Falconview Hostel NEWS SERVICE

NEWS ITEMS OF WESTERN BELIZE RECREATIONAL AREA

• THE EPA, OR ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT WITH THE EU
• JUNGLE SOUNDS OF HILLVIEW,
• UK CITIZENS INVITED TO IMMIGRATE TO THE CARIBBEAN
• BACKLOG IN BELIZE IMMIGRATION APPLICATIONS STILL THERE, AFTER 8 MONTHS OF UDP MANAGEMENT.
• WESTERN BELIZE RECREATIONAL AREA, GETS JAVIER FLYING SERVICE. FROM OFFSHORE BARRIER REEF TOURIST PLACES, TO LOCAL MUNICIPAL CENTRAL FARM AIRSTRIP!

Nothing much in the weekend news. PM Barrow disappeared on personal leave. The Cable Company dropped CARIBBEAN NEWS last Tuesday night after Channel 5 news. I waited for an hour or more to get the CARIBBEAN NEWS and hear about the EPA signing with the EU. But all we got was a substituted USA news TV program of no interest to us here in Belize, on their political convention up in North America. Something to do with Republicans. Will have to pay for some internet time today, to see what happened with the EPA and the position of Belize and CARICOM? None of our local media seem at all interested in the subject and are doing no reporting on the matter.

One item, was the Opposition party the PUP party newspaper rag, the BELIZE TIMES newspaper said something about victimization by the UDP who are in power and control the government. Claimed that Rene Montero our local UDP area representative fired about 15 employees from the BAHA agriculture unit. I wonder what that was about? They didn’t perform to my satisfaction either last year, when I dealt with them. Though I never thought they had that many employees.

Far as my experience has been, BELTRAIDE, BELIZE TOURIST BOARD and now BAHA an agriculture unit headquartered at Central Farm in the Western Belize Area are poor performing entities. At least the Tourist Board provides a useful government function in collecting accommodation taxes. I formed the opinion decades ago that Beltraide and the Belize Tourist Board were simply government institutions created to park PARTY HACKS and political relatives in government salaried jobs at tax payer expense. Surprised that BAHA fits the same mold according to this latest news item. Make work jobs, and no shows, I think the term is?

Neighbor here, supposedly a naturalized Guatemalan Belizean, still cannot get his papers for citizenship and also papers for the government house lot on which he built his house. Time elapsed is measured in years. Apparently a lot of people are complaining about it in Western Belize Cayo District. Obviously the new UDP government has failed to deal with the backlog found in Immigration applications. Down in the CREOLE port town, they are complaining about the shift in demographics from CREOLE to MESTIZO majority. Fact is; that the port town pays a lot of taxes, but it is a re-circulating type circle of government salaries and activity, that is non productive and basically they keep circulating the same tax revenue money. Each tax bite reduces the amount available until the rural districts foreign exchange earnings, trickle in more freshly earned money. The only NEW MONEY coming in; is from the Tourist Industry, oil taxes and the Agriculture Sector mostly. These foreign exchange sources are not in Belize City the port. In order to provide those monies being re-circulated in the port, you have to have the PRODUCTIVE SECTOR earning foreign exchange in the rural DISTRICTS. The new amateur UDP government hasn’t awoken to that nugget of truth yet, it seems? In favoring and pleasing their port town CREOLE dominance of the political process, they are spiting and hurting the economy, because the energy and foreign exchange is coming from out here mostly in the DISTRICTS. The port town media CREOLES argue they want the immigrants stopped from Central America, but heck the port Creoles won’t go out into the districts and start farming, ranching and light manufacturing? It is cheap land that is attracting immigrants and all the associated opportunities to grow with Belize. Thank God for immigrants, without them Belize would have nothing.

It is 1:30 a.m. in the early nighttime morning hours and I guess my noisy tapping away on the computer keyboard is aggravating the birds in their nests outside my windows. Lot of disturbance and jungle noises. Sounds like one of those meditation jungle sounds CD’s you buy to lower stress. All kinds of birds waking up complaining and talking. Sorry birds!

One of the interesting items in world news, is that the UK economy has hit a 60 year low. That is going back to the late 1948 period. That is post war, when the UK was demobilizing their army and pulling out of occupied Europe AFTER World War 2. The USA developed the MARSHAL plan to rebuild Germany and other European countries, funneling billions of dollars into those mainland Europeans, but the UK was saddled with the HUGE lend lease debt for war materials to pay off. England was worse off in that period than Germany and France. No MARSHAL plan for the UK. That has got to be some ECONOMIC LOW indeed for the UK? Think if I lived there, I’d sell everything and move to Belize, or the Caribbean countries. At least the weather is nice all year round, you can sleep in a tent and grow your own food. Lots of business opportunities too. Belize needs machinists that can make things, using applied engineering from off the shelf stuff, for export to Central America, plus food processing skills and modern packaging skills, Belize has a strong but small English expatriate numbers scattered around Belize, of immigrants over the decades. Bare bones living costs for retirees who rent, are about $650 usa per month. Some expatriats are in the offshore barrier reef cayes and some are out here in Cayo Western District living in the foothills. Lot of inter-marriage with Belizeans. The Americans outnumber the British as immigrants to Belize though.

Javier Flying Service offers charter flight now from the barrier reef islands of San Pedro and Caye Caulker tourist towns, to the Central Farm airstrip, five miles from the twin towns, agriculture and tourist shopping centers by local taxi.

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• Falconview Adventure Hostel telephone: 663 5580 Santa Elena Town, on the slope of Green Parrot Valley. Upscale and budget accomodations.
• Charter plane flight, to and from Cayes tel: 223 5360, or 610 0446 to Central Farm airstrip. ($375 or $415 usa plus 10% GST tax. (Cessna 172 ) 3 passengers.
• Local taxis are cars with green license plates in Western Belize, local fares are $8 bz, $4 usa, or 2 EU.

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