Important Note: This Internet version of 7 News is a verbatum
transcript of our evening television news script. Many interviews on our newscast
are conducted in Creole. In the interest of clarity for our foreign readers,
we attempt to paraphrase the Creole quotes in English
Two men from Salvapan are missing tonight - and their families are gravely concerned.
Marvin Cantes and John Raymundo - cousins, who are both in their early 30's were last seen on Wednesday heading eastbound to Belize City.
But on Thursday morning police found the vehicle they were in abandoned with the engine running on the road to the Sanitary landfill at mile 25 on the Phillip Goldson Highway. There was a trace of blood in the vehicle and one of their house keys was also inside. But no trace of the two men.
And, since yesterday - their family has been desperately searching the area. We met them out there today:
Rosa Esmeralda Alonso, Ex-Common-Law - Juan Reymundo "That they found a car that he rented to him here in this area and that the car had some bloodstains. Well, we asked if we can come and check the scene. Maybe we see something that we might recognize."
"So we came, the car's owner, Elmer, and me, we came out here and they said they already have the car there. So after that we stayed searching the area. We searched from here until Cotton Tree and nothing, nothing, nothing, no, nothing out of the way, nothing, no prints, no clothes, no phone, nothing."
"My hopes that he is drinking or something that can be right. So I was getting ready because he would drink normal like always drink with his friends, but he never miss home. It no matter if he reached three o'clock, he will reach home."
Jules Vasquez "Was Juan or Marvin involved in anything illegal?"
Rosa Esmeralda Alonso "Not that the family knows about. We have been asking, we have been inquiring their cousins because normally he doesn't drink with outsiders. It's always hang out with his cousins. That's it."
"All I am asking if anyone found the phone, anything, just turn it on. Just answer a call. Anything. We've been searching everywhere, but we can't find nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing."
Jules Vasquez "What's your greatest fear?"
Rosa Esmeralda Alonso "I don't want to fear. I know. But it's hard, especially how things have been these days. And you find out that, oh, somebody missing and then, you know, it's not that good news when they find them. At this point, we just want to know where they are and we just want to find them."
"His mother is very worried."
Raymundo has four children, Cante has three.
Anyone who has useful information about their possible whereabouts is asked to call 628-7016.
The Belize City Council and its garbage contractor are at odds tonight - and city residents are feeling the bite. Many northside homes didn't have their garbage picked up yesterday and the same on the southside today.
And the issue one again is money. City Hall owes Waste Control over eight hundred thousand dollars with arrears going back for about 3 months. And, until they get paid, Waste Control is on what you might call a go-slow: they say they are only picking up the garbage they can with their limited resources. So, today and yesterday that meant prioritizing garbage collection of industrial customers only - and collecting garbage from some Southside residences.
The City's position is that it simply cannot keep up with what it believes is the onerous charge for garbage collection to this contractor - which is 65 thousand dollars weekly - or more than 3 million dollars annually. This was a familiar refrain when the UDP's Darrell Bradley was mayor - and now, we're hearing it from the PUP for the first time since they took over city hall in 2018.
And for Waste Control? Well, if they don't get paid by Monday - they say they will be filing suit against the council. 7news is. Informed that a letter from their attorney Courtenay Coye LLP was sent to the council today that if the 820 thousand dollars in arrears is notepad by Monday, the council should be expecting a lawsuit for recovery of the outstanding sums.
Historically, in these cases, previous municipal administrations have turned to GOB for a bailout. In this case, the Bernard Wagner council has been pressing Belmopan for the political clearance to levy a monthly charge for residential garbage collection, but Cabinet has resisted it at every turn.
We asked the Deputy Prime Minister - and currently acting PM - whether Central Government may have to step in before this problem gets worse. Hyde wasn't aware of the issue, but plans to investigate:
Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources "First I'm hearing of this. It's probably the first time in the PUP has had the council since 2018. Previous to that this was an issue that happened every single year, multiple times per year. This is the first time in the six years that we've been there that you've had this situation."
