Shelmadine Baptist shared with the media that her son was an ex-B.D.F. soldier who wanted to be his own boss, so he left military life. His plan was to purchase a bus and to work on his own. But most of all, she said, Damion Baptist wanted to be with his children.
Voice of: Shelmadine Baptist
Voice of: Shelmadine Baptist, Mother of Deceased
“He was in the military. He left, I think like a year completely – a year and change. Yes, he left. He never did sign up back cause yoh know yoh have to sign up every so often, so he never did sign back because he wanted to have his own job. He said – the job, he wanted something different. The last time he talked to me and he said, Mommy, me and Robby wa buy wa bus. Dehn mi want buy the bus, but he mostly focus on the kids because he usually get them on holiday, so he was planning to get the kids for Easter, but I guess God had different plans, noh?”
Earlier today, former police officer Elmer Nah appeared unrepresented before the lower court, where he requested another copy of a digital video disc containing surveillance footage of the deadly shooting on New Year’s Eve 2022 that claimed the lives of Jon, David and Vivian Ramnarace. Nah claims that the footage on the initial DVD that was provided to him is of poor quality and he cannot make out any of the faces of the individuals seen in the video. Notwithstanding the absence of prosecutor Alifah Elrington, the Chief Magistrate addressed the matter, informing Nah that he cannot be given the original DVD. In respect of his attorney’s absence from court today, Nah was also told that his counsel would be the one to address the issue of the DVD on his next court appearance. Despite his issue with the material, the Chief Magistrate ordered that he be furnished with another copy of the footage on or before his subsequent court date which is scheduled for April tenth. Nah’s case for triple murder continues with a preliminary inquiry on that given date, as he has been provided with full disclosure on the matter.
On Monday, we reported on the unfortunate passing of twenty-six-year-old Liston Williams. The father of two was killed on March sixteenth, while he was just moments away from his home on Madam Liz Avenue. In an interview, police revealed that the murder was committed by an associate of Williams and that a suspect was in police custody. Today, we spoke with Williams’ family, who said that they hope no more violence will come out of the situation.
On the phone: Fade Williams
On the phone: Fade Williams, Sister of Victim
“So, yeah, we tek it hard, but we have to accept it for what it is. We have to accept it for what it is, and just move on and we just want to bury we brother inna peace. And whatever happens, when he dead, we just want that stay weh dat deh and we wah left everything to God.”
Britney Gordon
“Have you been in contact with the police or anything?”
Fade Williams
“No really get in contact with no police or nothing. We just wah whateva happen stay deh. We noh get nothing from the police, so we no know nothing about it. We noh know nothing much about it. All we know ney kill, ney shoot ah and that da mi it. Weh have, all weh we have da ih kids ney in memory.”
There was a vote earlier today to choose a deputy mayor from among members of the newly sworn in Belize City Council. Viewers would recall that Mayor Bernard Wagner went on record immediately following the municipal elections victory on March sixth to suggest that CitCo would do well with a female deputy mayor at his side. When the council met at City Hall today, a vote was taken and seven of the ten councilors voted in favor of Allan Pollard Jr. to return as second in command of the Belize City Council. Pollard went up against Kaya Cattouse who garnered three of the remaining votes. We understand that Mayor Wagner, who Pollard attempted to run against for head of the municipal government, abstained from the exercise.
Former Belize City Mayor, Zenaida Moya has reached out to clarify the information that was shared in a court report in Monday night’s newscast. It has to do with an incident that occurred at her residence near mile five on the Philip Goldson Highway. Moya says that contrary to the court report, her caretaker, twenty-eight-year-old Corliss McKenzie entered her apartment, and that she did not let him into her room. She also says that he did not beat her up. Instead, she says, he hit her on the side of her head, when she covered her face with her hands to avoid pepper spray. Corliss McKenzie had pepper-sprayed Moya when they got into an argument that evening. McKenzie also grabbed a bread knife, held her and placed it to her neck and threatened to kill her. Moya said she stomped on his feet and McKenzie destroyed her two phones. She alleges that he also took out four hundred dollars from her purse, but handed her back some of the money and her housekeeper found the rest while cleaning the house. Hence, she says she has asked the police to drop the charge of theft against McKenzie. McKenzie is facing a slew of charges and must re-appear in court on May fourteenth.
On Monday, Governor General Froyla Tzalam received letters of credence from five newly appointed ambassadors to Belize at the Belize House in Belmopan. The ambassadors were appointed from Portugal, Finland, Pakistan, Russia and the Holy See. Their appointments signal Belize’s desire to form relationships with these countries. This was supported by the ambassadors, who each expressed their hopes of forging stronger bonds with Belize during their tenure. Ambassador Santiago De Wit Guzman, of the Holy See, said “I have been very lucky today in presenting my credentials to the people, to the governor General, and to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and everything has gone very well. They have shown completely attention and this vulnerability, and they were very kind to me and understanding very well the role a Catholic church plays in the country and their will to support and to encourage”.
