Western Belize Happenings!

BELIZE TO BE INNOVATIVE AND SPONSOR A SKILLED WORKER, IMPORTED IMMIGRANT PROGRAM?

2012-01-27T07:03:00.000-08:00

BELIZE GOVERNMENT AND BUREAUCRATS FIND PARADISE, FOR SOURCE OF SKILLED TECHNICIANS, TO BOOTSTRAP A LIGHT MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN RAJKOT, INDIA.
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" I feel that better will be to visit here for you. RAJKOT is ideal industrial city for small scale industry only. There are about 600 foundries and about 8000 machine shops including hundreds of CNC machines operated by computers.
But best of all, RAJKOT is city of Mahatma Gandhi, whose home was here for 40 years. He studied here, married here, his parents died here etc. But entire area of western peninsula with 15 million population is vegetarian since many centuries. So difficult to get non vegetarian food. Total prohibition. So no wine here. No night clubs. No casino here."
V K DESAI
AADHUNIK GLOBAL ENERGY
TINYTECH PLANTS
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I don´t know how our government could sponsor a program of importing skilled industrial technical workers, both to teach things like FOUNDRY WORK, cottage industry size, or CNC computer run machines, from RAJKOT, INDIA. We certainly should invest $5 million in an imported immigration skilled worker program and get them set up here. Belizeans will copy someone else, but do not have the experience or knowledge to even ask questions on HOW TO DO THESE THINGS? A BOOTSTRAP IMPORTED IMMIGRANT PROJECT SOUNDS GREAT! Now if Prime Minister Barrow if he is re-elected will order his bureaucrats in Belmopan, the Foreign Ministry, ( scratch my head ) whats the name of that department supposed to do stuff like this again? Oooooh yeah! BELTRAIDE! Beltraide have not even answered an email I sent them two weeks ago yet. Sheeeew! Poor Belize, with departments like these and workers like these. Must drive PM BARROW nuts? It drives me nuts and I am not even involved in government. My wife and I will go to RAJKOT, INDIA, and select some immigrants that are suitably skilled and even chair a committee, to set the parameters of a SKILLED WORKER PROGRAM if Barrow wants. If we can blow $5 million on the Edmun Castro road across the lagoon business, and another $1 million, or so, on XMAS PRESENTS for votes. Surely we can do something constructive and innovative and forward looking?
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Hey Desai, do the toilets have flush toilets and toilet paper in hotels? I don´t think I could squat over a hole in a cement slab as described to me? Vegetarian is fine, love curry and rice.

BELIZE- preelection naturalization of long term immigrants in Belize.

2012-01-26T12:57:00.000-08:00

Pre-election of new naturalization immigrants by incumbent politicians before the close of VOTERS REGISTRATION

2012 is the POLITICAL GENERAL ELECTION YEAR FOR BELIZE. GUESSED TO BE HELD ON MARCH 7TH., 2012.

One of the things creating a flurry of propoganda and action by current elected representatives is the appearance of hundreds ( as many as 700 people ) getting their naturalization papers processed rammed through this past month or so, with the idea that politicians who help the 15 to 20 year long Central American campesinos who have immigrated to Belize over the past few decades, clear up their paper work. The country of Belize is becoming more red tape bureaucracy and most campesinos from Central America, neither read, or write, much less in our ENGLISH, which is a foreign language to them. Their children and grandchildren born in Belize though have mostly already got their red tape identification paper work in order. It is the grand parents, the original illiterate immigrant that lacks the paper work. The scenes of a hundred or so, immigrants swearing in at citizenship ceremonies, is fuel for fodder for the OPPOSITION PARTIES, wanting to smear the campaign of the incumbent party. In reality, the numbers are people who have lived here for a couple of decades, often going back to the time when they fled the Central American civil wars.
I did some statistical work of my own, to see what was real in the immigration numbers, versus the dis-information being bandied about by opposition political parties, for smearing and election campaigning, pressing of emotional buttons in some places, mainly the pòrt of Belize City. The best figure I could figure out in 2011, was; THERE IS ABOUT ONE NEW IMMIGRANT FROM CENTRAL AMERICA MOVING INTO BELIZE, PER EVERY THREE DAYS. Undoubtedly that number will be cleared up eventually by IMMIGRATION and the Statistical Department. Though I doubt my number is very far off? It will be interesting to see what the average immigration rate from Central America was for 2011?
I have no idea why anybody would be worried? These are usually illiterate campesinos, looking for a house lot eventually, and able to build their own house. They provide in Western Belize, all the DAY LABOR for construction work, driving of farm tractors and machinery, some work in warehouses in stocking, all pretty much work at the cheapest manual labor. Their children and grandchildren though have gone through regular Belizean schools and many of the second and third generation are contributing in entrepreneurial ventures to the economy of Belize in a meaningful way.

MAYAN EMPIRE WEATHER CYCLES AND FINDING POTTERY IN WESTERN BELIZE, 11 FEET BELOW A MUD SLIDE.

2012-01-26T01:33:00.000-08:00

Cave stalagmite evidence.
Mapping drought maps of the Mayan Empire.
cracked clay soil, during dry season droughts

http://sites.google.com/site/medievalwarmperiod/Home/drought-and-the-collapse-of-mayan-civilisation

MAYA EMPIRE CYCLES OF DROUGHTS AND INTENSE RAINFALL
by Ray Auxillou, Jan, 26th., 2012

WEATHER CYCLES GOVERNED MUCH OF THE MAYAN EMPIRE. The recent find of pottery, about 11 feet down on main street in San Ignacio Town, while digging a sewer line, equates also with pottery shards found while digging septic tank in Hillview, Santa Elena town.

The pottery has been covered by mud. Red clay in fact. Which implies there was heavy rainfall sometime in the past. A rough estimate follows:

The pottery has been estimated to be from Maya houses around 2600 years ago. So at that time, we presume there was more than extra rainfall in our area of Western Belize and we had mudslides.

If you do the research you can find some interesting dates, for rainfall increases and drought periods. Big droughts in our area, started in 760 a.d., 810 a.d., 860 a.d., and 910 a.d. These droughts are thought to be the reason for the collapse of the Mayan Empire.

The last glacial period ended around 8000 years ago and between 8000 to 11,000 years ago, geology shows that we had a constantly rising rainfall that tapered off about 8000 years ago. Since then rainfall has tapered off. Sea levels measured by coral reefs in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands of ancient times indicate that the sea rose about 20 feet higher than it is today.

We had a period of a rainfall peak in our area about 1200 to 1500 years ago. This would be the CLASSIC MAYAN era. Much of this rainfall was very high, back up to 2300 years ago, which confirms the dating on the recent Mayan pottery find, or about 2600 years ago, ( pre-classic Maya ) and mud slides in San Ignacio town, archeological excavations, which covered the house sites,with this pottery, newly found. Depth below 11 feet mostly of digging below the current surface of the towns around here.

If you go back to the last inter-glacial period, the sea level 120,000 years ago was anywhere from 20 to 30 feet higher than today. Sea levels have been rising since the end of the last glacial period around 11,000 years ago, and stopped rising, or rose more slowly about 8000 years ago.

In the Northern hemisphere, they have had some mini-ice ages, well documented. These cold periods peaked about the 1500´s and ran for 300 years until the 1800´s our calendar.

In different parts of the world, the small glaciation cycles in recent human history, have been found to be irregular on a regional basis, indicating conformity to local weather patterns.

It is accepted now, that DROUGHT periods were the cause of the end of the MAYAN EMPIRE.

BUREAUCRATIC DISINFORMATION BY BELIZE IMMIGRATION - CAN SOMEBODY BRING ORDER OUT OF CHAOS OVER THERE?

2012-01-25T06:57:00.000-08:00

THE SAGA CONTINUES WITH CONFLICTING IMMIGRATION RULES, THAT CHANGE WITH THE PERSON. FRUSTRATION! FRUSTRATION AND MORE FRUSTRATION WITH THE IMMIGRATION BUREAUCRACY!

At great expense, my daughter a Belizean, and one of her children, ( Stephan Urscheler - my grandson ) now on his fourth passport renewal, are traveling from Miami to try and get the passport renewed. Different answers from different places, on each trip, the eternal bureaucratic "pass the buck and conflicting information" ). The roundtrip airfare from Miami to Belize City, or Belmopan, runs over a $1000 USA in expenses, including plane and taxi fares. If you cannot resolve this in one trip, multiple trips get to be accumulatively very expensive. Not counting lost time from work, or in Stefans place, lost time from his attendance at Florida International University. There has to be a better organized way to run IMMIGRATION?

Ray Auxillou ( grandpa out in Hillview, Western Belize )
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All the new passports are caricom passports, no extra fees. I renewed mine as did marlise and both got caricom passports without requesting it. Stefan's is in limbo because apparently UDP put a rule that if you were not born in Belize you need a naturalization certificate to renew your passport now, this number needs to be entered in the computer. This rule was not in effect when he got his first passport so he does not have a naturalization certificate. It was never a problem since he has renewed 3 belize passports to date confirming his Belizean citizenship he should not need it as he is already Belizean. In Belize City they indicate the certificate can only be obtained in Belmopan. We have done several trips to date only for them to tell you they need another document. Last time they did not like my original issue Belize birth certificate ( from the old hospital on the barracks ), they wanted the new "vital statistics" one they are requiring to prove parentage/descendant link. Why we have to do this after he is a citizen is beyond me. Maybe I need to sue the government for discrimination? It seems to be all about generating fees and wasting money on repeated trips. There is no standardized functioning system, it all depends on who you get .

Sharon Urscheler SUrscheler@msn.com ( my daughter Sharon Auxillou )
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Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:38:24 +0000
Subject: [Western Belize Happenings!] IMMIGRATION IN BELIZE MORDIDA, OR NEW FEE, OR WHAT?
From: hillviewhacienda@yahoo.com
To: surscheler@msn.com

INCOMING E MAIL TRAFFIC is indicating, THAT IMMIGRATION WILL RE-PROCESS YOUR BELIZE PASSPORT TO THE NEW CARICOM PASSPORT, IF YOU PAY $100.

Not sure if this is a bribe or not? But at least two people have informed me that if you pay them $100 Bz you get your passport renewed in 24 hours. Nobody mentioned whether you got a government receipt for this expediting service or not. Everybody else like my grandson, waiting to renew his 4th Belize Passport based on first come first served public service, gets to wait indefinitely. ( five years waiting now ) I guess they figure sooner or later YOU WILL PAY the extra $100 mordida for public service? If you are honest and expect to be treated FAIRLY you apparently are not going to get treated by IMMIGRATION AT ALL? I wonder if that money is going into the GENERAL TREASURY, or is a SCAM inside the bureaucracy?
The business about having to have a NATURALIZATION CERTIFICATE for PASSPORT CARRYING BELIZEANS, or roots people, still is leaving me puzzled. So far, no explanation has been forthcoming?

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Posted By A Professional BEACH BUM retires in Belize! to Western Belize Happenings! at 1/23/2012 07:28:00 AM
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LATEST INFORMATION FROM A SENIOR IMMIGRATION OFFICER, SAYS YOU ONLY NEED TO FILL OUT THE APPLICATION FORM AND SUPPLY THE EXPIRED PASSPORT. NOT SO IN PRACTICE! IN THEORY THIS IS A BEAUTIFUL, LOGICAL METHOD. IN PRACTICE, my daughter Sharon is climbing up the walls trying to resolve this issue. Not counting the $4000 usa already spent trying to complete this passport renewal process.

BELIZE- the largest web site on Belize, for 22 years AMBERGISCAYE.COM is under CYBER ATTACK from uknown EVIL DOERS.

2012-01-25T01:30:00.000-08:00

EVIL DOERS ATTACK THE LONGEST MOST SUCCESSFUL ADVERTISING AND PARTICIPATION SITE ON THE WEB - AMBERGRISCAYE.COM

This web site, hosted and directed by Marty Casado of Eugene, Oregon, has been promoting and serving Belize with literally tens of millions of website visitors, covering every aspect of Belize and the geographic and business regions within the country. Far surpassing any government financed web sites, AMBERGRISCAYE.COM has literally carried news of Belize to ALL THE CORNERS and remote places of the world, that have internet.

Sad to say, there have been WEB ATTACKS on the website with DENIAL OF SERVICE attacks and the SERVERS in OREGON have been overcome. Now there is a running battle, with running attacks and counter attacks. Who the EVIL DOERS are, at this point we do not know?

Should the source of the EVIL DOERS be identified, it could be that the battle may escalate into other realms? No right minded Belizean can tolerate this kind of criminal activity.
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From Marty:
Thanks Ray, appreciate your support!
Was contacted by the evildoer last night. They inform me they are just one person.
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EVIL DOER BRAGS TO VICTIM, HE IS THE ONLY ONE? Hmnnnn! Think if the identity gets known of this criminal, it will become a WHOLE NEW BALL GAME? Do you have phone call tracing Marty? I would imagine there are Federal laws against cyber crime, particularly interstate?
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BELIZE HAS HIGH HOPES OF THE NEW GUATEMALAN PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT.

2012-01-24T03:23:00.000-08:00

Belize has great hopes of joint economic growth with our neighbor GUATEMALA to our WEST, with the election of the NEW President and Vice President. As observers from Belize, over their Eastern Peten border, we have been astounded in the changes and improvements in the last 15 years, since the downsizing of their military from 50,000 to 17,000 back in 1996. Guatemala has changed. Still not the industrialized rich nation it could be. But equality of education, health services, roads and telecommunications has changed the way the 21 different Mayan language groups interact with the big city folks. Everybody in that country is experiencing a rising material, more affluent life style, than ever before in Guatemala from the past 15 years of civil government.
We have noticed the economic improvements and these have been DRAMATIC indeed. A lot of international chain businesses and factories have opened national branches in Guatemala and lots of things once imported into that country are now being MADE IN GUATEMALA. Even the local LADRINOS have successfully started their own internal new businesses and factories. Much improvement has yet to be done in Guatemala in manufacturing, but they do have the population base, of 12 million people, that make the future BRIGHT with PROMISE. IMPORT SUBSTITUTION should be big on their agenda. If they get their manufacturing base expanded, that country GUATEMALA is going to become the industrial manufacturing,DYNAMO OF CENTRAL AMERICA. You just watch the last 15 years growth. In Belize, with our current population of 350,000 we hope to tag along on the coat tails of Guatemala and join them on the climb to a better economic future. We may be the neighbor poor relations, with a small population, but the successes of Guatemala over the last 15 years have effected us as well. We believe if the GDP curve continues to climb for Guatemala, it will also increase for BELIZE as well.
How well the civil society and government do, will be the main crux to how well, both Belize and Guatemala grow economically together.

Inauguration of the new President, Molina, and Vice President, Roxana Baldetti of Guatemala.
A female VICE PRESIDENT OF GUATEMALA is elected. Good luck to her.
New President of Guatemala MOLINA and his VICE President Roxana Baldetti

What we in Belize also hope, is that the new administration of GUATEMALA, GET RID of their useless military, and substitute better and more well trained, diversified specialist, police forces, overhauling the police systems and also their justice systems, which are perceived to be inadequate and corrupt. Belize is not any better, so we cannot complain. We, as both our countries are saddled with inherited justice systems and police systems that do not work. Big challenges and hopefully Belize and Guatemala can improve and work together to build a better future for our growing populations. Particularly without the interference of the USA and European nations.

GUATEMALA, MILITARY RULE AND TERROR ENDING IN 1996

2012-01-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

GUATEMALA AND THE MILITARY DOWNSIZING IN 1996.

Guatemala for most of it´s history has been ruled by dictators. Most of the time, these have been military Generals. With the recent FEAR expressed in the port town of Belize City, it behooves one to take another look at the realities of GUATEMALA. The country has only been a real democracy since 1996, during which the PEACE PROCESS decided to downsize the 50,000 man ARMY to 17,000 men.

In the port of Belize, there is still generational memory of dictatorships in Guatemala, merciless killings and outright massacres of tens of thousands of Guatemalan citizens. Paid for a lot of the time, if not ALL the time, by the United States of America.

What is stoking FEAR in the port town population here in Belize, of mainly BLACK people of one shade or another, is the three MASSACRES of BLACK PEOPLE around Puerto Barrios, during the 1920´s. Most that survived fled across the Gulf of Honduras to British Honduras and took refuge in the Colony of BRITISH HONDURAS. There is probably nobody alive in Belize today, who would remember those massacres? When I arrived at the end of the 1950´s Guatemala was still much feared and could not have been more than 20 or 25 years later. Certainly I was filled with the memories and stories passed on to me by the THEN older generation of coastal black people. Indeed, I had my own run-in with the military, DEATH SQUAD in Puerto Barrios in 1960. Escaped more by LUCK than anything, and the fortituous intervention of then President Fuentes. It was certainly a CLOSE CALL. The only memory today of BLACK MASSACRES would be three generations later. Still remembered. And while the CALL in the 1970´s for invading British Honduras and wiping out all the BLACKS of Belize City the port town by the Guatemalan press of the time and the military killing machine. It never happened, though that same KILLING MACHINE did go on to kill hundreds of thousands of MAYA. Mostly in the HIGHLANDS.
In those days, GUATEMALA got most of their income from the UNITED FRUIT COMPANY, who was able to use the economic might of the USA government to dictate policy in Guatemala. There were many other American expats and they freely used the Guatemalan military to round up FORCED SLAVE LABOR from the villages of the HIGHLANDS, to bring in crops like sugar cane, on the PACIFIC COAST, very large tracts of lands.
The massacres of the BLACKS in Guatemla was more to do with the United Fruit Company and the Ladinos. There was some disagreement about labor, unionizing and so forth. The United Fruit Company imported black labor from Jamaica and they went on strike, more than once. That strike closed the port which was the dollar sign lifeblood of the government of the day and the military backers. Eventually, the government of the day and the military decided to wipe the BLACKS out. I believe that only a small enclave resides now in Livingston. Killing is cheaper than deporting back to Jamaica. This LIVINGSTON was a machine shop town for repairs at the time. To put it in perspective, there might have been some BLACK MASSACRES but for sheer size and feriocity, it could not match the USA backed massacres of the HIGHLAND MAYA in size, or quantities of lives shed.

This more or less went along in Guatemala until 1996, about 15 years ago, when the PEACE ACCORD was brokered. KILLERS of the military given immunity and civil government took over running the country after the Military were downsized. Since then, in the past 15 years, GUATEMALAN society and the nation and GDP have blossomed and for incomes and material standards, the population has gone from worse to better and even more and more better. Roads, schools, clinics have been built with the money saved from disbanding two thirds of the military machine that ruled with an IRON FIST in GUATEMALA. They still have 17,000 men in that machine though. None of which are needed, and costing the Guatemalan government a third of annual tax revenues, for no useful purpose. Guatemala is now part of a new CENTRAL AMERICAN revolution for peace and economic advancement. Things are getting much better. Even BELIZE has joined the new Central American economic union of joint seven countries and it is working very well indeed. ROADS, SERVICES and COMMUNICATIONS have made part of the difference.
It is certainly going to be interesting to see how an ELECTED ARMY GENERAL will handle the country now. Back to the bad old days, or into shining future of democratic economic activity.
GUATEMALA badly needs restructuring. Get rid of the army and replace them with specialized NATIONAL EMERGENCY UNITS, trained to help the population in time of disasters. More schools certainly. Higher education in rural parts and a complete overhaul on how POLICE systems work. Even getting rid of the existing police systems and rebuilding them in a new format. DRUG SWAT TEAMS, CRIME INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS, MOBILE SWAT TEAMS TO HANDLE OUTBREAKS of holdups and young men thinking they can make money faster through crime. It can be done and should be done. Is a President who was an ARMY GENERAL the man for the job though? That is the $64,000 question? We can only HOPE and wait and see? Or will it be more of the SAME OLD, same old, routine? GUATEMALA deserves better to build on the last 15 years of successes with their civil society and economic successes. Will they get it? Aaaah! That really is the big question?

IMMIGRATION IN BELIZE MORDIDA, OR NEW FEE, OR WHAT?

2012-01-23T07:28:00.000-08:00

INCOMING E MAIL TRAFFIC is indicating, THAT IMMIGRATION WILL RE-PROCESS YOUR BELIZE PASSPORT TO THE NEW CARICOM PASSPORT, IF YOU PAY $100.

Not sure if this is a bribe or not? But at least two people have informed me that if you pay them $100 Bz you get your passport renewed in 24 hours. Nobody mentioned whether you got a government receipt for this expediting service or not. Everybody else like my grandson, waiting to renew his 4th Belize Passport based on first come first served public service, gets to wait indefinitely. ( five years waiting now ) I guess they figure sooner or later YOU WILL PAY the extra $100 mordida for public service? If you are honest and expect to be treated FAIRLY you apparently are not going to get treated by IMMIGRATION AT ALL? I wonder if that money is going into the GENERAL TREASURY, or is a SCAM inside the bureaucracy?
The business about having to have a NATURALIZATION CERTIFICATE for PASSPORT CARRYING BELIZEANS, or roots people, still is leaving me puzzled. So far, no explanation has been forthcoming?
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To keep you all informed (because what I was told by the first officer I spoke with may have been misinformation) I was able to speak with a Sr. Immigration Officer at the Belize City Passport office this morning and she said all I need is to fill out an application and show my expired passport for renewal, and that I can do that in the Belize City office on Mahogany St. Extension.
I was dreading the Belmopan Office just now because I assumed the workers there would be overwhelmed with the volume of work they have been dealing with the past few weeks.

Will be nice to have a 10 year passport.

Thanks,
Lynn

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 8:52 AM, anne wade wrote:

I just picked up my new passport on Thursday. It took two weeks to process with a $50 fee. All I needed to do was fill out a one page application and present my expired passport. When the last passport was for five years, the new Belize Caricom Passport is valid for 10 years.

I must say however, that my visit to the office Thursday gave me a first hand view of the nationalization process of our new Belizean brothers and sisters. Quite a different experience from seeing it on the news. It must be near overwhelming for the officers working at Immigration and Nationality. The lines extended out the door of the building, the parking lot was jam packed, there were people milling about, and there was a constant arrival and departure of pickup trucks and SUV's. Outside the immigration office had the buzzing air of a well organized voting station on election morning.

From: Eve
To: lynn . ; Belize Breeze ; Bz-Culture
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 5:47 PM
Subject: Re: Bz-Culture: STARTING SIX YEARS FOR BELIZE IMMIGRATION TO RENEW OLD PASSPORT.