"That's the first thing I would see. We're going to have a sit with the council and find out what the issue is and how they can work it out. Ultimately, councils have peaks and valleys. There's a time of the year when they collect a lot of money. There's a time of the year when they don't, and then usually they have problems meeting their bills in times when they don't. But if you've had the contract for as long as you've had the contract and there's no other business in town, there's no other game in town, then you have to be able to sit down and reason and work through these things."
"Like you shouldn't get here. The city is dirty as it is. Even with the garbage being picked up on a regular basis, something's going to have to give. I think central government is going to have to sit with local government and find out exactly what is the situation."
Reporter "Will you advocate or suggest that garbage tax?"
Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources "Well, we're not there. We've not been there for the last six years. I don't see why we would have to go there now? We just have to figure out how to pay our bills and make sure that we are consistent with that."
"I mean, they've been doing it for the last six years, I see no reason why they can't continue to do that without a garbage tax. So I'm not obligated with a garbage tax at all."
And in other news, yesterday we told you that the BNTU was demanding that GOB pay them their increments and allowances. They say they have persistently taken the issue to MOE, but to no avail.
But today the Minister said that they are working tirelessly to resolve it. He says it wasn't something created under this administration, and they have not been ignoring the concerns. They're hoping to resolve it soon.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education "It's a frustrating issue and as I have repeatedly said to the BNTU, everyone at the Ministry of Education, in fact everyone in the government of Belize is committed to resolving this matter. We don't get credit for it but this is a matter that goes back to 2018. We, our government, our Ministry of Education, working along with the treasury department and the accountant general, has brought back all of that from 2018 up to 2023 so what we're dealing with now is 2023 and the current year, trying to deal with those issues. Now, we've almost resolved everything for 2023 so there are other issues in terms of 2024 but we are working tirelessly, everyone is working, we're having regular meetings with them to discuss this matter. So we're trying to address and resolve this matter as quickly as possible. Obviously we know teachers want and deserve their increments, their allowances, so everybody is focused on getting it accomplished, we certainly hope that it will be resolved at the earliest possible time."
Reporter: "They asked to have it paid tax free, is this a feasible option?"
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education "Yeah I don't know, I don't want to speak on that because that's something I would have to discuss with the Ministry of Finance they're the ones that would have to make that decision. But I'm certainly willing to have that conversation with the Ministry of Finance."
In its release yesterday, the BNTU says, quote, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! We will no longer continue to beg for what is rightfully owed to our teachers...MoE and Managers, the ball is in your court but please note that our play has already been drawn up." end quote.
The new world screw worm has appeared in every cattle producing Central American country except Belize.
And now it's in Mexico - which has triggered the US to suspend cattle imports from Mexico. It's a temporary pause - but it has a huge effect on the trade between those countries.
And while that happened - Mexican cattle producers are pressing their government to ban imports from Belize - even though the screw worm has not been detected here yet.
The Screw Worm Technical Committee met today in Yo Creek, Orange Walk to discuss the recent events in Guatemala and Mexico. We start with an overview of the problem and then Belize's response:
Zoe Roberson Zetina, Managing Director, BAHA "First I want to confirm that we do not have a screw worm in Belize and we are going through active surveillance to make sure that we know the health status of our country. In our surrounding countries we pay attention specifically to Guatemala because they are the closest to us and we know that Guatemala right now is reporting 26 cases and the closest case to us is in the far western area of Peten and in that region they have only one reported case."
"The next closest to us is Honduras and Honduras is reporting just over 70 cases and we do believe that Honduras has been doing a really good job at maintaining or controlling the spread in that country."
Reporter "In terms of Mexico what are we looking at?"
Zoe Roberson Zetina, Managing Director, BAHA "Mexico has reported only one case and that case was reported at a internal control point and it was the illegal movement of cattle in which they reported that case."
