known Chi-nese-Belizean businessmen, brothers who own the Everyday supermarkets in different parts of Belize, a gas station in Hattieville, and Horizon Wholesale on Racoon Street in Belize City, are today both detained in the Preventative Deten-tion Centre of Puerto Cortes, Honduras, and have been detained there since May 11th, 2011. They are identified as Char-lie and Jack Cao and are being accused jointly with “Money Laundering” and under Honduras’ preventative detention laws, the authorities there have a peri-od of up to two years to bring charges against them.

Cao Shen known to Belizeans as “Charlie,” and his brother Cao Gui known in Belize as “Jack,” had trav-elled to Honduras at the invitation of a salesman representative of the popu-lar “Frito Lay” potato chip brand from whom Charlie purchases large quanti-ties for wholesale distribution in Belize. Both brothers were going to use this op-portunity to get acquainted with other products made or distributed in Hondu-ras that could be saleable items in Be-lize but that did not happen. They started their journey early trav-elling by road from Belmopan to Punta Gorda but because of a “James Bus” breakdown they were late in arriving in Punta Gorda and had to take a later boat

Barrow re-colonializing Belize’s sugar industry

Page 6Police Constable Charged with Carnal Knowledge

Preventative Detention DOA, again!!

Prime Minister Dean Barrow Mesop. Rep. Michael FinneganFinnegan puts final nail in PD’s coffin

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By Rhenae NunezThursday, July 21, 2011BELMOPAN – The proposal to ena-ble police to detain persons suspected of being involved in gang activity but upon who police have no evidence was first presented to the House of

Representative by Prime Minister Dean Barrow on April 25, 2008. Since then a fierce debate has raged over the proposal which led to it be-ing pulled off the table back then. But violent crime particularly in the Old Capital continued unabated with

Thursday July 21st. 2011

BELIZE CITY: Prime Minister Dean Barrow revealed at an impromptu street side press conference yesterday morn-ing that he had not “saved” Belize’s mainstay agro-export sugar industry after all, and that he was busy readying it for sale to a foreign banking interest. Following his appearance on a morn-ing talk show Barrow was met by a phalanx of press as he was attempting to leave and reluctantly stopped to an-

swer a few questions on several issues. The bombshell revelation was that the Belize Sugar Industries (BSI) was being readied for sale to Honduran in-vestor Banco Atlantida, and it is being done in a hurry because its creditors, ING and First Caribbean have called in some US$30 million in loans. Only a few weeks ago as the sugar cane season grounded to a halt, the past harvest was being described as “suc-cessful,” even though the harvest was 250,000 tons short of cane delivered

and just under 100,000 tons of sugar was produced when production had been projected at as much as 118,000 tons. Barrow revealed that he has already had discussions with BSI’s manage-ment and the employee trust that owns 82% of the company’s shares. He revealed that he will be meeting with cane farmers’ representatives to-morrow to go over Banco Atlantida’s demands, among them that they get some 10,000 acres for their own sugar cane production, and the fact that they do not wish to deal with no more than 40 Belizean sugar farmers in all. Banco Atlantida wants certain legis-lative changes that Barrow refused to specify but some insiders say that it will amount to a re-colonialization of the in-dustry. Barrow has already threatened that the Government of Belize will not “bail-out” the industry and will frighten cane farmers into selling out. Late this evening the Belize Cane Farmers Association revealed that they were looking through an arrangement with Fairtrade to buy a $5 million stake in BSI and expressed almost complete ignorance as to the details of the Ban-co Atlantida offer, especially their de-mands in regards to agronomic reform.

Barrow had said that: “Banco Atlantida won’t put in their 90 million US, except they get certain legislative changes, and I have to be sure that the farmers are prepared to accept those legislative changes. We had a meeting - what was it - a week and a half ago, and we agreed that I should invite Banco Atlantido to come now, and to talk to the farmers di-rectly in my presence.” Apparently the Prime Minister has not yet told the cane farmers what are the conditions of the Banco Atlantido offer, and it will be very interesting to see how they will react. It is clear that if Banco Atlandido have their way there will be thousands less cane farmers. According to the Prime Minister BSI needs $100 million in loan repayments and working capital and the Govern-ment of Belize does not have that sum to bail them out. When asked about a Government bail-out Barrow said: “But Government, lord man, we came up with 10 million dol-lars last year. To come up with not just 60 million more to pay off ING, 60 mil-lion plus another 30 that Banco Atlanti-da is talking about - or perhaps 40 - no we can’t find 100 million dollars. Much as we would like to, we don’t have it. And so, I think all of us must recognize

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Sunday, July 24th , 2011Page 2

The love relationship between the Prime Minister of Belize and the Kre-mandala outfit appears almost surreal. This was the same Prime Minister, when he was the Deputy Prime Min-ister in 1993-1998 United Democratic Party Government, who was accused of being part of a conspiracy to de-stroy Kremandala. The UDP was ac-cused of cutting the guy wires that sustained the Krem Radio tower. If this tower had fallen it would have killed many people. The UDP Government of that 1993-1998 via the Belize Broadcast-ing Authority refused to renew the radio license for Krem Radio. Hubert Elrington was the Minister of broad-casting during that fiasco. We caption this history sur-rounding the “Zinc Fence” and their hostile relationship with the UDP to draw a comparison and to establish the ungrateful nature of that outfit. While the PUP was in Government during 1998-2008 the Kremandala outfit was the darling of the then Prime Minister Said Musa. The relationship between Prime Minister Musa and Evan X Hyde Sr., the patriarch of the outfit, was excellent. Anything that Evan X requested of the PUP Government he was given. His first request was to have his son Cordel run on a PUP slate, which happened. He then requested that his son after winning the election of 1998 must be given Minister of Ed-ucation, and that was complied with also. Evan X Hyde also needed a plat-form to hustle from. He begged and was given the Chairman of the Uni-versity of Belize, a post that he per-formed disgracefully at. It was under the Evan X Hyde chairmanship that full amalgamation of the University of Belize occurred and let it be known he was the one that presided over the closing down of Belize Technical Col-lege. In the end Evan X Hyde greed for more power and his total disregard for people’s rights landed him in con-frontation with the faculty and staff of

LOVE THEN HATE

The Prime Minister and the entire country of Belize were drawn into a fight between Lord Michael Ashcroft and Kremandala because Krem Radio was a “mal pago”. Krem Radio was sued and they lost the case because they reneged on paying monies borrowed from an entity re-lated to Lord Ashcroft. The courts declared that Krem Radio got a loan and refused to pay and ordered that he must pay forthwith. “Mal pago” practice is typical of the Kremandala outfit because Evan X Hyde Sr. believes that Belize owes him something. He forgot that it was the PUP that always assisted him, but as mentioned before he and his outfit is ungrateful.

the University, and eventually he re-alized his incompetence and accepted the decision of the Government to be relieved from his chairmanship un-der the condition, he be given clos-ing compensation, which included a brand-new SUV that he presently drives today and other numerous ben-efits. Evan X Hyde will argue that he turned against the PUP in 2004 when the two

traitor ministers from his outfit were fired by their Prime Minister. Howev-er, these two Ministers were not only working against the Government of the day, but it was destroying confi-dence in our democracy. Everyone in the country of Belize and the Diaspora knows Evan X Hyde is a user. He does this by disguising himself as a cham-pion of poor people and gets them to spend money on the most expensive newspaper when many of them cannot

read nor write. Furthermore, the peo-ple know that when he cannot have his way, that is always unreasonable, he is taken on his “Rumpeltiliskin” persona and quarrel with Government. Evan X Hyde’s beef with Said Musa and Ralph Fonseca has nothing to do with the welfare of the Belizean people, but with the extravagant welfare life of Evan, X Hyde. Evan X Hyde has his habits; he was once a notorious womanizer and substance abuser. One

would hope now in twilight days that he abuses less. However, they must be given credit because the Kremandala outfit has been brilliant in their manipula-tion of the Prime Minister of the UDP because if you examined all the blun-ders of the Prime Minister most of the blunders were done as a result of advice from Kremandala. The Prime Minister and the entire country of Be-

lize were drawn into a fight between Lord Michael Ashcroft and Kreman-dala because Krem Radio was a “mal pago”. Krem Radio was sued and they lost the case because they reneged on paying monies borrowed from an enti-ty related to Lord Ashcroft. The courts declared that Krem Radio got a loan and refused to pay and ordered that he must pay forthwith. “Mal pago” prac-tice is typical of the Kremandala out-fit because Evan X Hyde Sr. believes that Belize owes him something. He forgot that it was the PUP that always assisted him, but as mentioned before he and his outfit is ungrateful. Evan X Hyde Sr. hates the Je-suits and ridiculed them every chance he gets, but it was the Jesuits, who ed-ucated Evan X Hyde. They were the ones that flew him back and forth to Dartmouth University in New York. In short, the Jesuit made Even X Hyde. As we mentioned the UDP got drawn in this hate fever against Lord Ashcroft, and soon the Hon. Dean Barrow was singing the same tune as his neighbor on the seashore. They have brainwashed the Prime Minister so much that he broke the law by violating the Court of Appeal judgment on June 24th, 2011. On the Krem Radio talk show, this week the Prime Minister was the guest and was told by the host Mose Hyde that Kre-mandala was against the Preventative Detention Bill that is in the consulta-tion period. The Prime Minister right on cue announced that he will place the Bill on hold. This is shocking and dangerous for the small country of Belize when the real power is in the hands of perceived substance abus-ers. Belizean believed that they were electing the UDP to govern Belize in 2008, but instead they have gotten the gang from Partridge Street in com-mand, complete with a representa-tive from the PUP as well. All we can say is “you the man X Hyde, you go

boy!!! OPEN YOUR EYES THE PEOPLE ARE AWAKE!!

Sunday, July 24th , 2011 Page 3

NATIONAL PERSPECTIVETHE

Published & Edited byOMAR SILVARegistered Address

1 1/2 Mls Northern Hwy, Belize CityAssistant Editor : Saida Silva

Phone: 501-632-6520

# 3 Piccini Site, Third Floor

The Chamber responds to Prime Minister’s rejection

of its Resolution In a two-thirds majority, on Friday, July 15, 2011, at a Special General Meeting held at the McField Conference Center on Coney Drive, the Chamber’s mem-bers voted to ratify are solution brought forward in response to concerns stated by the membership. The Resolution expressed the current sentiments of the business community regarding the current state of the business climate in Belize, the method of Government of Belize’s acquisition of private property, and the adherence to the rule of law.The Prime Minister was made conver-sant with the results of Friday’s Special General meeting.via a letter that was sent to his office on Monday, July 18, 2011. In response, the Prime Minister stated in a letter to the Chamber that he “completely rejects the premises on which the resolution [forwarded in your letter of July 18, 2011] was obvi-ously based. If, therefore, acceptance of those premises is a pre-condition of your ‘working with the Government of Belize in serious partnership..’, then we have a problem”.The Chamber today issued a response to the Prime Minister’s note of 18th July clarifying that the Chamber has not placed “a pre-condition on the nec-essary private/public sector dialogue, which is essential to the improvement of the current economic climate” as in-ferred by the Prime Minister. Further to the point, the actions of the Chamber in persistently seeking a forum for dia-logue with the Government is evidence of the honest intentions of the Chamber to work “hand in hand” with the Gov-ernment for the development of the pri-vate sector. As anexample, without the Chamber’s initia-tive to seek the Government’s participa-tion, the formation of the National Con-sultation Council would not have been realized.In addition, the business community clamoured for proper adherence to the rule of law based on the judgment is-sued by the court and the specific actions taken afterwards by the government as well as its handling of the acquisition of the Belize Electricity Board (BEL). These three acquisitions in two years have far reaching implications for the investment climate.Therefore, even though the Govern-ment sees these actions as nationalis-tic, investors see a climate filled with doubt, instability, and uncertainty and therefore require reassurance that the fundamental rights and freedoms en-shrined in our nation’s Constitution will remain in place.Just as these rights and freedoms apply to every citizen, Government’s deci-sions similarly affect not only business-es but also every private citizen in Be-lize who could have benefitted from job creation and an improved standard of living resulting from new investments.There must be true private/public sector partnership for Belize to achieve mean-ingful economic growth and sustain-ability in the future. As a social partner, the Chamber “offers and hopes for true dialogue and cooperation with the Gov-ernment” in ensuring the growth and development of our economy for the benefit of all of Belize’s citizens.The ratified resolution, which was sent to the Prime Minister is stated below:1. That the Government: I. uphold and

obey the rule of law in all respects as declared by the Courts of Law in all judgments and otherwise in accordance with the Constitution of Belize;II. desist from taking any actions that offend the principle of separation of powers and our democratic institutions enshrined and entrenched in our Con-stitution;expressly taking into account that no person or entity has a more imperativeobligation to obey the law than those who make the law.2. That as a matter of overriding nation-al importance and interest, the Chamber calls on the National Assembly, subject to the provisions of our Constitution, to act within the scope of its legisla-tive authority to make laws solely for the peace, order and good governance of Belize.3. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, that in the interest of fos-tering economic growth and the social well being of Belize, to seek to restore a favorable investment climate for local and foreign investors, and to otherwise enable the private sector to function, without fear or favor, in partnership not in conflict with the public sector, the Chamber calls on the Government and National Assembly to refrain from taking any action, whether executive or legislatively, to deprive or otherwise infringe fundamental rights and free-doms entrenched in our Constitution, including but not limited to freedom from arbitrary deprivation of private property but instead protect the funda-mental rights and freedoms of each and everyone in Belize.4. That, further and in addition thereto, as regards the issue of the compulsory acquisition of private property, con-tracts or rights by the Government, the Chamber calls for certain conditions and procedures to apply, being in par-ticular but not limited to the following: (i) The purpose of the acquisition must not only be stated and clear but must be the real, genuine and true intention of the acquisition;(ii) The acquisition must not be dis-criminatory in nature;(iii) Prompt, adequate and effective compensation must be determined and paid within one year from date of acqui-sition, unless challenged in the Courts of Law;(iv) The acquisition must be proportion-al to the intended purpose;(v) Any resale or redistribution to pri-vate entities must be in the spirit of the original intended purpose of the acqui-sition;(vi) Those to be deprived of their prop-erty by the Government must have a reasonable and fair opportunity to be heard prior to compulsory acquisition;(vii) Within reason, all opportunities for a negotiated settlement or alternative options must be explored between both parties prior to compulsory acquisition;(viii) In order to establish one’s right or interest, to determine whether the acquisitionwas duly carried out for a public purpose in accordance with ap-plicable law and the Constitution, to de-termine the amount of reasonable com-pensation to which one may be entitled, and to substantively enforce one’s right to suchcompensation, right of access to the courts must not in any way be deprived.

