September 21st Independence Day Parade

San Pedro went all out on Independence Day Parade, producing one of the most spectacular parades to date. The rain came pouring down but that did not dampen the spirits as the parade revelers kept on jumping and dancing. Everybody had a fantastic time!

Miss San Pedro

Ambergris Caye Elementary

San Pedro Junior College

The Island Academy

Belize celebrating its 29th Birthday and many more fun, exciting hot days to come!!!!!!

Costa Maya Festival presents: Miss Belize and Miss Guatemala

Costa Maya 2010 is right around the corner, and over the past few weeks we have been presenting to you a bevy of beauties who will represent eight countries in the International Reina de la Costa Maya Pageant. This week, we have the honor of presenting two lovely ladies representing Guatemala and Belize.

Guatemala,  25-year-old Gabriela Asturias is a Social Communicator who stands at 5' 5", measures 34-24-35, has dark brown-eyes and hair. Gabriela enjoys dancing and reading, and is looking forward to representing her beautiful country at this year's Reina de la Costa Maya Pageant.

Belize, 23-year-old Liliana Mia Nuñez is a Gym Administrator who enjoys exercising and is looking forward to acquiring a degree in personal training. She stands at 5'4", has brown hair and eyes, and measures 33-26-36.

Both beauties will be joined on the Costa Maya stage in San Pedro by delegates from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico and Panama. At the end of the night, only one will be crowned by outgoing Reina de la Costa Maya Maritza Rivas, of Nicaragua. Who will be our new beauty representative? You just have to be there for the grand moment when hostess Sandra Hoyos announces the winner!

In other entertainment news, the Costa Maya committee has confirmed the appearance of Belize's own Berne Velasquez. Berne is a Belizean musician, model and entertainer who will be bringing his hype and melodies to the festival. Berne's music combines rap and reggae; a collaboration that has captured the attention of Hip-Hop as well as pop music aficionados worldwide. Musically influenced by pop icons Bob Marley, Tupac, and Stevie Wonder, Berne has had the fortune of performing on stage with Reggae and Dancehall greats, including Beenie Man, Sean Paul, and Shaggy.

Clowns Ozzy and Chispin will be on hand to keep the kiddies entertained at the festival grounds during the festival, and will be onstage on Sunday's family day. The committee is working hard to confirm the main Comedy Act for Sunday night, and while details are being finalized, what we can say to the public is that they will be in stitches from start to finish. A fabulous act is being lined up, with side-splitting laughter for the audience who will be in attendance. Look for details in next week's issue of The San Pedro Sun!!

Don't forget, season ticket prices are as follows: Season Pass: Adult - $115, Children - $45. Those who want to attend specific nights should know that the prices are as follows: Thursday: $30 (A), $15 (Ch), Friday: $30 (A), $15 (Ch), Saturday: $70 (A), $40 (Ch) and Sunday: $40 (A), $10 (Ch). Layaway is also available. You can buy tickets at Island Magic, Milo's Center, Milo's Ice, Wally's Electrical (Leni Nuñez), Angel Valdez (Post Office), The Reef Radio, Emerita Muñoz, Oh Danny Boy Tours, La Divina Providencia, Caye Supplies and with Cruzita Salazar (behind Rocks).

For more information on how to become a sponsor for Belize's largest festival, contact Mr. Gach Guerrero via the festival website, and as always, check out your weekly copy of The San Pedro

Hurricane Season Is here

  

       Hurricane season is here       
 

Residents of the Caribbean and Central America have been advised to prepare early for this year's hurricane season, which experts say is expected to be one of the most turbulent ever.

Weather forecasters have predicted the formation of 23 named storms, with eight to 14 developing into hurricanes
Up to seven of those weather systems could strengthen into category three or higher, packing winds of over 111 to 130 miles per hour.

Given the grave predictions, residents in the region have been urged not to wait till a storm watch or warning has been issued to take action.
Executive Director of the Pan American Development Foundation, John Sanbrailo, says a few simple steps will make a difference and possibly even save lives, when a storm hits a community.
"While our region is no stranger to the damages caused by the wind, rain and flooding of a hurricane, we are surprised how few people plan for a disaster.
"Many times the tools they need to make a plan are in their homes and community," Mr Sanbrailo said.