Lynn,

I live in SI and whenever anyone I know here needs to have their passport renewed (I did last year), they/we go into Belmopan ... there is a separate office in one section of the Immigration Dept. building that is the Passport Office.

EA
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Thanks for the info. Will pass it on to my grandson and mother up in Miami.
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BELIZE - ARCHEOLOGICAL FIND IN BELIZE, DOWNTOWN SAN IGNACIO TOWN

2012-01-23T06:31:00.000-08:00

Archeological find in downtown San Ignacio hill town in Western Belize.
Town council finds ancient pre-classic pots and stuff in whole condition
BIG ARCHEOLOGICAL FIND IN BELIZE. PRE-CLASSIC, maybe 3,500 years old?

From Facebook: "The town council has a project in the center of town right now and part of it consists of laying down drain pipes, and putting all the wires underground. So when they started digging on Burns to lay the first of the pipes right where the alley is between Venus & Serendib they started find ceramics - but not just any ceramics - whole vessels....PreClassic vessels. So from Serendib along up to to where we were excavating today the cultural level continues.

Unfortunately vessels were being taken out and some walked from since Friday - it wasn't until today that official work took place."

Pics are supposed to be up on the Institute of Archeology Facebook page. For those of you that are my "friend's" on facebook, the info is on my wall.

Cindy

UDP GOVERNMENT OF BELIZE GAINS 5 POINTS ON APPROVAL REPORT CARD RATING. NEW SCORE IS 16%.

2012-01-21T22:55:00.000-08:00

Gaspar Vega, Deputy Prime Minister of Belize.
Sedi Elrington, Foreign Minister of Belize
UDP AWARDED 5 POINTS, RAISING APPROVAL REPORT CARD RATING FROM 11 TO 16%.

This is a queer deal, but the AMANDALA had informed us, in the latest issue, that GASPAR VEGA, the Deputy Prime Minister ( the consiglieure of the UDP mafia running our spoils parliamentary governing system ) attended the INAUGURATION of the new PRESIDENT OF GUATEMALA, Otto Perez Molina.
It says our Gaspa Vega, ( Deputy Prime Minister ) had a meeting with the new PRESIDENT OF GUATEMALA, the day before the inauguration. He also met on behalf of Belizeans the Vice President, a lady Roxana Baldetti.

The 5 points is awarded for the DISCRETION and WISDOM on this sensitive subject. By rights, Sedi Elrington, our Foreign Minister should have gone. Not to bring RACISM into this too much, and SEDI ELRINGTON is a nice guy and friend, who I sort of respect. However he is UGLY, BLACK and has this crazy WHITE BEARD. He also speaks in conversation in lawyer legalese pontifications. Totally unsuited for our relationships with such a big, close and very important neighbor, who in future years, we are going to be doing a LOT OF ECONOMIC BUSINESS WITH. ELRINGTON at the inaugration of the NEW GUATEMALAN PRESIDENT, would have catered to ALL THE INHERITED GUATEMALAN PREJUDICES and really set back BELIZE relations with Guatemala. Not from any fault on his part, other than personality and appearance.
That said, I judge the choice of bilingual GASPAR VEGA, a charming man, and the jury is still out on my part, trying to figure if he is as nice as he appears, or just a smooth con man? It didn´t matter in this case, I was astounded at the SMARTS displayed by his choice, to represent us, by our PM Dean Barrow, to go to Guatemala City for first appearances. The choice of GASPAR VEGA our deputy PRIME MINISTER, to meet with the new executive of GUATEMALA was superb and a well played card. The man could melt butter on his tongue. Perfect choice. Worth 5 points in future Guatemalan relations any day.
The AMANDALA news blurb says Gaspar Vëga discussed economic trade, security concerns along the Chiquibul and joint security operations against criminals, with the NEW GUATEMALA PRESIDENT. Good job and well done!

WHAT IS THE IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT IN BELIZE UP TO?

2012-01-21T01:41:00.000-08:00

The wierdest thing! Reports are starting to come into my e-mail box wanting to know the POLICY REASONS for a regulation at IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT, THAT ALL BELIZE CITIZENS RENEWING THEIR BELIZE PASSPORTS, must have a NATURALIZATION CERTIFICATE.

Just think; according to the message stream and complaints coming in; DEAN BARROW, JOHNNY BRICENO, FRANCIS FONSECA, SAID MUSA and ALL BELIZEANS who currently hold a BELIZE PASSPORT, NOW HAVE TO ACQUIRE AND TAKE A NATURALIZATION CERTIFICATE, in order to RENEW THEIR Belize Passport.

1) The idea behind this regulation is a mystery? Of course new immigrants, will already have passed their 5 year PERMANENT RESIDENCY REQUIREMENT. Reports say and I can vouch for this as well from personal knowledge of people, that IMMIGRANTS will take about 8 to 10 years, acquiring the 5 year certification of PERMANENT RESIDENCY. At which time, they swear in at a ceremony and get a NATIONALIZATION CERTIFICATE, which can be presented to authorities at IMMIGRATION to get a Belize PASSPORT.

2) Belizeans holding a Belizean PASSPORT are mystified? What is the REASON, that born in Belize, or already naturalized Belizeans from long ago, have to NATURALIZE IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY? ONE HAS VISIONS and it has been suggested this is a money making excercise by the UDP Government. But apparently, this regulation precedes the UDP government, back into the PUP government time?

3) Further speculation is that it is some sort of policy to get rid of native born ROOTS BELIZEANS in favor of new immigrants being encouraged to come to Belize to build our economy. A lot of JAPANESE would be needed to boost GDP, and ROOTS BELIZEANS DO NOT DO THIS. They are for the most part parasites. Of course, any recent NEW BELIZEAN will have a NATURALIZATION CERTIFICATE as part of past process at IMMIGRATION. Certainly as a Belizean I don´t have one and never needed one before. NO BELIZEAN holding a CURRENT VALID PASSPORT WILL HAVE ONE EITHER. So the assumption is; somehow this IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT REGULATION is targeted at native Belizeans, both those that have a passport for decades and those who may apply in the future. But the WHY is mystifying? What is the policy for? ONLY new immigrants would have such a NATURALIZATION CERTIFICATE.

The street and parlour discussions on this have gone round and round, but nobody so far, has offered a credible answer to this NATURALIZATION REQUIREMENT of a native born BELIZEAN? Some nefarious long term, purpose is guessed at by most people, because it doesn´t make any sense.

European Union means well, but is offering the wrong kind of SCHOLARSHIP GRANTS to educate people here in Belize!

2012-01-20T17:19:00.000-08:00

EUROPEAN UNION OFFERS SCHOLARSHIP GRANTS FOR STUDENTS THROUGH THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES AND LOCALLY THROUGH OUR GOVERNMENT OWNED UNIVERSITY OF BELIZE

The GRANT SCHOLARSHIPS I notice are for only MASTERS AND DOCTORATES. Queer that, we see that a lot from Foreign countries AID programs. They always offer them for Masters and Doctorates. Belize has a surplus at the moment of such people with Masters and Doctorate degrees, if complaints in the local media are to believed? Complaining of the lack of salaried jobs for bureaucratic administrator types, such as this. Salaried administrative clerk, bureaucrats do not build our export GDP economy. They are parasites,dragging our country down with worthless local education. All we are doing is educating people to export our citizens, in the BRAIN DRAIN skills. Waste of money to Belize!
The only country offering practical EDUCATION with scholarship grants, that BELIZE requires right now, seems to be MEXICO, in the more middle level technical fields. Taiwan has done some in the past and I believe CUBA is educating some of our citizens in the medical fields.
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WHAT BELIZE NEEDS RIGHT NOW IS MIDDLE LEVEL EDUCATION IN SPECIALTY SKILLS. SHORT TERM EDUCATION, LIKE THREE MONTHS, TWO EVENINGS A WEEK TYPE SPECIALTY CERTIFICATIONS. I remember my younger years. For eight years, I would finish my winter tourist season just after the high Easter tourist rush on Caye Caulker, and head out to Miami to build up my USA Social Security, with 5 months of work for the Dade County PARKS and RECREATION, as a SWIMMING POOLS MANAGER. Each Spring, I had to renew my certifications for Swimming Instructor, Lifeguard, CPR and First Aid. Annual exams for recertification. My STATE POOL OPERATORS LICENSE was good for a lifetime. Still have it. More needed for Insurance requirements for the inevitable lawsuits the County government would get, when there was an accident, or drowning. Anyway, I would invest in my 3 months of night school certifications, then the County PARKS AND RECREATION would process me and hire me for getting 4 swimming pools ready out of the many they had. Painting them and that sort of thing. Training a bunch of new, summer time Life Guards, hiring and so on, for pools and beaches.
Right now in Belize we need these short, specialty skill certifications. We need people short term certified in lathe work, CNC lathes computer instructed and parts designing on 3 D computer programs, or wiring generators and alternators to requirements of specialty tasks, aluminum TIG welding, steam engines-pressure and boiler setups and safety releases, grinding crankshafts and making pistons. We need people trained in the skill of foundry work, cottage industry hobby scale, with different metals. Making of molds in GREEN SAND containers, to make metal parts. We also need people that can make molds, with Dupont rubber latex type molds and castings, to make parts of plaster of paris, or to make plastic things. We need people familiar with clay sculpture, expoxy mold building and thermo ovens production. ( Kitchen table type industry ) BELIZE EDUCATION needs orientating our EDUCATION SHORTAGES, on LIGHT INDUSTRIAL MANUFACTURING. Like making and installing and operating food processing machinery, especially the packaging. You should be able to manufacture a small kitchen type tea bag, filling machine here in Belize for making of export HERBAL TEAS. I nearly ordered one from India a couple of years ago, to copy. ( $1200 usa ) We need people used to do lithography, making chocolate cardboard boxes, or cardboxes for various food products. At the moment I´m waiting to make a trip to Guatemala City, to make the rounds of LITHOGRAPHERS as I would like to make and design my own chocolate boxes, or Ginger biscuit boxes and rolls. We need an expansion of our limited injection molding plastic bottles, jars and tops. Most of this type of education is SELF TAUGHT right now. Trial and error, by guess and by golly. I can remember the main part of my youthful years, designing and building boats, up to 50 feet length. Designed and built more than a dozen, as a self taught MARINE ARCHITECT. Had to watch shipwrights, ask questions, read books, to learn to loft frames, or make wood models used to make curved frames for boat hulls, run different scale drawings, and design boats in wood, fiberglass and cement. Fiberglass expensive machinery for spray and stuff was more difficult, because if you wasted the product it was EXPENSIVE. The instruction book in one hand and the spray gun and cut fiberglass feeding roll in the other, down at Arthur Hoares, Coordinated Dockyard in Belize City the port. It would have sure helped to take a short certification course, which was not available then and is not available now either in Belize. Big bottleneck in turning our economy around to light manufacturing industry exports. I remember going to Miami to buy Philip Goldson an airplane for campaigning in 1960. I took 5 hours of dual pilot training, which is all I could afford, then buying the books and learning to fly and navigate on my own, as I went, flying with an instruction book in one hand, or lying on the seat next to me. We are currently building planes in Belize of the Ultra Light variety.
The European Union have a couple of million Euros, BELIZE could probably use some, for EDUCATION, but our NEED IN BELIZE, is this short term certifications, in specialty manufacturing skills. The last thing we need is more academic, paper waving, desk bound bureaucrats. We have a surplus already for our population size. Maybe our University of Belize academics like Dr. Cary Fraser will meet at the consortium in TOBAGO next week and put in a plea to re-direct the application of this EU GRANT program, for Masters and Doctorates, to more fitting uses in SKILLS orientated EDUCATION. EDUCATION HAS TO FIT THE DEVELOPMENT NEEDS OF BELIZE. We need so much in the SKILLS mid level EDUCATION, to build our nation and GDP of BELIZE. We also need the light machinery tools and educators who can QUICK TEACH this stuff. None of this type of EDUCATION exists in BELIZE at all, at this current time. Yet our need to foster and educate a new generation of people to be EXPORTERS, LIGHT MANUFACTURERS and ENTREPRENEURS, far surpasses the constant supply of GRANT SCHOLARSHIPS from the outside world for administrative, desk bound, bureaucrats in the civil service. EDUCATION HAS TO FIT THE NEEDS OF BELIZE AND BUILD OUR ECONOMY, or it is basically worthless and wasted. We are just exporting our people with MASTERS AND DOCTORATES to the outside world. THAT is not a valid education model for Belize at this stage of our population growth.
One of the imported skills education is the GIS technology. I notice that somebody in government is now offering the public GIS knowledge and performance. So it has taken 13 years to convert an introductory dream of mine, by government, to practical performance and education at this current time. Takes a long time, for a government to do anything pragmatic. We need to start these things now, because of the TIME LAG.

BELIZE CITY COUNCIL ADVERTISING FOR SOFTWARE PROGRAMMER

2012-01-20T17:05:00.000-08:00

I hope the Belize City Council down on the coast, have better luck than me?

The Government have been advertising Belize has an abundance of entry level SOFTWARE PROGRAMMERS, but my advertising did not attract any applications.

The advertised requirements for Belize City Council, was a Linux system administration, knowledge in ASP NET and C++, Web Service development, SQL data bases and store procedures, CSS, JavaScript Development, with mixed BROWSERS, ADO.net, MVC ASP.NET and other general knowledge. GOOD LUCK TO THEM, as I didn´t find any Belizean programmers available.

Belize- immigration problems - 5 years trying to renew Belize passport.

2012-01-20T06:41:00.000-08:00

SEEMS MY GRANDSON, STEFAN URSCHELER is one of those on the IMMIGRATION POSTPONED BACK LIST?

He is a child of my daughter, Sharon Auxillou ( Mrs. Sharon Urscheler ) Stefan Urscheler, my grandson,has travelled internationally a few times on his Belize Passport, but it expired. In the meantime, apparently the IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT refused to RENEW his passport when he turned it in. Something to do with being a child or something. In the meantime, while he is on the backlog list, he has become an adult and still without a NEW REPLACEMENT RENEWED BELIZE PASSPORT. As far as we know, you just turn in your old passport, but apparently this is not so. Been to do it through the Belize Embassy in Washington, D.C. At the moment he is studying at Florida International University, so who knows when he will get his passport renewed somehow? He was down on the Caye Caulker at home, a few months back. Think it was for either THANKSGIVING or something. We just don´t have the money for plane tickets and running up and down to Belmopan. Flying in and out, and being told to come back next month, repeatedly, just does not cut it. Costs too much money. Last mysterious request from Immigration, was for a NATURALIZATION CERTIFICATE. What kind of nonsense is that. Stefan has used his Belizean PASSPORT since he was around 5 years old, travelling with his mother. The ways of a bureaucracy in Belmopan are confusing and mysterious indeed? We speak English, imagine an immigrant speaking Chinese,German, or Swiss or something? What a mess that department is.
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Stefan's Passport renewal is still pending in Belize City, he has paid the fees, taken the photos, presented his old one, filled the application-all the steps needed to renew. Now the Belize city passport office claims he needs a naturalization certificate even though he has had 3 previous passports confirming he is a Belizean citizen and the original expired passports were presented to Belize Immigration & passport office with renewal. At the time of his birth the requirements for proof of belizean citizenship was present Stefan's orignal birth certificate, present his belizean parent's birth certifcate and present the marriage certificate. This was done and his citizenship confirmed therefore he was issued a belizean passort. Prior to his most recent attempt to renew in Belize city last year, he had tried to renew in San Pedro, Ambergris and was told he was not able to because the passport office there was under investigation for passport scams. He was then given by Belmopan a temporary 2 yr. extension on the old passport (pending the passport office investigation )which has since expired so he went to renew again this time in Belize City. Why does he need a naturalization certificate if he is already a belizean citizen as confirmed by his 3 prior passports is my question and why are they holding up his renewal passport when he has presented his expired one for renewal. It was not lost or missing. A Belizean passport is supposed to be proof of citizenship so why can't he get a renewed one? Hopefully one day soon he can actually receive his renewed passport. He is now over the age of 21 and we started trying for his passport renewal back in 2006 visiting belmopan, visiting belize city, visiting San Pedro Offices only to get some other reason for the delay in issuing.

Sharon Urscheler SUrscheler@msn.com
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Ray, Interesting but disturbing tale. I recently realized my passport is expired and I can't get anyone on the phone at Immigration to tell me where the passport offices are. I went into Immigration in Dangriga Immigration office a couple of weeks ago and their first response was I need to go to the US Embassy. When I asked if we'd been conquered by Uncle Sam, the officer said I could apply for renewal in Dangriga but it would take 6 to 8 weeks through their office and that I needed to present my Certificate of Naturalization, which I did not have on me because I keep it in my safe deposit box at my bank. Certificate of Naturalization seems an unreasonable request since I have my two-month expired Belize Passport, my SS card, Voter ID and Driver Permit which all state I am citizen of Belize.

The only phone number I find for Passport Office in the btl directory is a number in Belize City and I've dialed it about 20 times with no success. All I get is a voice message that says "the number you have dialed is busy; please try again later."

So, anyone know how many passport offices there are in Belize? And where they are located?

Ray, I hope your grandson gets his passport issue resolved soon.

lynn
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STRANGE? WHY WOULD A BELIZE CITIZEN, HOLDING A PASSPORT THEIR ENTIRE LIFE, RENEWED FOUR TIMES REQUIRE A NATURALIZATION CERTIFICATE?

CATCH 22 SITUATION. You born here, why would you need to naturalize? You mean to tell me EVERY MEMBER OF GOVERNMENT WHO IS A BELIZEAN WITH A VALID BELIZE PASSPORT AND ALL THE OTHER STUFF, HAVE TO GO AND NATURALIZE IN HIS OR HER OWN COUNTRY, WHEN IT COMES TO RENEW THE PASSPORT? I wouldn´t even know where to start. I came here BEFORE BELIZE EXISTED. I was a COLONIAL from ENGLAND. Upon INDEPENDENCE, my status changed to citizen of Belize. When my passport expires, you telling me I would after 60 years thereabouts, have to NATURALIZE to renew my passport? CRAZY! CRAZY !

BELIZE - IMMIGRATION BACKLOG PROBLEM AND HOW IT WORKS!

2012-01-20T01:12:00.000-08:00

THE IMMIGRATION DEBACLE IN BELIZE

Chief of Immigration in Belize, says there is a backlog of naturalization applicants to be dealt with. The backlog of unprocessed files for NATURALIZATION as citizens, is 2.5 years long. A very long time indeed. Blamed mostly, is lack of the size of the Immigration Department and the vetting slow procedures. What is happening right now in Belize is a cyclical situation, whereas backlogged people with papers that have not been processed for NATURALIZATION, lost files, personal documents, etc., has put many would be long term residents in Belize, that have immigrated here, on a HOLDING PATTERN. Some have been holding over 20 years. When we talk about a messed up political system and bureaucratic administrative system, the only government department that equals the IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT, is the LANDS DEPARTMENT for an untidy mess.
The 5 year cyclical nature of national elections, sets deadlines for voting registration for new immigrants, so EVERY ELECTION CYCLE, whoever the party in power is, the ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES OF THAT PARTY, start working with their non-voting constitutents, trying to facilitate their getting their paper work in order for NATURALIZATION. Many immigrants have neither the language skills in English and many do not understand the long and tedious processing requirements. For many, raising kids that were born in Belize, it takes all their money to live, as they are on the lower end of the totem pole in the economy as to salaries and cash flows. So, the rising steep fees for various things in qualifying with paper work, like police records, doctor medical tests and so forth takes a back burner. Children of residents of Belize who immigrated here are sometimes in High School, or even College after being born here, but their parents have not been able to complete the IMMIGRATION validation process bureaucratic red tape, to become legal voting citizens. They want to, circumstances and the fees and the red tape frustrate them.
Hence as a NATIONAL ELECTION is coming up shortly this year, the ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES have opened their constituency offices and hired people on their own, to help long term qualified residents process their paper work, so it is acceptable to the IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT, for swearing in. The reason is because such a qualified immigrant will usually VOTE for the person who helped them break the bottleneck at Immigration Department.
On the same tone, it at this time prior to the General Election that the ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES insist the CABINET of their party, put the IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT ON OVERTIME PAY, to start vetting and processing the 2.5 YEAR BACKLOG of uncompleted work that has piled up. So each election time seems to be the time, to clear the red tape obstacles and get the IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT BACKLOG completed. It is in self interest of the ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE of a constituency, to see his long term qualified residents become VOTERS on his watch, BEFORE the election. As once NATURALIZED, THE PERSON CAN REGISTER TO VOTE FOR HIM OR HER.
Their are many misunderstandings on local tv talk shows about the pile up of overtime work being done by IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS before an election. Also the side issue, of Elected Representatives hiring their own people to work with residents of their constituency, trying to process and get people with red tape paper work problems in order to expedite the NATURALIZATION PROCESS. It makes a lot of ignorant people angry and wild allegations are in the media at this time, alleging skulduggery. It is a NORMAL CYCLE of work being done, to get people registered to vote and they cannot vote if they are not NATURALIZED.
That said; the TV TALK SHOW WUB, run by hosts Sharon and Moses came up with a good suggestion, that our political apparatus and CABINET, PASS A LAW that would have a ONE YEAR holding period AFTER NATURALIZATION, before being able to register to vote. This would break the cycle of BACKLOG and OVERTIME during an ELECTION YEAR that is seen every ELECTION cycle. I agree with that in principal, but our government CABINET are not too work conscious and procrastination is the name of the game in looking after the day to day running problems of our small country. No bureaucrat on his or her own decision can make the government system work. The BLOCKAGE IS POLITICAL. We just have a lazy bunch, more concerned about making money in CABINET, rather than dealing with the day to day problems of running our government. It is not only the IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT in trouble. It is the LANDS DEPARTMENT and also LOCAL GOVERNMENT. Placentia Town Council have been waiting 8 years to get their by-laws read by the CABINET, ( both parties ) in the PARLIAMENT, which is a requirement of CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, to make them legal. NOBODY in any party in office have yet seen fit to do this small job either.
OBVIOUSLY, IMMIGRATION WILL HAVE TO BE ENLARGED, if they are too keep up with a 2.5 year BACKLOG of unprocessed applications for naturalization and citizenship, in a more orderly and timely manner. The CABINET on the other hand, have a problem finding budget money for this, as the government has negative cash flow and the government is heavily in DEBT. It is only at ELECTION TIME, that the clamor from ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES in the party controlling the CABINET, that money is squeezed from scarce priorities and resources, to put the IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT on OVERTIME PAY. Usually a period of a month or so.

