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Last night's TV news on Channel 7, Channel 5 and CTV3
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The San Pedro Sun

Doctor Love: Dental hygiene
Readers, please send your letters. They can be emails, formal letters or handwritten notes. They are edited solely for grammar and spelling. Also, they are sometimes edited for length. Dear Doctor Love, I am married to a woman with two grown children by another marriage. Her boy is my adopted son, which makes me the [�]

Wolfe's Woofer: Alcohol
"Stop at this store, Konrad," I said. "Let me get some potato chips before they close. Do you guys want anything?" Konrad and Sherry both said, "No," so I went on in to get my chips. One of our local drunks was at the counter with a bottle of rubbing alcohol. "I'm sorry but I [�]

In Loving Memory of Stephen Alexander "Papi Box" Manuel
Stephen Alexander Manuel was born on October 10, 1956 in Belize City to parents Charles Manuel and Fidelia Rodriguez. As a child, he was very jovial and loved to play, often getting into mischief. He grew up lovingly among four sisters who to the very end, he cared for and protected. He ran away to San Pedro at the age of 11, fending for himself since then. On the island he became another member of the Dawson family, living with Mrs. Clementina and Dan Dawson. Carrying his full weight, at that age he became one of the island's electric plant operators. He worked alongside men such as Mr. Gualberto "Wally" Nunez and Omar Arceo turning the electricity on and off for the island day in and day out.

Misc Belizean Sources

Girl dies in motorcycle crash
A 5 year old child perished on Holy Saturday when a motorcycle she was riding on with two other persons crashed into the back of a passenger bus in Belize City. The incident happened sometime after 4 pm yesterday on North Front Street near the BelChina Bridge. The child has been identified as 5 year old Akeela Wade. After the crash, the child was rushed to the KHMH where she succumbed to her injuries. The two other persons riding on the motorcycle received non-life-threatening injuries.

Cayo man drowns on Good Friday
A man from Santa Familia village, Cayo died on Good Friday, reportedly from drowning. 37 year old Arsenio Landero and his wife were traveling by canoe on the Belize River sometime before midday on Good Friday when the tragedy occurred. According to reports, Landero is believed to have been under the influence of alcohol and somehow during the course of the journey from Esperanza village to Santa Familia, the canoe became unstable and eventually overturned. While his wife was able to swim to shore and seek help, Landero went under the water and did not resurface. His body was retrieved from the Belize River about a half an hour later.

Partial collapse of a dock reported in Caye Caulker village
No one was seriously hurt this afternoon when a portion of a dock in Caye Caulker village broke, throwing some people into the Caribbean Sea. The dock belonging to one of the water taxi operators, appears to have buckled under the weight of the many people who were standing up waiting to board their boat for a trip back to Belize City around 4:45 pm.

The Reporter

Boat dock collapses on Caye Caulker
A crowded boating dock in Caye Caulker reportedly collapsed today. We are not certain if anyone was injured but some of the passengers who were waiting to board a commercial vessel fell into the sea. The incident occurred during one of the busiest times of year for boat travel in Belize, the Easter holidays.

Man drowns in Cayo District
A man drowned in the Cayo District on Holy Saturday. Reports are that Arsenio Landero, 37, and his wife were returning home in a canoe on the Macal River after spending the day socializing with friend. Reports are that the canoe capsized and Landero went under. His body was later recovered.

Traffic accidents claim two lives
A little girl lost her life in a traffic accident on Holy Saturday in Belize City. Keela Wade, 5, was reportedly traveling on North Front Street along with Kelsey Peyrefitte and Sonia Carcamo on a motorcycle when they ran into the back of a bus. The incident happened sometime before 5 p.Wade died about an hour later while receiving treatment at the Karl Heusner while Peyrefitte suffered an injured knee and eye. Police are investigating. Meanwhile, an elderly man was knocked down and killed on the Stann Creek Valley Road on Holy Saturday evening. Lloyd Savery Sr., 91, was reportedly heading home around 6 p.m. when somewhere near mile five a blue Kia traveling in the same direction knocked him down. Savery suffered head and body injuries and died an hour later at the Southern Regional Hospital. Police have served the driver of the vehicle with notice of intended prosecution.

Blogs

From Benque to Belize City to San Pedro: It's A Very Varied Easter Basket in Belize
I hopped on a 1pm bus from Benque to Belize City - most people do not travel on Good Friday and there were few buses. But mine was blissfully pretty empty and we got to Belize City in 2.5 hours. (The previous day, in a VERY full bus that stopped at what felt like everyone's house, the trip took almost 4 hours.) Belize City, on Good Friday and then again on Easter Saturday, was pretty much a ghost town. I woke up at 530am to a heavy shower pounded on the tin roof and then quickly cleared. A beautiful breezy Belize City morning. The big event was the Saturday morning 86th Annual Cross Country Bicycle Race. The riders, many Belizean, some foreign, start from Belize City at 6am, cycle all the way out to San Ignacio and then back to Belize City sometime around noon. We headed to the finish line at the newly refinished BTL Park. With kiosks, a boardwark over the sea and actual grass, this park looks lovely. (Another word not often associated with Belize City.)

