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Specials and Events

Last night's TV news on Channel 7, Channel 5, LOVETV, PGTV, West Vision (Cayo) and CTV 3. Also with the most recent Open Your Eyes, Rise and Shine Morning Show, and the Dickie Bradley Specials


The San Pedro Sun

Wolfe's Woofer: Old Boots
I was reading and drinking my coffee on the deck at the Holiday Hotel. Two local men that I knew for a long time got a beer and sat down at the table next to me. As they began talking I didn't pay any attention until Raul said, "Javi, I'm going to Belize City tomorrow. The next time you see me I will be a divorced man." "What?!" Javier said. "You're divorcing Lupe?" "I sure am. Enough is enough." "What are you talking about? You and Lupe been together a long time. She's beautiful and everybody thinks you make a great pair. Why are you divorcing her?" "It's like this," Raul said. "See these boots I got on? What do you think of them?"

Dutch Lady celebrates World Milk Day
"What are cookies without milk?" That is a rhetorical question the Dutch Lady asks. The history of "World Milk Day" originates in 2001, led by the United Nations, and since then, it is celebrated internationally and across the Caribbean. Adapted in 2012, it has been celebrated annually, and on Wednesday, June 1st, the Dutch Lady crew of Santiago Castillo brought the party to the island. Several schools: San Pedro Roman Catholic School, Holy Cross Anglican School, Ambergris Caye Elementary and Isla Bonita, and the general public made their way to the Central Park to learn about the positive benefits of the popular drink. A 'farm' was set up with a replica of a cow, allowing children to milk the cow's simulated udders. Students were also treated to samples of Dutch Lady Milk, cookies and received a surprise bag of Dutch Lady products that included a coloring book and crayons. A bounce house was the center of attraction for the children, and the milk samples gave them the strength to jump high in the air and bounce around.

Doctor Love: Old Love
Dear Doctor Love, When I graduated high school I had a girlfriend of 4 years. A year after graduation she turned 18 so we moved in to live together. Of course her parents and mine were very upset at this because they had plans for us to go to college and they did not think we would make it through school either married or living together. After a year of pressure from our families we gave in. She went to school in the U.S. and I went to school in Mexico. We eventually lost touch with each other and now I have been happily married for 14 years with 3 children. 3 months ago she moved back to Belize for an extended visit. She looked me up shortly after she got here and I found out that she was divorced with no children. We met to discuss old times and suddenly everything was just like it was 18 years ago. We are as much in love as we were in high school. Now, our relationship has changed and is physical as well as emotional. I do not see how I can survive without her in my life. I am so torn between being a good husband and father and being satisfied emotionally. Can you help me decide what to do?

Misc Belizean Sourcesmzz

Ban Glyphosate
From June 6-10, the Coordinating Group of Pesticide Control Boards for the Caribbean will be meeting at the San Ignacio Hotel in Cayo. We think it would be a great opportunity for people to make an appearance, even briefly, to tell this group that Roundup and other pesticides containing glyphosate must be banned in our country and through the Caribbean. So far, the only Central American country that has banned it is El Salvador. It has been banned in Bermuda, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Columbia Brazil and Canada, to name a few. Other countries in Europe and Africa have also banned it and more are moving to do the same thing. Glyphosate has been declared a cancer causing agent by the World Health Organization. It is widely used in the agricultural sector in Belize as well as in homes. When it is sprayed on fields, whether by tractor or aerial, it gets into the water and the air and can cause serious health problems, as well as cancer. Seeking to reach the Coordinating Group of Pesticides Control Boards is a good start to work toward banning the use of glyphosate in Belize. Who doesn't know someone with cancer or renal failure; it is also harmful to pollinators such as bees and butterflies and those are just a few reasons why it should be banned. For more information on the petition write George and Candy Gonzalez at [email protected] or [email protected].

South Ambergris Caye Neighbourhood Watch June General Meeting
Join us at Lone Star Grill & Cantina for our regular monthly meeting. Wednesday June 8th at 7:00pm.