Investors says" drill baby drill' but sanpedranos says NO to oil prospectors

The international news has been replete with the horrors of the massive oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico. Eighty-five thousand barrels have spilled so far since the well exploded on April twentieth.


Oil exploration is a relatively new industry for Belize and while the operations on land have so far experienced no major accidental disasters, offshore drilling is an entirely new experiment for us. But now there is word that a group of investors have been given a license to explore off the coast of San Pedro. That is why San Pedranos are concerned that an oil spill could spell disaster for the entire country.

While oil exploration will earn the country much-needed revenues, the repercussions of a disaster such as a spill like what happened in the Gulf of Mexico, could pose even greater long-term risks for a developing country like Belize, and concerned groups feel there needs to be a reactive solution in place.

Miguel Alamilla, Mgr., Hol Chan Marine Reserve: “Look at what’s happening in the Gulf, they haven’t been able to contain that spill for how long? I think it’s about two weeks or more. And the US has a lot of resources and money to do that and they haven’t been able to do it. What if that would happen here in Belize? It would be an even worse scenario because we have less resources and less finances to be able to contain a leak of that magnitude. Oil exploration can lead to damaging effects. If there is a leak, can we contain that leak? What are the possibilities? What are the possibilities? What are the damages that can result from that? We need to look into that and if something happened it could affect our livelihood, not only for us in San Pedro but for the country, all those that are dependent on tourism.”
Elito Arceo, President, Ambergris Caye Citizens for Sustainable Development: “Anytime you have an oil exploration offshore San Pedro, they call the document it says very near Ambergris Caye. If you have any oil spill, you’re creating a problem that I’m not even an expert at but my point is, how yoh wah even start to get some measures to actually clean it? What will we do here in Belize? This is our jewel. For any oil spill to happen here and it goes all in our beaches or in the rivers, in all that mangrove ecosystem. How we wah clean dat? With a sponge and squeezy?”




And because the project can have serious and irreversible environmental repercussions, Tourism Minister and Area Representative, Manuel Heredia says he thinks the project needs a second review.

Manuel Heredia, Minister of Tourism/San Pedro Area Representative: “We have to be very, very cautious, look at it particularly now go back and visit it and see exactly if that is the way we want to go. I usually base my concerns as to what the technical people have to say. Again, if there are concerns from the environmental people, let us sit down and look at it carefully and only and only then should we go ahead and move forward. It’s not late yet, exploration has not started so we need to sit down and address it, that would be my personal opinion.”

Marion Ali: “But they already have permits. They have already been given approval permits.”

Manuel Heredia: “Yes, I will agree that probably they have been given them but looking at the concerns that are happening right now not far away from us, let us look at it, get together with the people and a little more consultation.”

While the people of San Pedro agree that the fragile tourism industry needs to be enhanced if it is to keep up with a fiercely competitive region, they also believe that the sensitive natural environment needs to be protected; and they are calling on the local authorities to do just that – striking a balance between sustainable tourism development and safeguarding the natural resources for generations to come.

Plagued by Lawsuits, McAfee Founder hunts for jungle remedies in Belize

John McAfee, the antivirus-software pioneer, says he’s lost most of his fortune — but doesn’t care. To the contrary, he now hopes to give something back by deriving antibiotics from jungle plants in Belize. Really?

  No road runs the length of Ambergris Caye, a 25-mile-long island off the Belizean coast, so to get to John McAfee’s house, I climb aboard a boat in the resort town of San Pedro, on the island’s southern tip, and motor north for half an hour, along a coast of white beaches set with resorts and private villas. At last, his pier comes into sight, and I step off and walk down the weathered boards, the blue-green water shimmering through the cracks, to find him emerging from the shrubbery beside the swimming pool, his smile blinding against the reddish brown of a fresh tan.

Twenty-three years after he essentially invented the antivirus-software industry, McAfee, now 64, radiates the vitality of a rich man who thinks about more than money. As he steps forward to meet me at the edge of his yard, he’s wearing sandals, shorts, and a muscle shirt that reveals a wiry physique and a tiger-stripe tattoo on each shoulder. He grips my hand with sinewy vigor. For decades, McAfee was a hard-partying ne’er-do-well playboy entrepreneur, a self-described trickster and bullshit artist who’d spent the majority of his adult life gadding about and having fun. That’s all in the past now, or so he would have me believe.