PRESIDENTS OF GUATEMALA AND MEXICO CALL ON BELIZE TO DE-CRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA?

2012-01-20T00:25:00.000-08:00

PRESIDENTS OF TWO OF OUR NEIGHBORS IN BELIZE, HAVE CALLED PUBLICLY FOR DECRIMINALIZATION OF SOME DRUGS. PARTICULARLY MARIJUANA!

The trouble in Belize, is neither of our TWO major political parties have taken the marijuana problem to heart and done the same here in Belize. The lack of LEADERSHIP in Belize is something the more astute population, more than HALF of voting adults in Belize is frustrating the peace and tranquility of our small nation. Amsterdam, Holland has shown such a program not only works, but reduces the amount of users. YET, in Belize, Guatemala and Mexico, NOBODY in leadership positions CAN SEEM TO LEAD, what is a criminal scourge created by the DEMAND of DRUGS in the USA and their mixed up crazy policies toward MARIJUANA. So why in Belize cannot either UDP party leader DEAN BARROW, or the PUP leader Francis Fonseca, get off the pot and let us try something different, particularly as AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND shows it works. We need INNOVATIVE LEADERS that work, not just collect salaries and perks.

LAND, POWER AND POVERTY, a book by Professor, Charles D. Brockett in 1987 on GUATEMALAN HISTORY.

2012-01-19T01:31:00.000-08:00

WITH THE ELECTION OF A RETIRED ARMY GENERAL IN GUATEMALA AS PRESIDENT, VOWING TO RULE WITH AN IRON FIST. STUDENTS OF GUATEMALAN HISTORY WOULD DO WELL TO READ: The book; LAND, POWER, AND POVERTY, ending with events of historical significance in 1987. Not so long ago! ( 20 years ) The book written by Professor Charles D. Brockett in 1987 depicted an era of ruthless exploitation of the citizens of Guatemala by the military.

This book can also be read online. Since that time in 1987, the ARMY was downsized and the Generals of that era were retired. Guatemala since then, is not recognizable today, as the same country, described in this book of Guatemalan History. Advances for the general population have been many, and the infra-structure projects have brought modern living to even the most remote rural citizens of Guatemala. Today, Guatemala is a modern country, with living standards on a par with those in the USA. All this success has been due to a government run by civil society. Like any civil government, there are scandals, crime, Presidents who traditionally steal through FAKE, government programs, to build their private bank accounts in Panama. The normal events of a civil government. Judge for yourself! Nothing under civil government has been, and probably could not be as BAD AS THAT, that went before, under military rule; mostly back then 20 years ago, and financed by the depredations of the USA.

It is the end of the Mayan Calendar, one can only wonder at the political changes to come for Guatemala, in the GREAT CYCLES of change, predicted by the Mayan Calendar, great wheel, due to hit Guatemala in 2013?
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The first casualty of PEACE for Guatemala, will probably be the 2004, LAW; that set the limit for a GUATEMALAN military budget, at .33 of GDP. In truth, Guatemala has no need for a military. They do need FEDERAL POLICE SWAT TEAMS AND TRAINED "GANG SUPPRESSION UNITS". They do not need the military EVER AGAIN, if they are wise?
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Peace accords in 1996 ( 15 years ago ) that ended 36 years of fighting between leftist rebels and government forces ordered the army be slashed in size, dwindling from a 50,000-strong force to a huge overbloated 17,000 soldiers today, for a military that has no purpose, since there is no external enemy and Guatemala is friends with all her neighbors. Dozens of military bases, including one in Alta Verapaz, were closed. Just 15 years ago. The strides in improvement in the material standard of living in Guatemala, including rural areas; can only be described as gigantic under civilian only rule. Guatemalans today live on a par with citizens of the USA and Canada. The Guatemalan military is still very oversized for the limited acceptable functions it could be used for, in a peaceful society, with a growing GDP. Indeed, a Guatemalan military of less than 75 people, organized in Emergency Disaster Management, and Crime Suppression Units, would be more successful and acceptable than the current 17,000 soldier army. Which has no external enemy to fight. Current levels of crime are mostly traced to the effect of USA DRUG GANGS operating in the USA, whose need for transport from South America to the USA for illicit drugs, drive the turmoil in Central America. The crime ridden USA gangland society, is the cause of the biggest problems in Central America.

A regular turnover of corrupt police officers would be more successful, than increasing the military budget in Guatemala; which already has exceeded the law of 2004, supposedly limiting military costs to .33 of GDP. Currently military spending is at .4 of GDP. The wrong way to go!

Soldiers earn as little as $150 a month and are hired on a temporary basis. High salaries offered by the drug cartels often convince troops to switch sides. The Zetas, originally formed by Mexican army deserters, have been known to recruit elite Guatemalan troops known as Kaibils who are trained in jungle warfare and infamous for brutal civil-war era abuses. The occasional massacres within Guatemala, by these elements of USA drug gangs horrify the ordinary citizens. Professional training and funding of small, mobile, elite Gang Suppression Units are the solution needed in Guatemala and the funds wasted on a bloated 17,000 military, should be re-allocated and the military which has no purpose in Guatemalan society, downsized to a maximum of 100 persons or less. This huge Guatemalan military, too big for the country, with no acceptable purpose, can only if resurrected lead to further turmoil, abuses and civil war in the future.

A STUDY OF GUATEMALA MILITARY NEEDS !

2012-01-18T03:14:00.000-08:00

A STUDY OF GUATEMALA MILITARY NEEDS !

Guatemala has no EXTERNAL ENEMIES. Guatemala is now part of an expanding peaceful, economic GDP growth, with ALL the Central American countries, including the neighbor to the NORTH, Mexico.

EMPLOYMENT, GDP GROWTH, CIVIL RIGHTS, all these things have exploded to the advantage of GUATEMALAN SOCIETY, since the GENERALS were forcibly retired and the MILITIARY DOWNSIZED. Without an external enemy GUATEMALA has absolutely NO NEED for a military, just like SUCCESSFUL COSTA RICA.

That said; GUATEMALA probably could have a showcase military and this would be for basic functions. The PRESIDENTIAL PALACE AND ceremonial performances for STATE functions, like the VATICAN does. There are a need for military personel to fight DROUGHT, DISTRIBUTE FOOD TO THE NEEDY, help people after a LANDSLIDE, EARTHQUAKE, VOLCANO ERUPTIONS, and this sort of thing. DISASTER RELIEF being their major function.

The same unit used for above functions, could also be used to fight DRUG GANGS. We are not talking a lot of members of drug gangs. Maybe less than 50 violent people. A proper police unit, like a Gang Suppression Police Unit, or SWAT TEAM can deal with drug gangs. In total, there is probably NO JUSTIFICATION to hire, train and pay for more than 60 military personel in TOTAL. Two or THREE platoons. 45 military sized people is probably more than adequate for GUATEMALA.

To HIRE and establish a bigger military in GUATEMALA would be a WASTE of scarce TAX REVENUES. MONEY THAT COULD BE SPENT MORE WISELY IMPROVING INFRA-STRUCTURE and public services.

BELIZE IMPORTS $8,916,000 materials from RUSSIA in 2011.

2012-01-18T02:10:00.000-08:00

BELIZE IMPORTS RUSSIAN CRUDE OIL AND GAS FOR 2011

FOR 2011, crude oil and gas imports from RUSSIA to BELIZE were $8,916,000 usa. About 12,826,000 lbs.
At a cost of $1.38 Bz currency per pound.

BELIZE - RAJKOT, INDIA, A SOURCE OF TECHNICAL ADVISORS FOR FOUNDRY SKILLS EDUCATION?

2012-01-18T02:07:00.000-08:00

A SOURCE OF TECHNOLOGY TEACHERS FOR BELIZE IN SKILLS NEEDED TO BREAKOUT IN THE LIGHT MANUFACTURING ECONOMY OF OUR EXPONENTIALLY GROWING POPULATION. WHO WILL PAY? MAYBE THE UN ?

In Rajkot city, there are 600 foundries. All foundry people from owners to thousands of unskilled workers working in foundries know very well all foundry technology. Even clever workers understand what material must be added how much to get better quality cast iron. Most of the owners of foundries are also not educated beyond primary or secondary education. Most of the workers are not educated in schools. The skill is acquired only by actually working in foundry.
V K DESAI
AADHUNIK GLOBAL ENERGY
TINYTECH PLANTS
TAGORE ROAD
RAJKOT 360002
INDIA
PHONES
91 281 248 0166 (office)
91 281 246 7552 (fax)
91 92 27 60 65 70 (mobile)
EMAIL energy@tinytechindia.com
tinytech@tinytechindia.com
WEB www.tinytechindia.com

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CAYMAN AND BELIZE IS HONESTY, ETHICS , SECURITY AND PROMPT SERVICE?

2012-01-17T12:39:00.000-08:00

An article from today's Commentary section of the Washington Times, page B4

Richard Rahn, The Washington Times:

SAN PEDRO, Belize
Cayman is rich, and Belize is poor. Why? Both are small Caribbean countries with the same climate and roughly the same mixed racial heritage, and both were English-speaking British colonies. Belize (the former British Honduras) received its independence in 1981, while Cayman is still not fully independent but is self-governing at the local level, with its own currency, laws and regulations.
Belize should be richer: It has a larger population than Cayman (345,000 as contrasted with Cayman’s 54,000). Belize has a much larger and more varied land area with many more natural resources, including gas and oil, and some rich agricultural land that Cayman lacks. Both have nice beaches, but Belize has the second-largest barrier reef in the world after Australia and also has Mayan ruins. Yet Cayman, with fewer points of interests, has done more to attract tourists.
Back in the early 1970s, Cayman was as poor on a per capita basis as is Belize today. Both countries had ambitions to be tourist and financial centers. Cayman succeeded and has about six times the real per capita income of Belize. What did Cayman do right and Belize do wrong?
Perhaps most important is that Cayman had and maintained a competent and honest judicial system, which gave foreign investors confidence that their property would be protected. Cayman also has a very low crime rate. Tourists and other visitors walk around freely day or night in Cayman without fear. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many parts of Belize, where crime is often a problem. In addition, many judges in Belize are poorly trained, incompetent and, in some cases, corrupt. These issues cause foreign investors to consider higher-risk factors for projects in Belize as contrasted with Cayman.
The Washington Times The Washington Times
Belize has a more investor-friendly tax system than the United States, but Cayman has no corporate or individual income taxes on noncitizens and citizens alike - advantage Cayman. The problem for Belize is that it is competing with the likes of Cayman, Bermuda, the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands, but not the United States. Also, the regulatory environment in Cayman is largely free of corruption, which is not true in Belize.
The latest Index of Economic Freedom ranks Belize as the 77th most economically free country in the world (out of 179). If Cayman were large enough to be ranked, it almost certainly would be in the top 10. There is a very high correlation between economic freedom and per capita income. Any country can decide to become more free. Belize ranks a miserable 93 out of 183 countries ranked by the World Bank’s DoingBusiness project.
It is obvious why Cayman is rich and Belize is poor, and it comes down to one word: governance. If Belize would clean up its courts, fully protect property rights and adopt the best economic practices of its competitors, it could quickly become rich. For instance, it takes an average of 44 days to get all of the required permits to open a new business. In some countries, such as Estonia, Singapore and even the Commonwealth of Virginia in the U.S., the required paperwork to open a business can be done online. Thus, days have been reduced to just a few hours.
There is no reason any country has to remain poor. Countries are not poor because of climate, lack of natural resources or race. Countries as locationally varied as Singapore, Mauritius, Korea, Chile, Estonia and Cayman have become relatively rich over the past few decades. Those countries that are still relatively poor are poor because they have not put in place the necessary institutions, political structures and policies.
The United States and a number of other wealthy nations are becoming less free and thus, not surprisingly, are growing more slowly.
Belize could become rich and the U.S. and Cayman could become poor. It all depends on whether the political entities elect wise and courageous leaders.

Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.

BELIZE BANKING NEWS!

2012-01-17T09:16:00.000-08:00

BANKING NEWS OF BELIZE, JANUARY 17, 2012.

Compliments of the Amandala newspaper in Belize:

Posted: 16/01/2012 - 11:17 PM
Author: Adele O. Trapp - aotrapp@amandala.com.bz

The Central Bank of Belize says that its role is encouraging financial stability and economic growth in Belize. Among its tasks are: providing economic advice to the Government of Belize; providing banking services to commercial banks, the Government of Belize and public-sector organizations; issuing monetary notes and coins in Belize; buying, selling and otherwise dealing in foreign exchange; and managing Belize’s foreign reserves; among other responsibilities.

This week, we spoke with Central Bank Governor Glenford Ysaguirre on a range of matters which concern the bank’s portfolio.

Banking sector troubles

The governor broadly addressed the challenges facing the banking sector, particularly the high rate of non-performing loans (NPL) attributable to losses in sectors such as real estate and tourism.

He noted that under normal circumstances, the prudential benchmark of 5% NPL is encouraged, but Belize banks, on average, have been dealing with NPL rates way above that.

“Given what happened in 2008,” said Ysaguirre, speaking of the global financial/economic crisis, “I think everybody has jumped above the prudential rate.”

He said that an NPL rate of 8-9% would be a comfortable number under the circumstances. Some banks are high and some are low, depending on the sectors they finance.

“The average for the [banking] system right now is around 15%,” said the Governor, pointing out, however, that for the period 2008 to 2009, it was as high as 17 to 18 percent. “It is coming down, and it is important to us that it is trending in the right direction.”

He told us that some banks have bitten the bullet and absorbed losses, and so they can move with a portfolio that is cleaner, while others are still going through that process.

Delayed responses hurt

He noted that as Belizeans, “We have difficulty to accept change... Many in the business sector did not react as quickly to the situation; a lot of us sat down and hoped things would rebound but they won’t get back...for some time now.” He said that the quicker we come to that realization and try to do things to improve – diversify business and move on to other forms of activities, the better.

“We tend to lag behind the region in adjustment to change when we are faced with these external shocks,” said Ysaguirre.

Central Bank’s intervention

The Government told us that the Central Bank introduced most recently in December an increase in the provisions that banks would have to pass for non-performing loans.

“In the past, a loan that was fully secured – whether by mortgage or interest in some asset – would not have required the bank to pass any provision;” however, he said, the banks are now being required to increase their provisioning—funds held to offset losses—for 70% for such loans.

This, he said, is to ensure that banks have enough of a buffer and have enough provision to offset losses, thereby bringing the provisioning requirements up to international standard.

Banks would also be forced to recognize their losses on bad loans at an earlier date, and they would have to more readily acknowledge when they have come to the point where there is no reasonable opportunity to recover a loan.

Receivership of Port of Belize

We asked the Governor to comment on the Port of Belize receivership by Private Investment Limited, an overseas entity in the Turks and Caicos. We told him that the business owner, Luke Espat, had raised questions of the legality of what has been transpiring, and his attorney, Arthur Saldivar, had told us that PIL is not even a bank and should not be petitioning upon a financial document.

Ysaguirre said that while indeed, PIL is not a bank, what the originating bank did in selling off the loan to PIL it can do, “as long as that is part of the terms and conditions that the borrower signed on to.”

He added that, “In most markets, that is one of the methods banks use to rid themselves of troubled assets -- sell them at a discount,” Interestingly, however, at the time the loan was moved from the Belize Bank it was a performing loan, and that was one of the objections the Central Bank had with the repackaging of the debts. He told us that what happened to the loan after it was transferred is something he has no information about.

Ysaguirre also said that whereas there are procedures, guidelines, regulations in place to ensure related parties do not take advantage of clients, by accessing information for personal gain at the expense of their clients, in this case the indication is that the customer, Espat, was in agreement.

Thoughts on National Bank

The Central Bank Governor also shared with us his views on Prime Minister Dean Barrow’s proposal to turn the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) into a full scale national bank, to compete with the commercial banks.

Ysaguirre said that there would be issues with capitalization and ownership of the bank.

“If the idea is to turn the DFC into a full-scale commercial bank to start accepting deposits that would be owned by the private sector, there is nothing wrong with that,” he said, but added that, “there may be some difficulties with respect to a bank owned by the government.”

Ysaguirre noted that “Confidence and credibility is always an issue.”

If the DFC transformation does come to pass, he said, the Central Bank would also be regulating that institution and regulations would have to be drafted up to ensure it has the kind of autonomy that would give Belizeans the comfort and confidence that it would be run in the right way.

He said that there would have to be some distancing between administration of the bank and the government for it to be a success.

Can GOB pay super-bond and pay BTL, BEL compensation?

We asked the Governor: How do our numbers look?

He told us that the monies from the proceeds of the sale of shares in Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) are set aside. The final compensation figure would still have to be determined, and if the courts issue a ruling for a compensation figure higher than the proceeds of the sale of shares, he said, meeting all those payments “would create some fiscal pressure on the government, but that’s to be determined.”

Remittances

Governor Ysaguirre said that remittances have ceased to be a major foreign revenue source for Belize.

“With the advent of the money transfer agents, we have flat-lined with remittances,” he said. “We almost send out most of what would be coming in through these transfer agencies – the vehicle for remittances to come into Belize.”

He added that there has been pressure on the Central Bank, which also regulates money transfer agents, for permission to buy foreign currency from the domestic market to satisfy the demand for the transfers out.

(Story from the Tuesday, January 10, 2012 edition of The Adele Trapp Show, which simulcasts at 7:30 p.m. on KREM TV and KREM Radio.)

GUATEMALAN CONTRABANDISTA, LOSES TRUCK AND LOAD OF ILLEGAL WHITE SUGAR FROM BELIZE, ACROSS THE BORDER.

2012-01-17T08:53:00.000-08:00

SAN IGNACIO MERCHANT LOSES HIS CONTRABAND INVESTMENT.

The military in Guatemala had a road block check point by Paxcaman, just over the border in the PETEN. Ostensibly to catch drug shipments, going North intransit by USA buying syndicates of criminal gangs within the USA.

Unfortunately, they stopped a truck and driver, one 22 year old Victor Manuel Osorio Sarceno. We are not sure if the contrabandista was Guatemalan or Belizean? We do know he bought his load OF 140 sacks of white sugar, bought from a San Ignacio Town merchant, here in Western Belize. No harm in that though. It was white sugar made in Belize. Gets a higher price in Guatemala at the capital of the STATE of Peten.

Both the truck and the 140 sacks of white sugar were confiscated. Hope the San Ignacio merchant sold his load HERE for cash, in Belize?

A year or more back, the Mennonites tell me they only sell corn to the GUATEMALANS for contraband, if they pay CIF in Belize. They let the GUATS take the chance of smuggling across the border.

Maskal town, BELIZE, single policeman unable to control GANG of hoodlums terrorizing community.

2012-01-17T08:48:00.000-08:00

HOODLUM GANG OF BAD GUYS, DESTROY PEACE AND HARMONY OF MASKAL COMMUNITY. ONE LONE POLICEMAN IS AFRAID AND UNABLE TO CONTROL THE SITUATION. COMMUNITY PEOPLE PLEAD WITH POLICE FOR REINFORCEMENTS.

NOW here is a genuine reason for the GSU to operate outside of the port city. Where are they when you need them?

MAGNETIC NORTH POLE SHIFTS THOUSANDS OF MILES FROM HUDSON BAY, CANADA, TO RUSSIAN SIBERIA.

2012-01-17T01:53:00.000-08:00

Interior of planet Earth, our home a moving space station, in space.

MAGNETIC NORTH POLE HAS SHIFTED 4000 MILES FROM HUDSON BAY NORTH OF CANADA, TO RUSSIAN SIBERIA.

So what are the facts:

Since 1860, the magnetic pole shift has more than doubled every 50 years.
During the past 150 years, the pole shift has been in the same direction.
During the past 10 years, the magnetic north pole has shifted nearly half of the total distance of the past 50 years!
Pole Shift has more than doubled each of the last 50 years.

_____________________________________________________

What they see mimics the real Earth: The magnetic field waxes and wanes, poles drift and, occasionally, flip. Change is normal, they've learned. And no wonder. The source of the field, the outer core, is itself seething, swirling, turbulent. "It's chaotic down there," notes Glatzmaier. The changes we detect on our planet's surface are a sign of that inner chaos.

They've also learned what happens during a magnetic flip. Reversals take a few thousand years to complete, and during that time--contrary to popular belief--the magnetic field does not vanish. "It just gets more complicated," says Glatzmaier. Magnetic lines of force near Earth's surface become twisted and tangled, and magnetic poles pop up in unaccustomed places. A south magnetic pole might emerge over Africa, for instance, or a north pole over Tahiti. Weird. But it's still a planetary magnetic field, and it still protects us from space radiation and solar storms.

see caption

Above: Supercomputer models of Earth's magnetic field. On the left is a normal dipolar magnetic field, typical of the long years between polarity reversals. On the right is the sort of complicated magnetic field Earth has during the upheaval of a reversal. [more]

And, as a bonus, Tahiti could be a great place to see the Northern Lights. In such a time, Larry Newitt's job would be different. Instead of shivering in Resolute Bay, he could enjoy the warm South Pacific, hopping from island to island, hunting for magnetic poles while auroras danced overhead.

Sometimes, maybe, a little change can be a good thing.

BELIZE - USA NEEDS TO WATCH IT´S STEP WITH THE MILITARY OF GUATEMALA?

2012-01-17T01:15:00.000-08:00

BELIZEANS PONDER THE REQUEST BY THE NEW MILITARY GENERAL/PRESIDENT, REQUESTING USA MILITARY AID TO HIS COUNTRY.

The request by the new President of Guatemala makes Belizeans feel very uncomfortable. The new President, a retired General was a senior member of the Intelligence Department for the military, during all the killings in Guatemala. I knew a few of those colonels personally as friends. They freely admitted that the military of THAT time was a behind the scenes government, and acted as a MILITARY MAFIA and a colonel would be a senior CAPO on New York parlance reference, which they used with me describing themselves back during that time. The policy of the MAFIA, or military of that time, was to extort money, kill suspected opponents, or kill anybody that got in the way of their activities, just like the more familiar five NY mafia families. Their relatives got the senior government jobs.