"Because it was on an importation then it has not spread as far as Mexico is reporting so we are not very concerned about that case introduction into Mexico at this point."
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture "The USDA EFS has banned Mexico from exporting cattle into the USA for one screw worm in Peten, southern part of Mexico."
"So this is how serious these people look at their cattle industry and the Mexican associations that represent 800,000 cattle farmers wrote to the secretary for a culture telling him that he asking him to ban us. The government is under pressure by the associations there. The associations are asking the government to ban importation of cattle from Belize and from Guatemala. We are saying to them that there is no reason to do so when we are the only only screw worm free nation in Central America, and El Salvador, and we have cattle as a main industry, because Salvador doesn't have a cattle industry. We do."
"So technically speaking, we're the only country that does not have screw worm in the country. We're the only country that has traceability across the entire country. Every single cow is bled. Everyone has an ear ring. We know the number, where they come from, where they're going to, who owned them before. So we have that in place. Not even Mexico has that in place. And a matter of fact, the resources that government has put towards screw worm control right now is more than what we get from the region. This is how serious government is looking at this."
"You see, 30 years ago, our cattle industry was worth over $20 million? Today in 2024, it's worth close to $100 million, $90 to $100 million. So to us, it's serious thing. It's next to sugar cane. And we have more cattle farmers now than cane farmers, so it is a main foreign exchange earner for us. So we cannot allow this to go down."
The task force meets weekly.
Mai says Belize needs to look at the establishment of a certified slaughtering facility which will enable Belize to export whole cuts of beef.
It's a video that went viral: Traffic Officer Kenrick Deshield being pushed off a bus by Evan Sweetbwai Caine.
Cain is in jail pending sentencing, but the bus line he worked for, "Fu We Transport" also has its road service permit under review by the Ministry of Transport.
All sides are seizing on the violence done to a traffic officer.
But the driver on the bus that day - who is the owner's son - has a very different version of events. Osborn Blease came by our studio today to say that officer Deshield was the aggressor:
We note that Officer Deshield reported to his higher up's that he pulled over the bus because it had too many passengers and because it was operating with the door open.
Fu We Transport also issued a release saying, quote, "All our buses, are fully licensed, insured, and operate in strict compliance with regulatory and safety standards. The allegation that this bus was carrying standing passengers at the time of the encounter is also entirely inaccurate. While we occasionally accommodate standing passengers to ensure timely service for commuters, there were no standing passengers onboard during the interaction with the traffic officer, as claimed." End quote.
Last week, social media lit up with rage after one purported news page posted that an 11-year-old boy had been sent home from school after he couldn't pay 4 dollars and 50 cents for Children's Day. By the end of the day, the Ministry had issued a press release clarifying that their investigation had revealed that the story posted on social media was not true.
Over the weekend, the child's grandfather said that it was some students who told the child he wasn't allowed to be at school.
Today we asked Fonseca what the real story was.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education "It's a difficult issue because I don't want to violate the privacy of the family but I will say this. We're dealing with a case of a special needs child and other members of the family who are also special needs so the child was not turned away from school because of the inability to pay any fee, that was not the case. The child, as the family, as the legal guardian of the child has reported and made public, so I can speak to that, the child went to school and got into some back and forth with some other student, got frustrated and then left school. And this was not the first time that this has happened, this was not the first time. So we're satisfied, we did the full thorough investigation into the matter. We're absolutely satisfied that in fact that is what happened. That of course is not acceptable, we have to try to address that. We want to ensure that all of our children, especially our children with special needs, that the school environment is welcoming to them, that other students understand and appreciate that they have to treat their fellow students with dignity and humanity. So that's a separate issue but certainly it was not the case, I want to make that very clear, it was not the case that any school or principal or any policy was in place that required this child to pay any money to enter the school, that is absolutely not the case."