He leads me into the cool semidarkness of his compound’s central living room. It has been nearly three years since I last saw him, in the scrubby desert of southern New Mexico, and while the environment couldn’t be more different, McAfee himself looks unchanged. He has spent the intervening years building a new life for himself on the coast of Central America. He has just auctioned off the last of his sprawling properties back in the United States and sold or given away many of his possessions. He has taken a huge financial hit, he says, but that’s okay. He has enough to fund his latest passion, his gift to the future: developing new kinds of antibiotics from herbs found deep in the rain forests of Belize.



In a radio-ready baritone, McAfee unfurls his story, digressing over centuries and across continents. He describes the economic injustice of the developing world, the imbalances of education and capital, and how tapping the biodiversity of the rain forest for natural cures will help address those problems. “The product is something the world desperately needs, or will need, within a few years,” he says, “as our last lines of antibiotic defense are breached by the ever-growing ranks of drug-resistant bacteria.”

As he talks, he flicks at the fabric of his pants, unable to contain his relentless energy. He pauses, suddenly serious: “But maybe I should ask what kind of story you came here to write? An exposé?”

John McAfee’s rise to fame and wealth began with what at the time seemed a minor annoyance. In the mid-1980s, he was working for Lockheed Martin as a software designer when he came across one of the first computer viruses, the Pakistani Brain. Seeing an opportunity, he picked the virus apart and figured out how to defeat it. Then he built a program, called VirusScan, that could detect and disarm multiple virus threats automatically. The program — the first commercial antivirus software — was an impressive achievement, but it’s what he did next that was true genius. Instead of selling it, as every other software maker was doing, he gave it away for free via online bulletin boards. In no time, he had a base of 30 million users; revenue followed in the form of upgrade charges and licenses for corporate customers. By 1994, McAfee’s antivirus company was worth half a billion dollars.

Though his name was on the product, McAfee wanted nothing to do with it anymore. He sold his entire stake, worth, he says, “$50-to-$100 million. I wanted to move on. Who wants to be tied to the past?”
His next project was software company Tribal Voice, which made an instant-messaging platform that allowed Skype-like telephony. It quickly attracted a quarter-million-strong following despite the era’s slow dial-up connections. In 1999, McAfee sold the company for $17 million. “When John was at Tribal Voice, the growth rate was incredible,” says former employee Jim Zoromski. “But when it got to be too popular, it started to feel too much like work, and John wasn’t interested.”

McAfee had already found financial security. Now he wanted to leverage his success into something greater: a sense of never-ending possibility. He turned his attention to yoga, racing ATVs and motorcycles, and long-distance Jet Ski journeys. “Life is free; life is limitless. You can do whatever you want,” he told me in New Mexico in 2007. “Success for me is, Can you wake up in the morning and feel like a 12-year-old?”

Read more at FASTCOMPANY.com

More POWER OUTAGES in effect for San Pedro Town

**Revised** Scheduled Outages for San Pedro, Ambergris Caye

• Thursday, April 22nd from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 Noon. Areas to be affected: All that area including Angel Coral Street, Coconut Drive, Sea Grape Drive, San Marcos Area, DFC Area, Escalante Subdivision, Holiday Lands and Boca Ciega Area.
• Thursday, April 22nd from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Areas to be affected: All of Barrier Reef Drive, Angel Coral Drive, San Marcos Area, DFC Area and a portion of Sea Grape Drive.
• Friday, April 23rd from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 Noon. Areas to be affected: All that area from Laguna Drive to Boca del Rio including North San Pedro and Pescador Drive.

BEL apologizes for any inconvenience caused by these outages and assures customers that the Company continues to work diligently at minimizing interruptions. These outages are necessary for the company to carry out maintenance works on the distribution system in the area.

7News Reporter, Keith Swift Passes at 30

The well known television journalist for Channel Seven, Keith Swift, passed away Yesterday. He did not report to work yesterday morning and his roommate Mark Bowman reportedly found Swift lying face-up with foam at his mouth after five last night. His door was locked but the key was found in the door. When Bowman entered the room, there were signs that alcohol was consumed at some point over the weekend. Swift, who was thirty years old, was known to suffer from arthritis. In November last year, Swift won platinum at the 2009 UNFPA Caribbean Population Media Awards. It is a stunning development in the media industry where Keith was known for his zeal and passion to get his stories.