First Holy Communion, Caye Caulker
Congratulations to all the children who received their First Holy Communion today. Boys in the back left to right. Corbin Pacheco, Adrian Marin, Jamile Alvarado, Emir Magana Jr., Jadon Surtherland, Daniel Blease, Aneeki Palacio (not in photo), Royrick Sankey (not in photo). Girls left to right. Noriely Medina, Mia Cutkelvin, Kimanie Chuc, Flora Cho, Kagan Alamina, Sheily Magana.

Corozal Community College PROM NIGHT
From drum rolling, fire dance, fairy tale presentations, glamour, swag and some fire works displays - it was all their night. A total red carpet affair. Here is a snippet of last night CCC's PROM presentation. Congratulations to those that will be graduating and here is wishing you all the very best in your future endeavours. For those that did not make it, don't give up, but keep trying.

Psychedelic Blues Experience
Another great Full Moon concert at the Cayo Welcome Center. The Psychedelic Blues Experience provided some amazing blues. "The Belize Soul project, space for the creative arts and the San Ignacio & Santa Elena House of Culture (NICH) teamed up to have a full moon concert, and this time it was the Psychedelic Blues Experience. The Cayo Welcome Center was the perfect spot for it."

This lil raptor lost his nest after a forest fire
At the entrance of the Eligio Panti National Park swept down the tree with the nest. Tomorrow morning it will make its way to Belize Bird Rescue where it will be rehabilitated and put back into the wild.

The Reporter

Muhammad Ali dies; scheduled to be buried Friday
Retired three-time heavy weight champion, Muhammad Ali, 74, dubbed "The Greatest Boxer of All Time", died Friday evening. His coffin has made its final journey home to Louisville, where the legend will be buried. The coffin touched down shortly after 4.30 p.m. Sunday, after a three-hour flight from Phoenix. Eleven funeral cars and a hearse pulled onto the tarmac to greet the star's body along with his family. A police escort led the motorcade to a local funeral home where the burial will take place. Ali planned the arrangements for his funeral years ago. He wanted a procession to carry his body down an avenue that bears his name, through his boyhood neighborhood and down the same streets where he brought home a gold medal from the 1960 Olympics. Speaking about the plans, family spokesman Bob Gunnell said they "certainly believe that Ali was a citizen of the world � and they know that the world grieves with him." Friends have revealed Ali's fighting spirit helped him defy doctors for 20 years, as he held up against his debilitating Parkinson's disease.

Miss Belize Universe restructured, returns!
The Miss Belize pageant, disgraced in the past by a series of unpleasantries, is back after an almost 10-year hiatus, with a restructured makeup managed by a three-party company, with the blessings of the National Institute of Culture and History (NICH) and strictly guided by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The last time Belize sent a representative to participate in the Miss Universe pageant was 2007, but the company, Queen of the Jewel now managing and organizing the Miss Belize pageant, hopes that on September 10, a new Miss Belize will be selected to once again put Belize on the international stage in the most popular pageant in the world. Hoping to capitalize from the millions of viewers of the Miss Universe pageant, the owners of Queen of the Jewel, Orson Elrington, Opal Enriquez and Reynaldo Malic plan to promote Belize on this international platform. Elrington told the media at a press briefing on Wednesday that in its bid for the Miss Universe franchise, Queen of the Jewel enlisted the assistance of the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) as a partner to help highlight Belize and its culture in the venture. It also hopes to have the Belize Tourism Industry Association (BTIA) in a similar capacity, and has also commissioned Belize's Music Ambassador Shine Barrow to bring in international artists and hosts and to use the facilities available in the music industry to promote the pageant and Richard Holder as its director of photography.