And the media also asked the minister about those students affected by the flooding, especially in the Belize River Valley area. He said that the ministry has had to suspend some classes, but that they're working with schools to draft an individualized plan as opposed to a one-size-fits-all approach.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education "There's an ongoing discussion about that. As you now, the ministry, when it was required, we cancelled classes, we postponed classes. But yes we're looking at all of those alternatives, in those cases we work very closely with the managements, we work with the principals of those schools, because we don't want to do any general policy, it has to be targeted. Certain schools are affected in a manner, in a much more substantive way than others so we address it in a school by school basis but yes we are working with all those affected schools in those communities, especially in the River Valley right now, especially to address those where students are not able to go to school, to come up with an alternative plan."
And as the area rep for Freetown, he has faced off against Lee Mark Chang previously. So we asked Fonseca what he thinks of the rumors of his former opponent's desire to run in Mesopotamia.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education "Interesting development, I really honestly have not had an opportunity to pay much attention to the ongoing circus in the UDP. But that development, if it takes place, would be another very serious layer in terms of this drama that's playing out for us so we'll have to wait and see."
Doodle Learn is a program targeting Spelling and Math to help students who missed out on crucial lessons during the COVID pandemic. These students had been engaged in distance learning and the data shows that those in standard four right now were most affected. In 2020, they would have been in infant 2.
Today at All Saints we asked both the Minister and the school's principal about the integration of this program.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education "A lot of work has gone into that, a lot of analysis, a lot of data gathering as you rightly said. Both through our local experts and our local team as well as partnering with our international partners like the International Development Bank, the World Bank, and all of this. And that, yes, that students in that age group, say 10 to 12 were most affected and then it also highlighted, no surprise to us, it also highlighted that in these foundational areas of math and language, reading, spelling, the time table, those things were specific areas that were identified as areas that were weak and those were obviously foundational subjects and foundational areas so we had to come up with a plan to target that and this is a part of that response, it's a part of a much larger response to this issue that has been ongoing for many years, for several years, four years. But we were able to get the support of the IDB to fund some of these tools that we're giving out today."
Collin Estrada, Principal, All Saints School "Right now, as you rightfully heard, it is in standard four that the program is solely for, okay? And so the students will have their license for a year. And so when they go into standard five, the ones that are coming up from standard three to standard four, they will get the license to go into the program."
Reporter "Do you fear that the students who are in standard five and six and have already graduated since then, that they missed out on crucial, you know, that period, and now they're in high school."
Collin Estrada, Principal, All Saints School "One of the things that we at this institution tried as, much to do during that period was that we had the Google Suite and even up to the point that we had here whereby we were able to lend students computer to be able to take home so they won't be that much of a deficiency,"
6,000 kids from 70 schools across the country will have access to the program.
Today Beltraide held its 7th Annual National Entrepreneurship Convention, or EntreCon. The theme this year is "Powering Small Businesses with Big Data and Artificial Intelligence." The guest speaker, Deputy PM Cordel Hyde, spoke about the need to integrate AI and the benefits it can have for small businesses.
And while Hyde was only filling in for the PM at this event, he's been busy with land clinics across the country. His presence at the clinics means that sometimes he has to spend a good deal of time trying to untangle complex issues that residents are facing. He told us more about it.
And like we reported Hyde is holding over while the PM is out of the country. But there was no announcement from the Government Press Office about Briceno's departure. We asked Hyde about it.
The beginning of December marks the observance of World Aids Day, and in Belize, the National Aids Commission hosted their opening ceremony today. The theme this year is "Take the Rights Path" and it ties into respecting the human rights of persons living with HIV and AIDS, and focusing on how to improve the care that they receive. The director Enrique Romero explained more.
The Belize Electricity Limited has had a tumultuous year, what with load shedding, frequent and unpredictable power outages, and of course, criticisms from the public. As they recalibrate and prepare to face the projected droughts and heat waves of 2025, they want to reassure the public that they will be in a much better position next year. That is due in part to the upgrades made to the Westlake Gas Turbine and the fact that the San Pedro Gas Turbine is now on stream.