Isani Cayetano: “Goodnight, Marleni, goodnight Belize. I’ll start with receiving the news inside our newsroom. The boss alerted us that a text message came in and that was what the text message read. I’m still in a state of shock and disbelief. To be quite honest with you, I don’t know Keith personally but in the professional world, I should say that I know enough about him. What I found a bit interesting, surprising even is that while we were among the first to arrive at the scene, his colleagues from Channel Seven were there, there weren’t any police officers, any coroners, any medical professionals. I found that a bit strange.

What was sort of a bit unnerving for me is that usually when you deal with grieve and this type of thing, you kind of have to sensitive towards the friends and the family and what have you. And being around and gathering the little bit of information that we had preliminarily, kind of put me in a position where I feel for those who are there; his colleagues and whomsoever but at the same time I needed to get information at least to put it out there.

In our business, there are not too many of us. The media industry in Belize is a very small industry so most definitely the loss of Keith Swift is a massive one for us. A lot of us still don’t believe and still are in a state of complete shock and disbelief. Standing there tonight, the irony of the situation for me is that when I watch Seven News and I watch Keith Swift’s news product, he’s always one for the money shot. So if there’s a murder at eight o’clock or ten o’clock at night and he is on the scene, the last video footage you would get is the body riding off in the back of the pan and sadly that was the last we saw at the scene on Lizarraga Avenue. It’s so ironic the way how life unfolds and the way how things are. What I can say about Keith in a professional capacity, as I mentioned before I don’t really know him personally, we’ve always seen each other as the competition.

As much as we go in the field and we kind of look at what the other person is doing to critique where we stand, it has always been that kind of competition. I can safely say I’ve been, to some extent, a critic of his in terms of looking at what he does and saying you know what, if there’s a standard to be set, if he sets a standard I’ll try to trump that and I’m pretty that that kind of healthy back and forth happens across the board in the media. And to see someone as tenacious as he was—there were a lot of times we would go on the scene and let me see who Keith is going to interview and let me see if I could one up him, that type of thing. And at the end of it all, you look at your product and you look at his and say you know what if nothing else, we both gave it our best shot.”

Marleni Cuellar: “Let’s talk about some of the details. I know you talked about the difficulty in gathering information and I think the connection; who he is and what he does and how we know him definitely made it more difficult. But what were some of the details that you were able to gather at the scene?”

Isani Cayetano
“Like we had mentioned at the top of the newscast, the body was discovered a little after five this evening by his roommate, Mark Bowman. Apparently when Mark got home, he noticed that the door was locked but the key was in the doorknob and he called a friend of his to sort of seek confirmation on whether or not he should open the door. The friend said yes, go ahead because we don’t know what the situation is and upon opening the door, that’s when the discovery of the body was made.”

Marleni Cuellar
“He was found in his room, the living room…”

Isani Cayetano
“He was found in his bedroom. I personally did not go in the room to see the body, it’s not a thing of mine. But from what I was told he was found on the floor as if he either fell off the bed or he was struggling to get back on the bed; sort of in that position and foam was visible around his mouth.”

Marleni Cuellar
“What was the general mood of the people looking on. We talked about his media colleagues there. I’m sure neighbors and members of the public came out. But what was the general mood that you…”

Isani Cayetano
“A somber mood; very, very dismal. It took a while before the crowd gathered out there. The first time we went on the scene, we left and there was still nobody there. The police had just responded. By the time we got back the crowd was already there but everybody was just sort of curious to see if it’s true and what was going to happen next. As a matter of fact, I was able to speak with a friend of his, a close friend of his, who had made arrangements for them to hang out after work on Friday night. apparently he did not show up; I’m not sure if we’re ready to roll that footage as yet.”

Marleni Cuellar
“You have an interview lined up.”

Isani Cayetano
“Yes I do.”

Friend of Keith Swift
“Me and he always deh together especially Friday night time, we always heng out dah princess or ih would ah come dah my house. We always heng out together. Sometimes we tek wah lee drink and this really hurt me mein.”

Isani Cayetano
“When was the last time you saw him or spoke with him?”

Friend of Keith Swift
“Friday. Friday I come way yah come holla fi ah. I tell ah come meet me. Me, he and ih got wah next young man weh dah ih good friend and dah all ah we keep together. Ih always deh by my house, always. Dah my friend.”

Isani Cayetano
“Did he show up to meet you that Friday?”