Belize prepares for World Accreditation Day 2016
The Belize Bureau of Standards (BBS) in the Ministry of Trade, Investment Promotion, Private Sector Development and Consumer Protection, is preparing to host the 2016 celebration of World Accreditation Day. The event, which will gather several public and private sector entities to discuss the importance of accreditation, will be held on June 9 at the Best Western Belize Biltmore Plaza Hotel under the theme "Accreditation: A Global Tool to Support Public Policy." Consumer Protection Liaison Officer with the BBS, Rodolfo Gutierrez, explained that the session will include information about organizations within Belize who have been certified by various accreditation bodies across the world, along with testimonials from the local organizations as to how accreditation has benefitted them. "What it does is that it focuses on what accreditation does for all areas of the public sector, both at the national and local government levels," Gutierrez said. "The highlight will be a recognition ceremony for the BBS for having successfully implemented a Quality Management System through its recent certification on the ISO 9001 standard."

Olympic Committee holds 20th Annual Olympic Day run
Around 200 participants gathered in front of Brodies on Regent Street for the 20th Annual Olympic Day run, hosted by the Belize Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (BOCGA). The run, an event hosted worldwide by the numerous Olympic associations, had divisions for children nine years old and younger, ages 10-13, ages 14-19, and 20 and older. The participants started off at 6:30, and ran up Regent Street, turned on to Albert Street, went around the "Yabra" Cemetery and headed back towards Regent Street. The nine and under participants did a half lap, cutting off of Albert Street, onto King Street and then back to Regent Street. The 10-13 and 14-19 participants did one full lap, and the 20 and over did two laps. The Committee prepared certificates and medals for the top three winners and ribbons for all the other participants. However, Hilberto Martinez, president of the Olympic Association explained that the event takes on a more collaborative than competitive spirit.

Blogs

Dry Ambergris Caye Really Does Rock With Steve Miller's Band "Abracadabra"
And right across the street, at Mahogany Bay Village, current and former members of the Steve Miller band were performing - a fundraiser for the South Ambergris Caye Neighborhood Watch. In all honesty, I wasn't planning to attend�I LOVE STEVE MILLER�ahhhh�the greatest hits were a huge part of my college years (1991 to 1995) but the tickets were pricey. But I got LUCKY! As I was headed north to buy groceries, I met a friend who had an extra VIP PASS! WOOHOO! In what were basically pajamas, I jumped into her cart. They were doing tons of Steve Miller's biggest hits�Jungle Love, Abracadabra, Fly Like An Eagle�and a sprinkling of others�Doobie Brothers and even Purple Rain by Prince - a close friend of one of the performers.

Half Moon Caye National Monument: This is Birding & Diving Heaven
As atolls go, Half Moon Caye National Monument is the furthest from Belize's mainland and while it's tiny, it has been given a very long name. In fact, this caye's claim to fame is for the birds: It's the nation's oldest protected wildlife site and plenty of prestigious entities make sure it stays pristine, including Belize's National Parks System Act of 1981, the Belize Audubon Society and this is designated a United Nations World Heritage site. Why so important? This is home to Boobies. Countless numbers of these noisy birds. So if you're a birder, you may refer to this atoll simply as avian paradise. For starters, this unusually shaped parcel of land erupting from the sea has an asymmetric shape surrounded by a fringe of reef to create a platform that safeguards a tranquil lagoon. Every inch of the reef is lavished with coral patches that attract marine wildlife-especially fish-and it's been around for longer than the nation of Belize has existed. Governments may have come and gone, but wildlife protection ordinances remain stringent, thus for a piece of land that only measures 41.5 acres in the midst of 9,658+ acres of sea, it's understandable why this remote atoll is also one of the area's most popular deep sea diving sites.

When the power goes out on Ambergris Caye, the feet start walking
True to its word, Belize Electric Ltd. (BEL) shut down the entire island's electricity at 6 a.m. Saturday morning for some maintenance projects. I suppose that sounds a little strange to you, my First World family and friends, but that is how things are done here. When something is taken off-line for repairs, the whole island goes black. I guess we just don't have the redundancy systems that would allow them to bypass a transformer, feeder, substation or whatever. By BEL does have a Facebook alert system and the utility posted warnings as early as Friday about the shutdown. So, you adjust, roll with it and move on. In my case, the power outage meant that Saturday morning presented a good time to take a nice walk up the beach in the Tres Cocos neighborhood to admire the good work our First Friday volunteer clean-up crews had accomplished.