It is very worrisome that this new Guatemalan President, who would have been a CAPO back at that time, but with whatever his military rank was back then on active duty. Given that there is on the TV NEWS big stories in Latin America, about the President of Salvador visiting the site of a town massacred ( over a 1000 men, women and children by a USA financed special battalion and trained by them, brings back horrorible memories of a war now past )

BELIZE a friendly neighbor of the past few GUATEMALAN PRESIDENTS look askance in horror, that includes even the idea, BIG BROTHER in the USA is going to finance and train once again, the Guatemalan military. Drug gangs or no! We have no objection to the USA providing support in communications intercepts, cell phones, walkie talkies and such, used by DRUG GANGS in Guatemala. But anything else is going to destablize all the good work of civilian governments throughout Central America that have built their economies, their civil societies, over the last 15 years, based on a PEACE platform. GUATEMALA must find it´s own solutions to dealing with gangs. Those solutions must be financed by their own resources, meager as they are. To finance the Guatemalan military is to re-build a military mafia, behind the scenes again in Guatemala. That is our FEAR and thought. The USA needs to tread lightly here, with military aid requests. Central America do not need this, nor want this either. The PEACE and euilibrium we have found in our respective countries, has been done without the military of the past, and has been working well, and democracy has taken strong hold in Central America.

The best thing THAT EVER HAPPENED to GUATEMALA was the downsizing of the Military there. After that happened, DEMOCRACY bloomed in that country. To reverse that course, would be truly IMPERIALISTIC, as Chavez is often quoted as saying.

To choose between DRUG GANGS and an expanded MILITARY IN GUATEMALA, the DRUG GANGS are the lesser evil. If the USA wants to give military aid, do so to your local state governments in the USA, and tackle the source of ALL OUR DRUG PROBLEMS in Central America. Get rid of the drug gangs in the USA.

HOW TO PRODUCE ELECTRICITY, CHEAPER THAN MEXICAN IMPORTED ELECTRICITY FOR A BUSINESS IN BELIZE. - WATER WHEEL ELECTRICITY.

2012-01-16T02:50:00.000-08:00

HOW TO MAKE A COMPANY AND EQUIPMENT TO PRODUCE AND SELL ELECTRICITY TO BEL, FOR THE NATIONAL GRID, CHEAPER THAN WHAT WE BUY IT FROM OIL BASED SUPPLIES OF ELECTRICITY FROM CHETUMAL, MEXICO.

Well I have been exploring various ways of making electricity. The latest idea is an undershot water wheel, using 19th century technology. So far, I have calculated that a paddle wheeler, as in a Pelton turbine bucket system, would be the easiest way to go. Making a 12 foot diameter wheel, and where to find the materials to do so is running through my mind at present. 12 feet diameter for ease of servicing. Also the buckets, or paddles would have to be the Pelton slope design, but last night thinking about it, I think you could built it, the flat paddle wheel design, but with sides and the end blocked. There is an argument about efficiencies being increased by the Pelton bucket design and some engineers claim the efficiency is doubled. I believe if you get over 70% efficiency it would be hard to beat. I think you could do that with a flat bucket design, with sides, made of wood, instead of round.

There is some thought a guy in WALES proposed, making wheels out of plastic, or fiberglass. Using the Poncelot design. Which is the same as the chevron treads on truck tires. The whole idea to increase efficiency, by drawing out the maximum kinetic energy of moving water at 1 mph.

19TH CENTURY TECHNOLOGY
The BURDEN water wheel produced 250 hp and was 62 feet in diameter and 22 feet wide in the energy area of the moving water.

There was one made in the 19th century that had a diameter of 50 ft and contained 120 bucket paddles around the diameter that produced 120 hp in torque. The buckets were the size of two - 55 gallon drums. It is hard to find data on horsepower and production kilowatts ability from the torque of paddle and bucket UNDERSHOT WATERWHEELS.

I went down to the Belize River by the Spanish Lookout ferry on Saturday morning and measured the current flow at 1 mph at the time. So I expect in deep enough water to turn a water wheel, you might get between a variation through the year, of 1 to 4 mph from the water flow.

Which brings me back to my side interest of SKILLS EDUCATION and the ability to green sand cast in Belize, a sprocketed wheel with teeth, of the diameters you would want to turn a generator. They make generators in the city that Desai is living in over in India. At the moment I do not know the type I would need, or the power available. No, I would prefer not to use leather belts, which are as difficult to get in Belize than anything else.

The bigger the diameter and width the more power you can produce. With a paddle bucket the size of half a 55 gallon drum made out of wood, I calculate approximately you might be able to produce 20 kw with a 12 foot wheel. This is a best guess estimate at the moment. Until you experiment you would never know. Then there is the idea of putting 4 such paddle wheels on the same shaft, beside each other, on a floating catamaran set of multiple floats, or perhaps you could make wheels behind each other and run them seperately turning seperate generators, such as washing machine motors? How to cut the building cost and get the maximum horsepower and kilowatts as a cost effective excercise is running through my mind currently and am simply solving the problems ONE by ONE. Theoretically! From local materials. The 19th century saw the maximum increase in water wheel technology but it goes back to a couple of centuries before CHRIST. They still build them in the USA, as tourist attractions. A water wheel, runs for about 30 years and probably is abandoned, because the owner died and the kids have moved on to the cities.

The framework made of wood, or metal ( not sure what is available and what types ).

For shaft bearings, I have been puzzling how to use a pipe shaft for the water wheel, or wheels in parallel on ths same shaft, by welding up a couple of bearing covers that can be tightened, and have local LIGNUM VITEA self oil producing hardwood pieces, used on nucleur submarine propeller shafts for the pipe to turn inside of. No need for commercial mass produced bearings. I used to use shaft bearings on my boats I made of Cabbage Bark and they worked fine. You got about an eigth of an inch wear and tear in about 3 years of operation. I had replaced the commercial cutlass bearings with CABBAGE BARK bearings and they were superior to CUTLASS BEARINGS. LIGNUM VITEA would be the right thing. NEVER wear out. In two years of asking, the local wood lumber yards have not been able to supply me with LIGNUM VITAE wood. I know Belize Estate used to export LIGNUM VITAE LOGS one time, many years ago. They were the piles of black trunk trees about the size of small telephone poles you used to see on the dock side by the olden PORT AUTHORITY.

The catamaran float deck would be made of one inch, strip planked, bronze anchor fast nails, and covered with GLUVIT expoxy and figerlass mat and cloth. There is no source locally of mixed polyurethane foam to fill the floats locally though. The rest you can buy locally.

___________________________________________________________________

CORKSCREW turbine. There is a new turbine system, being used for river, or no head water flows, it slopes up at about 15 to 30 degrees, so the upper end is out of the water and can be attached to run a generator. I believe the QUEEN of ENGLAND just had one installed in the palace? Or Windsor castle?

The diameter of the corkscrew effect would dictate how much horsepower torque you could produce and it is attractive as an idea. If made of welded metal sheets locally though, I think the cost would be exorbitant. So I am looking at the UNDERSHOT waterwheel as an affordable alternative. You would really need to produce about 200 hp to get any decent profit out of selling electricity to the NATIONAL GRID, BEL. The manufacture framework of the water wheel has two considerations. The weight and cost to get the strength. There is actually no weight in the buckets, as it is the UNDERSHOT design, which simplifies things a lot. Not as productive as an OVERSHOT water wheel, but if cost effective and weight conservative, more practical. How to get 200 hp torque though?
__________________________________________

thanks Kevin!
That puts the meat in the bun for sure. Guess I will forget it!
___________________________________________

Dear Ray

200 HP is about 110,000 foot-pounds per second.

1 mile per hour is about 1.5 feet per second. (Actually 1.4667 feet/sec)

At 100% efficiency, you would thus need a flow of about 75,000 pounds of water per second flowing through your system. That's about 9,014 US gallons per second. Or about 1,202 cubic feet of water flow per second.

With a velocity of 1.4667 feet per second, the cross-sectional area of the water flow to the entry area of your machine would have to be about 820 square feet.

Your proposed bucket size of 2.5x12' = 30 square feet would have an imaginary potential to generate about 820/30 = 27.33 HP, but is it downhill all the way from there.

The maximum attainable efficiency of a waterwheel or turbine device in such an application is about 70%, reducing the theoretical potential to about 19 HP. Mechanical losses for waterwheel bearings, chain or gear drives etc, would be about 10%, reducing power to about 18. Generator efficiency in this range would be about 75% maximum, reducing the maximum power output to about 14.35 HP.

To get 200 hp, your Undershot Wheel system would thus have to be about 200/14.35 = 13.94 times larger. That is, the paddle wheels should have an area of about 13.94 x 30 = 418 square feet. If you used blades that were 4' wide, they would have to be about 418/4 = 104.5 feet long.

You would need floating pontoons to support the system. The would increase river obstruction further.

Not looking very good.

Kevin

----- Original Message ----- From: "Hugh Leyton"
To:
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 9:20 PM
Subject: Re: [-BTG-] floating river catamaran hydro undershot water wheel generator

Hi Ray,

You would not be allowed to block or occupy enough of the Belize River to
be able to even Generate 100 kW of Electricity.
It would occupy toooo much of the navigable river.

Rgds Hugh

On 26/01/2012 09:06, Ray Auxillou wrote:
> Okaaaay! So what do I need for 200 hp, or equivalent in electrical production?
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Kevin
> *To:* belize-technical-group@googlegroups.com
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 26, 2012 3:02 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [-BTG-] floating river catamaran hydro undershot water wheel generator
>

________________________________________________________________________________

HEMP BRICK HOMES SUPERIOR TO CONCRETE HOMES AND CHEAPER TO BUILD.

2012-01-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

HEMP BRICK HOMES IN EUROPE FOUND SUPERIOR TO CONCRETE BLOCK HOMES AND MUCH, MUCH, CHEAPER TO BUILD.

Found in France and the UK that I know about, and also built by ancient ROMANS.

*For some strange reason, hemp brick homes would be illegal in the country of BELIZE?

The Suffolk Housing Society in UK undertook a project to build homes out of hemp and to compare their performance to brick and block built houses. This project has since gained international attention. It all started when Ralph Carpenter, a local architect, took a trip to France and saw, in Rene, a collection of houses made of hemp. The construction material was developed by Madame France Perier.

There is an interesting story behind the development of the hemp construction material. France Perier was a conventional chemist. She developed skin cancer and searched for a cure. She found that hemp oil was effective and cured her skin cancer. She then set out to research the amazing properties of hemp. Coincidentally she saw a bridge that was constructed in the Metrovingian period (Roman period) and that used hemp in the mortar between the rocks. France Perier investigated the uses of hemp in construction and developed a product she called Isochanvre (Chanvre means hemp).

Isochanvre is flame-proof, non-toxic, 1/9 the weight of cement concrete, has excellent insulation properties, unpalatable to rats, termites or insects, and is flexible and strong. Because of its strength and flexibility it is an ideal building material in areas prone to cyclone and earthwakes.

Ralph Carpenter brought the idea back to St Edmundsbury Borough Council and Suffolk Housing and convinced them to seriously consider hemp housing. The project was funded by the society with grants from the Housing Corporation and St Edmundsbury Council. The project commenced to build and test four houses – two hemp houses and two traditional brick and block houses. Two houses (one hemp and one brick) were occupied when they were completed and two were left unoccupied for three months to monitor their environmental performance.

Summary of the Findings from the Suffolk Housing Project

Structure & durability

The qualities of hemp homes were found to be at least equal to those of traditional construction.

Thermal comparisons

Heating fuel consumed by the hemp homes is no greater than that used in the traditionally constructed houses. It was discovered from an examination of the composite images of the front and rear elevations of both houses that there was significant heat loss through external walls and windows from the traditionally build masonry house in comparison with the hemp house.

Acoustics test

Hemp homes did not perform as well as the traditional houses but they did meet the sound resistance requirement.

Permeability

Both forms of construction appear to give complete protection against water penetration. However, the hemp homes generate less condensation.

Waste minimization

There appears to be little difference in the amount of waste produced by each method. Although the waste is of a different nature in each case both are likely to have an environmental impact.

Environmental impact

The advantages that the hemp homes display are:

The use of renewable materials, particularly the hemp
Low use of energy in producing the principal materials
Reduced excavation of subsoil for foundations
The materials are recyclable
Minimal amounts of energy will be required to demolish the buildings compared to brickwork and concrete.

Construction costs

It is estimated that the true cost of hemp construction was £526 per square metre compared to £478 for traditional construction.

Building environmentally sustainable housing comes at a cost, that is the conclusion of a study into a unique 'green homes' project that has been underway in Suffolk.

The project in Haverhill has allowed analysts to examine the environmental impact, energy use and other factors including comparative building costs involved in the construction of four identical houses. Two have been built using specially processed hemp, lime and timber as the principal materials, the other two are of 'traditional' brick and block construction.

The publication of the report coincides with renewed Government interest in 'green homes'. Reports from the Earth Summit indicate that Prime Minister Tony Blair wants to see 1 million green homes built in Britain in the next decade. It is thought that tax incentives - and penalties - could be used to encourage environmentally sustainability and energy efficiency to be built into new homes and home improvements.

The Suffolk project is the first time that complete houses have been built using hemp in Britain. The principal conclusions are that while the hemp homes have far less impact on the environment - they use less energy to build, create less waste and take less fuel to heat - they cost about 10 per cent more to build than brick and block houses.

It is estimated that the cost of hemp construction was £526 per square metre compared to £478 for the brick and block houses. This differential might be reduced if hemp construction was to be adopted on a commercial scale, with the efficiencies that that would bring.

Other countries eg Australia and Ireland are taking on hemp house construction projects. In Ireland it has been found to be non-economic at the present time, because hemp has to be imported. The solution, of course, is to grow hemp close to the construction site.

BELIZE - CAYE CAULKER BEACH RECLAMATION TOURISM INVESTMENT TO START FEB. 1st. 2012?

2012-01-15T05:08:00.000-08:00

RUMOR MILL SAYS, CAYE CAULKER BEACH RECLAMATION WILL COMMENCE FIRST WEEK OF FEBRUARY, AFTER THE SHORT WINTER HIGH TOURIST SEASON ENDS. WILL PRESUMABLY BE FINISHED BEFORE EASTER WEEKEND TOURISM HIGH SEASON?

VIDEO FOR A NEEDED BELIZEAN SKILL SET, COTTAGE INDUSTRY

2012-01-15T04:55:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTmzmhseagg&feature=related

This is a video of making parts, or engraving and many other functions, with a simple table top FADAL CNC MACHINE, that is run by a computer.

You program in your 3D image, and tell the lathe to make the part. See the video. This is a cottage industry, one room business for a small guy in Belize. WATCH THE WHOLE VIDEO to see the potentials here.

We have Terry Warburton, making trumpet mouthpieces and a good living, selling them over the internet. He´s got to be a world BRAND NAME nowadays.

SOME SKILLS ARE NEEDED HERE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT AND HOW TO DO YOUR THING. WHO WILL TEACH THIS SORT OF EDUCATION IN BELIZE AS A SKILL SET?

Without such educational teaching SKILLS done in Belize by some form of EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, SPECIALIZING in teaching skills in a 3 month night school, two evenings a week type course, we will never broaden our economic export base in Belize.

3D SCANNER and part mold maker for casting that needed part in Belize.

2012-01-15T04:06:00.000-08:00

part making machine in plastic by photo copying layers, then you use the plastic part to make sure it fits, where you want it to fit, and get it cast in a casting box at your local HOME FOUNDRY guy in Belize.
** 3D photocopier actually makes plastic parts real size, you can fit and try, then cast it in metal in your home FOUNDRY green sand, casting sandbox.
** typical plastic part done by photocopying machine in plastic layers
**Scanning your head by computer and making a photo copy plastic model of it.
THE BELIZE HOME FOUNDRY PARTS BUSINESS! THE 3D Scanner and dimension printer of parts, to cast your specific part in a GREEN SAND BOX at your cottage industry foundry.
BELIZEANS NO LONGER HAVE TO WASTE MONEY AND WEEKS WAITING FOR AN IMPORTED PART, THEY MAY BE WRONG AND WASTED MONEY, BY THE TIME IT ARRIVES HERE. A LOCAL HOME FOUNDRY CAN MAKE YOUR PART FOR YOU EXACTLY

One of the hardships of owning an old car is rebuilding rare parts when there are simply no replacements available. My 1907 White Steamer has a feedwater heater, a part that bolts onto the cylinders. It's made of aluminum, and over the 100-plus years it's been in use, the metal has become so porous you can see steam and oil seeping through. I thought we could just weld it up. But it's badly impregnated with oil and can't be repaired. If we tried, the metal would just come apart.

So, rather than have a machinist try to copy the heater and then build it, we decided to redesign the original using our NextEngine 3D scanner and Dimension 3D printer. These incredible devices allow you to make the form you need to create almost any part. The scanner can measure about 50,000 points per second at a density of 160,000 dots per inch (dpi) to create a highly detailed digital model. The 3D printer makes an exact copy of a part in plastic, which we then send out to create a mold. Some machines can even make a replacement part in cobalt-chrome with the direct laser sintering process. Just feed a plastic wire--for a steel part you use metal wire--into the appropriate laser cutter.

Inside the printer, the print head goes back and forth, back and forth, putting on layer after layer of plastic to form a 3D part. If there are any irregularities in the originals, you can remove them using software. Once the model is finished, any excess support material between moving parts is dissolved in a water-based solution. Complexity doesn't matter, but the size of the object does determine the length of the process. Making a little part might take 5 hours. The White's feedwater heater required 33 hours.

Any antique car part can be reproduced with these machines--pieces of trim, elaborately etched and even scrolled door handles. If you have an original, you can copy it. Or you can design a replacement on the computer, and the 3D printer makes it for you.

People say, "Why not just give the part to your machinist to make?" Well, if the machinist makes it wrong, you still have to pay for it. The scanner allows you to make an exact copy in plastic, fit it and see that it's correct. Even when you take plans to a machinist, it can be tricky. Say the part must be 3 mm thick here and 5 mm there. You get it back and then, "Oh no, it doesn't fit; it's too thick," or "It's too thin." My setup lets you create the perfect part. And you could press the button again and again--and keep making the part--twice the size, half-size, whatever you need. If you have a part that's worn away, or has lost a big chunk of metal, you can fill in that missing link on the computer. Then you make the part in plastic and have a machinist make a copy based on that example. Or you can do what we do--input that program into a Fadal CNC machine; it reads the dimensions and replicates an exact metal copy.

Some guys are so used to working in the traditional ways. They're old-school. So they've never seen this new technology in use--in fact, they're not even aware it exists. When you work on old cars, you tend to work with old machinery like lathes, milling machines or English wheels. When someone tells you that you can take a crescent wrench, for example, scan it, then press a button, copy it, and make a new wrench, these guys say, "Well, that's not possible. You can't make the little wheel that moves the claw in and out. You'd have to make it in two sections."

But they're wrong. You can duplicate the whole tool.

They stand in front of the machine and watch a wrench being made, and they still don't believe it. It's like The Jetsons. George Jetson would say, "I want a steak dinner." He'd press a button and the meal would come out of the machine, with the roasted potatoes and everything, all on one plate. We may not have the instant steak dinner yet--but my NextEngine system is like the car-guy equivalent.

If you had a one-off Ferrari engine, you could scan each part and then re-create the entire motor. Right now, we're scanning a Duesenberg body. It's a classic example of high tech melding with old tech. There are cars sitting in garages around the country, and they haven't moved in years for lack of some unobtainable part. Now they can hit the road once more, thanks to this technology.

My 1907 White engine would never have run again because its slide valve (or D-valve) was shot. We built that part, and now the car is back on the street.

Let's say you have an older Cadillac or a Packard, and you can't get one of those beautifully ornate door handles. You could go to the big swap meet in Hershey, Pa., every day for the rest of your life and never find it. Or you could take the one on the left side of your car, copy it, use the computer to reverse it, and put that new part on the other side.

It's an amazingly versatile technology. My EcoJet supercar needed air-conditioning ducts. We used plastic parts we designed, right out of the 3D copier. We didn't have to make these scoops out of aluminum--plastic is what they use in a real car. And the finished ones look like factory production pieces.

When I was in high school, a friend's father bought the new Pulsar LED watch. He paid $2200 for it. It had a red face; you pressed a button, it lit up and gave you the time. The next year I bought a similar watch from Texas Instruments for $19.99. I went over and showed it to my friend's dad, and he was sooo angry.

The NextEngine scanner costs $2995. The Dimension uPrint Personal 3D printer is now under $15,000. That's not cheap. But this technology used to cost 10 times that amount. And I think the price will come down even more.

These machines are not suited for mass production, but they work well for rapid prototyping. Just as eBay has made many swap meets go away, this machine could eliminate the need to go to eBay for parts. Think about it: What old part do you want to make?

Read more: Jay Leno’s 3D Printer Makes Old Car Parts - NextEngine 3D scanner and Dimension 3D printer - Popular Mechanics

Is the BELIZE GOVERNMENT lying about we have software developers here in Belize?

2012-01-15T03:50:00.000-08:00

** Ray Auxillou looking for people with special SKILL SETS? In BELIZE!
THE GOVERNMENT SAYS WE IN BELIZE HAVE OUR OWN SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS?

I´ve been looking for a local Belizean software developer for 6 or 8 years. Where the heck are they? Never heard of a single one. Is this a government bombastic lie?

BELIZE NEEDS THIS EDUCATIONAL SKILL SET HERE! HOW WILL EDUCATION IN BELIZE TEACH NEEDED SKILLS? SUCH AS A COTTAGE INDUSTRY HOME FOUNDRY

2012-01-15T03:21:00.000-08:00

** After you pick the part you cast, out of the sand box mold, you finish and polish it.
*** home made cast aluminum car parts made in a HOME Cottage Industry, FOUNDRY.
**Pouring molten metal into green sand box mold, to cast a part.
*** How metal looks when it is hot and melted
** Heating crucible to melt scrap metal, to be cast to make parts in a sand box.

EDUCATIONAL SKILLS NEEDED IN BELIZE, FOR BUILDING A LIGHT INDUSTRY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. HOME FOUNDRY TOOLS AND SKILLS

HOME BUSINESS, METAL CASTING OF PARTS FOR CARS, OR MAKING A MACHINE, OR CASTING GEARS, STEAM ENGINES AND THE LIKE.

WHO IN OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM IN BELIZE WILL TEACH BADLY NEEDED HOME BUSINESS SKILLS LIKE THIS, TO ADVANCE OUR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT?