Friend of Keith Swift
“No. Di other mawning I meet ah gwein dah work and I di tell ah Keith bwai di bus gwein and ih seh he neva did si di bus cause he stress out. I holla fi stop di bus fi ah and so ih get pan di bus. I just mi di worry bout ah dat’s why when I hear weh happen I run come yah because he tell me dat he stress out but ih noh tell me dah what. Ih just seh I really, really stress out. Ih seh ih depressed and I tell ah mek ih go dah da nurse dah hospital, mek ah ker ah. But ih neva did come fi mek a ker ah. But ih tell me ih depressed bad. Dat dah di last time ih talk to me.”

Isani Cayetano
“What dah your best memory of spending time with him? Maybe hanging out or what have you? What dah your best memory you could tell me you remember him as?”

Friend of Keith Swift
“I like when ih deh pan news, when ih deh pan news. He noh care weh pah he have to go, he gwein. Noh care if dah wah riot or whatever, Keith gwein. Dat dah weh I remember bout Keith. Keith dah wah person weh gwein, dat dah weh I rememba bout ah. Keith gwein anywhere weh news deh. He gwein; if dah yah, Corozal, he wah deh deh. Dat dah weh I rememba bout ah.”

Marleni Cuellar
“Alright, and that was a friend of his.”

Isani Cayetano
“That was a personal friend of the late Keith Swift.”

Marleni Cuellar
“Well, Isani thank you for coming on set and sharing with us just the immediate details that we’ve been able to gather so far and I’m sure we’ll have more on this tomorrow in our newscast.”

Isani Cayetano
“My condolences go out to the family of Keith Swift and his colleagues over at Channel Seven. It’s going to be a great loss for us in the media.”

Marleni Cuellar
“It’s a great loss to the industry in general, absolutely.”
Keith Swift, dead at thirty years.

GOB negotiates to regain ownership of Los Salones Caye

Little cayes dot the leeward side of Ambergris Caye, a beautiful and serene location that without a doubt rivals the pristine quality of the coral reef environment of the windward side. This area has for years been a haven for migratory and resident bird species, providing a critical nesting and feeding habitat. As tour guides visit the area, as fishermen traverse the lagoon side, much activity taking place in the cayes have for months raised questions and eyebrows as to the ownership of the cayes, in particular Los Salones.

Green Reef signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Belize Audubon Society for the management of two bird sanctuaries (Los Salones and Little Guana Caye) in April of 1998. With financial assistance from a Protected Area Conservation Trust (PACT) grant. Green Reef compiled a management plan for the sanctuary. Work soon began and Green Reef proceeded to carry out bird and vegetation field surveys of both sanctuaries and it became obvious how important the surrounding cayes were to the successful survival of birds in that area.

However, as survey pegs were established in that area as of last year, questions began arising across the community on whether the bird sanctuaries had been sold. Speculation abounds and in order to get answers, The San Pedro Sun had an interview with Area Representative of Belize Rural South Honorable Manuel Heredia Jr. who made the clarification.

Indeed, Los Salones has fallen under private hands and no longer belongs to the people of Belize. The private investor received Los Salones as part of compensation given to him for previous land purchased. When the previous property was discovered to have had actual ownership, the past administration compensated said investor with portions of land spanning across Ambergris Caye. Part of the portions of land compensated included Los Salones spanning 60 acres, according to Honorable Heredia, as well as two adjoining shoals (sandbar) spanning 10 acres each.

Honorable Heredia and the investor have been in constant communication trying to remedy the situation and return Los Salones and the shoals to the Belizean people. It has to be a trade for trade. It’s not what we can give them, it’s what we can agree mutually, explained Honorable Heredia. There is not much government land left to compensate him with. As an investor, he also has to look at the value of what the exchange will be.

When asked what land was being considered for compensation, Honorable Heredia explained that the land being discussed was the only government land available across the Belize Water Services Limited pond on southern San Pedro Town. That part of low land that lies over there, that is the area where we are trying to see if we can reach a compromise with the investor. It’s the only area that remains government land which can be handed over as compensation. If we accrue the value of the three pieces of property in question, the 20 acres in shoals and the 60 acres of Los Salones, that value would be far more than the land which we are considering in compensating him for, stated Honorable Heredia.

The matter remains under discussion between Government and the private investor. The San Pedro Sun will continue following the story and will release more information as the deal gets finalized.
SOURCE: The San Pedro Sun Newspaper