Belmopan, Belize, 14 July 2011.- 13 members of the Belize Police De-partment attended a Ports, Airports and Border Security Training Course by the Mexico’s Federal Police (PF). The course was conducted by a spe-cialist from the Mexican Police with extensive experience in the field. The training is part of the security cooperation between Mexico and Belize.The training concluded with a clos-ing ceremony held on Saturday, July 9th, headed by the Assistant Com-missioner of Police Miguel Segura, Head of the National Crimes Investi-gation, the instructor from the Mexi-can Federal Police and the Mexican Embassy’s Border Affairs and Press Officer, Marcelino Miranda. In his address, Mr. Segura, on behalf of the Government of Belize acknowledge

Mexican Feds provide special-ized training to local police

Mexico for its support by providing training courses to Belizean security forces. He stressed the importance of continuing cooperation between the two countries and the importance of coordination in combating transna-tional organized crime. For its part, the Embassy of Mexico reiterated the commitment of the Mexican govern-ment to continue promoting this type of assistance and strengthen bilateral cooperation.The training course was held from 4 to 9 July at the Police Academy in Belmopan, Belize, and included field work in some airport and bor-der facilities. This course will also be provided to members of the National Police of Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, as part of the commit-ments of the Mexican government in the region.

Dive Gear Equipment valued $30,000 stolen from NGO

July 19, 2011The off-shore operating base of Non Governmental Organization known as Reef Conservation International (RCI) situated at Tom Owen’s Caye came under attack last Saturday night by three armed robbers of Hispanic decent who arrived on the Caye flaunted short arms and stole diving gear equipment exceeding the value of $30,000. According to the care-taker of RCI, after he was hit in the head with a pistol, blindfolded and tied up, the armed men spent three hours carting

away compressors, generators, dive tanks and regulators property of the marine conservation NGO. A statement from RCI said the this act of robbery at their base last Satur-day is definitely a set- back for the or-ganization who has operated in Punta Gorda for over seven years now. They made an appeal to dive-opera-tors and dive shops in Belize to be on the lookout for the stolen equipment and to alert them or the police. They are now appealing for the public for assistance, whether in the form of do-nated or loaned scuba equipment so they can continue their work.

CYCLIST DIES FROM TRAFFIC ACCIDENT

San Ignacio Police say investigation continues into a traffic accident that claimed the life of Charles Trapp, 50 rear laborer of Esperanza Vil-lage, Cayo District which occurred on Monday 11th July, 2011. Initial investigation reveal that Trapp was riding a black mountain bike on the Western Highway almost in front of the three-flag Store in Esperanza Village when according to motor-ist Robert NUGENT, Trapp swayed in front of his moving Chrysler van. Nugent, 54 years in his statement said he was driving his van around 8:30 pm from the direction of Santa

Elena towards Esperanza and as he turned left into Peter Austin Street, Trapp rode into his path. Trapp who received head and body injuries was transported in the same van by Nu-gent to the San Ignacio Community Hospital. However, the San Ignacio Hospital Authorities released him the following day on Tuesday. On Thurs-day 14th July, Trapp developed com-plications with his injuries and as a result was re-transported to the San Ignacio Hospital then rushed to the Karl Huesner Memorial Hospital for specialized medical intervention but died on Saturday 16th July.

Sunday, July 24th , 2011Page 4

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Preventative Detention By Gilroy Usher Sr. PUP Standard Bearer for Port Loyola

This incompetent UDP gov-ernment truly believes that with pre-ventative detention it can end the terrible crime situation in the country. Consequently in less than a month it will amend the Constitution of Belize, which is the supreme law of the coun-try, to force this outrageous plan on the nation. To succeed in doing that, the administration will past draconian laws that will enable it to deny hun-dreds of Belizeans their fundamental rights that have been guaranteed by the constitution since Independence 30 years ago. With the propose con-stitutional changes government will have the authority to take away our fundamental rights like freedom of express, freedom of movement, free-dom of association, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and trail by a jury of one’s peers for the most serious offences for 52 days, al-most two months if they merely have the suspicion that someone is engag-ing in criminal or antisocial behavior. The number of robberies, burgla-ries, rape, and cold blooded murders that have occurred under this govern-ment is indeed shocking. Crime is so terrible across Belize especially in the old capital that people are afraid to walk on the street. Preventative deten-tion however is not the solution to that social ill. To effectively address the crime problem in the country government must provide better training and equipment to the Police Department instead of undermining it with the cut-ting of its budget and it must address the lack of jobs that is denying hun-dreds of Belizeans the opportunity to escape the vicious cycle of poverty es-pecially in Belize City. The latter sug-gestion is just as important as the for-mer one because when there is less poverty there is less crime, and when there is more poverty there is more crime. There is no escaping that. This administration has failed to address the poverty situation in the country by providing the 5,000 jobs its promised , reducing utility bills no matter what, building decent low income houses for the people ,making land avail-able for the less fortunate, and among other things provide greater access to quality education at the primary , secondary ,and tertiary levels . This massive neglect of the poor people in

the country over the last three years by this UDP government is one of the main things that have contributed to the worst crime situation in the history of the nation. To divert attention from its many broken promises to the Belizean peo-ple, government could also use pre-ventative detention to make Belize look like a prosperous, peaceful, and caring nation. That would be easy as government could use the proposed new law to lockup hundreds of the underprivileged and its critics includ-ing members of the opposition in our cities, towns, and villages, who dear to expose its misguided policies that are making the families and friends of the Ministers richer as the Belizean people become poorer and more mar-ginalized. With preventative detention gov-ernment could also decide to hide the huge unemployment problem in the country by sending the Police , Belize Defense Force , and Gang Suppression Unit into the many underprivileged neighborhoods to arrest hundreds of youths especially the males on crime prevention , and lock them up for al-most two months without any charges and without the opportunity to speak with family members, an attorney, or concerned citizen organizations di-rectly or by telephone to defend their rights. With preventative detention government could say it consider this very essay supportive of criminal ac-tivity and throw me in prison without any charge for almost two months. History shows that preventa-tive detention has always been used against the poor class of people and opponents of the government to en-able the leaders to exploit the natural resources and people of a country. Three of the countries that have used preventative detention are Germany which enabled Hitler to become a dictator, war monger, and butcher of his opponents, South Africa where the minority whites sought to legitimize the suppression and slaughter of the black majority for decades until they won their freedom, and Israel where it gives the state authority to suppress and slaughter hundreds of Palestin-ians every year for standing up for their rights in their homeland. Preventative detention will be a disaster for Belize. Apart from the violation of our fundamental rights, with it abuse by the Belize Police De-partment and Gang Suppression Unit (GSU) will be 100 times worse, as they will they be able to act with total immunity from any sort of account-ability for their wrong doings. It is therefore in the interest of all Belizeans that we do everything possi-ble including participating in the pub-lic demonstration slated for the end of July to demand the withdrawal of the preventative detention bill before it becomes law and demand that gov-ernment fulfill its many promises to the Belizean people.

For SaleBy Order of the Mortgagee

Scotiabank (Belize) Ltd., a company duly registered under the Companies Act, Chapter 250 of the Laws of Belize, Revised Edition, 2000, and having its registered office at Cor. Albert and Bishop Streets, Belize City, Belize, hereby gives notice of its intention to exercise its power of sale as Mortgagee under a Deed of Mortgage made the 8th day of September, 2008, between DWAYNE STAINE of the one part, and Scotiabank (Belize) Ltd., of the other part, and recorded at the Land Titles Unit in the Deeds Book Vol. 33 of 2008 at Folios 959 - 986, the said Scotiabank (Belize) Ltd. will at the expiration of two months from the date of the first publication of this notice sell the property described in the schedules hereto.All offers to purchase the said property must be made in writing and full particulars and conditions of sale may be obtained from the said Scotiabank (Belize) Ltd.

SCHEDULE

ALL THAT piece or parcel of land comprising of 761.498 square metres situate in Hattieville Village, Belize District, bounded and described as shown by Plan No. 1355 of 2006 attached to Minister’s Fiat Grant No. 1355 of 2006 TOGETHER with all buildings and erections standing and being thereon.

DATED this 1st day of July, 2011.

MUSA & BALDERAMOS91 North Front Street

Belize CityAttorney-at-Law for Scotiabank (Belize) Ltd.

MARIO VELASQUEZ, GUILTY OF ATTEMPTED MURDER

July 19, 2011In the Northern Session of the Su-preme Court this past Monday, it took a jury of five men and four women three hours of delibera-tion to come out with a unanimous guilty verdict against 34-year-old Mario Velasquez on the charge of attempted murder.The incident occurred on February 24, 2010 between miles 90 and 91 on the Northern Highway. 21-year-old Ursula Engleton who resided in San Joaquin Village testified that she was waiting for the bus to take her to the casino where she worked at the free Zone when Velasquez drove up in a Nissan taxi car and offered her a ride. She said she ac-cepted the offer and the car broke down between mile 90 and 91. She said Velasquez attacked her and began to beat her and she lost con-sciousness. She said when she re-gained consciousness she opened the door of the car with her toe and jumped out of the vehicle. She said Velasquez ran behind her and threw her into some bushes and began to

stomp her. Engleton testified that she pretended that she was dead and the beating stopped and Velasquez left. She then crawled out of the bushes.When Police found her following the incident there were bruises to her back, to the back of her head and marks on her neck consistent with strangulation.Velasquez in his defense denied that he beat Engleton. He told the court that the strand of Ursula Engleton’s hair that was found in his car was because she brushed her hair. He also said that the blood that was on his pants that matched her blood type was from a cane farmer he picked up. Engleton’s injures were classified as grievous harm.There are further reports that Ve-lasquez is wanted to answer for robbery in Cayo.Velasquez was not represented by an attorney. Crown Counsel Trienna Young represented the prosecution.Justice Denis Hanomansingh has adjourned sentencing until August 9th, 2011.

Sunday, July 24th , 2011 Page 5

KREMANDALA $ELLOUT

“X” CAN’T CRITICIZE BARROW & THE UDP

Wilfully ignores the Corrupt Practices of Barrow and the UDP

A PAID AD

Can’t be TRUSTED!!!

He has been bought and paid for...Silent on issues affecting black South-side Belizeans while pretending to be their guardian

In the Supreme Court this week four enforcement officers involving po-lice and customs official accused of facilitating the landing of a drug plane on the Southern Highway last November have finally gotten bail. They appeared in the Supreme Court this week before Justice Herbert Lord where they were represented by Dick-ie Bradley Simeon Sampson and Ellis Arnold.They are: Customs Officer Harold Usher, Police Corporal Renel Grant, Police Corporal Lawrence Humes, Police Corporal Nelson Middleton and Police Sergeant Jacinto Roches.They are charged with the importation of a controlled drug by facilitating the landing of an airplane and were re-

Enforcement Officers accused of the Drug Plane landing gets bail

leased on bail of fifty thousand dollars each today.The condition for bail is that they are to appear in the Southern District ses-sions of the Supreme Court on No-vember eighth, that they surrender all travel documents and they report to the police twice weekly.On November 13th. a plane loaded with at least two-thousand, six hun-dred kilos of cocaine landed on the Southern Highway. Six Enforcement Officers 5 policemen and one cus-toms were arrested miles away; in a van with wet clothing and several items that led police to concluded that they were directly involved - facilitat-ing the landing of the naco plane and with rhe cargo of cocaine found.

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Murder at Lord’s Ridge Cemetery or just dying to get in??

...Murder or Suicide??

Belize City, Wednesday: 20th July 2011

Belize City police arte investigating the circumstances surrounding the sudden death of a fair complexion male who has since been identified as Ryheem John Vasquez who also goes by the name Franz Leopold Westby aka Red Lion.Police say they responded to a call around 5:30 am on Wednesday and as a result went over to the Lord ‘s Ridge Cemetery where they saw Vasquez, 27 years of # 28 Cemetery

Road hanging from a tree suspend-ed by a white electrical wire tied around his neck.He was dressed in full camouflage pants and jacket with a black stock-ings over his dreadlocks. Although from all appearances po-lice have ruled possible suicide, a family member who identified him is not agreeing with the police suicide theory. The family members believed that Ryheem was mur-dered and placed in the silent city to make it appear that he took his own life and the are demanding a full in-vestigation. Family members claim he had a son whom he showed a lot of loved to and never displayed any symtoms or visible signs of emo-tional problems. Family members say the believed he was murdered because his hands were tied and showed marks around his wrists area. The family says they are doing their own investigation to find out what actually took place but calling on the police to do their part also.

Sunday, July 24th , 2011Page 6

I mpartialViewBy: Marshal Nunez Sr.