Teachers from all over Belize are participating in a program sponsored by NASA. The three-day workshop is part of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment Program, or GLOBE, which seeks to connect teachers, students, scientists and citizen scientist all around the world to better understand, sustain and benefit the environment. We attended the workshop today to see what kind of activities were taking place there.
Britney Gordon, Reporting
The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, or GLOBE project, is an international program sponsored by NASA, the US Department of State, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Science Foundation to promote citizen science around the four spheres of Earth. The program currently exists in one hundred and twenty-nine countries globally and nineteen in the Latin American region. The goal for Belize is to train teachers and spread the program throughout the country and help teachers to implement this program within their classrooms and their students.
Juan Felipe Restrepo
Juan Felipe Restrepo, Mentor, GLOBE
“GLOBE is a program that is all around the world. This is sponsored by NASA, Department of the States of the United States, NOAA, and the National Science Foundation of the United States. What they promote is citizen science around the four spheres of a pedosphere, a hydrosphere and biosphere in each of those spheres. Scientists have designed have created protocols, very precise and rigorous protocols that are the citizens follow. So, our data is accurate enough to be used by them. That gives a very powerful tool for teachers because it’s called authenticity. They are going to tell the students that they are solving real problems with real tools. So, what we are doing in these three days is teaching them how to use those protocols, make the measurements, and we are trying to replicate in a way what we expect them to do in their classes.”
The program is still in its early stages in Belize, but ultimately seeks to provide educators with the tools needed to foster an environment for hands-on learning in the classroom that encourages students to participate in science throughout their daily lives. It’s accurate, reliable and suitable for investigation projects. Academic Coordinator at the Ministry of Education, Carlos Quiroz explained how the project is developing in Belize.
Carlos Quiroz
Carlos Quiroz, Academic Coordinator at the Ministry of Education
“So what is happening right now is that we’re in our first phase of getting teachers trained in implementing the GLOBE program. It’s not fully spread across all schools just yet. What we’re doing is we’re piloting it with some teachers from schools across Belize and we’re because one of the good things about globe is that you can tailor it to your local needs. And so, they will, working with them, they will give us insight into how it can fit within the Belizean context. So, taking a new curriculum and mapping it with the GLOBE content and the GLOBE’S activities and see which part of GLOBE can be implemented in which section of the curriculum.”
As a part of today’s activities, teachers were tasked with taking measurements of various components of the environment and comparing them to different areas every hour. Participants used the Global server app to track their observations in the NASA database in real time. Teachers also were given a profile on the Globe Program website to keep a record of their data. This training is concentrated on atmosphere and biosphere protocols designed by scientists that assure that the data that collected are accurate. We spoke with a participant from Cayo to hear what she has taken away from the program so far.
Lianne Herrera-Awe
Lianne Herrera-Awe, Education Officer
“So as an education officer, we are responsible to provide support and monitoring to teachers. And so, from that vantage point, I’m able to have teachers here with us. Interact with the environment and have students become active participants rather than passive observers. We’re walking away from chalk and talk in the classroom because that is not the way for our children to learn. They get a chance to interact with these things rather than just reading it from a textbook or just getting theoretical knowledge of what it is they should learn. We want for our students to be active participants and be of their learning. And so, this is not tailored to any one textbook or curriculum, but it is set up in such a way where anyone can take it up and own it and learn from it and there’s no right or wrong way to dig in the sand and gather data.”
The project coordinators said that GLOBE exists not only to educate, but to allow for people to care about their environment and give back to the community using the knowledge they acquire.
Mariana Savino
Mariana Savino, Regional Coordinator for the Latin American & Caribbean, GLOBE
“The goal for Belize is to train teachers and spread the program throughout the country and help teachers to implement this program within their classrooms and their students. And the GLO program is a science education program that connects teachers, students, scientists and citizen science all around the world to better understand, sustain and benefit the environment. So the goal is to know more about the environment and encourage people, students and teachers to protect the environment and be aware of the climate change and all the things that damage the earth.”
If you’ve eaten from Thelma’s Kitchen before, then you know her food is very tasty. The last time we visited with Thelma Arana, it was to do a positive story about the variety of creole food she cooks daily at her Caesar Ridge Road address. But today, the story isn’t that good. In fact, one of Thelma’s neighbours has made a complaint against her business, claiming that the smoke that emanates from there is affecting her family. So, we stopped by to see what the issue was. We discovered that it is a barbeque grill that Thelma uses occasionally to boil the ingredients for her boil-up. But the next-door neighbour says the smoke issue occurs daily and that she wants it to stop. Thelma says the problem between her, and the next-door neighbour precedes the opening of her restaurant and involves other matters. News Five’s Marion Ali reports.
Marion Ali, Reporting
A resident who lives beside a restaurant has gone public to complain about the challenge she has been having ever since the establishment opened up about ten years ago. Everyone in the Yarborough/Caesar Ridge Road area knows Thelma’s Kitchen. While many of you have enjoyed her food, her next-door neighbour, Betty Bradley, says she has not been enjoying the smoke from the restaurant.