And today they held a media workshop where they outlined their short term plans as well as their expansion plans. Following the workshop, the Senior Corporate Communications Officer gave a brief overview of what exactly makes them better prepared come next year.
Emmanuel Pech, Sr. Corporate Communications Officer, BEL "The purpose for having a media energy workshop was to build capacity and the knowledge, the technical and historical knowledge on the energy landscape. We understand the vital importance that our media partners play in informing our public about the energy landscape."
"So it's very important for us to have initiatives like this, where it's about engaging with our media partners, it's about informing them of the energy landscape and building that capacity to ensure that then you all in the media profession can better report, more accurately report and more efficiently report on energy related matters."
"We know that energy has been a topic, a heated topic in the media recently, particularly because of the year that we've had with all the challenges. But we want to reiterate that we remain optimistic that we will be able to meet our customers energy needs into 2025."
"Of course 2025 won't be without its challenges, but as you may have heard and as you will appreciate through the presentations, is that we have a plan and BEL today is in a much better position to meet our customers energy demands going into 2025."
"We have improved by 33 percent our in-country capacity and we continue to implement different initiatives to on the demand side management of things. As you may have heard, one of the projects we're working on is the replacement of street lights countrywide to LED and that was just one example of the initiatives that we're doing on demand side management. The other aspect of it is informing our customers with your help as well, the media, to we had an energy management activity that you guys were able to participate in and could have acknowledged how different small initiatives that small acts at home or the office can create a big impact in reducing your overall demand."
"So it's a combination of many things. BL has its plan. We are doing our part. And we also have the other side of it, which is the energy management side of it, where we seek out the assistance of you guys and media, the businesses and customers who also assist by practicing energy conservation and being more energy efficient."
Earlier this week, the governor of the Central Bank pointed out that while inflation continues to have an effect on Belizean families, the numbers are coming down. But, you may be feeling it in different ways because the impact of the inflation is mostly domestically generated. That means it's not imports that are driving up prices, but locally produced foodstuffs, especially fruits and vegetables:
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture "Last year the same time, we had the inflation spike again. Remember that the same time, the weather patterns, not only in Belize, but even in Mexico. Excess rainfall has caused losses to the farmers, right?"
"So you have losses, you have less product, you have supply and control, it is supply and demand. And so the farmers, I got a call while ago that the farmers from San Carlos carrots are not looking good. So the farmer would have taken a thousand pounds, he'd taken 500 pounds.
"His costs gone up, he got losses. So the little carrots, he have that are good, he would try to get a better price for it. It's a natural reaction, right? But again, you heard the term climate change, over and over again, right? The soybean, we have about 50% of soybean loss right now. So the millers are quick to jump and say Minister gave us a permit so we import soybean, I said wait. But what the farmer got first."
"Obviously the farmer wants a little more now, because he has lost."
And, along with that bit of climate bad news - is the report that the watermelon crop flooded out - and now contraband Mexican watermelons are flooding San Pedro town. We asked Mai about it:
Reporter "I understand that there are reports that especially the market in San Pedro is flooded with contraband Mexican products."
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture "That's one of the problems we have on the very porous borders, that if you have a problem with your production, with your supply, clearly there will be illegal importation, but San Pedro has always been a problem for us with contraband, always, always, always."
"And so, that doesn't surprise me that they have contraband on the market, but again, whenever you have bad weather, you lose your crops, you lose your sweet pepper, you lose your tomatoes, I mean, they will try to find a way to import."
Inspector Chris Martinez was sentenced to 5 months in jail for wounding and today the High Court heard the appeal of that judgement from the chief Magistrate.
It dismissed the appeal and a request for a stay of execution on the judgment wasn't even heard.
That means Martinez will have to spend his remaining 3 months behind bars for a wounding conviction.