Usually this column is written earlier in the week on Tuesdays, but because of an unforeseen delay I am obligated to do my article on Wednesday this week. It be-came a blessing in disguise, though, since I was able to listen to the Prime Minister on the KREM’s WUB morning show. I interpret the Prime Minister’s presen-tation on WUB to be either one of disre-gard for the Belizean people, disrespect to the Belizean people, or just being totally hypocritical. I am referring to the matter of his discussion of “Preventative Deten-

Finnegan crawls out from under a rock to oppose preventative detention

tion”, which is pro-posed as part of the 8th Constitutional amend-ment. You may recall that when the Prime Minister and this gov-ernment first proposed preventative detention there was great public opposition to it and that forced him to re-treat from that particu-lar issue. His administration has tried various crime fighting strategies but seem to be unable to combat the violent crimes that continue to plague. These strat-egies have included the amendment of so many various laws it appears that out of des-peration, they have no choice but to resort to the preventative detention. When it was discussed by the Prime Minister he seems adamant and convinced that that was in fact the way to go to arrest the crime situ-ation. At the time violent crime was on the rise and it seems opportune to weigh on the sentiments of the people who felt as if they were under siege by the criminal elements of the society and therefore felt that any measure to arrest the crime situa-tion would be better than nothing. Once again, however, there is public opposition to this draconian approach to addressing crime. Many legal experts believe that this takes away your funda-mental rights and freedom. Furthermore, they believe that it is even inhumane the way that it is proposed, the point being that under preventative detention the au-thorities can pick you up and detain you for more than twenty days without levy-ing a charge, without legal representation or advice, and without visitation rights. In the case of a minor, the same applies ex-cept that your parents will not be allowed to visit or contact you. After the expira-tion of the first phase of your detention they can apply to the court for an addi-tional 30 days. So for an innocent person who is only suspected of thinking about committing a crime, according to this law they could be detained to prevent them from commit-ting a crime, and they would have even less rights than someone who has been accused of a crime and is remanded to prison. When you’re remanded to prison you are entitled to visitation, you’re en-titled to telephone calls and you are also

The power that this administration have, has enticed them to function as a dictatorship form of government rather than as a democratic system of government. Democracy is a gov-ernment of the people, by the people and for the people. When we reflect on the way the government nation-alized BEL and BTL, it was only 26 members of the house of representa-tive and 6 members of the Senate- 32 members of our National Assem-bly who made the decision on behalf of the over 300,000 Belizeans. Does that resemble democracy to you? Or more like a dictatorship?

entitled to legal representation. This is just one example of why this proposed legislation robs you of your fundamental rights and your freedom. It becomes even worse because the Prime Minister and his administration have pro-posed to enshrine this legislation into our constitution. The only reason that this Prime Minister and this government find it so easy to tam-per with our Constitution is because they enjoy the super majority in the House of Representative. This should alarm all of

us because we don’t know if there will ever be another government that will have a super majority that will be able to amend the constitution. We must also be reminded that our Belizean constitution is in fact the caretaker of the Belizean de-mocracy and our Westminster-two-party system of government is not one that when formulated, envisioned that there would have been such super majority in your Parliament. The power that this administration have, has enticed them to function as a dicta-torship form of government rather than as a democratic system of government. De-mocracy is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. When we reflect on the way the government na-tionalized BEL and BTL, it was only 26 members of the house of representative and 6 members of the Senate- 32 mem-bers of our National Assembly who made the decision on behalf of the over 300,000 Belizeans. Does that resemble democracy to you? Or more like a dictatorship? Because of this same super majority, this administration has amended our con-stitution three times in three years and is proposing to amend it for a fourth time in less than four years. It is very obvious that the Constitution might be fluid for this government and they can change it to suit their dictates or they’re shifting our Constitution from a sacred document that represents the security and integrity of a democratic nation to what they want it to be - a document that gives them the au-thority to do as they please, that is, to use their might to make things right as in the second nationalization of BTL.

At the top of this essay I told you that I was awed by the way the Prime Minister presented himself on Wednesday on Krem as if though all they did was flirt with the idea of proposing preventative detention. But even more than what the Prime Min-ister did, on Monday Minister Finnegan called the same KREM WUB morning show and purports to be the champion of the people especially as it relates to the preventative detention. He postulated that preventative deten-tion will only affect the “small man” and

the only people who will benefit from preventative detention is the so called “big man,” and that he, Min-ister Finnegan, will campaign his colleagues from Cabinet to defer this legislation from passing into law, and that he, Minister Finnegan was so innocent of the whole idea of preventative de-tention. Then, of course, when Mr. Prime Minister ap-peared on the show a couple days later, he admits that he had conversation

with Minister Finnegan and confesses that the preventative detention was never a done deal. That is typical of the UDP, they cam-paign in poetry, but they govern in prose! When the preventative detention leg-islation was read for the first time in the House of Representative in June, the Prime Minister in presenting the Bill stat-ed that the Bill has the recommendation of the Cabinet. We must understand that in our system of government the Cabinet is an elite group and therefore, when a proposed Bill comes out of the Cabinet it must have the unanimous support of the members. So if Minister Finnegan and the Prime Minister have collective amnesia, or per-haps were absent from the Cabinet meet-ing and opposed the position of the Cabi-net then they are obligated to resign from that Cabinet If they don’t resign then it means that all the rhetoric that they are bringing to the media is only that, rheto-ric. But I wonder, why is it that after Min-ister Finnegan has been in hibernation for so long that finally he has crawled out from under some rock trying to pretend to be champion of the people? My simple question to him is, as a Member of Par-liament for the past 18 years how come you have not always been the champion of the people? Is there some pressure that you find yourself under that you feel compelled to come out? Or are you and the Prime Minister trying to bulls--t the Belizean people? That is not a possibility that the people were asked to imagine. This is just my impartial view.

Police Consta-ble Remanded

For Carnal Knowledge

Belize City Police have arrested and charged one of their officers with Car-nal Knowledge of a female minor. He is identified as 24 year old PC Yannick Wade. He discreetly had sex with a girl and empregnated her while she was still 14 years and it was not until she gave birth last week when hospital authori-ties found out and shared the information with the police department. Wade was arrested and charged with Car-nal Knowledge.He appeared in # 6 Magistrates Court on Wednesday for arreignment where no plea was taken because it is an indictable matter for the Supreme Court and he was niether offered bail because of the nature of the crime. He was remanded to the Hattieville Cor-rectional Facility until his next court date. Wade hade sex with the female sometime between October and November last year and gave birth last week. His father has also given consent for the Police to marry his daughter when she turns 16 years.

Barrow re-colonializing Belize’s sugar industry

Continues from page 1what the reality of the situation is, and to deal with Banco Atlantida.” He argued that BSI and the industry will have to accept the Banco Atlandti-da offer: “I don’t see any other way, quite frankly, I don’t. I got to just leave it at that. We clearly need - BSI on its own - forget for a minute the 30 mil-lion dollars that’s owed - the 30 million US dollars that’s owed, that ING has called in. Even if you leave that aside, going forward, BSI needs capital injec-tion by way of operating capital. They need to make certain repairs to the fac-tory. Let me just summarize it in that way. BSI needs operating capital. If you both have to repay a 30 million US dollar loan, and get additional funds to take you forward, clearly this - at Banco Atlantida, interest is something that, in my view, must be looked at in every se-riousness. And if there is any way we can come to an agreement so that the 90 million US dollars can be invested in the sugar industry, we ought to come to that.” The dissident United Cane Farmers Association also said today that they had not been invited to tomorrow’s meeting and were contemplating some unspecified action to protest the “disre-spect”. Its Chairman told the media that they controlled 30% of the harvest. The situation has the potential to quickly become explosive if not han-dled with maturity and diplomacy.

Sunday, July 24th , 2011 Page 7

Continues from page 1 2 Chinese-Belizean business-men fall victim to Honduras’

‘preventative detention laws’!…Belize heading the same route!!!

from the Punta Gorda wharf to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. In Puerto Barrios, prior arrangements had been made for them to be picked up by a Honduran taxi sent for the express purpose of transporting them to Honduras, but be-cause of the delay with the bus, the taxi left when they did not arrive in Barrios as agreed on the earlier boat. Charlie and Jack took the 2:00 pm boat from Punta Gorda and arrived in Puerto Barrios at 3:00 pm that Wednes-day afternoon and when they saw that no one was there waiting for them, they took a mini bus that only travels from Barrios to the Guatemalan side of the “Corinto” station on the Honduras Gua-temala border. Upon their arrival at the “Corinto” border station, they changed a quantity of US dollars into Honduran Lempira currency from money changers on the Guatemalan side. Charlie had in his possession some $7,500 US dollars in his back pack and Jack was carrying some $6,000 US dol-lars and since both have been living in Belize and speak fluent English/Creole, they were both well aware of the uni-versal $10 000US, dollar limit before declaring. They entered the Honduras Immigra-tion building around 4:00 pm and there were no problems - both were stamped in and given a week of stay in Hondu-ras, but as they looked on the Honduran side, there were no signs of public trans-portation and so they walked towards a Honduran Police check point that they saw some 300 yards away from the Im-migration building, supposedly to ver-ify that passports were checked at the immigration point of entry. The innocent Chinese brothers walked towards the Police post and, according to Charlie, they had walked over to in-quire about the availability of taxis, bus or any other means of transport that could have taken them into downtown Puerto Cortes, about an hour or fifty miles away from where they were. According to Charlie and Jack who don’t speak Spanish, they asked the three police officers that were at the post: “Amigo…taxi, bus …Puerto Cor-tes?” The police officers appeared suspi-cious, perhaps because they were Ori-entals and started to question them as to their destination. Their passport were checked - Charlie’s is the old faded Be-lize logo black Belizean passport while Jack’s was the newer type bluish CARI-COM-recognized Belize passport. But that was only the first obstacle because they were then pulled aside and asked all sorts of questions, after which they both subject to body searches, and having their luggage searched as well. When the police found out that both were carrying substantial sums of mon-ey in Honduran terms, they requested US $1,000 00 from each for them to be allowed to continue their journey but the two Chinese Belizeans told them “No, amigo…we no have fu pay, we are not breaking the law” The policemen took their gold chains and insisted on the US $1,000.00 each payment for their being allowed to con-tinue, and after a long standoff due to their refusal, and it was getting late, they were told that they were going to be arrested and charged for “Money Laundering”. According to Charlie, he laughed because they were both aware of the Money Laundering law and sincerely believed that the policemen were bluff-ing because they wanted to “steal” US$1,000.00 from each of them, and

their gold chains which the policemen held on to. Charlie, who is the most outspoken and defiant of the two, got the police-men mad when he told them that he would be reporting the matter to the po-lice in Puerto Cortes and to the Belize Embassy. According to Charlie and Jack, the policemen then combined their money and then told them that they were un-der arrest on the suspicion of ‘Money Laundering’. Charlie and Jack were then taken into custody and transported into Puerto Cortes to be processed. All this time Charlie and Jack believe they are getting a free ride into Puerto Cortes believing that all this mix-up would be clarified once in Puerto Cor-tes, and that they would be freed but they were sadly mistaken. In Puerto Cortes, the policemen pur-port to write “their” statement, even though no statement was taken from them, and no interpreter was afforded to them at the police station. No ques-tions were asked of them and the only time they were in front of a superior of-ficer was to comply with a demand that they sign for their property, excluding the two gold chains. They were also forced to sign docu-ments, including the accusation which charged them jointly with money laun-dering for travelling with excess of US$13,000.00. They were then told that they will be sent to the Preventative Detention Centre for six days while the office of Organized Crime in Tegucigalpa inves-tigated them. After that they would be taken to court, and it could be cleared up with a good lawyer within that time. Their Chinese friends in Belize, espe-cially those in the southern districts of Belize who know them, quickly raised some money which was sent to Hon-duran Chinese friends who got them a lawyer hoping that it could indeed be cleared up within the six day period, but that did not happen. In their first appearance, the office of Organized Crime and their pros-ecutor did not present any preliminary evidence to establish a prima facie case before the judge but used Honduras’ “Preventative Detention” law to have the judge confine both of them. The judge opting for the prosecution, confined these two Belizean Chinese brothers to the Puerto Cortes Preventa-tive Detention Centre on First Avenue in Puerto Cortes to a time not exceeding two (2) years to allow for the Office of Organized Crime to establish their case but declaring that it was up to the de-fence attorney to convince the courts as to the innocence of the two Belizeans. Their first attorney wanted signifi-cantly more money but showed very little desire or made little effort to take the bull by the horns and do whatever is necessary to prove their innocence. A second lawyer was contracted - he is a former prosecuting attorney, Walter Javier Molina Castro, who is character-ized as the best attorney in Puerto Cor-tes. if not Honduras. Attorney Molina Castro interviewed Charlie and Jack and quickly got on the

ball He has obtained favorable testimo-nials and character references for both men from the Government of Belize GST Department which proves that they are genuine businessmen. He has obtained copies of their trade licenses, liquor licenses, invoices and receipts from the Belizean gas companies who supply their Hattieville gas station, as well as financial statements from Herit-age Bank and the Central Bank of Belize to show that the two businessmen regu-larly purchase US foreign exchange, He has also secured a report from the Hon-duran Embassy in Belize who investi-gated and notarized the documents and who have attested to the good character of these men. The National Perspective Editor was travelling to Guatemala on a different mission and objective and had the in-tention of travelling to nearby Hondu-ras, specifically to San Pedro Sula for last Sunday’s game with Belize and Montserrat but all that became second-ary when he learnt of the plight of these two Belizeans. I was following the same route the two men had taken when I met Charlie’s wife whom I recognized from Belmopan. After hearing of the in-cident I travelled to Puerto Cortes in her company and visited with the two men last Sunday at her request. At Centro Penal Preventiva of Puerto Cortes, the NP was given permission to visit with the two in company of a family member to have a family day. As I entered I was directed to a cell-size room with makeshift triple bunk beds, which are smaller than the size of a regular bed. Luckily for Charlie and Jack they are short men and they fit just right, but it’s not a privilege to have a bed, they have to pay the inmate land-lord handsomely to have privileges. Charlie, who is the older of the two, pays to have his younger brother share a single-size bunk with him. Anyway, it is very costly while in jail there to be able to enjoy outside food, have other prisoners wash your clothes and to be protected by the head trustee of the inmates. I also met three other Belizeans in there but that’s another story. The long and short of all this is that for over two months these two Belizean-Chinese businessmen have been casu-alties of the Regional Security Initia-tive sponsored by the US government under which Preventative Detention is an element that makes any innocent person guilty of malicious suspicions or trumped up charges by rogue cops as is the case of Charlie and Jack. I had an interview and was permitted to speak the following day on Monday with Walter Molina Castro to whom I owe gratitude for his courtesy. Dr. Molina Castro took the time to meet with me and the family member to apprise us of the latest update regarding the detention of the two. He also took the time recount the events that had transpired from when he took over to present with regards to the arrest under the Honduran Preventative Detention law. He has presented all the aforemen-tioned documents that establishes that the two are no peddlers but genuine

businessmen in Belize but it is up to the Office of Organized Crime in Honduras to accept them or not. The Office of Or-ganized Crime is based in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, and hours-drive from Puerto Cortes. However, the said office are seeking “Legal Assistance” from Guatemala, Mexico and Belize to ascertain if they have anything in their data base regarding any previous or similar incidents regarding the two. The bureaucracy involved with that will no doubt cause even further delay. Dr. Castro has also managed to ar-range and schedule a reactive scanning of the currency notes that would indi-cate or raise red flags of any residue or substance tied to illicit activities. All this is red tape and bureaucracy that infringes on the basic human rights and civil liberties of these two Be-lizeans and every other innocent indi-viduals that may be caught in the web of interpretation of this “Preventative De-tention” that Belize is seeking to adopt.The process that they have followed is also a Kangaroo Court only involving a judge, a prosecutor and a defense at-torney, if you can afford one.This situation might well be repeated in the near future in Belize when the “Pre-ventative Detention” law gives authori-ties the power to extort or abuse their police powers by interpreting the law to suit their purposes. I made arrangements and exchanged information, email, telephone etc. with defense Attorney Molina Castro and on Wednesday evening he graciously gave me a call and informed that the scan-ning process was carried out and that the results seem to favor his clients Charlie and Jack. However, the prosecutor for organ-ized crimes office told him in front of the judge that supervised the scanning process of the bills that the “Legal As-sistance” to the three countries, Guate-mala, Mexico and Belize is still being carried out as a protocol but a letter will be sent this Friday from the Office of Organized Crimes to the Foreign Af-fairs and Attorney General’s Office in Belize to verify and attest to the authen-ticity of the various letters and character references which have already been au-thenticated by the Honduras Embassy in Belize weeks ago. Attorney Molina Castro told me in the phone conversation that he got the reas-surance from the prosecuting attorney for the Organized Crime Office that as soon as he receives a positive response from Belize, they won’t wait for a re-sponse from Guatemala and Mexico but instead will withdraw the charges from the two men. There are many Belizeans who travel to the neighboring republics to make purchases of clothing and grocery items to resell in Belize and this could be re-peated with other innocent Belizeans. We always say justice delayed is de-nied but what about the presumption of innocence and the benefit of the doubt? What about “everyone is presumed in-nocent until proven guilty?” We could all agree that we could expect these atrocities that obstruct true justice in our neighbours but we are not far be-hind. We have seen atrocities commit-ted in Belize by our very own police department and we have not even im-plemented the ‘Preventative Detention’ law into our system yet. Is this the path we really want to go? There are many small business in-dividuals that make up our informal economy and who travel in groups to the neighboring countries to make pur-chases per dozens of clothing, footwear, etc, as well as grocery items to re sell in