You Can Learn How To Sand Cast Metal To Create Your Very Own Masterpiece.

Today, more than ever, practical skills are rapidly dissapearing from society, and that is a great shame. The purpose of this web site is to explain & teach practical hobby foundry skills & techniques which will provide you with practical old time metal craft skills, skills that will allow you freedom of self expression in metal. People tell us over and over that they lament the death of the old style skilled tradesman... you know... the kind of bloke who can fix or make almost anything, and has the knowledge to create beautiful things in metal from a simple idea.

Does That Sound Like Something You Would Like To Do?

Do You:
Like to build things? Enjoy a creative practical challenge? Then welcome to the world of hobby metal casting, there's a huge grab bag of things to explore.

Since 2003 we've helped & encouraged people from all walks of life from over forty seven countries around the globe to learn about the art of metal casting, we would like to share with you how to set up your own hobby foundry, right in your own backyard workshop, you'll be using equipment & tools which you can easily build your self... you don't have to be a genius, all you need is the desire & passion for your hobby along with some practical ability, which I'm sure you already have.

The basic skills & methods we'll explain to you have been successfully employed by people who have never before tried their hand at metal casting. Once you understand the basics of this metal craft, then the sky is the limit.

You probably already know plenty of people who get a kick out of showing you the "toys" they have acquired with their money, but I can tell you now, nothing compares with the personal reward, admiration & satisfaction you'll truly enjoy when showing others what you have made by using your own creative skills & talents.

From time to time, you have probably stopped to admire beautiful bronze sculptures and other artworks in metal... Have you got an idea in your mind that you would like to recreate in metal?

Many people enjoy casting metal... it matters little how many times you do it, there is something magic about watching molten metal flow into a sand mould.

So What Can I Make You May Ask?
All kinds of things. The only limiting factor is the amount of: Skill - Imagination - Determination & Passion you have. Foundry work is fairly basic, the process begins with a timber pattern, made with simple hand held wood working tools, the pattern is used to create a cavity in a two-part sand mould, the sand is rammed around the pattern, then it is rapped & carefully removed, the molten metal which is melted in a simple furnace, is poured into the mould cavity and allowed to solidify.... Bingo, you have your casting

The more you learn about metal casting, the better your skills will become.

Practical minded people just like you, begin casting metal for many different reasons, the trigger for most is a desire to remake an obsolete part for a restoration project, and when you think about it, it really makes sense, if the part in question was originally made using the green sand casting method, then nine times out of ten, you can reproduce it again using the exact same technique, this is the kind of thing we share in our ebooks... explaining the practical methods to create castings from aluminium or bronze. The metal casting process is not difficult to learn, and once you know how, you are only limited by your imagination.

Green Sand.
The image above shows a common foundry moulding medium called green sand, the name has nothing to do with the colour. When a pattern is rammed with well prepared green sand in a mould box, the fine grains of sand bond together & retain the exact shape of the pattern, (foundry sand is not quite the same as beach or river sand), and when the pattern is rapped & removed, a replica shaped cavity remains which is where the molten metal is poured. Other types of silica sand can be used for making moulds also, but green sand is good to start with. Many art casting studios still use only green sand for their foundry work.

Aluminium Ingots.

Aluminium, because of it's relatively low melting temperature (740C) is a great way to begin metal casting, you can collect & melt good quality scrap to make your own ingots, which will be used to make good quality metal castings, clean scrap can be sourced from: engine inlet manifolds, old aluminium cylinder heads, cast aluminium cover plates, bell housings, etc. Good scrap metal can be found in many places.

Salamander Silicon Carbide Crucible.

Most hobby foundry workers build their own Gas Fired Furnace. And the Metal Casting Made Easy ebook provides complete instructions. All measurements are supplied in both imperial and metric. The furnace interior is lined with a high temperature resistant refractory cement which can be obtained from a foundry supply warehouse, you can also make your own home made refractory, (an old time recipe is included in the ebooks) but the home brew refractory may not last as long as the proven commercial variety, but it is a low-cost way to begin.

Internal View Of Red Hot Gas Fired Furnace.

After preparing the sand mould, and the metal has reached a molten state in the furnace & crucible, it is then ready to pour. The crucible full of molten metal is carefully removed from the furnace with a pair of special lifting tongs and placed into a well designed pouring shank, wearing the proper safety gear you take hold of the pouring shank which cradles the crucible and then quickly pour the molten metal into the sprue of the sand mould. After the metal cools down, the mould boxes can be pulled apart to reveal the bright new metal art casting - vintage car or motorcycle part, or perhaps a reproduction part for an old machine of some kind, the objects you can make with metal casting are almost endless.

Pouring Molten Metal Into a Green Sand Mould.

When you have become familiar with the methods and techniques of metal casting you will be able to start making your own special castings, which may include parts for veteran & vintage cars, or even the later model classic models built in the sixties. The raw castings in the picture below are fresh out of the green sand mould, the large cone shaped vertical extensions are the sprues & riser. The castings pictured below are the raw cast slugs of clutch slave cylinders for a British car built in the sixties. Pressure cylinders need to be free of porosity, special foundry techniques are employed to eliminate porous metal.

Raw Aluminium Automotive Slave Cylinder Castings.

The gates - runners & sprues are then removed from the castings, along with the internal sand cores, the cylinders are then prepared for the machining operations, to carry out the machining of the castings, a small bench lathe, a pedestal drill, and some small home made tooling & jigs were used to produce the finished cylinder shown below. The casting of pressure vessels requires that very tight, porous free metal is cast, there are simple techniques you can employ to cast high quality cylinders, these techniques are explained in the books.

Fully Machined Slave Cylinder Ready To Install.

The ebooks available on this web site have helped countless people learn how to cast their own vintage car - motor-cycle - antique - art castings - sculptures - property name plates - and odd parts for special projects. The possibilities are endless once you know and understand the basic methods and techniques of metal casting. But you should also be aware that handling molten metal can be dangerous, unsafe practices can cause personal injuries. The metal casting process requires that great care should be exercised at all times, the hobby foundry is not the place to consume alcohol, being stupid, or for careless behaviour, metal casting is a serious business.

Would you like to know more about this ancient metal craft?

If you are just starting to explore metal casting as a hobby, a good way to begin your learning is to download the sample ebook, or download the Power Point slide show. The ebook is a shortened version of the 98 page Metal Casting Made Easy ebook, you can read about twenty randomly chosen pages. This is the main ebook which is also accompanied by The Design Of Gates And Risers, plus all of the other valuable bonus ebooks we include with the package described on the library page.

The complete ebook package can be purchased and downloaded direct from this web site, or the ebooks can be ordered and supplied on CD ROM and delivered via airmail. (Ideal if you have slow download speed or data transfer). Overseas delivery of the CD is normally about eight to ten days.

The Package Provides An Awesome Amount Of Hobby Foundry Info.

Now, before you visit the library page, we want you to take a moment to download your free ebook & power point slide show. Simply fill out the form below and click the submit button, don't worry, your details are very safe with us, we hate spam just as much as you do, we will never share your details with other parties. Just fill out your first name & a valid email address. During the sign up process you may be get third party offers, you should ignore other third party offers. (Note: Invalid email addresses are trashed by the mail system.)

Grab your sample Metal Casting ebook, as well as the amazing Old Time Hints & Formula ebook. Both are FREE right now, just pop your details in the box below... & wait a few moments for an email to arrive at your inbox with your special download links.

Calculating home made truck engine generation by BUTANE power for BELIZE.

2012-01-13T08:15:00.000-08:00

TOYOTA TRUCK ENGINES AS ELECTRIC GENERATOR USING BUTANE

I´m wonder how the cost of butane gas to run a pickup truck engine would be if converted to running an electrical generator? In Belize we have many converted pickup trucks, using BUTANE for their fuel. They keep a 100 gallon tank in the back pan of the pickup, connected to the engine. There are a number of individuals around the country in Belize, that will convert a gasoline truck engine to using cheaper butane. Many go this route.
I presume they must be saving significant amount of money, to go to the bother?

What struck me today, was the idea of using a pickup truck engine, connected to a generator. Not sure how you would do that with a gear box involved, but certainly it is possible. THE QUESTION ARISES, WOULD THIS WORK FINANCIALLY AND COME OUT A LOT CHEAPER THAN USING A DIESEL RUN GENERATOR? OR FOR INSTANCE, TRYING TO BOIL WATER, TO MAKE STEAM TO RUN A STEAM ENGINE CONNECTED GENERATOR.
You could probably buy a 1000 gallon tanker load of BUTANE from Guatemala and run such a gasoline engine generator. The thing is, the question, WOULD IT PAY A PROFIT? If you sold the electricity to the NATIONAL GRID? How you would do the pricing on the fuel bill, plus outgoing electricity costs, as a study is presently beyond me. Anybody got any details would appreciate it?

The 4 cylinder Toyota gasoline pickup, produces 106 hp at 79 kw at 5200 rpm.
The Toyota Tacoma pickup engine produces 142 hp 140 kw thereabouts.
The 2012 model engine for the TACOMA pickup, is rated at 159 hp.

BELIZE- how privatization and public owned utilities worked out in Belize for performance.

2012-01-13T02:20:00.000-08:00

PRIVATIZATION VS NATIONALIZATION OF UTILITIES IN BELIZE

There has been a big debate in Belize over NATIONALIZATION vs PRIVATIZATION of Public type utilities.

In a small country like Belize, the BUZZ WORDS of privatization back a decade or more a go, was the thing recommmended by all those so called OUTSIDE FOREIGN expert institutions.
At the time, Belize being a very small population, scattered over a large rugged country, we had neither the skills, economically to do many of the things needed to be done. Particularly in the field of financing of hydro dams, extending utility lines and the like. The privatization brought in outside expertise and it worked, sort of? The small population, unfamiliar bureaucrats and a changing bunch of amateur politicians, were relieved of the problem of doing something that required technical expertise. It turned out the price for this outside privatization was EXPENSIVE. The outside operator, made PROFITS hand over fist. The country suffered BRÖWNOUTS a lot, and expansion for a population and country growing exponentially, eventually began to suffer. The service deteriotated, as TAKING PROFITS OUT OF THE COUNTRY became the privatization mantra. Distribution of electricity and cost of electricity started to also climb exponentially on demand of the operator, to maintain investment profit level, in expansion of the services. This reached a point eventually, where the GDP ratio, or the ability of the country economically to advance business investments began to suffer seriously, to suffer and downgrade, due to the constantly annual higher cost of the electricity supplied demanded.

Eventually, the government were smarter, more self educated, in the business aspects and costs of electricity supply and distribution systems and in an effort to lower constantly rising electricity costs, which in turn had been stifling economic growth, the government of the day, NATIONALIZED a bankrupt electric grid and supply system. Not to mention side issues of double bookkeeping and other alleged misdemeanors, in order to enhance profit levels and keep them high, by the outside private operator, at the expense of electric service and rising rate costs demanded.

In review, AFTER the NATIONALIZATION, we found out that the GOVERNMENT owning the public utilities as our educated population grew exponentially, was better financially and service wise, if we did it ourselves. The reason being, the public owned electrical utility, could put FIRST, the need to RE-INVEST earnings back into expanding the national grid, and electrical supply. Profit could become a secondary issue. Whereas under privatization PROFIT was the MAIN ISSUE at the expense of service and higher rate costs, which in turn dampened and choked off business and economic development. It was not particularly that a government could do a better job than a private outside foreign operator, it was simply the MISSION GOALS were different. Whereas the private operator from outside was interested in sucking out PROFIT any way it could, to maintain stock prices on the INTERNATIONAL MARKETS. Whereas the government ownership focused on ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, through more rapid expanding services and distribution and if possible, at lower price rates per kwh, to foster the economic climate and GDP growth.

RE-NATIONALIZATION turned out to be a WISE and better choice, performance wise; as the small country and population of Belize grew in population and economics of size. This does not alter the fact that some time in the future, PRIVATE electric producing and distribution companies could probably compete with a Government Public Utility in giving lower rates and better service, particularly in areas where the government is not servicing parts of the population. A mix with the government owned utility is definitely in the cards and indeed already exists in one or two micro populations within Belize. As a young small country we have learned a valuable lesson politically, about PRIVATIZATION and GOVERNMENT OWNED type businesses. You might even say we have become experts and now are smarter than our economic outside world advisers of some decades ago, with their buzzwords of PRIVATIZATION at any cost.

HOLY COW! SOLAR PANEL REVOLUTION IN BELIZE JUST BLEW WIDE OPEN! OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM IS NOT EVEN SETUP TO TRY ANY OF THIS STUFF.

2012-01-12T01:44:00.000-08:00

Pokeweed berries in the North. Wonder if Castor beans would work? How about Papaya juice, or mango juice?
*** Holy Cow! The solar panel revolution just blew wide open in Belize???
Amber Veverka
NewsObserver.com
Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:04 CST
Print
pokeweed solar panels

David Carroll's team painted the purple juice on a transparent conductor, a piece of glass or plastic with an aluminum zinc oxide coating.
When David Carroll wanted to find a way to make low-cost solar panels, he discovered he needed look no further than his own backyard.

In a weedy part of his Winston-Salem lot, pokeweed grows in wild, red-caned riot. Birds love the purple berries, and soon, so did Carroll. Because with pokeberries, the Wake Forest University scientist believes he's found a key to supplying electricity to parts of the developing world.

One Friday last year, Carroll, director of the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials at Wake Forest, was meeting with his students, brainstorming ways to get solar power to impoverished communities.

Traditional silicon solar panels are great, they agreed. But to make them, you need costly materials and a high-tech factory.

"We were sitting around thinking about the problem of how do you make it really, really cheap - and you can't get around the fact that (if you do), it's not going to be a very good solar cell. So it has to be very cheap to be worth it," Carroll recalled.

Natural dyes from plants rich in compounds called flavonoids can produce electrical current when sandwiched between the layers of a solar cell, in the spot where silicon would normally go.

Carroll's team set out to find a plant whose dye would work the best - and which could be grown all over the world. The team focused on red or purple plant dyes, since those colors absorb the most photons from sunlight.

Strawberries didn't work. Besides, Carroll said, they wanted "to stay away from things people would eat," focusing instead on a plant that would have multiple uses. Eventually the team tried poke. Pokeweed, whose berries and mature leaves are poisonous, can be eaten if cooked properly when shoots are small, making it a dual-purpose crop that could make sense in the developing world, Carroll said.

"Other people have done similar things, so we're not the only ones who have done this," Carroll said. "But we're the only ones who have (used) very raw and unprocessed stuff."

How unprocessed?

"You pick (the berries) and squish them," Carroll said. "You've got to get the big chunks out. That's pretty easy to do."

The team painted the purple juice on a transparent conductor, a piece of glass or plastic with an aluminum zinc oxide coating. That was sandwiched against a second plate covered with a very thin metal coating with a dilute solution of iodine between and placed in the sun.

Carroll and the students soon saw the results: poke power. They produced their first test pieces last summer.

"A large panel of this stuff, a couple of meters on each side, could produce 5 to 10 watts pretty easily. That's going to charge a battery up pretty fast," Carroll said.

To be sure, that's a very low-power solar panel - creating enough power to run a small light bulb through the night, perhaps.

But that low efficiency is just the point, Carroll said.

"Right now in many places in the world, where you've got a medical facility that's trying to operate at night, they can't - they have to shut down. In order to have a light in a lot of these places, people will walk five to 20 miles to get enough gasoline to power a generator. These panels will provide enough light the same as a generator," he said.

"It's not super-high performance, but it's renewable. What we really wanted to do is find just how basic we could make it and how much power we could get out of it."

pokeweed berries

Pokeweed berries
Carroll's team found out just how basic a pokeweed panel can get when they were contacted last year by a sixth-grader in Elizabeth City. Grace Taylor, now 12, was looking for a science fair project. She wondered: Could she make electricity from berry juice?

Carroll passed along what he knew and Grace soon was picking pokeberries in her own backyard. Working in her kitchen, she built a berry-juice solar cell and attached a volt meter. Then she shone a lamp on it to mimic sunlight and watched as her homemade cell produced electricity.

Grade-schooler weighs in

Grace won first place in a local science fair, took second place in regionals and went on to enter her project at the state level. She compared the pokeberry results with those she got from Virginia creeper berries (the creeper won, but its downside, as far as Carroll is concerned, is that it isn't a foodstuff). Grace pronounced the whole experiment "pretty cool."

For Carroll, a sixth-grader's experiment proves he's on the right track.

"You don't need a huge factory to make solar cells out of this," he said. "I think the neat part of this is it's not always about the technology. The technology doesn't work that well. But it changes the microeconomic climate. If your nation can't produce large silicon solar cells, it doesn't matter how good they are."

The pokeberry cells wouldn't be a big money-maker for a corporation and that means a foundation would probably have to back development.

"You're really doing this for the Third World," Carroll said, "and your return on investment is you lower their carbon emission and raise their standard of living."
__________________________________________________________

HOLY COW! OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM IN BELIZE IS NOT EVEN SETUP TO DO EXPERIMENTS IN THIS KIND OF STUFF. CAN´T EVEN GET THEM TO RUN A SIMPLE E-CAT HEATER EXPERIMENT. ***DISCOVERED BY A STANDARD FOUR GRADE LEVEL IN BELIZE education (equivalent) , SCIENCE EXPERIMENTER

THE WUB TV INTERVIEW WITH PRIME MINISTER BARROW RESULTS?

2012-01-12T00:18:00.000-08:00

** The interview confirms the Prime Minister is a CROOK in public opinion, though less a crook than the previous Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER DEAN BARROW HOLDS HIS OWN ON TV INTERVIEW WITH WUB AND TALK SHOW HOSTS SHARON AND MOSES.

The talk show was a good one. For the most part BARROW our El Caudillo, the MAFIA DON, acquitted himself well. Call in people via telephone hit the Prime Minister ( unelected )with most of the hot button topics that were concerning people. I´d give him probably a 75% rating on his Prime Minister´s performance. For those of us, expecting better, it was disappointing on TWO issues, in which he more or less, though evasive, admitted to being a CROOKED CRIMINAL. At least that was the way I interpreted it? The interviewers Sharon and Moses figured it that way to, but moved on to cover as many hot button issues, as possible.
The two tricky issues;
a) were the over a million dollars given to his UDP party elected representatives, for presents at Christmas, to his party members and not the elected representatives of the OPPOSITION party. In other words, HE STOLE OUR MONEY, FROM GOVERNMENT REVENUES for personal advancement of his gang. He went round and round about it, being avasive, trying to justify the RAIDING of the TREASURY with various excuses, but BOTTOM LINE, the Prime Minister authorized and stole over a million dollars from the public treasury, as a campaign trick, to earn votes from the poor, ostensibly as a thinly disguised charity effort, which actually was party spending for the relection campaign coming up in about 12 weeks. BASICALLY BARROW in my opinion, and that of the talk show hosts, STOLE THE MONEY, just like Said Musa and Ralph Fonseca and Glen Godfrey did when their PUP were in power.
b) The other tricky issue was the ROSEWOOD exporting business. AGAIN, BARROW the Prime Minister was evasive. Explaining in a round about way, like any criminal in the interrogation room, that as GANG LEADER, he had to support his gang members, the political party in their nefarious activities. What was not said, was more revealing, as he squiggled on the hook like any fish, fighting for his life. Basically I understood from him, that he admitted UDP gang CORRUPTION in the ROSEWOOD business, and that he had to support the CORRUPTION of mainly THREE PEOPLE in his party. That would be his party leader deputy GASPAR VEGA, the CABINET MINISTER of NATURAL RESOURCES and FORESTRY, who has some kind of deal going with this ROSEWOOD exporting business and two other TOLEDO UDP ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES, who did not want their election situation hurt, by doing anything to offend their Mayan village constituents, who are cutting down the rare exotic species of ROSEWOOD for export. In balance, short term election campaign results, and probable self enrichment while the party was still in power, were more important than long term protection and wise management of scarce forest resources of our national patrimoney.

BARROW the PM ( un-elected ) was more or less defiant. He did not think he was going to lose the coming election, and I think his attitude is correct there? Simply because while the UDP have proven themselves to be CORRUPT, his party is LESS CORRUPT than the OPPOSITION PARTY OF PUP, ( by a big margin ) who at the moment are also disorganized. The other political grouping, the United Alliance, the VIP and PNP six members are basically no shows, or not worthy of attention, or considered a threat, as they have been unable to display any campaigning organizational skills, worthy of election.
PM Barrow more or less indicated he would renege on his promise to retire, if his party won the election. But if his party lost, he would retire then.

Generally speaking, Prime Minister Barrow handled the other HOT BUTTON issues very well, and were more to do with explaining mis-communications and perceptions, that satisfied my curiousity. I felt satisfied with his explanations on everything else. I guess the public expected him and his party to be like he often portrays himself to be, a GUARDIAN ANGEL of Belize, with white feathered, ANGEL wings sprouting from his back and a HALO on his head. Disappointing that his BOMBAST in the past was a lie and that he accepts political corruption and crime, as a party perk. But what are you going to do as a voter, when the OPPOSITION are so much worse? CRIME is to be punished by the other guy, not by politicians.

There was a third issue for me, that never came up in the time alloted for an hour TV show. That was his attitude to the new Prime Minister of Jamaica, who is going to BEAT BELIZE into turning JAMAICA from the British SPOILS parliamentary political system, to a REPUBLIC. I pretty much figure, BARROW probably would not support Belize advancing this way, as BARRÖW is known locally as a port town ANGLOPHILE. We never found out the answer to that question as TIME ran out on the TV show.

All in all, it was a good TV show and BARROW is probably quite right, his PARTY despite CRIMINAL CORRUPTION in his party gang are not going to find that the activity is going to lose the next election this year in three months.

What I did find disconcerting was the ROSEWOOD SCANDAL, the putting of nefarious dealings of his CABINET MEMBERS before that of the interests of the nation. They are making money or something right now, and that trumps, taking action to preserve rare exotic wood species like ROSEWOOD. His CABINET members want to make as much money as possible before the election is called. I thought and so did Sharon and Moses the interviewers; that BARROW should make ROSEWOOD EXPORTS valid as a policy ONLY in a VALUE ADDED partly processed mode. Such as tables, guitar blanks and such things. That would cut down wholesale raping of the forest resources, like happened with MAHOGANY and PINE LUMBER, that was EXPORTED by past politicians for short term riches and gains, over long term forestry management, similar to the way we manage fisheries products. We apparently will be EXTINCT IN ROSEWOOD trees by the time the election rolls around, with no full growth lumber available for future generations going out 200 years or so? SHAME THAT! GREED WINS OUT IN POLITICS!