Justice Candace Nanton in her decision said she found nothing wrong with the Magistrate's sentence; she also said she didn't find the sentence handed down to be shocking to Belizeans; she also said Inspector Martinez should consider himself lucky on appeal since on appeal there is the possibility that sentence can increase as well as decease, and he got 5 months and not a year.
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Two men from Salvapan are missing tonight - and their families are gravely concerned.
"So we came, the car's owner, Elmer, and me, we came out here and they said they already have the car there. So after that we stayed searching the area. We searched from here until Cotton Tree and nothing, nothing, nothing, no, nothing out of the way, nothing, no prints, no clothes, no phone, nothing."
The Belize City Council and its garbage contractor are at odds tonight - and city residents are feeling the bite. Many northside homes didn't have their garbage picked up yesterday and the same on the southside today.
We asked the Deputy Prime Minister - and currently acting PM - whether Central Government may have to step in before this problem gets worse. Hyde wasn't aware of the issue, but plans to investigate:
"Like you shouldn't get here. The city is dirty as it is. Even with the garbage being picked up on a regular basis, something's going to have to give. I think central government is going to have to sit with local government and find out exactly what is the situation."
And in other news, yesterday we told you that the BNTU was demanding that GOB pay them their increments and allowances. They say they have persistently taken the issue to MOE, but to no avail.
"It's a frustrating issue and as I have repeatedly said to the BNTU, everyone at the Ministry of Education, in fact everyone in the government of Belize is committed to resolving this matter. We don't get credit for it but this is a matter that goes back to 2018. We, our government, our Ministry of Education, working along with the treasury department and the accountant general, has brought back all of that from 2018 up to 2023 so what we're dealing with now is 2023 and the current year, trying to deal with those issues. Now, we've almost resolved everything for 2023 so there are other issues in terms of 2024 but we are working tirelessly, everyone is working, we're having regular meetings with them to discuss this matter. So we're trying to address and resolve this matter as quickly as possible. Obviously we know teachers want and deserve their increments, their allowances, so everybody is focused on getting it accomplished, we certainly hope that it will be resolved at the earliest possible time."
The new world screw worm has appeared in every cattle producing Central American country except Belize.
"First I want to confirm that we do not have a screw worm in Belize and we are going through active surveillance to make sure that we know the health status of our country. In our surrounding countries we pay attention specifically to Guatemala because they are the closest to us and we know that Guatemala right now is reporting 26 cases and the closest case to us is in the far western area of Peten and in that region they have only one reported case."
Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
Last week, social media lit up with rage after one purported news page posted that an 11-year-old boy had been sent home from school after he couldn't pay 4 dollars and 50 cents for Children's Day. By the end of the day, the Ministry had issued a press release clarifying that their investigation had revealed that the story posted on social media was not true.
And as the area rep for Freetown, he has faced off against Lee Mark Chang previously. So we asked Fonseca what he thinks of the rumors of his former opponent's desire to run in Mesopotamia.
Doodle Learn is a program targeting Spelling and Math to help students who missed out on crucial lessons during the COVID pandemic. These students had been engaged in distance learning and the data shows that those in standard four right now were most affected. In 2020, they would have been in infant 2.
Reporter
The Belize Electricity Limited has had a tumultuous year, what with load shedding, frequent and unpredictable power outages, and of course, criticisms from the public. As they recalibrate and prepare to face the projected droughts and heat waves of 2025, they want to reassure the public that they will be in a much better position next year. That is due in part to the upgrades made to the Westlake Gas Turbine and the fact that the San Pedro Gas Turbine is now on stream.
"We know that energy has been a topic, a heated topic in the media recently, particularly because of the year that we've had with all the challenges. But we want to reiterate that we remain optimistic that we will be able to meet our customers energy needs into 2025."
Inspector Chris Martinez was sentenced to 5 months in jail for wounding and today the High Court heard the appeal of that judgement from the chief Magistrate.