Continues on page 13

Sunday, July 24th , 2011Page 8

Caribbean newsTrinidad PM to try to

avert national shutdown

Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar agrees to meet with unions to possibly prevent threatened strike action.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Wednes-day July 20, 2011 – Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has agreed to meet with the leadership of trade unions in another week in an attempt to prevent a nationwide shutdown by public workers who are demanding more than the five percent salary in-crease being offered by the govern-ment. But she has made it clear that the meeting will be on her own terms.In a letter dated July 18, sent to Presi-dent General of the Oilfields Work-ers’ Trade Union (OWTU) Ancil Ro-get, she expressed her willingness to meet with the bargaining agents next Tuesday, July 26, but said the discus-sions would not be aimed at negotia-tion, but rather at sharing views “in a cordial atmosphere to advance the interests of all concerned.”Persad-Bissessar stressed that it was not her intention to subvert the Col-lective Bargaining process and added that she could not agree to any pre-conditions for the meeting.Roget had written to Persad-Bisses-sar on July 7, warning that unless the government removes its five per-cent wage increase offer within two weeks, there would be a “mammoth” national strike that would affect all sectors in the twin-island republic.In her response, the Prime Minister sought to downplay the threat, saying that she did not share the view that “there is or should be any collision course between the Labour Move-ment and Government.”However, she did acknowledge that the industrial action which the union proposed would do serious harm to the country.“I recognize your right to represent

your workers as I ask you to recog-nize the right of our government to represent the interest of all of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. Un-fortunately, the demands contained in your correspondence were accom-panied by threats of union actions which, if pursued, may have dire con-sequences to both our national secu-rity and economic stability,” Persad-Bissessar said.“It has always been my approach to negotiate in an atmosphere of cordi-ality and encourage an open minded-ness so as to allow for a better under-standing of the issues before us. This willingness, however, must not be misconstrued as anything but a desire for achieving a mutuality of under-standing and, please be assured that I will do all that I can to protect the interest of our nation.”She added that, as Prime Minister, she wanted to make decisions that are always in the best interest of all citizens of Trinidad and Tobago and agreed with the union, therefore, that “no effort should be spared to have the country’s productive forces col-lectively focus on moving the econ-omy forward”.The unions have flatly rejected a five percent increase over a three-year pe-riod offered by the Persad-Bissessar administration as settlement of terms and conditions of employment for the 2008-2010 period, which includes the consolidation of the existing Cost of Living Allowance for each year. The offer would see workers paid two percent for 2008, one percent for 2009 and two percent for 2010, along with a TT$2,000 (US$315.95) lump sum payment.

Don’t judge us on death penalty, AG says

Monday July 18, 2011 - Trinidad and Tobago’s Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, outlining the Caribbean’s position on the contentious issue of the death penalty to Commonwealth counterparts, has insisted that a coun-try’s legal position on capital pun-ishment should not be a barometer to gauge its compliance with human rights obligations.He contended that it is “a simplistic approach to a complex problem as the notion of human rights should not be reduced or judged by reference to its position on the death penalty.”“In any event, there was not any international consensus on the re-lationship or consequences of the implementation of the death penalty (which is reserved for the most hei-nous crimes) and its respect for hu-man rights,” Ramlogan said after a comprehensive report from the Hu-man Right Unit was presented at the recentCommonwealth Law Ministers Meeting.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Attorney General Anand Ramlogan said that a disproportionate amount of time and resources were spent on the death penalty issue.

Ramlogan said that a disproportion-ate amount of time and resources were spent on the death penalty issue.His contribution ignited a strong debate with strong support coming from Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritius and several countries from the Afri-can continent.During the sessions, Ramlogan also raised the issue of the rising HIV and AIDS rate among Member States and asked that the Commonwealth Sec-retariat focus on this critical issue at its next meeting which will be held in Botswana in 2014.Global issues such as climate change and its impact on security and surviv-al, cybercrime, overcrowding in cor-rectional facilities, the modalities for civil society engagement, and issues of international family justice and the need for collaboration among Mem-ber States to protect the lives and welfare of innocent children were also discussed.The Meeting had as its theme “Fos-tering a Just and Secure Common-wealth”.

Tropical storm threatens Bahamas

NASSAU, Bahamas, Monday July 18, 2011 - Grand Bahama Island and the Abaco Islands in the north-

west Bahamas are under a tropical storm warning as Tropical Storm Bret - the second storm of the At-

lantic Season and the first to threat-en the Caribbean - strengthened af-ter forming yesterday.Tropical Storm Bret was this morn-ing carrying maximum sustained winds of 50 miles per hour and some additional strengthening is expected over the next two days.It was centered 65 miles north-west of Great Abaco Island and is expected to move north-northeast-ward later today.“On the forecast track, the centre of

Bret will begin moving away from the northwest Bahamas later today,” the 8 am bulletin from the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.Bret could bring up to four inches of rainfall over the northwest Baha-mas.The NHC also warned that high surf conditions can be expected along northern and western facing beaches in the northwest Bahamas throughout the day.

Sunday, July 24th , 2011 Page 9

Ortega proposes referrendum to demand US damages

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is proposing a referendum to demand the United States pay damages to the Central American country for in-volvement in its civil war.Ortega says U.S. support for the “Contras” that fought against his Sandinista government following the 1979 overthrow of dictator Ana-stasio Somoza caused $17 billion in damages.

He says Nicaragua has already com-pensated U.S. citizens for property seized during the war.U.S. Ambassador Robert J. Callahan says Washington paid compensation in the 1990s.In 1986, the International Court of Justice ruled that the U.S. violated international law by supporting the Contras. The U.S. opposed the rul-ing and vetoed a resolution requiring compliance at the United Nations.

Mexico cartel issues book-lets for proper conduct

MORELIA, Mexico (AP) — An or-ganized crime group calling itself the Knights Templar is distributing booklets saying it is fighting a war against pov-erty, tyranny and injustice, publicly ap-pealing to hearts and minds in a part of Mexico where the government claims it has largely taken down the major drug traffickers.Federal police said they seized copies of the cartel’s “code of conduct” book-let during an arrest of cartel members in the western state of Michoacan last week, but refused to release its contents Tuesday, saying they didn’t want fan the flames of the quasi-religious movement.But a copy of the 22-page “The Code of the Knights Templar of Michoacan,” illustrated with knights on horseback bearing lances and crosses, was obtained by The Associated Press this week. It says the group “will begin a challenging ideological battle to defend the values of a society based on ethics.”The Knights Templar have been blamed for murders, extortion, drug trafficking and attacks on police. Analysts say the propaganda is part of an effort to trans-form a drug cartel into a social move-ment, along the lines of what right-wing paramilitary groups did in Colombia in the 1990s against leftist rebels — a fight in which both sides used the drug trade to finance their causes.The Knights Templar was founded in March, according to the booklet, whose illustrations were lifted from an artist, a website of a company that sells swords and another promoting the 2007 Swed-ish film “Arn: The Knight Templar,” ac-cording to an AP image search.Named for a medieval Roman Catholic order of religious warriors who fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusa-lem, Knights Templar is a splinter group of La Familia, another cult-like cartel whose leader, Nazario Moreno Gonza-lez, published a motivational pamphlet called “The Sayings of the Craziest One.”While La Familia claimed strict codes of conduct among its members, including prohibiting using or selling drugs within Mexican territory, it didn’t distribute its booklets publicly. The contents of its “bible,” reportedly based on the teach-ings of U.S. evangelist John Eldredge,

have never been revealed by authorities. The cartel became one of Mexico’s ma-jor sources of methamphetamine.The Mexican government claims to have all but dismantled La Familia since Moreno was killed in a shootout with federal police last December and another founder, Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, was arrested last month.But the mayhem and killing has contin-ued in Michoacan as Knights Templar gunmen battle both the Zetas cartel and remnants of La Familia seeking to con-trol President Felipe Calderon’s home state more than 4½ years after Calderon launched his crackdown on organized crime here in 2006.More than 35,000 people have died in drug violence across Mexico since then, according to government figures, and some groups put the number at more than 40,000.Calderon has said he took on the cartels to prevent organized crime from spread-ing to the roots of Mexican society.Like La Familia, Knights Templar claims to be highly religious, but unlike La Familia, the new cartel has sought to distribute its teachings to the general public with kitschy but florid posters, banners, emblems and even medieval robes.“God is the truth and there is no truth without God,” reads one passage in the booklet.The person who gave the AP the pro-fessionally printed, pocket-size booklet said it was distributed earlier this month by two men in regular clothing aboard a bus traveling in rural Michoacan. He said the men handing out the material then sat down among the other passen-gers and, without saying a word, got off at the next stop. He asked that his name not be used for fear of retaliation.The booklet says cartel members “must fight against materialism,” and respect women and children. It prohibits them from killing for money and says, “for all members of the order, the use of any drugs or any hallucinogen is strictly prohibited.” It mandates drug testing for members.The Knights Templar have criticized federal police for failing to protect Mi-choacan against incursions by the ultra-violent Zetas.

Honduran president says he got death threats

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Honduran President Porfirio Lobo says he has gotten death threats from business owners angered by his plan to raise taxes to fund better security.Lobo is giving no specifics on what he says are threats “from a high lev-el.” Officials said Monday they are heightening security at his residence and offices.Honduran legislators in June ap-proved a 5 percent tax on bank ac-

counts of more than $5,000 along with taxes on cellphone sales, mining exports and casinos. It aims to raise $400 million over five years to equip police, the army, prosecutors and the Supreme Court to fight organized crime.A council of 58 prominent businesses is challenging the law in court, argu-ing the taxes will be used to fund po-litical campaigns.

www.nationalperspectivebz.org

Sunday, July 24th , 2011Page 10

Car blast kills Briton in Yemen port city Aden

ADEN/SANAA (Reuters) - A blast in a booby-trapped car killed a Brit-ish shipping surveyor in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden Wednes-day, local officials and shipping sources said.A security source told Reuters he believed militants were behind the blast that killed the long-time resi-dent of Aden, who was in his 60s, when he started his car.The victim was an independent sur-veyor for a marine and insurance company in Yemen. A Western shipping source based in Aden said the Briton had just returned from surveying a tanker attacked in July by pirates off Yemen’s coast.“We tend to think that it was some kind of terrorist attack because he was well known,” the security source said.Attacks on foreigners are rare in the port city, which lies east of a stra-tegic shipping lane that channels some 3 million barrels of oil daily.Witnesses said the man’s car ex-ploded as soon as he turned on the engine, shattering windows in nearby buildings on Aden’s Mualla Plaza.“He started the car and it immedi-ately exploded and he was engulfed in flames,” a witness told Reuters by telephone.One passer-by was critically in-jured in the blast which also dam-aged nearby buildings, a municipal official said. She said there was no clue as to who was behind the ex-plosion.“It’s clear that there was some kind of explosive device placed in his car,” she said.Aden has been relatively quiet in re-cent months, even as mass protests demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh drag into their sixth month, erupting into sporadic bursts of violence.

The neighboring Abyan province has been plunged into daily blood-shed since Islamist militants seized the city of Jaar in March and the provincial capital of Zinjibar in May.The army, which says the militants are part of al Qaeda’s Yemen-based wing, launched an offensive to re-take Zinjibar five days ago but has yet to regain the city.A security belt was placed around Aden several weeks ago in the hope of preventing more militants from slipping into the strategic coastal city. Some 54,000 Abyan residents have sought refuge in Aden.OPPOSITION ATTACKEDThe United States and neighboring oil giant Saudi Arabia have grown increasingly worried about the tur-moil in the Arabian Peninsula state -- the Arab world’s poorest country. Riyadh and Washington, both tar-gets of foiled al Qaeda attacks from Yemen, fear rising instability pro-vides militants with room to oper-ate.In a separate incident Wednesday, an opposition official from the lead-ing Islamist party Islah survived an attack by gunmen in the capital of Sanaa, the opposition said.The northern capital has witnessed rising violence in recent days fol-lowing weeks of relative calm after Saleh left the country for treatment on injuries he suffered in a bomb blast at his compound.Islah leader Mohammed al-Yad-umi’s car was fired on by gunmen Monday but he fled the attack, Yem-en’s opposition coalition said. The group blamed forces loyal to Saleh.“We hold the heads of national secu-rity, the Republican Guard, Special Forces and central security respon-sible for this criminal incident,” the coalition said in a statement.