BELIZE OFFERS SPECIAL SAVINGS IN 2012, OF $75 USA, FOR TOURISTS VISITING MAYAN ARCHEOLOGICAL SITES.

2012-01-11T11:33:00.000-08:00

A FOREIGN TOURIST THIS SPECIAL YEAR OF 2012 CAN VISIT TEN MAYAN RUIN ARCHEOLOGICAL SITES IN BELIZE, FOR ONLY $25 USA

Normally each site would cost you $10 usa each entry ticket. The Mayan sites for this year are on a special passport for tourists, with a blanket fee of only $25 usa for ten archeological sites. So a tourist would save $75 usa on buying the Tourist Board passport to Mayan archeological ruin sites.

SOCIAL SECURITY EMPLOYEE INSIDERS PULL CROOKED CORRUPTION SCAM IN BELIZE

2012-01-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

SOCIAL SECURITY EMPLOYEES PULL SCAM, ON MORTGAGE PAYMENTS TO EARN A QUICK $50,000 OFF THE GOVERNMENT FOR THEIR PERSONAL MORTGAGES?

This story has been broken by Channel 7 TV NEWS. The story is not unusual and constantly done, by other departments, as well, using insider knowledge of programs that the government is going to do. CORRUPTION MOST FOUL! Should the SSB employees lose their jobs over it? Damn right! They were hired based on integrity, honesty and character. Obviously those guilty ones have none, and thus no place in a government institution dealing with the public money.

7 News Belize HeadlinesTuesday, January 10, 2012
Chairman Accuses SSB Staffers Of
Social Security's Board of Directors will have an emergency meeting tomorrow to discuss what Chairman Lois Young calls "insider trading." She's referring to confirmed reports that S...

Chairman Accuses SSB Staffers Of
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Social Security's Board of Directors will have an emergency meeting tomorrow to discuss what Chairman Lois Young calls "insider trading."

She's referring to confirmed reports that Social Security employees, including senior management, have made loans to bring down their mortgage balances to under fifty thousand dollars - that they get into the Prime Minister's mortgage forgiveness programme. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to get fifty thousand dollars deducted from your mortgage debt. But today, the Chairman told us that for SSB employees to qualify themselves for eligibility after the plan was circulated internally in late 2011 - violates the spirit of the government's proposal - and constitutes what she says can only be called insider trading.

She says that any staff member's mortgage balances which were reduced to fifty thousand dollars or less after the date when the first request was made by government will be included in a list which will be reviewed by the Board tomorrow. She says she is concerned about people at Social Security who got wind of the proposals and may have taken advantage of that information.

And the PUP is also concerned. The party issued a release implicating senior management today stating that very senior members of management have positioned themselves to benefit from the program. We called CEO of SSB, Merlene Bailey Martinez who told us she was driving and could not speak - but assured us that the board will deal with the matter tomorrow.

The PUP release adds that quote, "certain 'select' members of staff of the SSB have obtained loans at commercial banks and other lending institutions in Belize, to pay down these mortgages, to take their balances below $50,000 in order to benefit as well." The release concludes, quote, "If this program was ever meant to help struggling Belizeans, then what it is alleged is happening at the SSB, could only be described as a travesty."

The PUP has demanded an immediate investigation of the entire scheme of the SSB mortgage debt write off and calls upon Board members especially those representing the Private Sector and the Trade Unions to speak out on the matter.

Belize HEALTH DEPARTMENT LEFT HAND DOES NOT KNOW WHAT RIGHT HAND IS DOING.

2012-01-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

Doctor gets abused my stupid health department lack of inter-communication.
SAN IGNACIO HOSPITAL SEES RUCTION, DUE TO MISCOMMUNICATIONS WITHIN THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT

LOVE FM NEWS STORY

DOCTOR EJECTED FROM THE SAN IGNACIO HOSPITAL
January 10, 2012

Services were temporarily interrupted this morning at the community hospital in San Ignacio town. That is because a doctor was ejected from the institution this morning. Love News understands that based on a request from the Deputy Regional Manager, the San Ignacio police went into the Hospital and escorted Dr. Angelica Rosado out of the compound. We are told that the whole incident played out in front of staff and patients, which prompted a couple of the workers to call our news centre to register their disapproval of how their colleague was unceremoniously kicked out.

Hospital worker
“This morning, the deputy director regional manager, Ms. Maira Pulido she called the police to remove a doctor off the compound, the doctor was in emergency not doing anything. Patients who were standing around were wondering why they were removing the doctor off the hospital compound, everyone was standing around watching, and services were disrupted. Ministry of Health has had a lot of complaints about this woman and they are not doing anything. Now it looks like the staff and the patients are the ones suffering because of her attitude, that can’t work. The complaints have been so many, we have even written a letter about this woman in the Belize Times, nothing has been done, nothing is being done. We are the ones here, we are the ones suffering."

Patrick Jones - Reporter
Has anyone explained to you why the doctor was ejected by the Police?

Hospital worker
“They said that the Deputy Regional Manager and the Chief of Staff asked them to remove the doctor.

Patrick Jones - Reporter
What was the reason given?

Hospital worker
“The doctor, they said resigned but the resignation was not approved so Public Service gave her permission to return to work which she did. The Deputy Regional manager is saying she did not get anything from Ministry of Health, she did not get anything from Public Service.”

Love News attempted to get a comment from the Deputy Regional Manager; but we were unable to reach her via telephone. We spoke with Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Health Dr. Peter Allen.

Dr. Peter Allen – CEO, Ministry of Health
“I did call and found out that what you described is true and I was just able to get through to the Deputy Regional Manager Nurse Pulido, Nurse Pulido will be writing a full apology regretting this inexcusable action and apologizing for any embarrassment that may have been caused on behalf of herself and the management of the hospital."

Patrick Jones - Reporter
Dr. Allen I understand that there have been several complaints against Nurse Pulido and she has apparently allowed to run amok in the San Ignacio Hospital.

Dr. Peter Allen – CEO, Ministry of Health
“I know there have been several concerns raised about her management style. She is still within a probationary period for this but she is a qualified health care professional working in a difficult environment but I know the position of all our managers is subject to appraisal. I couldn’t support the description that she has been allowed to run amok I certainly don’t think that is the case but obviously there are some concerns which the Ministry will take very seriously and will move to address as quickly as possible but apart from the general issues of administration which we clearly have to look into, this particular incident is simply inexcusable, the idea of bringing in a police officer in such a situation, I really can’t understand it and in speaking to the Deputy Manager just now she accepts that this was an inexcusable action and she has undertaken to write a formal letter of apology to the officer involved, apologizing for any embarrassment has may have been caused and assuring that nothing like this will ever occur again. The other issues about administration clearly we will have to address separately.” Patrick Jones - Reporter And Dr. Rosado, is she allowed back in the hospital? Dr. Peter Allen – CEO, Ministry of Health “Well that is the administrative issue that I will have to find out more information about because the information that I have is Dr. Rosado resigned so I have to find out why Dr. Rosado was back at the hospital that is what I will look into.”

Patrick Jones - Reporter
I understand that the staff is on a go slow, not seeing patients as they were prior to this incident this morning?

Dr. Peter Allen – CEO, Ministry of Health
“I have no information with that regard. I have spoken to the Regional Manager and the Director of Health Services. We believe as far as we are aware, services are restored at the hospital. We will be making sure that we speak to the staff to resolve whatever issues are there and to make sure that the services to that community is provided as normal.”

CHAT & CHILL, beach bar and grill on Caye Caulker opens.

2012-01-11T09:36:00.000-08:00

Chat& Chill beach place on famous Caye Caulker. The FAMOUS GO SLOW tourist island, has sandy streets, no vehicles allowed, walking barefoot is the way to go. The fastest thing on the island are bicycles, or a battery powered Golf Cart, under the warm gentle trade winds and coconut trees.
Master Diver, scuba instructor and licensed ocean Captain. Entrepreneurial risk taker and success.

CHAT AND CHILL, BEACH BAR AND GRILL

My youngest daughter TINA AUXILLOU has her latest, NEW entrepreurial venture open for the winter high tourist season, 2012.

The trouble with tourism, you cannot live off it alone in Belize. There are three short tourist high seasons and in TOTAL, they only bring cash flow for 13 weeks out of the 52 week a year. You have to have something else to earn money. Or several things. Tourism ALONE, does not pay. In fact, you are successful, if you can save enough money to pay the maintainance bills, utilities and other things throughout the year, when tourism is dead. Mostly though, you are broke, UNLESS you have some other source of income cash flow. Other than that, it is a nice location and a nice life. All you really need on a tropical barrier reef island, is food and a place to sleep at night. Even so, some people sleep under the coconut trees and on boats. You can subsist with a little rice, coconuts and fish from the sea. Perhaps not the most fancy lifestyle in the world, but you would be amazed at the millions of people in cold temperate zone cities, that pay good money to come and do it for a while.

I wish my wonderful daughter Tina much success with this new venture.

BELIZE needs technical advisors from RAKJOT, INDIA to boost the Belize economy.

2012-01-11T02:09:00.000-08:00

WOW! 600 Factories for making castings. Gaaawd almighty, our Belizean government needs to figure a way to get technical assistance in LIVE manpower from RAJKOT, INDIA. First I ever heard of this small manufacturing revolution over there.

Somebody pay me a round trip ticket? I want to see this?
____________________________________________

RAKJOT CITY, a major dynamo of light manufacturing, in industry, in India, seems to be the place we need to get our technical advisors in Belize from? Mexico and Brazil for processing food for shelf life preservation and production of plastic containers, but for steam engines, solar tower producers, low rpm diesels suitable for a 3 rd world country like Belize, small blacksmith foundry work, making generators and winding same by hand, etc.

From: V K DESAI - FOUNDER OF TINYTECH
To: belize-technical-group@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 4:01 AM
Subject: Re: [-BTG-] LET US RESHAPE PLANET THROUGH SOLAR ENERGY
Hi Ray, you are most welcome here. There are 600 foundries for ferrous and non ferrous metals. Diesel engines are exported in almost 70 countries from Rajkot.
V K DESAI
AADHUNIK GLOBAL ENERGY
TINYTECH PLANTS
TAGORE ROAD
RAJKOT 360002
INDIA
PHONES
91 281 248 0166 (office)
91 281 246 7552 (fax)
91 92 27 60 65 70 (mobile)
EMAIL energy@tinytechindia.com
tinytech@tinytechindia.com
WEB www.tinytechindia.com

On Wednesday 11 January 2012 01:15 AM, Ray Auxillou wrote:
> Rakjot, India sounds like quite the place for invention and innovation? That is also where they are making Petter and Lister diesel engines, in the one to four cylinder sizes quite successfully too. They also have the generator manufacturing as well in that city. Apparently, they have small foundries that can make parts in sand boxes? I might have to make a trip there one day, if I could figure a way to afford it. Good reason to go. Be nice if we developed something similar in Belize also?
>
>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 6:23 PM
> Subject: RE: [-BTG-] LET US RESHAPE PLANET THROUGH SOLAR ENERGY
>
> Having seen Desai`s video at http://www.tinytechindia.com/solar6kwtp.htm I actually come to believe that he has already proven that such a system can work. Isn`t that amazing?
>
> Again the question comes to my mind if we could build something like that in Belize, how much energy we could generate and who would benefit from it. Maybe BEL would be interested if they`d get the produced energy for free.
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 10:42 AM
> To: belize-technical-group@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [-BTG-] LET US RESHAPE PLANET THROUGH SOLAR ENERGY
>
> Hi
>
> Yes, I have looked up my earlier article, I got when you first raised the subject, it is salt.
> I think some advanced experimental stations in Spain, might be using other materials.
>
> I like your suggestion of starting off small, to prove the system can work.
> Perhaps start with a small pure Steam system.
>
> Looking at this diagram, Steam is still used for driving the Generator.
> Perhaps an early Steam built system, could later be converted to a Salt system, which then is used to produce Steam.
>

JAGUAR CAPITAL MANAGEMENT/BELIZE, SHARES DROP TO .73 CENTS A SHARE.

2012-01-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

JAGUAR CAPITAL MANAGEMENT SHARES DROP IN 2011

Jaguar Capital Management / Belize shares dropped from the OPENING in June of 2011 from a $1 a share, to .73 cents a share, at the beginning of Jan. 1st, 2012.

Jaguar Capital Managment of BELIZE, is a new Financial Trading firm, specialized in OPTION CONTRACTS, on CASH SETTLED INDEXES in the USA markets.

African elephants are reaching near extinction with small gene pool

2012-01-10T05:34:00.000-08:00

INTERESTING STATISTIC ON POPULATION OF ELEPHANTS IN AFRICA

70 YEARS AGO IN AFRICA, THE POPULATION OF ELEPHANTS WAS IN THE MILLIONS. TODAY THE POPULATION OF ELEPHANTS IS AROUND 330,000 IN AFRICA.

I OFTEN THOUGHT IT WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE A DOZEN BURMESE, MORE WORKABLE TRANQUIL ELEPHANTS IN BELIZE FOR LOGGING AND REMOTE WORK. ( not the African wild variety )

HIT STATISTICS BREAKDOWN BY COUNTRY, FOR WESTERNBELIZEHAPPENINGS.BLOGSPOT.COM ( 10,000 per month )

2012-01-10T05:07:00.000-08:00

74 year old blogger, Ray Auxillou, located in Hillview, a small community, a suburb of Western Belize, Santa Elena Town, on the slope of Green Parrot Valley. The BLOG is about subjects and opinions of interest to the author.

WESTERNBELIZEHAPPENINGS.BLOGSPOT.COM

Our biggest traffic source, for this BLOG, seems to be the USA. With hits running between 9000 and 10,000 hits per month for the world total.
In this week so far, percentage wise, the USA hits are top at 975.

USA 975
Belize 302
Russia 121
Canada 115
Germany 91
UK 75
Switzerland 48
Ukraine 42
France 37
Haiti 33

I suspect the USA is top, because they have the greatest access to internet services and computers? We can give stats also from hand held mobile devices, which surprised me.

Surprisingly, the most popular site this week has been SOPHISTICATED CORRUPTION BY INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES. A copy of interest, by some other online author.

THE COMING TIME OF NO AFFORDABLE OIL PRODUCTS IN BELIZE.

2012-01-10T04:25:00.000-08:00

SMALL FARMS IN BELIZE WILL MAKE BELIZE FOOD SELF SUSTAINABLE.

Hugh

Your ideas about small farms are wrong. If Indian farmers are not exploited, they can feed to entire world with their small farms of 5 acre and less. One Israeli minister asserted that " If I get 1% land of India and 1% intelligence of Indian farmers, I can feed entire world free of cost and I will rule on entire world." There are no big farms in India. We produce excess rice, excess wheat, excess vegetables, far excess sugar, lot of good things are exported leaving our population hungry. Government has stock of 70 million tonnes of grain but not giving to hungry people. So small farms are far more economically viable as small industries are more viable. Vested interests have introduced illusioned economics in universities and people become brain washed. 300 years back, India was prosperous country only with home industries. This can be done again with small and home industries. In fact, it is going to happen. People on the planet will be far happier after oil has gone. Modernity is not big big things. It can better suit with small things and villages. Veljibhai Desai
V K DESAI
____________________________________________________

Small grinding electric mills give fresh food. Actually here in HILLVIEW, Cayo District, BELIZE; local, small, grocery shop has a small electric motor, mill, and grinds corn every day for customers, for making corn bread and tortillas. These are healthier for the body, than baked bread.

LISTER DIESELS FROM INDIA

2012-01-09T12:15:00.000-08:00

LISTER DIESEL GENERATORS AND MOTORS BUILT IN INDIA

Somebody in India bought the factory from the U.K. for the Lister diesels we used to buy and use in Belize years ago. Basant Agra is one company building them. About $1600 usa C.I.F to Belize port.
As an alternative to solar power and battery banks, or Desai Steam engines and boilers burning bio mass, it might be worth considering using some local oils like from Jatropha seeds, somebody is now growing and selling the oil here in Belize. Haven´t got any costing comparisons yet on Jatropha oil, but Ethanol is feasable as a supplement, at 10% ethanol to 90% diesel. Alternative fuel for slow turning diesels which can burn them, seem to be a good study for an alternative energy source for producing electricity.
Proven engine, slow rpm, runs for days and weeks. I owned one once. The idea then would be to go with proven machinery such as this, but explore alternative fuel sources, to get fuel prices down to a manageable cost.

UDP PLOY propoganda for MUNICIPLE AND GENERAL ELECTIONS IN TWIN TOWNS?

2012-01-09T04:21:00.000-08:00

THE SAN IGNACIO TOWN COUNCIL, HAVE PUT DOWN 1% OF THE COST OF REFURBISHING 3 STREETS. TWO IN SAN IGNACIO AND ONE IN SANTA ELENA TOWN.

The San Ignacio Town Council rightly looks after their small town of San Ignacio FIRST and FOREMOST. Santa Elena Town is run as a colony of San Ignacio Town. Our town on this side of the river is starting to surpass San Ignacio in size. Until the BANKS open branches on this side of the MACAL RIVER though, it is unlikely for any movement to form our own TOWN COUNCIL will take place. We pretty much have all the stores and more, on our side of the river in Santa Elena Town now.
The small street paving project and culverts needed are said to have something to do with the WORLD BANK FINANCING. The newspaper blurb did not say, if it was a GRANT. Either way, nothing is expected to be done during the current UDP government cycle. And only MAYBE, might be done, after the General Election, if the UDP get reelected.
Street opinion is this is strictly an election ploy for both MUNICIPLE AND GENERAL ELECTIONS this year.

BELIZE ENGINEERS ATTEMPT TO DEVELOP AN E-CAT HEATED BOILER TO SUPPLY STEAM ENGINE WITH 200 PSI STEAM.

2012-01-09T03:56:00.000-08:00

Thanks on the info Desai. I am thinking of 20 of your 10 hp steam engines in a row, run by E Cat boiler supplied heaters. At the moment you don´t have your steam engines, sufficiently finished to handle selling electricity to the grid. When you do, and I do understand you are working on the problems, I would want a combo steam engine and generator. I myself, do not yet know what the requirement would be to sell electricity to the grid, until I consult with our local small country distribution supplier, called BEL. They undoubtedly have best case scenarios for matching voltages, current and phase. At the moment, you don´t have your steam engines up to par, and I don´t have any experimental test results to show that the E CAT automatic heating system, can actually produce 200 psi of steam. The only model that was built and sold, was only 28 psi. So there are problems in the construction design of the boiler, I would think? Given an eventual solution to all the problems through experimentation, we may eventually come to an investment. The whole concept is still shaky on some of the key necesseties, for a reliable 24 hr x 7 day, electrical supply for six months. I would anticipate at least another six months needed in research and development, perhaps even a year? Cash availability for research and development is also limited.
In the past I have owned a 5 hp Lister diesel generator. It worked fine and am quite comfortable with such operation. The U.K. no longer builds these and I understand the Lister diesel machine factory was sold to somebody in India. There has been debate on ETHANOL fuel supply and also on using JATROPHE seed oil as a fuel supply. None of these things have gone yet to the RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT STAGE, sufficient to do costing studies. The need is to break the tie to the world price of fluctuating imported oil prices. The costs of oil products can only go UP.

10 HP STEAM ENGINE VIDEO FROM TINYTECHINDIA.COM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msOH1M8ulxQ
___________________________________________

We have 230V single phase and 400V 3 phase supply. But we supply American system generators also with 120V single phase etc.
V K DESAI
AADHUNIK GLOBAL ENERGY
TINYTECH PLANTS
TAGORE ROAD
RAJKOT 360002
INDIA
PHONES
91 281 248 0166 (office)
91 281 246 7552 (fax)
91 92 27 60 65 70 (mobile)
EMAIL energy@tinytechindia.com
tinytech@tinytechindia.com
WEB www.tinytechindia.com

_________________________________________

ONGOING LOCAL DEBATE ON LOCAL BELIZE GENERATOR REQUIREMENTS
Hi Desai,

Can you confirm that the Electrical Supply Voltages in India are 230V 50Hz Single phase and 400V 50Hz 3-phase for higher power and Factories.

Here, in Belize we use the American system, which is a bit of a sorry mixture, 120V 60Hz Single phase and 240V Two phase, for regular houses and small offices. 120V / 208V 3-phase for goodness knows for what as 208V is too low for anything. Then the proper 3-phase supplies are good, they can be 240V 3-phase or 480V 3-phase for High power stuff. Problem is that there is no easy way of getting regular House / small office 120 / 240V Supply from an American 3-phase supply. ( I do it, but it appears most others don't or can't. )

For those of you who might be wondering. 230V Single Phase / 400V 3-phase is becoming the World standard, at least for many countries.

HOW TO GET THE SKILLS IN BELIZE WE NEED TO BUILD SMALL BUSINESSES.

2012-01-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

HOW TO GET THE SKILLS WE NEED TO BUILD THE ECONOMY OF BELIZE, IN START UP, BOOTSTRAP SMALL TABLE TOP COTTAGE INDUSTRIES?

In the past, our government has sent individuals abroad to study HOW TO, on various subjects of a technical nature. Almost invariably it has turned out to be a useless waste of money. The returned individual was not able to translate the knowledge and skill learned into a practical money earning cottage industry. It is time we look at new ways of acquiring the skills sets we need in this country, to BOOTSTRAP an ECONOMIC SMALL SCALE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, to build our jobs, businesses and increase out GDP.

How to do it? Several ideas run through my mind. Don´t know if they would work, but to be considered, by those PAID to find solutions to our lack of SKILLS EDUCATION dilemma.

We could ask for some of the small countries of Europe, mainly France, Germany and the UK to send us their version of a Peace Corps Volunteer, stipulated by industry skills. The UNITED NATIONS FAO does this quite well in agriculture and fisheries matters. What we need though; is the SKILL SETS of small entrepreneurs in the afore mentioned EU industrialized countries.