"Rose in Paradise" in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize.
Things like "who is going to take him for his walks" (me most probably), "who is going to feed him " (Rose I'd say definitely), "who is going to bathe him" (think I got that one), and "who gets to pet and stroke him" (think Rose has unofficially claimed this one). Oh, and "who gets the poop scooping duty" (an uncontested me on that one. Not that I got to vote!). It's not all been about preparing for Ziggy though. I did take up the cudgel (OK, the paintbrush) with the exterior side of the fence again. It didn't last that long though because ants started to bite my feet (I really don't have a clue what type they are but they are vicious. And there are so many of them). I manfully endured the pain until I ran out of the preservative I am using and then I very quickly scuttled indoors to lick my wounds (not literally of course). I also arranged for the water test for the boat that we are considering buying. Its set for 10.00 hours next Thursday. I'll obviously let you know if the engine is 'up to it'. If not, then it's 'back to the drawing board'. Hopefully not though.

International Sources

See the Global Shipping Revolution In These Beautiful Ocean Maps
The global shipping industry has completely transformed our world: Today, 90 percent of everything in your life arrives via cargo ship. These two maps prove just how dramatically international trade has increased, by comparing the oceans of the 19th century with those of the late 20th. Ben Schmidt, an assistant history professor at Northeastern University, culled decades of data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set to create a series of maps that show shipping lanes in black against a simple white backdrop. The visualizations lay bare the sheer volume of stuff that's trekked across our oceans these days. Two maps pointed out by QZ, in particular, illustrate the revolution in shipping. One shows routes in the 19th century: And the other shows routes from 1980 to 1997-when our contemporary global economy had already emerged: The contrast is wild. It's not just a boom in volume, but also in precision. The 19th century map is hazy and vague, with ships curling in and out of traditional routes, while the contemporary map is a study in precision mapping. The two maps also depict a more shadowy shift, as Schmidt points out. In the 1800s, this was how America (and other nations) gleaned intelligence about the world around it:

Overview of the CenRut project
What is CenRut? CenRut is a community-based project to create and freely distribute GPS maps of Central America. The project covers El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and Panama. How do I load the maps onto my Garmin GPS? The simple method (recommended): If you have a Garmin GPS, right-click on this link: http://www.CenRut.org/Mapas/gmapsupp.img to save the GMAPSUPP.IMG file onto your computer. Then connect your GPS to your computer and save the file in the /Garmin/ folder on your GPS ( for newer models create the /Map/ folder on your GPS and load the file there). Then disconnect your GPS from your computer and turn on your GPS. That's all! The complete method: please refer to the complete Windows or the complete Mac method below, as appropriate. How do I know if the Cenrut maps are correctly loaded onto my GPS? Start your GPS and go to Tools>Settings>Map>Info. You should see the following:

The Drug Cartels Long March on El Salvador
More than two decades after the civil war in El Salvador ended, the nation remains fractured-a situation being worsened by increasing drug cartel presence and influence. In its recent presidential election, Salvador Sanchez Ceren of the governing left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) barely defeated Norman Quijano of the right-wing National Republican Alliance (Arena). With more than three million votes cast, the margin of Ceren's victory was only 6,364 votes, or 51.1 to 49.9 percent. Despite fraud allegations and a subsequent legal challenge by Quijano, an electoral court upheld the narrow victory for Ceren and the UN monitors certified the election results as valid. There are concerns that El Salvador could become another Venezuela, with American support for Arena over the past decade potentially leading to fresh political instability in light of their close loss in the latest election. The memories of paramilitary groups and death squads are ever-present.

Drug Cartels & Their Recent Control of Costa Rica
Costa Rica is under attack. Despite recent claims that "no terrorist groups or drug cartels lurk in the nation's mountains and rain forests," the evidence is quite the contrary. Even back in 2011, journalists were warning of the cartel influence creeping into Costa Rica. Since 2004, homicide rates - while still well below those of its neighbors such as Honduras and El Salvador - increased more than sixfold, and crime rates have doubled since the late 1990s. The nation was becoming popular (and still is) as a "warehouse" for cocaine being shipped from Colombia up to the USA. Some sharp lessons in realpolitik are coming to light for Costa Rica. Back in 1948, the country abolished its military and began grossly underfunding its police services in order to allow greater spending on health, education, other social benefits, and environmental protection. Now it has few institutional resources equipped to handle the growing cartel threat. The police and judicial systems are also exhibiting evidence of corruption. Polling data indicates that "nearly half of Costa Ricans consider citizen security the worst problem facing the country."

Central American Criminal and Terrorism Nexuses are Maturing
As Central America's northern cone nations set records for willful deaths, Honduras leads the world with a murder rate of 90.4 per 100,000. El Salvador, Guatemala and Belize's homicide rates are averaging, collectively, 42 percent per 100,000, as people literally fight for their lives. These seemingly unabated rates of murder, plus the kidnappings and assassinations of public figures, police, members of the armed forces and journalists, are the continuing and expanding product -- and chosen role -- of transnational organized criminals (TOC). And much of their achieved movement would not have been possible without facilitation and nurturing by rogue leftist political regimes, and paramilitary and guerilla-like forces, within this hemisphere. Each of the countries in the northern cone of Central America, as well as Mexico and the United States, have shared borders within the regions of hostile operational activities that witness fluid and seemingly unstoppable encroachment by the criminal insurgent-like actors. These TOCs, for the most part, use advanced military-type weaponry, superior firepower and more advantageous military tactics, including seen before elements of intelligence tradecraft employed by world terrorist organizations.