Cameron denies staff tried to halt hacking probe

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Da-vid Cameron emphatically denied claims that his staff tried to stop an inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World and defended his decision to hire one of the tabloid’s editors as his communica-tions chief.In a raucous emergency session Wednes-day in Parliament, Cameron did admit that both the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Labour parties had failed to pursue key developments in the hacking case and had actively courted media baron Rupert Murdoch.“The clock has stopped on my watch and we need to sort it out,” Cameron told lawmakers, promising that a government inquiry would examine the cozy relation-ship between British politicians and me-dia and investigate whether other news organizations may have broken the law.Police are also probing whether news me-dia breached privacy laws.Cameron cut short his Africa trip and the House of Commons delayed its summer break to debate issues engulfing both Brit-ain’s political and media elite and Mur-doch’s global communications empire, News Corp.Murdoch owned the troubled News of the World, where the phone hacking claims first emerged in 2005, when the royal household alerted police that the tabloid may have learned about Prince William’s knee injury by illegally intercepting phone messages.Cameron’s former communications chief Andy Coulson — a former editor at the tabloid — is among 10 people who have been arrested in the scandal. One has been cleared.Lawmakers wanted to know why Cam-eron insisted on hiring Coulson despite warnings and how much the prime minis-ter knew about the phone hacking inves-tigation. There have been allegations that some people on Cameron’s staff may have met with police to pressure them to drop the investigation.“To risk any perception that No 10 (Down-

ing Street) was seeking to influence a sensitive police investigation in any way would have been completely wrong,” he said.Cameron did, however, meet with News Corp. executives more than two dozen times from May 2010 to this month — meetings that were criticized in Parlia-ment by Labour leader Ed Miliband, who said Cameron had made a “catastrophic error of judgment” in hiring Coulson.Coulson was an editor at the News of the World when royal reporter Clive Good-man and private investigator Glenn Mul-caire were arrested and jailed in 2007 for phone hacking. The original police inquiry into phone hacking was dropped, Coulson quit the paper and Cameron — then opposition leader — hired him.This January, police reopened the hacking investigation. They are now investigating some 3,870 people whose names and tel-ephone numbers were found in the News of the World files. It remains unclear how many were hacking victims. Coulson re-signed his government post that same month.News Corp. said Wednesday it had now eliminated legal payments to Mulcaire — a day after Murdoch told lawmakers in a special parliamentary committee hearing that he would try to find a way to stop the payments. Mulcaire’s lawyer, Sarah Webb, declined to comment on the devel-opment.In other phone hacking news, a judge Wednesday awarded “Notting Hill” actor Hugh Grant — one of the most prominent celebrity critics of the Murdoch empire — the right to see whether he was one of the tabloid hacking victims.The scandal captivated television audi-ences from America to Murdoch’s native Australia on Tuesday, as Murdoch endured a three-hour grilling by U.K. lawmakers. The media baron said he had known noth-ing of allegations that staff at News of the World hacked into cell phones and bribed police to get information on celebrities, politicians and crime victims.

Sunday, July 24th , 2011 Page 11

Burning IssuesBy: Nuri Muhammad Many young black males, and to an extent some black men, depend too much on the ‘victim card’ when try-ing to get a job, a loan, a scholarship, or just sympathy for their situation; in other words, “help me because I am a victim”. The reality of Belize today however, is that there are many peo-ple who come from equally or more disadvantaged backgrounds, but who don’t rely on hands out to make it; they take life as they find it and do the best they can with what they got to survive; in other words, they refuse to play the ‘victim card’ . Using the ‘victim card’ is not exclu-sive to black males in Belize; in fact, it has become an established strategy for correcting perceived injustices historically and used worldwide. In fact, one of the most successful uses of the ‘victim card’ can be seen in the history of Jewish state of Israel. As a ‘victim’ of the holocaust in Germany they made sure that history would not repeat itself by reminding the world through every medium possi-ble over the last sixty three years that they were the ‘victims’ of humanity’s worst crime. So even in their current conflict in the West Bank where Israel maintains oppressive military con-trol, the Israeli still sees themselves as ‘victims’. Another use of the ‘victim card’ was the ‘Affirmative Action’ (AA) approached used in the US to correct years of unequal treatment of blacks in that country. The rationale for AA was that blacks should be given spe-cial consideration over whites in jobs, education, housing, etc., in order to correct the years that blacks had been deprived of equal justice in every aspect of civil rights in that country. When the AA policy was first im-plemented in the sixties many black Americans received a jump start, a

AVOID PERMANENT DEPENDENCYkind of skip to the front of the line support, to correct the built-in histori-cal injustice. The women movement in the US also used the ‘victim card’ to highlight the fact that some kind of AA was needed to address the injustices built into that system that deprived women of equal rights. Another example of using the ‘victim card’ in the US is how the homosexual/lesbian lobby used the Civil Right amendment, originally passed to correct the injus-tices against blacks to lobby for equal rights for gay/lesbian on the basis that they were ‘victims’. There are many other examples of where the ‘victim card’ was an appropriate strategy to correct systemic injustices. The problem with using the ‘vic-tim card’ comes when the victim per-ceives that they have a right over oth-ers by virtue of the fact that they are a ‘victim’ and others are not. When vic-tims themselves begin to depend on sympathy to justify that they should be helped before others then they are caught in the trap of “victimology”. This is where using the ‘victim card’ becomes a problem. There are many beggars in the city today. Some are clearly vic-tims and need a helping hand to pull them through their temporary hard times till things get better. Some, however, have decided to turn beg-ging into a daily profession. I recently met a youth asking for money who told me it was better to a beggar than a thief; but what about others who have turned their misfortune into an oppor-tunity to work their way out of their

dilemma. Who do you think will get the most support, the perpetual victim, or one who is asking for help to help themselves? It is almost becoming an accepted fact now that black men in Belize City especially, are lazy and want every-thing for free. Despite its deroga-tory nature this is a growing opinion among many who site all kinds of examples to verify their viewpoint. They say, look how the Chinese, In-dians and Arabs own all the stores that black Belizeans once owned on Albert Street and Queen Street. Look how the new Belizeans from Central America have established themselves over the last twenty five years. They say, unlike these new Belizeans, if you offer a black man in the city a job he is more concerned about how much he will be paid, and if the price is not right, he would prefer to be without a job. We all know that working hard and working smart is the key to surviv-al especially in this depressed econo-my that we face in Belize today, but how many people are waiting for the “right” job before they will accept any job. How many are satisfied to stand on the sidelines and complain instead of getting out there and finding a job and failing that, making a job? And yes, those who use their en-trepreneurial skills to do illegal trade rather than sitting around and begging must be commended for their effort to use their survival skills, especially when they have hungry mouths at home to feed; but we must also warn them that illegal trade is a dead-end

street with glitter in the front but death or jail at the end. Crime really doesn’t pay in the long run. The fact is there are many legal ways to generate an income, albeit small, but such jobs have no glitter attached to them; they may be dirty and backbreaking and pay below the minimum wage but they can sustain you till you find something better. They say that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ and that there are lights at the end of every dark tunnel; but if you don’t live in a culture that encour-ages working with what you got and to never depend on someone to do for you what you can do for yourself, you will forever miss opportunities to im-prove your situation. Constantly crying about the half empty glass and failing to acknowl-edge what assets you have to work with essentially kills’ creativity and renders you forever dependent. We’ve all heard the story of the man who prayed vehemently to God to bless him with shoes ….he became vexed in spirit because his prayers went un-answered until one day he say a man who had no feet, but was yet cheerful and productive; clearly this man had learned to work with what he had. It is the responsibility of govern-ment is to stimulate an enabling envi-ronment where jobs are created both in the public as well as the private sector; clearly this UDP government has been a dismal failure over the last three and a half years to accomplish that goal. In fact, it’s the opposite that’s taking place… businesses are closing and people are losing their jobs in this economy. A good government would have targeted the employment of its citizens as a top priority. But be that as it may, the indi-vidual citizen has no excuse to rely on the ‘victim card’ permanently; if jobs are not readily available then one has to find his/her own way to avoid de-pendency (Comments welcomed at nuribze@gmail.com).

Sunday, July 24th , 2011Page 12

www.nationalperspectivebz.org

“Belize’s Consumer Price In-dex (CPI) for February 2011 shows that overall consumer prices rose by 1.1% from No-vember of the previous year. This rise, which follows a zero percent change between Au-gust and November 2010, was due largely to price increas-es in the ‘Transportation & Communication” and “Rent, Water, Fuel and Power’ cat-egories.”Statistical Institute of Belize (February, 2011)“Naturally the common peo-ple don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But af-ter all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple mat-ter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a commu-nist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” Hermann Goering, Germany’s min-ister of propaganda during the Third Reich.I listened to a portion of Minister of Transport Melvin Hulse’s comments when he called Love FM one morn-ing this week in response to a caller who criticized him for allegedly fa-cilitating a land owner in one of the villages in the Stann Creek West constituency. Another caller called and criticized Hulsein regards to a bus that overturned on the North-ern Highway with 44 passengers on board. The caller obviously exasperated by government’s ineptitude registered his disapproval by referring to the Minister Hulse by his nickname, “Flippin”. He was quickly chided by Rene Villanueva not to address Hulse in the manner he did and the caller retracted.Hulse called soon after and dis-missed the caller’s comments and directed focus on the accident but did not squander an opportunity to ramble in his usual incoherent man-ner about the land matter. Much to Rene Villanueva’s chagrin, Hulse started out by using the very word that he (Villanueva) had earlier chid-ed a caller for using in reference to Hulse. Melvin Hulse has long branded the word so much so that it is embedded in our minds that the word is syn-onymous with Melvin Hulse. There were no corrections for Hulse, how-ever. I am not first to say this. I have read it in other publications and have heard it said a number of times that Hulse’s use of the word “flippin’” is unbecoming of a member of govern-ment. We all know what he really means. But in the scheme of things Hulse’s behavior and his wanton use of indecorous language is normal in parliament and particularly of our UDP parliamentarians. The standard is set – we either like it or lump it.Monday morning’s bus accident on the Northern Highway which risked the lives of all who were on board

The price of UDP ineptitude and

corruptionthe bus is unfortunate and perhaps could not have been avoided, how-ever, there are a few things that the incident brings to the fore. During the recent flare up in the bus industry there was intervention by none less than the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister Gaspar Vega, Minister of Police Doug Sin-gh with the support of Minister of Works Boots Martinez, Minister of Housing Michael Finnegan, Minis-ter of Education Patrick Faber and Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington.

It was quite an assembly in support of a Minister that bungled on the job. Things are no better for commuters today. The pie has simply been sliced thinner in order to accommodate UDP crony Sergio Chuc. The reason for how Chuc was inserted and why he was inserted has not been justi-fied. We either like it or lump it.Unofficial reports from family mem-bers of some of the passengers on board the bus are that speeding was an element in the mishap. It is hard for me to accept that a rear wheel blow out caused the bus to flip. Hulse in his harangue on Monday tried to downplay the implications of what happened and sounded rather pretentious about his concern for the injured. The northern operators boasted of not being members of the Belize Bus Association casting the BBA aside as a “waste of time” showing no professionalism, preferring to act as a renegade group. I believe an un-registered “Northern Bus Operators” was later formed. It begs the question whether there will be an in-depth investigation into the accident. While Melvin Hulse and the people in the Ministry of Transport may want to downplay the accident, I lay some of the blame at their doorstep. If the Transport Board was an autonomous one, the driver and his company would be worried about sanctions and lawsuits from the injured. I hope they do. Will the investigation reveal wheth-er the driver of the bus was rested and in shape to operate the equip-

Belize was brought on by increases in the prices of transportation, com-munication, rent, water, fuel and power. According to the Statistical Institute, those commodities drove cost of living in Belize by 1.1%. It is long held that when fuel prices go up then just about everything else goes up and where there are price caps or regulations on rates, exam-ple electricity “power”, it does send a shockwave through the economy. We are not discussing power this week but one can appreciate at least (I hope) the problem that the former management of BEL faced why they requested a rate increase. Another day another time for that….The level of “competition” in the bus industry has placed additional burden especially on smaller opera-tors who owe mortgages and have families to feed therefore are unable to maintain their equipment thereby ensuring the safety of commuters. Like electricity or “power” fares are regulated – those fares are not being adjusted to reflect the increasing cost of operation. While we as consum-ers do not and cannot countenance increases in goods and services, it must not be lost on us the cost of providing those goods and services in the environment we are currently living in. This is not time for Hulse’s supercilious PR maneuvering but for him and his government to get things in order and observe the real issues of the transport industry.

Unofficial reports from family members of some of the passengers on board the bus are that speeding was an element in the mishap. It is hard for me to accept that a rear wheel blow out caused the bus to flip. Hulse in his harangue on Monday tried to downplay the implications of what hap-pened and sounded rather pretentious about his concern for the injured.

ment with that many passengers on board? Did a blowout really cause the accident? Were there other con-tributing factors to the accident? If a blown out tyre was the culprit, then it points to a problem that owners and operators have complained of time and time again – that of the high cost of replacement parts including tyres. This brings me to the dismal state of our economy thus the reason why I posted the statement from the Statis-tical Institute of Belize. The additional weight of survival in

It is ridiculous that so many com-panies are operating in the industry where the market is not there for the volume of operators. I continuously draw comparison to the US where there are millions more people yet only one or two operators in a par-ticular zone. There is no competition in the indus-try because prices are regulated and runs are regulated therefore there is no need for all the companies/opera-tors on the highways. But don’t ex-pect this crowd to entertain the idea because they facetiously promote this “competition” thing that really is not a competition.Once again we have seen another fruition of another of government’s diabolic plans that was to seek out and destroy. The Novelos were forced out of the industry when their runs were reduced thereby denying them the revenues necessary to meet their obligations therefore the bank foreclosed and that is the end of Na-tional Transport. The UDP propa-gandized that the PUP “gave $30 million to the Novelos”. This is to-tally untrue and there is no recovery from the damage done from this kind of propaganda anytime soon. The current Opposition remains reticent on addressing these issues that the UDP will certainly use to campaign on going into the next elections. Even though the government is en-countering the same type of prob-lems that the former administration adopted policy to address, they con-tinue the propaganda that it is some-one else’s fault. In Belize - market size will always be a challenge to doing business – but we can only “imagine the possibilities” if the buffoons we elected to lead us were “sophisticated enough to conceptu-alize certain things” (Dean Oliver Barrow). Market size is an issue that investors consider and a reason why Belize has not attracted much or any by way of foreign investment. Most companies that would hire the proletariat will not invest if they are not assured of a certain amount of return. It is busi-ness and not charity – no one owes us anything and it is for the people we elect to lead us to design the ena-bling environment for our people to earn a living and live in dignity. The Barrow regime’s tactic is to spread fear and identify an enemy (Ashcroft, Fortis/Stan Marshal) and feed them to the masses like raw meat. Those that speak out against the government (COLA, Belizeans for Justice, Marcel Cardona, me and others) are called sellouts or are said to be on the take from Ashcrofts and others. It is another disingenuous and hypocritical claim since Dean Barrow has done business with Lord Ashcroft for many, many years and still is to this day. It is high time that the masses get over their love affair with Dean Barrow because he is a bold face liar who has betrayed our trust. Those opposed to our tyrant of a Prime Minister are labeled “vend patria,” called “unpatriotic” and the like. Seems for the PM and his gov-ernment, true patriots are those like the PM’s ex wife, Lois Young and his brother Denys and his daughter. Those are the true patriots I guess – what great example they set!