Betty Bradley
Betty Bradley, Caesar Ridge Road Resident
“The neighbor has a restaurant, right, and I nuh have no problem with that, because everybody has to live, right? And deh thing deh, but then this is going through so many years I’ve been through. The neighbor light up a fire hearth every morning, soon da morning, and I live here, and that’s the smoke that wake me up. I can’t inhale. I have my family and everything there. My granddaughter gets sick offa the smoke.”
Bradley says that in the past, she had complained to the Belize City Council about the problem and that it had subsided. She now claims that the smoke is back daily. But Arana says that she had followed the Belize City Council’s directive and stopped using her fire hearth altogether and switched to custom-made gas stoves for cooking. She admits that twice a week she uses a barbeque grill for a short while because it is more affordable than butane.
Thelma Arana
Thelma Arana, Owner, Thelma’s Kitchen
“Da wa small barbecue grill I use. It’s not a huge fire weh yoh wudda say wa mek big fire or big smoke. I only light the fire on Thursdays and Fridays. We have to boil a huge [pot of] plantains, and that’s just for one hour. And Fridays, I had to boil the potatoes, the cassava thing, just for one hour, and then I out it. And then you have to boil deh pigtail, you have to boil all this stuff. I have to buy gas like once every time and maybe sometimes twice a week.”
Thelma Arana believes that the complaint stems from an old issue between them. Today when we showed up, the barbeque grill was not in use. Thelma says that to avoid a confrontation with her neighbour, she will consider giving up use of the grill as well. One thing both neighbours agree to is that they both have had differences in the past that had nothing to do with smoke.
Betty Bradley
“This lady has a thing against me, right? And she know the reason, right? All I want…”
Marion Ali
“It has to do with more than just the fire hearth stove?”
Betty Bradley
“Well, I think so.”
Thelma Arana
“My property was a little higher than hers and when it rained and then the water goh eena fi she yard ih cuss mi fi that. I can’t stop rain.”
The Belize City Council sent a representative today to Thelma’s Kitchen, to inform her that she will have to stop using the grill. She has told us that she will. Marion Ali for News Five.
There was a significant breakthrough during a meeting with Prime Minister Briceño earlier today that had stevedores smiling from ear to ear. It’s a rare occasion for waterfront workers at the Port of Belize Limited to be happy or satisfied with anything that the government proposes, but this afternoon they were all cheerful, following a meeting of the Christian Workers Union and senior members of the Briceño administration. They filed in one by one at Charter House, led by President Leonora Flowers, and they were there for a singular purpose which was to iron out several issues that stevedores had been having with their employer. As you would recall, they effected a work-to-rule last week that saw cargo ships rerouting to the Port of Big Creek to discharge cargo. At the end of today’s meeting PM Briceño told reporters that government is making a payment of one point six million dollars to stevedores in lieu of redundancy.
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“We have an agreement and basically we’ve been working on the number of gang size and the number of hours that we’re going to be working on and we believe that we have an agreement at this moment. What will happen now is that both lawyers, our lawyer, the Port of Belize’s lawyer, and the CWU’s lawyer are going to get together and work out the agreement. Pretty much it has been spelt out properly and we believe that by tomorrow we’re supposed to be able to sign an agreement for us to be able to move forward. There is a general consensus from both sides that these work stoppages is not in the interest of anyone, that it does not help the Christian Workers Union, nor the stevedores, nor does it help the Port of Belize nor the country of Belize. We recognize though that there is competition and that some boats are threatening that if this is not sorted out that they will consider going south to the Big Creek Port to offload their cargo. So I believe that today, we managed to settle pretty much all of these issues. We will be signing that formal agreement tomorrow which will form part of the new CBA that is going to start the work on the new CBA pretty much immediately as soon as we finish this.”
Present at this afternoon’s meeting was Deputy Mayor Cordel Hyde, Port Minister Michel Chebat and Tourism Minister Anthony Mahler. There on behalf of the Port of Belize Limited was Interim Chairman Doctor Gilbert Canton and C.E.O. Arturo “Tux” Vasquez. For her part, C.W.U. President Leonora Flowers congratulated the prime minister for agreeing to another ex-gratia payment.
Leonora Flowers
Leonora Flowers, President, Christian Workers Union
“I just want to say thanks to the PM for having us here and his ministers, his team. Thanks for the new offer and the way it has been set out. We believe it’s palatable for our members. In fact, we were given certain instructions before we arrived for this meeting and we have found that they met with our requirement, so our members will be pleased with the response that we are taking back to them. Yes, indeed. We are going to sit with our attorney and get the document drafted, forwarded to the other side’s attorney and so we can move from that. One of the things that we had wanted was to commence the CBA negotiations and that has also been agreed to as soon as we’ve completed this agreement and the PM has offered another ex-gratia payment that goes to house for approval and after that we commence, as we had discussed, with within the next week our CBA which is what we really want to do on behalf of our members.”