I can give you some experiences and ideas from my travels. One time in the U.K. in LEEDS, central market, there was a guy, with a stall, no bigger than stalls at our local Macal River market. He had his back wall covered with hanging brass circular plaques for home decoration. He stood by his front counter, working with a knife carving a clay Madonna religious thingy, on a 3 ft by 3 ft piece of plywood, on which was a lump of red clay, like we have around Hillview out in Western Belize. He said his best sellers were religious scenes. He sold the plaques hanging on his back wall for 4 pounds sterling, back 30 years ago. Which I thought was cheap. I asked to see one, and he took one down and passed it to me. I was flabbergasted, as the thing weighed no more than a feather, or piece of paper. Yet it looked just like SOLID BRASS. Turned out to be plastic. I returned a number of weekends and persued the knowledge. Finally he told me how he did it. He bought brass colored plastic 4 ft x 8 ft plastic sheets, imported into the U.K. from the USA. ( Houston I believe?) He would make a clay mold of the plaque he was going to make. Working while customers passed by in the central market. Then later at home, he would make a mold of that clay, in either fiberglass, or epoxy, forget which? Once the mold was hard, he took it to a friend in another place, ( I went with him ) who had a thermo vacuum oven. Which could melt, or soften plastic sheeting. You put the fiberglass mold in the oven, ( about a 4 ft by 4 ft flat electrical plate kind of thing ) Or maybe it was a plaster of paris copy ( they sell this at Celinas Hardware here ) cast in the mold? Don´t remember now? Anyway, the oven was turned on, the plastic was softened and sucked down by atmospheric pressure by a vacuum pump and took the shape of the plaster of paris object plaque. Few minutes later you had a wall plaque and could do it again. You trimmed the plastic rim with a zippo knife and made as many as you wanted, or thought you could sell. He took the plastic plaques back to his market stall and using shoe polish, black and brown, he highlighted shadows and stuff and VOILA! He had authenticate looking VERY EXPENSIVE TYPE BRASS WALL PLAQUES. Very decorative antique looking wall hanging. Cheap to make, cheap to sell and a simple desk top venture.
______________________________________________

There was a guy in the USA started making cardboard crude telescopes for $15 usa. The profession mass produced factory type equivalent telescope cost about $50 usa. I tried to make one, but ran into trouble finding lenses. Never could find either glass, or plastic lenses at a price would allow me to do this. Compete in the outside world market place by PRICE value. I bought one and you could see a mile and people doing things quite plainly, though the picture was kind of blurry, and vibration by the wind at a mile away, kind of ticklish. Shelter from the wind and brace the telescope you could see a mile in close up detail. For less than $16 usa, plus postage and handling. What I needed here in Hillview was to make them for $5 usa, to cover a competitive internet price. The cardboard tubes were the same as a paper towel roll, and a toilet paper roll for the second shorter focusing tube. You can find the instructions on the interent. You paint the cardboard rolls with latex flat black paint. You also need to dress it up a bit, with a ring at each end, which you can make with a hand operated press, if you have aluminum, like for making jewelry. The lenses were my stumbling block. The optometrists with machines in town, ( Belize City ) refused to make me telescope lenses. So I needed a grinding machine, but never found one I could afford. The thing is you can buy both glass locally, but not the clear plastic sheets, to make lense blanks. Anyway, the guy in the USA underpriced the more fancy competition and actually had much bigger and far away capability, even if a bit blurry. Through the internet he succeeded in encouraging star gazing high school programs and sold to them and had a garage based business, making 20,000 cardboard telescopes he was selling per month. These were throw away telescopes at that price. Cheap and when the novely wore off, could be discarded.
___________________________________________

Take the famous CUCKOO CLOCK of Germany. You can buy the apparatus to make them, change the folk dancers to parrots to reflect Belize culture and sell them over the internet. Lots of businesses.
__________________________________________________

Lots of businesses are valid if you build cheap and crude and under price the fancy quality competition. Take telescopes again. Satellites can read a newspaper from 200 miles UP. They overcome the focal length barrier, for small satellites, by using prisms alongside a telescope and bounce the image, back and forth in parallel to the limits of length able to fit in a satellite. Thus gaining immense ability for magnification, yet in a small space.
__________________________________________

There is a steady market for cheap, but quality MAYAN hammocks in the world. Working on that. All hand made. By weaving.
_______________________________________________

NEARBY GUATEMALA has 12 million population. Of which 2 million are probably a market for Belize based small cottage industry. Such industry I have seen in Guatemala is either European based Internationals, who create small factories in each Central and South American country, like for making plastic ropes and such. Guatemala has limited small industry and is more or less equal to BELIZE in lacking such things.
______________________________________________

I´m sure there is a market for Guatemalan SWEATER JACKETS, which can be knitted here in Belize. We have been trying out here in Hillview, but the pegs on the plastic knitting thingy Charlie sent me, are too far apart, or we are waiting when we make a trip to the Guatemalan highlands, probably COBAN to see if we can find thicker WOOL balls to use.
_____________________________________________

The OPPORTUNITIES GO ON AND ON. We can make the DESAI steam engine in Belize, if we had the skill set, to do the one room BLACKSMITH IRON FOUNDRY type sand box castings, to make the heads. A lathe to make the pistons, per the video here in another article on this BLOG. NO END TO THE EXPORT OPPORTUNITIES.
_________________________________________

I one time sent off to DUPONT to get some rubber latex you use to make peal off molds. You carve a wooden figure, or make it in clay and fire it, then make the mold and just pour in liquid clay to repeat the process and make dozens of them for the tourist market. Unfortunately, I have found that reading stuff on the internet when there are so many choices and without the expertise and practical skill, I end up ordering the WRONG THING. This happens not only with products I order from the internet ( just blew about $300 USA on plastic hammock string from Guatemala City, which turned out to be useless crap for agriculture ) but books as well. You actually have to travel and acquire specific knowledge on the subject of your small entrepreneurial investment.
________________________________________

So HOW DO WE GET SKILLED PEOPLE TO BRING THEIR TABLE TOP MACHINERY HERE TO BELIZE ON A 2 YEAR ASSIGNMENT, AS SOME SORT OF TECHNICAL AID TO BUILDING EXPORT BUSINESSES? I would love to trot around European markets looking for such things, then telling our Belize government, who and what, to get sent out here to Belize, paid for by donor country programs for technical aid. You just waste a lot of TIME and MONEY not knowing EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT. Somebody has to go there and identify the things. Sending people abroad doesn´t work, we have at least learned that in Belize.
____________________________________________________

BOOTSTRAPPING THE INDUSTRIAL COTTAGE INDUSTRY REVOLUTION IN BELIZE IS GOING TO TAKE SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN OUR CURRENT EDUCATION SYSTEM.

BELIZE GETS THE DAY AFTER SEX PROTECTION PILL

2012-01-08T08:54:00.000-08:00

THE DAY AFTER, UNPROTECTED, UNPLANNED SEX, TO PREVENT AGAINST PREGNANCY HAS ARRIVED IN BELIZE

I see in the Reporter newspaper this weekend, you can now buy the DAY AFTER PILL. One tablet called Emkit-ds. Contains: Levonorgesrel USP, 1.5 mg. You have up to 3 days to take the pill, after unplanned, unprotected sex for girls, to prevent pregnancy.

Solar collector/steam engine generator vs solar cells experimenting in the country of BELIZE.

2012-01-08T08:18:00.000-08:00

Solar tower project, by TinyTech of India, who claims it produces 5 h.p. of electrical energy, by producing steam to run a steam engine/generator built also by them.

I had built a parabolic reflector, solar oven in Belize one time, and still have the double glass pane oven in storage. The reflector made of wood and beaverboard, covered over with aluminum foil, applied by using cheap Elmers glue, is long gone, due to weather and wind damage. However, for an experiment it did work. The process for cooking took about 4 hours to make rice at low temperatures, or stews and such. Unfortunately, we found that cooking by butane one burner gas stove was cheap enough, to do away with the more laborious and slow process of cooking one meal a day, by the solar cooker. We did not have mirrors here in Western Belize, but can buy flat plain glass. Don´t know how to make a mirror out of plain glass yet though.

Have looked at solar reflector electric generation over the years theoretically, but since it only works when you have sunshine, could not find much use for it. Nice to read Tinytech in India, have built one. For pragmatic purposes, we need something that will be automated and produce electricity 24 hours by 7 days a week. Our goal would be to feed back to the National BEL grid in Belize. There is a market for about 9 mgwatts of electricity in Belize, but how to do it cheaper than diesel generators, or at a lower cost is still not resolved. We have been exploring steam engine power, but run into the same problems of cost versus the competitive diesel produced electricity generation.
______________________________________

From V.K. Desai, his philosphy per rural India, much of which does not have any electricity yet.

LET US RESHAPE PLANET THROUGH SOLAR ENERGY

We should think to create happy planet.

But first of all we should think what we mean by happy planet. Very nice wide highways connecting big cities is not the sign of happy planet. Big cities with tall buildings is not the sign of happy planet. Fast air conditioned trains and planes is not the sign of happy planet. Big factories producing mass products is not the sign of happy planet. Big universities, colleges, hospitals, administrative buildings etc is not the sign of happy planet.

Happiness lies in freedom. Freedom of earning the livelihood without any body's interference, without any tension, without any exploitation, without any helplessness is the real happiness. Freedom lies in working for self as per own conscience, not as per others instruction as slave simply for livelyhood. Free independent farmer with his own land producing grains, vegetables, pulses, fruits etc must be the happiest person on the earth, if he is not exploited. This should be the happiest life style on the earth. Majority must be farmers. Let us make them happy by using solar energy. Let us think how we can reshape the world.

One horse power is equivalent to 10 men power. If we create 5 horse power of solar energy, it is equivalent to 50 men power. If we create 5 hp solar power plant for farmer, he will use 50 men power free of cost. Here lies the secret of creating the wealth in villages. In fact industrial revolution used this secret to exploit the entire world for the benefit of handful of people. 1 MW power is equivalent to 14000 men power. 100 MW thermal power plant is equivalent to 1400000 men powers. So wherever men power is used, it is replaced by electricity, throwing the people jobless and enjoying the fruits of electricity by only one person. The work which is done by 100 people in 8 hours can be easily done by 10 hp ( 7 KW ) electric motor running 8 hours. This means consuming only 7 KW x 8 hours equals to 56 KWH which cost only 56 x Rs 5 = Rs 280 ( about US$ 6 only ). But if this 100 people were to work instead of electricity, we have to pay them bare minimum for their livelihood Rs 100 per day x 100 workers = Rs 10000 ( at least US$ 220 ). So look at the vast difference. If factory owner employs 100 workers, he has to pay US$ 220, but if he drives out all 100 workers and uses electricity he has to pay only US$ 6. So replacing men power by a machine power will earn him 220/6 is equal to 37 times higher profit. In this way 4 billion people on this earth have been thrown on the street to starve and to die and 1 billion people is just hand to mouth to meet both the ends together hardly and fruits of all this 5 billion people are enjoyed by 2 billion people and especially a handful of industrialist and rich people. So all these centralized thermal power plants, nuclear power plants, hydro projects, grid electricity etc is used for the benefit of handful of multi billionaire people and hence it is evil.

We can break this entire structure by solar energy which is gift of God. So let us create 50 millions of tiny solar power plants of 5 to 10 hp. It will pump water from the well, it will run the threshers to separate the grain, it will make rice from paddy, it will gin cotton to separate cotton seed, it will spin cotton to make yarn, it will weave yarn to make cloth, it will crush sugarcane to make sugarcane juice and jaggery from it, it will grind wheat to get wheat flour, it will run oil expeller to get cooking oil. All activities will be done in the farms not even in villages. Farmers will live in the farms and will get prosperity by creating value added products. All unemployed people in villages will get immediate employment. On the contrary there will be dearth of men power required to operate small industries in the farms. So unemployed people living in slums in the cities will come to villages and farms, to work under nature and to become happy in villages. Please think over the significance of 50 millions of tiny solar power plants of 5 HP to 10 HP say it is of 5 KW x 50 million equal to 250 million KW equal to 250000 MW. This is double the power than all centralized, exploitative, polluting, giant power plants produce to exploit poor rural India. In this scheme fuel cost is ZERO, transport is minimum, where transport is minimum, happiness will be maximum and where transport is maximum, happiness will be minimum.

To make this picture realistic, essential equipment is solar concentrator. It collects sunshine and creates heat energy which is converted into mechanical energy by steam engine or by stirling engine.

So first let us concentrate on solar concentrator. It is very easy to make large solar concentrator. It is so easy to construct a solar concentrator that you cannot believe it. Single solar concentrator of 90 to 100 sq mt is easy to make. I can teach free of cost how to make it, no big knowledge is required, no engineer is required, primary education is quite enough to make it. Inner skill of even illiterate person is enough to understand its technology. So village carpenter or village blacksmith can easily manufacture large solar concentrator. One large solar concentrator will produce 5 hp power. Please remember making a large solar concentrator is equivalent to producing 50 robots for us. It is not essential to use costly steel for making solar concentrator, wood also will do. Bamboo also can work, very simple workshop tools will be enough to make solar concentrator.
______________________________________

Desai goes on in the same philosphical vein. But the same problem arises as electricity raises the standard of living of rural people. The big problem is how to store electricity, to carry you through 24 hrs x 7 days a week, when the sun doesn´t shine. Battery banks have proven to be expensive and fairly short life time. ( 3 to 5 years ) Solar cell panels do the same as a solar collector with less labor, and our country is relatively labor expensive. With $25 usa per day for labor in Western Belize and $60 usa per day on the offshore islands, including accomodation and meals. A number of such alternatives have been explored practically in Belize, by a number of experimenters.
________________________________

GOVERNMENT HOLDS FORUM IN THE PORT FOR LIASON WITH THE PRIVATE SECTOR CHANGES, IN BELIZE.

2012-01-08T00:22:00.000-08:00

PRIME MINISTER AND HIS GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRATS HOLD A FORUM DOWN IN THE PORT TOWN, TO DISCUSS PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS TO INCREASE PERFORMANCE BY PRIVATE SECTOR BUSINESSES.

The results were complaints about the GST pyramiding of taxes on the materials supply chain, GST on shipping costs when importing, customs duties, crime, interest rates, bad roads ( we only have a few roads ) the rest are dirt tracks, statistics unavailability when requested to enable planning for private sector businesses, lack of information on Cabinet policies information, as most governing is knee jerk reactions, a change needed in the way Development concessions work for locals.

We are not sure if this is just a propoganda election excercise for an ELECTIÖN YEAR, so we are not awarding any points on their performance report card yet. But will, if anything particularly changes for the better.

$5.5 million EU GRANT to help with rural electrification in Belize.

2012-01-08T00:12:00.001-08:00

RURAL ELECTRIFICATION PROJECT RECEIVES THE SIGNING CEREMONY.

Financing for this project is $5.5 million. BEL´s National grid will be expanded to include 27 rural communities. The European Union will finance 75% of the project by a ACP GRANT. The government will put the other 25%.

Rural communities to be effected by electrification are:
Steadfast, Belama Phase 4, in the port urban area, Belmopan the capital urban area, Dangriga Wagirale and Rivas Estates, Independence urban area, Benque Viejo Town expansions, Cotton Tree, Valley of Peace, Ontario, Hattieville, Rockstone Pond, Succotz, San Lazaro, guinea Grass, Paraiso, San Narciso, Patchakan, Carmelita, Libertad, Hope Creek, sarawee, Hopkins, San Roman Village, Seine Bight, Bella Vista. All these have electricity, but have grown in size with more urban areas without electricity and this is intended to increase the size of the National Grid services.

Prime Minister Barrow of Belize promise good until General Election this year is passed.

2012-01-07T23:58:00.000-08:00

NO TAX INCREASE FOR 2012.

While the IMF recommended an increase in the GST tax, ( a sales tax on every step of production, ) from 12% to 15% to work on the outstanding debts of the government at 85% Debt to GDP ratio. The Prime Minister, El Caudillo, Dean Barrow said emphatically there will be no change in the tax this year 2012. Of course this is ELECTION YEAR in 2012 and GENERAL ELECTIONS WHEN HIS PARTY WILL RUN AGAIN, is probably going to happen either in mid March, or June of this year.

Politicians like women, get to change their minds whenever they want. We do expect this promise to last through the time selected for the General Election for 2012. There has been no law reducing the requirement to be from a 5 year term to a 4 year term yet. News just came down the pipe, that the NEW Jamaican Prime Minister will change their political system from our crooked British system copy, to a more successful and equitable political system of a REPUBLIC. In Belize, I kind of thought we should change to a REPUBLIC also, but no go despite debates on the subject, our LEADER is not elected as a leader in our government. He is a MAFIA DON, elected solely as a localize small elected representative and by default as party gang leader, gets to be appointed LEADER AND PRIME MINISTER of the nation, by the QUEEN´s REPRESENTATIVE in the U.K. We are not independent yet!

At any rate, we do expect the Prime Minister not to raise GST tax until AFTER the general election. After that, who knows?

APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM IN BELIZE A SUCCESS ! 5 points awarded on UDP government performance report card. NEW SCORE FOR UDP 11%

2012-01-07T23:33:00.000-08:00

Typical ITVET ( fledgling community college system in Belize ) graduation class.

APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM BY THE GOVERNMENT A SUCCESS!

The UDP Report Card has been upgraded 5 points for the successful completion of an apprenticeship program. The article is in the GUARDIAN newspaper, the incumbent government propoganda sheet for Sunday, January 8th, 2012.

Seems they gave courses somewhere in the country, probably in Belmopan? The center of the country. The program had 20 students and covered training in Welding, Air conditioning and refrigeration, auto mechanic, hospitality management, cooking, secretarial skills, electrical, plumbing and hotel maintainance. Of the 20 students, 18 received salaried jobs IMMEDIATELY by their sponsoring employees. A 90 % successful graduation rate. The students also got some eye awakening trips around their own country, to a cruise ship to have lunch with the crew, a snorkeling tour of fabulous fish rich Hol Chan Marine Reserve and swam with sting rays and sharks and learned something about the Great Barrier Reef.

___________________________________________________________

The rumor mill has it that the very successful, APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM has been cancelled, due to financial constraints? Apparently down in the port town, the DAY JOB employment of unemployed youth on work projects is sucking $50,000 a week out of the thin government budget, which is basically running a negative cash flow. The port town $50,000 job project, is an effort to draw off the murder rate, due to vendettas, revenge killings and quarrels for crack cocaine and marijuana street sales by local gangs. The recruitment rate in street gangs was effecting safety and security in the port town streets with senseless killings. Since there is not enough money to go around, and all money these days spent by the government of Belize is either FOREIGN GRANT MONEY, or LOAN money from international institutions, some hard priorities are being chosen by those in the political CABINET. SHAME THAT if true?
__________________________________________________

50 years of CHANGE IN BELIZE and how do we reach the future?

2012-01-07T12:45:00.000-08:00

50 years of change in BELIZE, formerly the colony of British Honduras

I look back on a life of change in our country and society. Back when I was young, we had a shallow well, caught rainwater in a tank, used old 5 gallon lard tins, to smoulder coconut husks, to provide smoke, during the calms and line squalls of June and July. There were times, the only relief from swarms of sandflies and mosquitoes, was standing in the heavy smoke cloud from a half dozen smoke pots situated around the beach in front of your house. We went to the toilet on a wooden bar on a small pier, to watch the feces hit the water and be eaten by crabs. Toilet paper was the Belize Times newspaper, or remnants of brown paper bags. Outhouses were the norm all over the country. Or a 5 gallon bucket, which would later be dumped on the mainland, in the local river.
The SWING BRIDGE in the port town looked over swarms of catfish feeding off feces and dead dogs floating underneath, with the outgoing current. The RATS were as big as cats, cockroaches numbered in the millions, in the wooden houses.
I well remember my young girls, now in their 40´s getting bitten by both rats and cockroaches while sleeping in the port town of Belize City. They were going to HIGH SCHOOL there. The second growing generation of youngsters in Belize to experience higher education. There were mule carts carrying freight from stores to coastal boats.
Times have changed over the decades. Now most anybody has a motorized vehicle. Bicyles today are rare, so rare that the police do not even insist on a headlight, or hand pump and other bicycle paraphenelia of yesteryear. People no longer shop in a corner store for rice and beans and pig tails, or neck and back. Cooking their own over a kerosene stove, or fire heart with wood. Today people have washing machines, electric stoves, or of butane. Hot showers, running water, television and electricity. The stores sell imported packaged processed foods, ready made to go. It no longer takes two or three days to travel round trip from Caye Caulker by sailboat and do your monthly shopping. The trip today is fast, taking about 50 minutes in a fast water taxi speedboat. We had nobody in goverment civil service with a Bachelors Degree fifty years ago. Now the University overproduces, worthless GOVERNMENT CLERKS with paper degrees called Bachelors, Masters and Doctorates. Highly educated people, address the media in the country lamenting the lack of clerical salaried jobs for their higher education pieces of paper they wave in the breeze. Just like the Mennonite Rice producers, we have overproduced, an educated elite bunch of CLERKS, looking for salaried jobs in industry and mostly government. The fight and squabble at election time, to be on the right side of the political party that will win, in order to get one of the choice limited government clerical jobs available by patronage.
The more things change, it seems the more they seem to stay the same?
Somehow the rise in the standard of living is a good thing. Not many want to return to a life of 50 years ago. You would find it hard to find a housewife that didn´t want a washing machine, or refrigerator today.
There are still in rural parts of our nation, people living this old way, without running water, or electricity, and often with no roads. I don´t know any, that really want to do this. They might like the rural life, but would like to have it with the material conveniences.
EDUCATION we find, has failed the country and the population. Nowadays the new challenges are how to industrialize on a small scale and start exporting. Nobody among the old CLERKS waving their paper doctorates seem to have any answer? We have soft beds, clean sheets, and even air conditioning in a lot of places, that once sweated away the summer heat at a desk in an office, or took a siesta under a coconut tree with a cool trade wind blowing. Massive unemployment is the result of an uneducated in a REAL WORLD practical pragmatic growing population. While the unemployment grows, the clerks with their paper degrees waving in the breeze, are satisfied to collect their salaries and lack even the basic educated skills of building a nation. We don´t need any more educated clerks, we need people with skills. The question is: WHERE and HOW are we going to get them?
Like the Japanese after World War 2, Belizeans we have found are great copycats. Show them how to make money by example, and within 18 months new businesses spring up faster than weeds in an empty lot. There are a lot of critics in our new society. Most all of them want a salaried job as a CLERK with the government bureaucracy, or if you are; a has been lawyer, to become a politician and go on the tax revenue, pig trough, payroll.
The challenges facing Belizean society are there. The solutions are more or less known, but it is not by any education system outside of the ITVET community colleges, that we will find the answers. The INTERNET has been a game changer, yet we so far, are not capitalizing on the opportunities enough. The Universities have proved useless. The ITVET Community college model, while a successful model, works on a DEMAND EDUCATION basis. Given a class of 10 paying students you have a training course. This is education by historical precedent. You cannot go and predict the future from historical precedents. Students will gravitate to what they know is already working. Unfortunately the game changer for Belize is a path yet untrodden, the solutions and skills unlearned. The future is based on new skills. HOW WE DO THAT, WILL DICTATE THE SUCCESS OR FAILURE OF OUR NATION AND ECONOMY over the next 20 years.