Sunday, July 24th , 2011 Page 13

In October 2006 I was approached and asked to host a morning radio talk show on what was to become Positive Vibes Radio, a PUP owned radio station. After a long string of handy victories, going back to the 1996 Belize City Council elections, the party had been devastated in the March 2006 Municipal Elections. Some in the leadership and many amongst the rank and file had credited the UDP’s WAVE Radio’s “Fus Ting Da Mawnin’” talk show with Joe Bradley, Sr., and Juliet Thimbrel, with leading their successful media campaign and wanted the PUP to respond in kind. I didn’t think the PUP could respond in vein and I was perhaps naively hope-ful that the electorate would eventually reject or at least be turned off by the personal attacks, vituperation and lies that were a characteristic staple of the WAVE morning show. I knew that the political tide of affairs had changed, but unlike many of my fellow partisans, I had perceived that with the exception of the Belize Times, the PUP literally had no influence in any of the other media houses. Whereas LOVE, Channel 5 and KREMANDA-LA had been perceived of being either pro-PUP or even neutral before 2005, it was clear to me at least, that they were now anti-PUP, if not pro-UDP. What was then FM2000 Radio had ac-tually embarrassed the party when one of their employees had leaked a record-ing of Party Leader Said Musa swearing his loyalty to Ralph Fonseca at a politi-cal event the year before, following the G7. That alleged employee went on to become a successful UDP city coun-cilor and a mainstay broadcaster over at WAVE. I signed on to the morning show be-lieving at the time that this was my last hurrah in partisan politics, determined at the time to “retire” so to speak, from partisan politics regardless of the out-come of the 2008 General Elections campaign. I was still under contract to the Government of Belize, and though I felt bothered by the conflict it posed to my conscience, I swallowed hard and jumped into the trenches. I had been assured that the show would not just be another talk show and that I would not have to become Joe Bradley or Juliet Thimbrel. I doubted whether I could. There would be others to assume those partisans’ roles and I would be free to just moderate and host. Within a few months the show was also being aired on television, in this case Channel 5, and it was ground breaking in many aspects. Despite our best efforts the PUP were virtually wiped out in the general elec-tions, the television operations sus-pended indefinitely, and my stint as a morning show host over with and done,

A Constitutional amendment I would

supportor so I thought. I had not counted on the venom and vindictiveness of the new administration. I stayed away from the media almost completely for nearly two months while I tried to clear my mind and soul. I had long lost my taste for partisan politics but after a few weeks I began to real-ize that the UDP weren’t just being rhe-torical when they had sworn from their rostrums that they were seeking the de-struction of the PUP. They almost im-mediately took away the one piece of land I had because there had been a de-lay in getting the lease to me, and when I went to pay the rent they had refused to collect the money because they had closed the Lands Department. There were other attacks and within a short time I was literally forced to take refuge behind PUP lines and wait out the bombardment. In November 2008 new PUP chairman Carolyn Trench Sandiford prevailed on me to host the morning show again. I was far from enamored with the idea but I figured I wasn’t going to go any-where anyway, and it was hard for me to see how anything I did or say could piss off the UDP anymore than they were. I agreed to at least host the show until after the 2009 Municipal Elections. The PUP was again badly beaten in the municipals, and a week after I was asked to keep the show going for a pal-try sum. At this point I knew that getting another gig would be difficult, and the UDP would attack any entrepreneurial effort on my part. It was as good a way as any, short of leaving Belize, to bide my time. For the first few months it was a lonely effort and it took a great deal of self-discipline and determination to get up weekdays and go sit alone and try to compete for the attention of the elec-torate on a radio-only signal when my competitors were on television, and in some cases on television and radio, and in one case on two television broadcast and on a nation-wide radio signal. Meanwhile our signal was being de-graded, and soon we lost our transmis-sion completely in the north and west. Eventually we would reach the point where our broadcast could only be heard in Belize City and its immediate environs. Almost incrementally the show be-gan to gain some listenership, as we expanded the panel and broadened the issues under discussion. It helped that we were able to break several stories and the Barrow administration contro-versial constitutional amendments, and scandalous episodes of corruption and/or incompetence emerged and became part of the public discussion. Every revolution eats its young, or so the old Trotsky quote goes. In April

of this year I was summarily dismissed from the morning show because it turns out I was not “partisan” enough. I had resisted the calls to engage in the type of “personal attacks, vituperation and lies that were a characteristic staple of the WAVE morning show.” The deci-sion was never officially explained to me, but I believe that because Joe Coye lost his bid to run as a PUP candidate in the upcoming general elections, and complained about his opponent’s tac-tics, I was to be made an object lesson. The point of this brief history is that this week Vibes Radio closed after it failed to pay its electricity bill, and despite the mumblings that it is closed while it is being re-structured I know that it has been running at a loss the past

several years and there is a debate on-going as to whether or not to resuscitate its operations. If I had my druthers I’d love to see Vibes/FM2000 restored to its former owners and it returning to the media scene as the fairly independent station it once was. The present Johnny Briceno-led PUP has clearly demonstrated that they can’t manage the station and it is time they ‘fessed up. The party would be better served try-ing to mend fences and improving its relationship with the rest of the media. Belize would better off without the par-tisan political electronic media – now there’s a constitutional amendment I’d support.

2 Chinese-Belizean business-men fall victim to Honduras’

‘preventative detention laws’!…Belize heading the same route!!!Continues from page 7Belize. The small business women from little Melchor, are an example. These two Chinese, though in the same unfortunate situation, at least have other business associates and relatives who are members of their Chinese com-munity who were able to support them, especially with finance, so as to afford an expensive lawyer in their time of need. What about others who may fall within the cracks of justice that may not be so fortunate with support, especially the fi-nance to afford a good defense lawyer? This should be an eye opener for Be-lizeans - we must never allow our rights and freedom to be strangled by a law like “Preventative Detention” and nei-

ther should we allow trial without a jury of your peers to be implemented. We could regret it when it hits close to home involving one of our relatives and it might well be too late. There must be other mechanisms that could give investigators a fair leverage to investigate without infringing on the human right and civil liberties of in-nocent people because we will never know when we will meet rogue police-men who will abuse their powers, extort monies from you or use the “Preventa-tive Detention” law on you like the three rogue police officers at the check point at the Corinto border station in Honduras. God forbid that PD be a part of our system.

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Sunday, July 24th , 2011Page 14

HEAlTHY LIVINGRheumatoid arthritis is a chronic type of arthritis. Early symptoms of RA include fatigue, joint pain, and stiff-ness. As it progresses, rheumatoid ar-thritis symptoms may feel like the flu, with achiness, muscle aches, and loss of appetite. The causes of rheumatoid arthritis are unknown, although there may be a genetic component. Early and effective rheumatoid arthritis treatment can improve the prognosis and may help prevent joint and bone destruction associated with RA.Arthritis is a general term that means inflammation in a joint. Joint inflam-mation is characterized by redness, warmth, swelling, and pain within the joint.Rheumatoid arthritis is a type of chronic arthritis that typically occurs in joints on both sides of the body (such as hands, wrists, or knees). This symmetry helps distinguish rheumatoid arthritis from other types of arthritis.In addition to affecting the joints, rheumatoid arthritis may occasion-ally affect the skin, eyes, lungs, heart, blood, or nerves.What Are the Symptoms of Rheumatoid Arthritis?Symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis in-clude:Joint pain and swellingStiffness, especially in the morning or after sitting for long periodsFatigueRheumatoid arthritis affects every-one differently. For some, joint symp-toms develop gradually over several years. In others, rheumatoid arthritis may progress rapidly and while other people may have rheumatoid arthritis for a limited period of time and then enter a period of remission.Who Gets Rheumatoid Ar-thritis?Rheumatoid arthritis affects about 1% of the U.S. population. While it is two to three times more common in women than in men, men tend to be more severely affected when they get it. It usually occurs in middle age, however, young children and the el-derly also can develop rheumatoid arthritis.What Causes Rheumatoid Ar-thritis?The exact cause of rheumatoid arthri-tis is unknown, but it is thought to be due to a combination of genetic, en-vironmental, and hormonal factors. With rheumatoid arthritis, something seems to trigger the immune system to attack the joints and sometimes other organs. Some theories suggest that a virus or bacteria may alter the immune system, causing it to attack the joints. Other theories suggest that smoking may lead to the develop-ment of rheumatoid arthritis.Research hasn’t completely deter-mined exactly what role genetics plays in rheumatoid arthritis. How-ever, some people do seem to have a genetic or inherited factor that in-creases their chance of developing rheumatoid arthritis.How Does Rheumatoid Ar-thritis Affect the Body?Once the immune system is triggered, immune cells migrate from the blood into the joints and joint-lining tissue,

Rheumatoid Arthritis Overview

called synovium. There the immune cells produce inflammatory substanc-es. The increased number of cells and inflammatory substances within the joint cause irritation, wearing down of cartilage (cushioning material at the end of bones), and swelling and inflammation of the joint lining. In-flammation of the joint lining stimu-lates it to produce excessive joint fluid within the joint.As the cartilage wears down, the space between the bones narrows. If the condition worsens, the bones could rub against each other.As the joint lining expands, it may invade into, or erode, the adjacent bone, resulting in bone damage that is referred to as erosions. All of these factors cause the joint to become very painful, swollen, and warm to the touch.How Is Rheumatoid Arthritis Diagnosed?The diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis is based on a combination of factors, including:The specific location and symmetry of painful joints, especially the hand joints.The presence of joint stiffness in the morning.Presence of bumps and nodules un-der the skin (rheumatoid nodules).

Results of X-ray tests that suggest rheumatoid arthritis.Positive results of a blood test called the rheumatoid factor.Most, but not all, people with rheu-matoid arthritis have the rheumatoid-factor antibody in their blood. (Rheu-matoid factors are actually antibodies that bind other antibodies.) Rheuma-toid factor may sometimes be present in people who do not have rheuma-toid arthritis. Other diseases can also cause the rheumatoid factor to be produced in the blood. Therefore, the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis is based on a combination of joint ab-normalities as well as laboratory in-formation and not just the presence of the rheumatoid factor in the blood.A newer, more specific blood test for rheumatoid arthritis is the cylic citrulline antibody test, also called anti-CCP. When positive, it is highly suggestive of rheumatoid arthritis. The presence of anti-CCP antibodies implies a tendency toward a more ag-gressive form of rheumatoid arthritis.People with rheumatoid arthritis may have a mild anemia. Blood tests may also reveal an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) or elevat-ed C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, which are markers of inflammation.Some people with rheumatoid arthri-

tis may also have a positive antinu-clear antibody test (ANA). This test is indicative of the fact that rheuma-toid arthritis is an autoimmune dis-ease and sometimes overlaps with other autoimmune disorders.How Is Rheumatoid Arthritis Treated?There are many different ways to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Treatments include medications, rest and exer-cise, and surgery to correct damage to the joint.The type of treatment will depend on several factors including the person’s age, overall health, medical history, and severity of the arthritis.Rheumatoid Arthritis Medi-cationsThere are many rheumatoid arthritis medications available to decrease joint pain, swelling, and inflamma-tion. Some of these drugs prevent or minimize the progression of the dis-ease.Drugs that offer relief of arthritis symptoms (joint pain, stiffness, and swelling) include:Anti-inflammatory painkiller drugs, such as aspirin, ibuprofen, or nap-roxenTopical (applied directly to the skin) pain relieversCorticosteroids, such as prednisoneNarcotic pain relieversThere are also many strong medi-cations called disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) that are used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. These medicines usually work by in-terfering with or suppressing the im-mune system’s attack on the joints. They include:Plaquenil (originally used to treat malaria)Immune suppression drugs such as methotrexate, Imuran, and CytoxanBiologic treatments, such as Enbrel, Humira, Remicade, Orencia, and RituxanOther drugs, such as Azulfidine and AravaWhy Is Rest and Exercise Im-portant for Rheumatoid Ar-thritis?A balance of rest and exercise is im-portant in treating rheumatoid arthri-tis. During flare-ups (worsening of joint inflammation), it is best to rest the joints that are inflamed. This may be accomplished by the temporary use of a cane or joint splints.When joint inflammation is de-creased, guided exercise programs are necessary to maintain flexibility of the joints and to strengthen the muscles that surround the joints. Range-of-motion exercises should be done regularly to maintain joint mo-bility.When Is Surgery Necessary for Rheumatoid Arthritis?When joint damage from the rheu-matoid arthritis has become severe or pain is not controlled with drugs, sur-gery may be an option to help restore function to a damaged joint.Can Rheumatoid Arthritis Be Cured?Although there is not yet a cure for rheumatoid arthritis, early, aggres-sive treatment has been shown to help prevent disability.

Sunday,July 24th, 2011

termine which components on the Atlas already meet Nasa’s stringent require-ments for human space-flight and which elements might need to be upgraded if the rocket is to be certi-fied for astronaut missions.In parallel with this assess-ment, ULA will also be continuing development on its Emergency Detec-tion System that would be placed in the Atlas to give warning of a major malfunction.In such an event, the EDS would trig-ger the abort mechanism

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Nasa has taken another impor-tant step in its efforts to replace the shuttle with a commercial system to take astronauts into space.