International Sourcesizz

Exploring The Mystery of the Maya
Excellent article about Xunantunich from Taste of Life magazine. "A symphony of howler monkeys, parakeets and toucans announce a new day at the foothills of the ancient mountains of Belize. An alarm clock is a trivial possession here in the Cayo District, where creatures great and small sing homage to Kinich Ahau, the Mayan sun god, as the first golden rays slice through the dense jungle."

Widnes soldier learning survival and fighting skills in tropical Belize jungle
A SOLDIER from Widnes is battling tropical jungle conditions learning how to survive and fight in some of the world's toughest environments. Owen Pettican, 21, a Lance Corporal in the 2nd Battalion of The Duke Of Lancaster's Regiment, will be in Belize for a month working in energy-sapping humidity and temperatures of more than 30°C. He is working alongside the Belize Defence Force (BDF) - among the world's best tropical fighting forces - and has been in the Army for four years, serving in Cyprus, Estonia, the Falkland Islands, Latvia and Kenya. The former Wade Deacon High School pupil said: "I never had any family connections to the Army but it was something I had always wanted to do since I was a little kid, some of my best mates are in the Army - I made a good choice. "This is one of the best places I have been to so far.

Neighbors Helped Maya with Disaster Recovery
An international research team led by Assoc. Professor Akira Ichikawa with the Institute for Advanced Research at Nagoya University have discovered a monumental platform (measuring 70 meters by 60 meters with four tiers) constructed using a variety of stones, at San Andr�s, an archaeological site in El Salvador, shedding new light on the socio-cultural development of the Maya people who lived there. When the volcanic caldera, Ilopango, erupted between 400 CE and 500 CE, it devastated a number of Maya cities and covered an area of 10,000 square kilometers (at a minimum) in a blanket of ash a waist deep. The platform discovered at San Andr�s was built directly above this layer of ash, suggesting the people were able to start the recovery process much sooner than previously thought, and they did it with the help of a neighboring community. The masonry architecture of the platform is very similar to the method of building associated with people from the Quelepa area (another archaeological site in eastern El Salvador), although the Maya in this region used earthen material for construction during this time period. The introduction of a new construction technology indicates that this neighboring group likely came to the city's aid following the eruption.

Barrow soldier brothers tackle 'Mayan Warrior' training in Central America jungle
TWO brothers from Barrow are training in jungle warfare deep in the rainforests of Central America in one of the British Army's most demanding missions. Kingsmen Perry and Jordan Mason, infantrymen with the 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, are working alongside the Belize Defence Force in 'Exercise Mayan Warrior'. The former St Bernard's High School pupils are in Belize for five weeks with around 100 others from the battalion's Blenheim Company, learning how to survive and fight in energy-sapping humidity and temperatures of 30°C. Jordan, 21, joined the Battalion in April. He said: "I've only ever been abroad on holiday before, so I was really happy when they told me I was coming to Belize. "I've been surprised by how humid and sweaty it is, the snakes are a bit worrying, but I'm really enjoying the training."

Videos

  • Morning Matters with Larry, 58min.

  • Zip Lining Through The Jungle in Belize, 15min. Jaguar Cave zip line shore excursion in Belize. June 1, 2016.

  • Blackbird Caye Belize 2016, 9min.

  • Belize - The Secret Jewel, 3min. One of the world's most colorful places. Belize will never fail to impress! I loved every second of my trip. Filming locations - San Pedro, Belize City, Belmopan, Tikal National Park.

  • Belize 2016, 10min. Belize Vacation 2016.

  • Belize - San Pedro Ambergris Caye - Vacation - 2012, 5min. Our vacation to Belize San Pedro Ambergris Caye July 2012.

  • Cornhole tournament at the Truck Stop San Pedro Belize, 1min.