Videos

Video: Belize Honeymoon - Viaventure Central America, 5min.
An adventurous, young couple go on a fun, romantic, unique honeymoon in Belize where they climb temples in the jungle, swim in lakes and snorkel the reef with rays and turtles, make tortillas with the Maya community, kayak through ancient maya ritual caves, enjoy candlelit dinners beside firepits, luxuriate in hammocks and having massages, staying in wonderful luxury boutique hotels such as Ka'ana, Victoria House, Portofino, Nitun (Guatemala), El Convento (Guatemala)....... Email us for an example Honeymoon design and quotation [email protected]

Video: Belize 2014, 7min.
Diving with Whale sharks

Video: Jet ski belize, 5min.

Video: Belize Esmeralda, 6min.
Diving the Belize barrier reef following nurse sharks, grouper and moray eels around.

Video: Belize - 24 Dec 2013 to 11 Jan 2014, 4min.
Belize!! Caye Caulker, San Pedro, Blue Hole, Half Moon Caye, Raggamuffin tours, Rendezvous Caye, Tobacco Caye, Placencia, Hopkins, San Ignacio, Tikal Guatamala, RTB!

Video: Chukka Ziplining in Belize, 15min.
Our ziplining adventure at Chukka in Belize. Awesome people and a great adventure!

Video: Fishing in Belize & Belize Fly Fishing, 3min.
Tucked away in the luscious green hills in atop the Caribbean Coast of the south part of Belize; this beautiful lodge is a place to get away from the world. The meaning of agritourism-chic is Jungle Lodge and a nature reserve that spans across 12,000 beautiful acres. This Belizean lodge has so much to offer while on your Belize fishing vacation, including amazing adventures, wildlife watching, delicious local cuisine, saltwater fly-fishing and some of the best hospitality in the world.

Video: Belize 2014, 9min.
Belize and Guatemala Spring Break 2014

Video: Pharrell Williams - HAPPY (We Are ISIS Belize), 4min.
We love Pharrell's Happy tune because here in Belize we are very happy. Study abroad with I.S.I.S and you won't believe how Happy an adventure in education will make you. See you soon

Video: Under water in Belize, 6min.

Video: Hol Chan, Belize, 17min.
SCUBA diving in Belize at Hol Chan marine reserve. This was with my father and mother. Also there is some great footage in here where a guy in our group decided to use these hilariously tiny fins, even though he was told there would be a current and to get real fins. He didn't have enough weight to crawl apparently so he ended up using up his air and having to have the dive master save him (and share his air).

Video: Field Crew Survey Team in Belize, 10min.

Video: Feeding a jaguar in Belize!, 2min.
We got to feed chicken to a jaguar in Belize name Junior. He also licked Brock's forehead. Such an amazing experience to be so close to such a powerful creature!

Video: SCUBA Belize. Eagles Ray, Sea Turtle, Dolphins, 10min.
On this dive we saw quite a variety of creatures. Eagle rays, dolphins, and sea turtles!

Video: Belize, Snorkling at Shark Ray Alley, 8min.
Lots of Nurse Sharks here. There were also some kite surfers nearby.

Video: Earth from Space: Great Blue Hole [HD], 3min.
Earth from Space is presented by Kelsea Brennan-Wessels from the ESA Web-TV virtual studios. In the sixty-third edition, we look at an underwater sinkhole in the Belize Barrier Reef. The Lighthouse Atoll in the Belize Barrier Reef is featured in this image acquired by Japan's ALOS satellite. In the upper-central part of the image, an underwater sinkhole known as the Great Blue Hole appears as a dark blue circle. Surrounded by the shallow waters of the coral reef, the Great Blue Hole measures over 300 m in diameter and about 123 m deep. Formed when the sea level was much lower, rain and chemical weathering eroded the exposed terrain. Water later filled the hole and covered the area when the sea level rose at the end of the ice age. Also visible in the image are two coral islands -- green with vegetation -- called cayes. The larger to the west is Long Caye, and the smaller Half Moon Caye is to the east. As part of the Belize National Parks, the Half Moon Caye Natural Monument was the country's first protected area. The almost 40 sq km island is an important breeding area for the seabird, the Red-footed Booby. The greater Belize Barrier Reef has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996, but in 2009 it was put on the List of World Heritage in Danger. The reef provides a significant habitat for threatened species, including marine turtles, manatees and the American marine crocodile. The Advanced Land Observing Satellite captured this image on 29 March 2011 with its Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer, which is designed to chart land cover and vegetation in visible and near-infrared spectral bands, at a ground resolution of 10 m. Date of Production: 26 April 2013 Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)