The agency has signed an agreement with United Launch Alliance (ULA) to assess its Atlas 5 rocket for use in human mis-sions.The Atlas is currently used to loft US military satellites as well as unmanned science probes for Nasa.It has an excellent record, having completed 26 flights with no failures.When Nasa lands its Atlantis shuttle on Thursday, it will have no means of getting American astronauts into orbit. In the short-term it will rely on Russian Soyuz rockets and capsules, but eventu-ally it hopes to buy transportation services from US commercial operators.“With the shuttle landing here in a few days it does not mean the end of human spaceflight; it means that chapter is going to finish and we’re going to pick up with a new chap-ter,” said Ed Mango, Nasa’s Commercial Crew Programme manager.“And today, with our agreement with ULA, I believe we are taking some of those steps to con-tinue on with that tradition of being leaders in human spaceflight.”The Atlas has been chosen as the rocket of choice by three pri-vate companies that are in the process of developing ships capable of ferrying crews

Atlas rocket in line for human launches

to the International Space Station (ISS).Monday’s Space Act Agreement (SAA) signed between Nasa and ULA will help determine whether the rocket is up to the task.

The SAA involves no ex-change of funds. ULA, which is a joint venture between rocket manufac-turers Boeing and Lock-heed Martin, will instead invest its own money in the review which is ex-pected to last six to nine months.The work will de-

on the crewship atop the rocket, carrying this vehicle and its astronauts to a safe distance.“From its roots as the launch vehi-cle for the manned Mercury programme in the 1960s, each new generation of the Atlas system has demonstrated advancements in reliability and performance,” said George Sowers, ULA’s vice president of business development.“The Atlas 5 is the proud in-heritor of decades of improvements and lessons learned. The Atlas programme has a record of 97 consecutive successes - that’s the best in the world. The Atlas 5 has launched 26 times with 100% success,” he told reporters.Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), Blue Origin, and Boeing itself are receiving funds from Nasa to help them de-velop spacecraft that could transport up to seven astronauts to the ISS. All three com-panies would like to launch their vehicles on an Atlas 5. A fourth company in receipt of Nasa funds, SpaceX, would use its own rocket to launch a crewship.Although the SSA covers work done on the Atlas 5 only, ULA says it is also assessing its Delta 4 rocket for human launches.Nasa is devel-oping a capsule to go beyond the ISS called Orion. This is much heavier than the pri-vate astronaut taxis that want to use the At-las 5.ULA says the greater power afforded by a Delta 4 could be used to launch Orion, if Nasa wanted to take that option.

Climate change poses a major threat to future peace and security, a senior UN official has warned.

Achim Steiner from the UN Environment Programme said climate change would also “exponentially” increase the scale of natural disasters.

His comments followed a UN declaration of famine in parts of Somalia.

Meanwhile, Russia rejected a Security Council statement backed by Western nations which asserted the link, but later agreed to a weaker text.

The Russian envoy Alexander Pankin said he was sceptical about the implications of putting climate change on the security council’s agenda.Security Council mem-bers finally agreed to a text which spoke of the “possible security implications” of climate change.

‘Exponential growth’

Mr Steiner warned that an increase in the frequency of natural disasters across the

Climate change ‘threatens peace’, UN official warns

globe could prove a major challenge in the coming decades.He said recent crises, such as in Somalia, illustrate that “our capacity to handle these kinds of events is proving a challenge, particularly if they occur simultaneously and start affect-ing, for instance, global food markets, regional food security issues, displacing people, creating refugees across borders”.

Somalia famine

The final statement expressed “concern that possible adverse effects of climate

change may, in the long run, aggravate certain existing threats to international peace and security”.It also requested UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to include information on possible climate change impacts in his regular reports on global trouble-spots.

German Ambassador Peter Wittig wel-comed the outcome, describing it as a “good day today for climate security”.

“We had quite extensive discussions,” Mr

Wittig said. “We wanted to get everyone on board. And we did.”The council had failed to agree on whether climate change was an issue of world peace in 2007, when Britain brought up the issue.The move came after two regions of Somalia were declared a famine, after the worst drought in six decades.Conditions for famine include more than 30% of children being acutely malnourished, and four chil-dren out of every 10,000 dying daily.More than 10 million people have been affected by the crisis across east Africa.

Sunday, July 24th , 2011

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APPLICATIONS FOR LIQUOR LICENSES

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‘Barrow’ feeling the heat!Preventative Detention DOA, again!!Continued from page 1

Passenger Bus Flips with passengers 40 on board

By Rhenae NunezMonday, July 18, 2011

COROZAL – Twenty-four persons are recovering from physical injuries and trauma suffered during a horrify-ing bus accident that occurred on the Northern Highway between miles 64 and 65 on Monday morning at 4:40. A Cabrera’s bus carrying forty-four passengers on board was en route to Belize City from Corozal when it overturned near San Pablo Village in the Corozal District. Police say that a blown out rear inner tyre may have caused the accident. Other accounts suggest that the driver may have fall-en asleep at the wheel while relatives of passengers who were on board say that the driver, Pedro Cumush, 43 was speeding. While police continue their investiga-tion into the accident, 24 passengers, two who are minors (11 year old Ju-dith Canterero and a boy 12 years old) are in a fight to save their arms that doctors say may have to be amputated. The children are reported to have been standing in the bus at the time of the

accident. The girl is al-leged to have had her arm hanging out of the bus’ left side when the accident occurred. She was pinned under and rescuers had to extricate her by lifting the equipment off her arm. Similar maneuvering had to be performed to extri-cate the 12 year old boy who was trapped inside the bus. The two children are said to be the worse injured in the accident.

Most of the passengers were taken to the Northern Regional Hospital in Orange Walk Town while others were taken to the Corozal hospital. On Tuesday doctors told the media that Judith’s arm was broken in three plac-es. They are doing their best to save the arm but as a last resort may have to amputate it.So far there has been no word from Cabrera’s bus company or the North-ern Bus Operators who were recently embroiled in a flare up in the industry over bus runs after the government in-sisted on making accommodation for UDP crony Serjio Chuck who recent-ly started his bus company Westline Bus Company. Nothing has come out of the Minis-try of Transport about the accident. Transport Minister Melvin Hulse has only indicated that an investigation has been launched into the accident. It might be too early to say whether any of the passengers will take legal action against Cabreras’ bus company. Fortunately, the remaining twenty passengers injuries were minor and non-life threatening.

a record number of young black men gunned down in Belize City’s south side. None of the Barrow administra-tion’s responses (increased presence of security forces, Restore Belize Pro-gram, removing former Minister of National Security Carlos Perdomo) worked. The violence became more in-discriminate when women and children were also gunned down in the mean streets and in their homes in Belize City. Government was desperate for answers to sop up the bloodshed. In May of this year, Prime Minister Barrow announced that he would once again revisit the Preventative Deten-tion matter with a view to getting it passed in the House this time. He also announced that he will go as far as sug-gesting that trials for capital offenses are conducted without a jury. And once again the Prime Minister has announced that his administration had “back ‘er up” on the proposal. The same reaction that the original proposal ignited back in 2008 was again re-ignited following PM Barrow’s an-nouncement this year. Attorneys for the Opposition People’s United Party took to the media critiquing the proposal now a Bill as well as a wide cross sec-tion of the society. Everyone is tired of crime and would want to see a cessa-tion but many agree that Preventative Detention which seeks to enable police to detain persons suspected of being affiliated or involved in a gang for 21 days, was not the answer. According to Barrow’s new remix of the proposed law, by constitutional amendment, “before the police can grab somebody they must make some kind of application to some tribunal.” Those details, the PM reassured, “… will be drafted in accordance with the constitutional permission that will gain as a consequence of the amendment.” Still, remix and all, the proposal has failed to gain traction with criticisms coming from different sectors of the society. Most critics say that the pro-posal if it ever becomes law, would give the state, through the police, the power to further exploit citizens’ rights as well as subject many, particularly young black males from south side Be-lize City, to abuse by the police. Oth-ers say that law would simply go too far while some also say that instead of implementing more draconian and re-strictive measures Government needs to address the causes of crime by cre-ating employment and other opportuni-ties for displaced youths. Speaking with the media on May 13th following the presentation of the Bill to the House of Representatives, the Prime Minister told the media that it was his, “… unshakable conviction, unsinkable conviction that the majority of citizens is behind these measures and I will not be deterred by however vocal the op-position is as long as I can be persuaded or as long as I remain persuaded that it will be a minority opposition.” That unshakable and unsinkable con-viction has once again turned out to be another one conjured in Barrow’s head because he was forced to concede yes-terday morning that they would have to put the proposal on the back shelf of the “freezer.” Most political observ-ers had expected this decision because no less than Michael Finnegan, a long

time ally and close friend of the PM had come out swinging against preven-tative detention. In an interview on Channel 7 on Mon-day Finnegan said that after consulta-tions with his constituents he could not support the Bill and would ask the PM to reconsider. If the idea was unpopu-lar in 2008 it is even more so in 2011. With political ramifications to consider and the timing of the Bill, the Barrow Cabinet considered carefully on Tues-day, and yesterday Wednesday Barrow revealed that they had decided to fold that particular tent, again. Finnegan who is the UDP’s political whip, seems to have had a date with the possibilities had the Bill become law and it is more on the political consid-erations rather than the impact it would have, if any, that the Bill is being with-drawn for a second time. Finnegan did not want to wager the UDP’s already weakened chances at the polls on this one. In April of 2008 the Prime Minister, less adamant then said, “We need to un-derstand that we will err on the side of caution. So if even a minority is against it but it is a vocal minority and there is a majority, we think in favour it but it is a silent majority, it is the vocal minority that will carry the day. We prefer to err on the side of caution.” Barrow appearing more the amenable PM later said in May of 2008 that“… everybody that has spoken about it so far, that might be a slight exaggeration, but by my reckoning, everybody that has spoken about it so far is against it. I have said from the start that as a demo-cratic government, I would be bound to heed the position taken, even if it were by a minority, so long as it is a vocal minority. I don’t know whether it is a minority but those that are against it are certainly vocal and I say again those that may be supporting it have not said anything. I am therefore prepared to indicate that at this stage, the govern-ment would not be proposing, I will not be proceeding with those aspects of the constitutional amendments when the Bill goes back to the House.” As the wind dissipates from the gov-ernment’s sail for a second time on the Preventative Dentention Bill a squab-ble of words has ensued between Lead-er of the Opposition and Patrick Faber, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Consultation committee. Leader of the Opposition John Briceno wrote Faber charging that the ninety day period for consultations may soon elapse without there being any consultation. Briceno also warned Faber about a last minute consultation. Faber fired back yesterday that Bri-ceno has misunderstood the procedures saying that at least ninety days should be allotted for consultation and not a fixed ninety day period. For now it ap-pears that the UDP has failed again at finding solution to addressing Belize’s importunate crime situation and Pre-ventative Detention is dead on arrival. Yesterday morning Prime Minister Barrow revealed that his administra-tion, presumably at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, had decided to put the pre-ventative detention proposal on hold once again. He cautioned that they may bring it back at anytime. Barrow also revealed that he had been threatened over the preventative deten-tion but did not elaborate.

Belize – these are the voices of our children

Thursday, July 19, 2011BELIZE CITY – The chatter has died down, trailing away as the 14 young men and one girl make their way in scattered ad hoc groups through the wrought iron gates of the Mexican Institute on Sandlighters Promenade on Newtown Barracks. After they had departed the energy of their en-thusiasm still hangs in the air of the room where they had just spent a few hours learning the craft of speaking their minds through the medium of audio/visual arts. The intense three week sessions take them through the basics of learning to take pictures, record their creations, and putting it all together in what they want the world to sit up and take notice. These are our young people finding their voice, learning how to get us to listen to their cares, their concerns, their creativity. Khalil Jacobs Fantauzzi is a film maker who had documented the rise of the genre of hip hop in Brooklyn, New York, and the African-centric diaspora in Cuba and in Ghana, and now in Belize. Along with his brother Eli, and a cast of thousands, their work is visually stunning, lyrically evoca-tive, reaching across nationalities to grab at its viewers and listeners. At heart he is a teacher. By profession he teaches New York children in the prac-tical here and now of Social Studies. His is a bus boy’s vacation, teaching Belizean young men and one girl, the basics of how

to render the medium of information tech-nology into a sword to cut across our eve-ryday consciousness and to listen to them. The backdrop to this piece is the per-sistent staccato of gunshots and “man did drap!” Instead he wants to ensure that these youths “di rap.” I am more do wop than hip hop but I can relate if only to the awe-some potential and talent on display, about to be harnessed, groomed, crafted into the message of hope for another generation of artists, entertainers, and perhaps prophets whose message can save us, save the world. This is the Global Parish Project, offering documentary storytelling workshops for youth and emerging filmmakers in Belize, in collaboration with the University of the West Indies, Open Campus and the Belize International Film Festival. The naked energy of coordinator Mela-nie Nyahbinghi Price meshing with the cool professionalism of Fantuzzi seems to promise that true art, the golden moment that transports us beyond the everyday and deepens our understanding of our lives, our purpose, our society, will emerge from these our children. For Fantuzzi it may appear a busboy’s holiday but his lifelong passion is there in his documentaries, and his dedication to the craft of teaching the next generation, and generation next, is there for all to see, enjoy, learn from, and ultimately appreci-ate.

Sunday, July 24th , 2011

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APPLICATIONS FOR LIQUOR LICENSES

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For Sale by Owner1990 Toyota Picup Truck ---Good working condition

Call: Kent McField at 223-0362 --$6,000 or OBO

For Sale by Owner 1990 Toyota Picup Truck , Good working condition

Call: Kent McField at 223-0362 , $6,000 or OBO

MarriagesAlberto Luis Lanza to Elvira Juanita Mejia both of Maskall, Belize

Juventino Tillett Mason to Saira Edelmira Interiano Perez both of Copper Bank, Corozal

Delmir Audomar Chan of Guinea Grass, Orange Walk to Amanda Belen Men-dez of San Antonio, orange Walk

Miguel Chub to Candelaria Cab both of Midway, Toledo

Glenford Supal to Marsha Virginia Logan both of Independence, Stann Creek

Alexander Mess to Estelita Martinez both of Independence, Stann Creek

Filiberto Cho to Paula Francisca Choco both of San Pedro Columbia, Toledo

Sean Paul Lydiard to Karin Weiner Ham both of California, USA

Jeremy Robert Goodin to Christina Bernice Heim both of Washington, USA

Shawn Luis Reuland to Lydia Hermelinda Oakes both of California, USA

Emmanuel Iloabuchi Agbo of Belize City to Shauna Jo Anderson of Arkansas, USA

Claudio Tzul to Lurdez Romero both of San Pedro Town, Ambergris Caye

Rony Danilo Garcia to Lisa Marie Chock both of Steadfast, Stann Creek

Admir Osbaldo Balam to Ernilda Estela Osorio both of Orange Walk Town, Orange Walk

Armando De Leon Guox to Irma Noemi Ordonez both of Trial Farm, Orange Walk

Raymond Flowers Jr. to Tecia Te de Tec both of Carmelita, Orange Walk

Joaquine Rodriguez to Juana Paulita Salam both of Orange Walk Town, Orange Walk

Emilio Ku to Noemi Balam both of August Pine Ridge, Orange Walk

Jen Wei Tung to Li Lee both of Orange Walk Town, Orange Walk

Vicky Hareshlal Gyanchandani of Orange Walk Town, Orange Walk to Alejan-dra Sandra Garcia of Guinea Grass, Orange Walk

Gumercindo Ernesto Mendoza to Rosa Elena Suchite both of Orange Walk Town, Orange Walk

Zamir Isair Herrera to Elisani Lehopoldina Tejeda both of San Jose, Orange Walk

Rogel Baldemar Escalante to Dora Suyapa Munoz Castellanos both of Orange Walk Town, Orange Walk Jaime Efrain Novelo of Orange Walk Town, Orange Walk to Adelita Hernandez of Carmelita, Orange Walk

Julio Cesar Guerra of Benque Viejo del Carmen, Cayo to Angelica Maria Sala-zar of Orange Walk Town, Orange Walk

Jose Carlos Catzim to Gisela Paola Castillo both of San Estevan, Orange Walk

Eder Abimael medina to Farrah Liet Marchand both of Orange Walk Town, Orange Walk

Eddy Obdulio Monzon to Alba Patricia Aragon both of Orange Walk Town, Orange Walk

BirthsAlbert Gian to Albert and Doreth Alvarez nee Flores

Jerimiah Rodolfo to Rodolfo Paulino and Justina Antonia Cocom nee Ogaldez

Gabrielle Gisselle to Carlos Renan and Sonia Elizabeth Gamez nee Rivas

Jayla Diane to Henry Allan and Delma Bernett Holiday nee Tillett

Jhnelle Alexandrea to Jason Alexander and Michelle Marie Brakeman nee Pott

Yue Zhou to Xiong Jie and Xue Ting Huang nee Xu

Jazirah Curtlynn Amalia to Curt Stanley and Lizany Thomas nee Cawich

DeathsHumberto Chan, 81

Gladys Richards, 80

Romel Alexander Palacio, 53

Leonard Harrison Gillett, 24

Joseph Chesterfield Dawson, 75

Paula Herbert, 91

Karina Zelda Goff, 28

Featured Recipes

Remoulade is a mayonnaise-based French sauce or dip tradition-allymade with mustard (horseradish in this recipe), gherkins, and ca-pers.It is frequently featured in Creole or Cajun recipes and goes terri callywith shell sh and seafood. is lower-fat version features shrimp anda wealth of fresh, earthy vegetables. Try the dressing with other sh orgrilled meats.Ingredients1/4 cup tarragon vinegar2 tablespoons catsup1 tablespoon horseradish mustard3/4 teaspoon paprika1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper1/4 cup cooking oil2 tablespoons nely chopped celery2 tablespoons nely chopped green onion1 pound fresh or frozen shrimp in shell, peeled, deveined, and cooked4 cups torn mixed greens2 medium avocadosSliced cooked beets (optional)Hard-cooked egg wedges (optional)Lemon peel strips (optional)directionsFor remoulade, in a small bowl combine vinegar, catsup, horserad-ishmustard, paprika, and ground red pepper. Slowly add oil while beatingwith a whisk or fork; beat until combined. Stir in celery and greenonion.Place cooked shrimp in a plastic bag set into a bowl. Pour remou-ladeover the shrimp. Seal bag. Turn bag to coat shrimp. Marinate in therefrigerator for 1 to 2 hours, turning occasionally.To serve, drain shrimp, reserving marinade. Divide greens among 4dinner plates. Halve, peel, and seed avocados. Slice avocados and arrangeon torn greens. Arrange shrimp over avocados. If desired, garnishwith beets, hard-cooked egg, and lemon peel. Stir and pass reservedmarinade. Makes 4 main-dish servings.

Sunday,July 24th, 2011Page 18

Belize City, July 17, 2011 The undefeated Ministry of Edu-cation/Alamilla’sFurniture (7-0) rules the 2011 interoffice basket-ball competition with back to back wins at the Belize City Center over the weekend.MOE/Alamilla’s Fur-niture posted their 7th win: 68-52 over San Pedro’s War Paint Designs on Sunday. Greg Rudon drained in a long trey for 22pts to lead MOE/Alamilla’s. Jay Jex replied with 14 pts for War Paint to lead 14-11 in the 1st quarter. MOE/Alamilla’s Bran-don Rogers scored 14 pts and Kevin Lorenzo added 13 pts, to lead 27-22 at the half. MOE’s Da-vid Jones drained in a long trey to add 11 pts, while Rhenton Belisle and David Alamilla each scored a bucket to lead 57-34 in the 3rd quarter.San Pedro’s Emerson Cas-tillo added 9pts, Franklin Aranda and Aaron Hendricks chipped in 5pts, and Whitman Williams and Jerome Gillett each added a bucket in their loss.MOE/Ala-milla’s had posted their sixth win: 67-44 against of Caye Caulker’s Tropic Air on Wednesday.The CYDP are also undefeated after posting their 6th win 61-51 against the Ports of Belize last Friday. CY-DP’s Earl Johnson had 20 pts 10

MOE/Alamilla’s rules Interoffice basketball 7-0 rebounds and the end was never in doubt as CYDP led 12-10 in the 1st quarter and Justine Wade added 9 pts, 4 rebounds and Leon “Bigs” Williams had 7 pts, 12 rebounds for them to lead 32-22 at the half. Ports’ Vince Estrada had 14pts, Lennox Bowman added 13pts and Leroy Forbes - 12pts, but CYDP still led 47-35 in the 3rd quarter, with Marcel Orosco and Darwin “Dawgy” Elijio each drained in a long trey for the 61-51 win, while Ports’ Ian “AC” Augustine had 8pts, 10 rebounds.CYDP had also enjoyed their 5th win 58-53 over Krem/Hard Rock last Wednesday. After wining their opening night debut against Belize Telemedia, BWS Pressure has been plagued by a string of 5 losses be-fore they finally posted their 2nd win 69-61 over Youth for the Future on Sunday. BWS’ Jamir Enriquez had 16 pts, 11 rebounds to lead 20-13 in the first quarter and Ashley Hemsley added 16 pts, 11 rebounds and Lawrence Young had 14 pts, three rebounds to lead 31-25 at the half. Benson Matthews added 10pts, 8 rebounds to lead 46-38 in the 3rd quarter, while YFF’s Fenton Noralez led with 21 pts, Norman Humes scored 16 pts and Fenton Ross drained in 3 long treys to add 11pts and Stephen Wade had 5pts.

Belize City, July 17, 2011 The Strikers stopped the Dantos 9-8, and Team 313 cuffed the Police 14-2 inthe Belize City men’s soft-ball at the home of softball at the Roger’s Stadium on Sunday after-noon.Brandon Bood on the mound for the Strikers struck out 6 batters, conceding no runs for the first 4 in-nings, while Rayan Rowland came home in top of the 1st. inning.Dan-tos’ pitcher Garth Godoy struck out 7 batters to give up no more runs in the next 4 innings, and made it a 1-1 ball game when he came home in the bottom of the 5th inning. Dan-tos’ catcher Norman Martinez also came home in the 5th for the Dan-tos to lead 2-1.The Strikers soon led 7-2 when Rayan Rowland hit an out of the park homer in the top of the 6th and Bood, Troy Williams, Keith Madrill, Stephen “Muerte” Williams and Brent Hamilton also came home in the 6th.Dantos’ shorstop Johnston Machado, Go-

Strikers & Team 313 win in men’s softball

doy and Oscar Rios came home in the bottom of the 6th to trail 5-7. Machado and Godoy crossed the plate again in the bottom of the 7th taking the game into a tie-breaker 8th inning.The Strikers’ Brent Hamilton and Floyd Flow-ers came home in the top of the 8th to lead 9-7, and only Ronado Siu scored for the Dantos.In Game 2 of the evening, the mercy rule ended Team 313’s 14-2 spanking of the Police. 313’s Patrick Rowland came home in the top of the 1st in-ning, the Derrick Jones hit an out of the park homer to tie the bal game 1-1 in the bottom of the 1st.Jer-emy McCulloch on the mound for the Police struck out 5 batters, but his wildly erratic pitching walked 9 batters and 313’s Michael Nolan came home in the top of the 2nd and followed by Densmore Edwards as 313 led 2-1.Team 313 lead grew to

6-2 as Nolan, Jason Belisle, Gods-den Ferguson and Oscar Arnold came home in the top of the 3rd to lead 6-2 and only Linton Broaster came home for the Police in the bottom of the 3rd.Kevin Siroki,

David Vasquez, Belisle, Nolan, El-ton Gentle and Densmore Edwards scored 7 more runs in the top of the 4th and Milton Flores hit an out of the park homer to lead 14-2 and the game was called, when the Police scored no runs in the bottom of the 4th. Oceana Pros won 7-0 when Team 313 were a no show for their scheduled game on Friday night.

Sunday,July 24th, 2011 Page 19

Belize City, July 18, 2011 Belize Telemedia and the Guard-ian both enjoyed big wins when the interoffice basketball competi-tion continued at the Belize City Center on Monday night.Jamal Kelly had 17 pts, 3 rebounds as he led Belize Telemedia to a 80-58 blowout of Youth for the future on Monday. With Deveon Lozano’s 13 pts, 3 rebounds, BTL led 31-9 in the 1st quarter and Lupito acos-ta’s 13 pts, 4 rebounds gave thema 44-21 lead at the half.Ed thjomp-son’s 8ppts 5 rebounds and Lennox Cayetano’s 6pts ,10 rebounds put BTL up 61-40 in the 3rd quarter. Fenton Noralez led YFF with 14 pts 7 rebounds, while Fenton Ross added 190 pts, Lincoln Kelly added 8 pt 3 rebounds and Darwin Fergu-son had 7 pts, 4 boards.The Guard-ian had also brewed a bitter 53-46 defeat for the Belikin Knights of the Bowen & Bowen Group in Mon-day’s nightcap. Dwayne Davis led Guardian with 13 pts, 9 rebounds, and Egbert Walford had drained in 2 long treys to add 14 pts, 2 re-bounds while Calbert Carcamo added 11 pts 13 boards. Stafford Young had led Belikin with 14 pts 6 rebounds and Milton Flores added 12pts 3 boards to tie the ball game

Belize Telemedia & Guardian win in Interoffice basketball

20-20 at the half. Vergil Miller had 5 pts 10 boards for Belikin and Mi-chael Staine tossed in 8 pts and 10 boards, but Guardian took over the lead 36-31 in the 3rd quarter and Bernard Felix’s 4 pts, 5 rebounds and Zach Young’s 9 pts, 7 boards saw them through to a 80-58 win.. On Sunday, BTL did not do so well as the Belize Bank Bulldogs crunched down on a 71-61 win. Darwin “Puppy” Leslie led the Bulldogs with 16pts, 5 rebounds and Roscoe Rhys also had 15 pts, 9 rebounds. Jamal Kelly’s 13 pts, 5 rebounds gave BTL a 15-12 lead in the 1st quarter, but Darren Neal’s 12 pts, 5 rebounds and Kachief Thom-as’ 7 points, 5 rebounds put the Bulldogs ahead 35-26 at the half. Rupert Brown scored 8 pts for the Bulldogs to lead 48-39 in the 3rd quarter. Lupito Acosta drained in a long trey to add 11pts for BTL, Lennox Cayetono had 7pts, 12 rebounds and Chaka X had 7pts. Tuff e’Nuff (6-1) posted back to back wins: 81-62 over the Roe Group on Sunday, and 66-57 over Tropic Air on Friday night. Mirab has also enjoyed their first 2 wins of the competition: 54-51 over Tropic Air on Sunday, and an overtime 65-57 win over the Belikin Knights on Friday night.

Belize City, July 17, 2011 Team Belize has advance to the Group Stage in the 2nd round of qualifiers matches for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil a 3-1 win in Belize’s ‘home’ game against Montserrat at the Estadio Olimpico Metropolitano in San Pedro Sula on Sunday, July 17. Belize moved up with a 8-3 goal aggregate, as they had also won the 1st game 5-2.Dan-iel Jimenez struck Belize’s the first goal in the 23rd minute, finishing a play created by Elroy Kuylen racing up the left flank.Team Belize was up 1-0 at the half time break, but Mont-serrat’s star striker Gayle Hodgson, who had also scored the 2 goals in the first game, blasted in a shot past Belize’s goalie Shane Moody

Orio making it a 1-1 ball game in the 59th minute.“No pasa nada” as Team Belize ran rings around the bigger, island boys in the 2nd half and Deon McCauley scored the 2nd winning goal in the 60th minute .Luis Mendez iced the victory cake with a 3rd goal in the 62nd minute.The group in which Belize will be competing, will be determined by a draw to be held in Rio de Janei-ro on July 30, in Belize now joins the US Virgin Islands, Domini-can Republic, St Lucia, the Baha-mas, Panama, Canada, el Salvador Granada, Trinidad & Tobago and Haiti are leading the series, which also include Antigua, Guyana, Suri-name, St Kitts & Nevis, Guatemala, Dominica, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Curacao, St Vincent, the Cayman Islands, Nicaragua, and Bermuda.

Belize vs Monserrat June 15th

Sunday, July 24th , 2011Page 20

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