UDP lose 5 points on report card. New performance rating 6%

2012-01-07T12:35:00.001-08:00

UDP GOVERNMENT DOWNGRADED IN PERFORMANCE TO 6%.

Another month has rolled around, and still NO news from the CABINET, Local Government Ministry, or the Friday Legislature meetings, that a reading of the Placentia Town Board has occured to make their TOWN BY-LAWS legal as stated by law.
Submitted as requested to Local Government in 2003, procrastination is the name of the game by both political party governments. No progress in developing the country. It is now going into the 9th year of waiting on government to do their jobs. I thought 3 years to get a title transfer for land, was atrocious, but the incompetence of both the CABINET and MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT is very hard to believe in Belize.
Monthly deduction of 5 points for FAILURE to run the government efficiently, from their 11% previous performance report card rating. Gives a score of government and political competence at 6% in January, 2012 for the UDP.
I´m surprised the port town media have´nt picked up on this bureaucratic and political problem and done articles on it?

BELIZE EDUCATION - THE DIRECTION WE MUST GO IN BELIZE.

2012-01-07T06:03:00.001-08:00

Small metal lathe
Metal working lathe
BELIZE EDUCATION, THE DIRECTION WE MUST GO AND CHANGE TO !

http://www.wimp.com/tiniestengine/

Video on making a tiny working engine and outlining the export possibilities of cheap, high markup manufacturing, home cottage industry style.

Here is a machinist in fine small metal work, in this video, producing a working small engine. His cost in metal is about $100 usa. The finished item would sell for $2000 and up.

Not only that, Terry Warburton of Warburton musical instruments, who has property in Camalote village in Belize, has his business in Central Florida, making metal brass mouthpieces for musical instruments. He also has expanded to making trumpets and cornets. He tells me that $3 worth of brass metal, can be turned on a computer driven programmed lathe ( I´ve seen it in his garage sized workshop ) and sell for $60 usa over the internet. That means his markup for mass produced labor is 2000 times.

In England, I attended a Magicians Convention and bought one time, a .25 cent quarter coin, that had a shell coin over the original. Also bought an USA penny. Produced by a machinist I spent $55 usa for each trick. The metal cost was .50 cents of course, using original coins. What the trick was, you had a magnetized playing card, and you place the coin, or let a person actually handle the quarter, or penny. Then you did the misdirection, mumbo jumbo bit and turned it by placing the coin on the back of your hand, passing playing card over it, which picked up the shell and the second face of the coin that had been hidden in shell, became exposed as a different coin. Very fine machining indeed.

This is the kind of education needed in Belize. There is not any of the four or so machinists in our small country, who have lathes, have the capability to make such small tolerance work. I talked to the machinist in Spanish Lookout who has huge lathes, but he did not know how to make a steam engine even. You are talking about skill, not expense, to make 2000 % on your money invested here. There is a huge niche market for all kinds of speciality items, for which there are only the occasional in the whole world there are only a few people specializing in such things. You are not talking about big mass production factories here. Just small cottage industry garage sized workshops. The internet has opened up markets ALL OVER THE WORLD for such things. You have the same thing in molds, and plastics and injection machines, etc.

When we talk about EDUCATION in BELIZE and exports, this is the direction we need to take. Very small niche items, with HUGE DOLLAR MARKUPS IN VALUE, for small neglible costs in materials. Apparently our academia bureaucrats lack the skills, or even the knowledge to do, or teach these things. We are going to have to get a government program to entice skilled people to come to Belize and do these things. Belizeans are great copy cats. You let them see somebody making money somehow, TWO or THREE years later, we will be boosting our GDP, providing employment because of the BOOM in new businesses. Our existing academic people simply DO NOT HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE and experience.

CHAT IN BELIZE, ON HOW TO PRODUCE ELECTRICITY VIA AUTOMATIC RUN STEAM ENGINES AND BOILERS. USING E-CAT TECHNOLOGY ION HEATER CATAYLIZERS

2012-01-07T05:22:00.000-08:00

Desai

The first two video links, seem to be malformed and unoperative. I got the 3rd one working, very nice video. Liked it. I mounted the video on my blog, I think? My web skills in that line are limited.

Looking at your boiler construction using flat plate, was informative. I had never thought of that. You seem to have a triangular outfit, with a rectangulaR boiler in the top, and the fire below. Concerning E-Cat heating technology, it looks like one could make a 10ft by 9 ft base, in order to insert, heater ion catalyzer tubes in the bottom and if you had ascending coiled pipe, running around in circles in the triangle shaped container, up into the overhead water tank, the steam producing function could become automatic? Just let the water come in the bottom pipe and ascend from heating, up to the boiler. You presumably could get a lot of ion catalyst heaters into that square footage base, sufficient to get enough heat to get the pressures required? For a stationary unit, with water feed from an overhead tank resevoir, pumped up from a river. I do wonder yet, as a curious amateur, how you could allow replacement water to enter, without dropping temperature. Also how you get a cap on steam pressure, for safety at 200 psi. I also wonder of what material you bolted it all together. Presumably with gaskets? Looks very plausible. Licking the boiler problem for me, using the E CAT heating tubes would be necessary, as much as possible, because labor is expensive in this country, if available. Frequency control, is something I have read about, for feeding the national grid, but know little about the subject. It must be possible? If I remember rightly you said 600 rpm maximum for the steam engine. This presumably varies with the steam pressure?

Feeding the national grid is the whole point of the mental research excercise. One could with an automatic operation, fill the 55% shortfall in our country of Belize of production of electricity, which we buy mostly from Mexico at prices that vary with the world price of oil. With a mostly automatic operation, you could price electricity below what we buy from Mexico and have a business.

From: V K DESAI - FOUNDER OF TINYTECH
To: belize-technical-group@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, January 7, 2012 3:46 AM
Subject: [-BTG-] steam engines for human happiness
AADHUNIK GLOBAL ENERGY
C/oTINYTECH PLANTS,Tagore Road, Rajkot - 360 002, INDIA
Mobile # 91-92 27 60 65 70, Tel. 91-281-2480166 Fax # 91-281-2467552
Email : tinytech@tinytechindia.com Website : www.tinytechindia.com
STEAM ENGINES FOR HUMAN HAPPINESS
Dear friends,

I have seen the photographs sent by you. I should clarify that practically only my steam engines are cheap enough to be afforded by people. I know Peter Carlich since many years as most genuine manufacturer. But his cost is very high. He does not make bigger 10 to 20 hp engines. So practically I am only person to supply steam engines. Just 2 days back, I sent steam power plant of 8 hp-3kva to France. Next order is from Pakistan. My power plants are not automatic. Continuous manual feeding of wood or biomass to boiler is essential. Moreover, electricity generated in these power plants cannot be fed into grid as steam engine are without governors. But, these steam power plants are highly suitable for agro processing activity by connecting steam engines directly to oil expeller, sugar cane crusher, rice huller, water pump for irrigation etc. Of course, electricity also can be generated and used to drive motors as a captive power plant. Frequency can vary a little bit which does not harm in normal working. But in a grid feeding, frequency variation is not allowed. So, it can work as independent power plant.
Please watch the following URL on youtube.

For 2hp and 18hp- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54s4vg3IgYg

For 2hp, 8hp, 18hp- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxW3a3eZF

For 10hp twin cylinder- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msOH1M8ulxQ

(1) STEAM ENGINES ONLY
(1) Single cylinder double acting steam engine 5 hp, cylinder dia 3"xstroke 4", complete with reverse mechanism, hand lubricating pump for cylinder lubrication, drip lubricator for crosshead lubrication and 12" pulley. Weight 85 kg. Useful for educational purpose in technical schools, engineering college, in pleasure boats, for threshers in agriculture, in water pumping from ponds canals, for solar power plant etc.
US$ 1400/-
(2) Single cylinder double acting steam engine 8 hp, cylinder dia 4"xstroke 4", complete with reverse mechanism, hand lubricating pump for cylinder lubrication, drip lubricator for crosshead lubrication and 16" pulley . Weight 100kg. Useful for educational purpose in technical schools, engineering college, in pleasure boats, for threshers in agriculture, in water pumping from ponds canals, small oil expeller, sugarcane crusher, for rice milling, cotton ginning, power looms etc.
US$ 1600/-
(3) Double cylinder double acting steam engine V type 10 hp, cylinder dia 3"xstroke 4", complete with reverse mechanism, hand lubricating pump for cylinder lubrication, drip lubricator for crosshead lubrication and 10" pulley. Weight 130 kg. Useful for educational purpose in technical schools, engineering college, in pleasure boats, for threshers in agriculture, in water pumping from ponds canals, small oil expeller, sugarcane crusher, for rice milling, cotton ginning, power looms etc.
US$ 2000/-
(4) Single cylinder double acting steam engine 18 hp, cylinder dia 4.5"xstroke 6", complete with Stephenson reverse mechanism, hand lubricating pump for cylinder lubrication, drip lubricator for crosshead lubrication and 16" pulley cum flywheel. Weight 200 kg. Useful for educational purpose in technical schools, engineering college, in pleasure boats, for threshers in agriculture, in water pumping from ponds canals, small oil expeller, sugarcane crusher, for rice milling, cotton ginning, power looms etc.
US$2400/-
(5) Double cylinder double acting COMPOUND steam engine V type 18 hp, HP cylinder dia 4"x stroke 4", LP cylinder dia 6"x stroke 4"complete with hand lubricating pump for cylinder lubrication, drip lubricator for crosshead lubrication and 16" pulley. Weight 200 kg. Useful for water pumping from ponds canals, small oil expeller, sugarcane crusher, for rice milling, cotton ginning, power looms etc.
US$ 2600/-. Compound steam engine will consume less steam per hp per hour.
(6) Double cylinder double acting twin steam engine V type 40 hp, both cylinder dia 6"x stroke 4" complete with hand lubricating pump for cylinder lubrication, drip lubricator for crosshead lubrication and 16" pulley. Weight 250 kg. Useful for any industrial application or agro industries or rural electrification.
US$ 3900/-.
(2) STEAM POWER PLANT 5 HP
Steam power plant consisting of (1) steam engine 5 hp (2) Water tube Yarrow type boiler with 54 sq ft heating surface . Useful for educational purpose in engineering college, in small pleasure boats, in agriculture, in water pumping, for running small sugarcane crusher, for rice huller, for cotton ginning 75kg/hr, power looms 40 mt cloth per hour etc.
COST US$3600/-

(3) STEAM POWER PLANT 8 HP
Steam power plant consisting of (1) Single cylinder double acting steam engine 8 hp (2) Water tube Yarrow type boiler with 80 sq ft heating surface Useful for educational purpose in engineering college, in big pleasure boats, in agriculture, in water pumping, for running tiny oil mill or sugarcane crusher, for rice milling, for cotton ginning 150kg/hr, power looms 100 mt cloth per hour etc.
COST US$ 4500/-
(4) STEAM POWER PLANT 10 HP
Steam power plant consisting of (1) Double cylinder double acting steam engine 10 hp (2) Water tube Yarrow type boiler suitable for biomass firing with 90 sq ft heating surface. Useful for educational purpose in engineering college, in big pleasure boats up to 40 ft, in agriculture, in water pumping, for running tiny oil mill crushing 125kg/hr or sugarcane crusher of 1000kg/hr, for rice milling 500kg/hr, for cotton ginning 150kg lint cotton/hr, power looms 100 mt cloth per hour etc.
COST US$ 5600/-

(5) STEAM POWER PLANT 4 KVA (FOR RURAL ELECTRIFICATION)
Steam power plant consisting of (1) Single cylinder double acting steam engine 8 hp (2) Water tube Yarrow type boiler with 83 sq ft heating surface (3)Alternator maximum capacity 5 KVA, single phase, 240V, 50Hz driven by steam engine by belts and pulleys.
COST US$ 5200/-

(6) STEAM POWER PLANT 6 KVA (FOR RURAL ELECTRIFICATION)
Steam power plant consisting of (1) Double cylinder double acting steam engine 10 hp (2) Water tube Yarrow type boiler with 90 sq ft heating surface (3)Alternator maximum capacity 7 KVA, single phase, 240V, 50Hz driven by steam engine by belts and pulleys.
COST US$ 6600/-

(7) STEAM POWER PLANT 10 KVA (FOR RURAL ELECTRIFICATION)
Steam power plant consisting of (1) Single cylinder double acting steam engine 18 hp (2) Water tube Yarrow type boiler with 140 sq ft heating surface (3)Alternator maximum capacity 10 KW, single phase, 240V, 50Hz driven by steam engine by belts and pulleys.
COST US$ 9000/-
(8) STEAM BOILERS ONLY
(1) Water tube Yarrow type boiler suitable for biomass firing with 140 sq ft heating
surface including economizer and superheater, test pressure
400psi,working pressure 160 psi complete with water
level gauge set, pressure gauge, safety valve, fire grates and 20ft
chimney 1 set+ interconnecting pipe lines, valves, pipe fittings
etc.Boiler is insulated with cerawool.
COST FOB INDIAN PORT US$ 5600/-
(2) Water tube Yarrow type boiler suitable for biomass firing with 100 sq ft heating
surface including economizer and superheater, test pressure
400psi,working pressure 160 psi complete with water
level gauge set, pressure gauge, safety valve, fire grates and 20ft
chimney 1 set+ interconnecting pipe lines, valves, pipe fittings
etc.Boiler is insulated with cerawool.
COST FOB INDIAN PORT US$ 4800/-
(3) Water tube Yarrow type boiler suitable for biomass firing with 90 sq ft heating
surface including economizer and superheater, test pressure
300psi,working pressure 150 psi complete with water
level gauge set, pressure gauge, safety valve, fire grates and 20ft
chimney 1 set+ interconnecting pipe lines, valves, pipe fittings
etc.Boiler is insulated with cerawool.
COST FOB INDIAN PORT US$ 4000/-
(4) Water tube Yarrow type boiler suitable for biomass firing with 83 sq ft heating
surface including economizer and superheater, test pressure
300psi,working pressure 150 psi complete with water
level gauge set, pressure gauge, safety valve, fire grates and 20ft
chimney 1 set+ interconnecting pipe lines, valves, pipe fittings
etc.Boiler is insulated with cerawool.
COST FOB INDIAN PORT US$ 3900/-
(5) Water tube Yarrow type boiler suitable for biomass firing with 54 sq ft heating
surface including economizer and superheater, test pressure
300psi,working pressure 150 psi complete with water
level gauge set, pressure gauge, safety valve, fire grates and 20ft
chimney 1 set+ interconnecting pipe lines, valves, pipe fittings
etc.Boiler is insulated with cerawool.
COST FOB INDIAN PORT US$ 2200/-
(1) If interested in any item, proforma invoice should be asked for.
(2) All products will carry video CD for operation, maintenance, assembling, commissioning purpose. No any CD will be sent in advance in any case.

V. K. DESAI
Managing Director
AADHUNIK GLOBAL ENERGY

TINYTECH PLANTS
Tagore Road, RAJKOT - 360002, INDIA
91 92 27 60 65 70 ( MOBILE)
91 281 245 5730
91 281 246 7552 (FAX)
tinytech@tinytehindia.com
www.tinytechindia.com

MY WORLD VISION FOR STEAM ENGINES

I am enemy of all big industries.

So I am enemy of big power plants also.

To produce power is simple thing.

small steam engine and boiler can produce power.

Connect generator with it and you produce electricity.

It is simple to produce 5 to 10 hp steam engine.

It is simple to make small wind turbines.

It is simple to make parabolic collectors which produce solar steam.

Any trained rural technician can do it.

Multiply by 250 million and you will have plenty of power everywhere in the world.

So giant thermal power plants and atomic power plants are not required.

Complicated technology makes simple thing complicated.

I believe in home scale family size industries.

It is simple to make cloth.

Dhaka's MULMUL(very fine cloth) was produced on simple tools worth 50 dollars.

It is still not produced by sophisticated textile mills.

So textile mills are not required.

Gin your cotton in the farm,

Spin your cotton in your farm,

Weave your yarn in your village.

5hp steam engine or 3 kw wind turbine will do the job.

This much will increase rural wealth by 8 times.

Multiply by 50 million and you will produce cloth for entire world.

Baling the cotton reduces durability of cloth by 20%.

Half the machinery of textile mill is to break the bale.

Remember, centralization creates complications.

Complicated technology makes simple thing complicated.

Big sugar factories are evils. ( I worked as MD of sugar factory before 30 years.)

Sugar is harmful to health.

Jaggery is hygienic.

It is simple to produce jaggery.

10hp steam engine can drive sugarcane crusher to crush 24 tonnes/day.

Boiling the juice makes delicious jaggery.

Multiply such units by one million and entire world can enjoy sweets everyday.

one tone sugarcane gives 140 kg jaggery,

But one tonne sugarcane gives only 100 kg sugar.

So sugar factories waste 30 million tonnes molasses making it non edible.

So sugar factories are not required.

Complicated technology makes simple thing complicated.

It is simple to produce rice from paddy.

5hp steam engine can drive rice huller to mill 5 tonnes of paddy in 12 hours.

Rice husks can make steam to drive steam engine.

So you become independent of external power.

Multiply such units by one million and entire world can enjoy rice locally.
Big rice mills waste millions of tonnes of precious food in the name of polishing.

Polished rice is harmful to health.

Unpolished rice is really nutritious and hygienic.
So big rice mills are evils.
So big rice mills are not required.

Complicated technology makes simple thing complicated.

It is simple to press any oilseed and to get oil.

It is simple to provide pure natural fresh edible oil to all.

10 hp steam engine can run small oil expeller with filter press.

Multiply by one million and all the oilseeds of the world will be crushed.

Big oil mills and refineries are evils.

They exploit the people, adulterate oil, cause cancer by refining oil.

Complicated technology makes simple thing complicated.

Cement is not mysterious product.

Burn limestone powder with clay by coal dust and you get cement.

It is simple to produce cement and lime.

10hp steam engine will make limestone powder.

Multiply by 2 million and all the people will get cement at negligible cost.

Giant cement plants are not essential for it.

Complicated technology makes simple thing complicated.

Water pumping is backbone of our agriculture and irrigation.
5 to 10 Hp steam engine can do excellent job of water pumping from shallow wells and ponds.
We are unnecessarily depend on grid power.
For submersible pumps, we can produce our electricity by steam engines.
Freedom from grid power is the most valuable freedom.
Let us strive for freedom from governments, freedom from big companies.
Let us enjoy independence, freedom and liberty through localization.

British Empire was built and was expanded simply by steam engines.

Present globalization and centralization can be broken simply by small steam engines.

Ultimately steam will be produced by solar concentrators.

In this picture, no big factories, no big companies, no multinational corporations. No land acquisition of land. No displacement of people.

Local production and local consumption. Minimum transport.

No big cities, no exploitation,no billionaires.

Small farms, small farmers. Self reliant SWADESHI life style.

Everybody works, everybody enjoys tension free happy life.

People become stronger, Government becomes weaker.

This is true democracy.

This is what Mahatma Gandhi wanted. He asserted that "Precondition of happy society is that all the means of production of primary needs of people must be in the hands of common masses." Do not centralize it. He also asserted "We must learn how to make appropriate use of steam and electricity."

We have betrayed Gandhiji and we are betraying him at every moment.

We are killing Gandhiji at every moment.

Sooner or later, entire world has to go on this path.

If Europe and America can adopt this path, world will become paradise.

V K DESAI

TINYTECH PLANTS
Tagore Road, RAJKOT - 360002, INDIA
91 92 27 60 65 70 ( MOBILE)
91 281 243 1086
91 281 246 7552 (FAX)
tinytech@tinytehindia.com
www.tinytechindia.com

MY ENERGY CONVICTIONS

(1) The ensuing energy revolution throughout the world will drive out most of the evils created by industrial revolution of the last century.i.e. Poverty, unemployment, hunger, disparity, urbanization, pollution, terrorism, war, centralization etc will be reduced to the minimum.

(2) Days of MW power have gone. Present century is for KW power. Energy revolution is poised to decentralization of not only energy production but also of all the industrial activity in the world.

(3)Power plants up to10 kw generated by steam, solar, wind biogas or any other source is human, cheap, simple viable, manageable and beneficial to the humanity. Bigger than 10 kw is unhuman, costly, complicated, unmanagable and harmful to the society as it gives rise to the exploitation and other evils.

(4) It is possible to devise all industrial activity of the world with 10 kw power or less.

(5) It is possible to create the world without grid power lines.

(6) If grid exists after 2 decades, electricity will flow in reverse direction i.e. from rural areas to big cities.

(7) Steam power is coming back very fast and all the agricultual processing such as oil milling, sugarcane crushing, cotton ginning, rice milling, wood working will be shifted on steam power.

(8) Solar thermal power plants of 10 kw or below will be millions in one or two decades.

(9) Once the technology of making Photovoltaic solar cells is known, it will be left hand job for every Indian skillful woman to manufacture it at home no matter she may be illiterate. Then real home scale industries for every primary needs will blossom.

(10) Transport will be reduced to minimum at the end of 21 century.

MY BASIC CONVICTIONS

Mahatma Gandhi's inspiring thinking on industries combined with my practical experience of 30 years as Mechanical Engineer has carved the following Basic Convictions in my heart.

(1) All the dreadful problems appearing nowadays in the world such as unemployment, hunger, exploitation, disparity, polution, urbanisation, war, terrorism etc. are direct result of heavy and centralized industries.
(2) The modern civilization based on wasteful expenditure of natural resources is destined to end in near future.
(3) Twenty first century is not in the hands of centralized heavy industries. Undercurrent of decentralization has already started; and by the end of first decade of new century, the world will throw away the dogma of industrialization.
(4) Idea of "Everything under one roof" has become out dated. The process of splitting the bigger factories into small units has already started.
(5) Principles of more economic viabilities for bigger units are illusionary. In fact where social cost is considered, bigger units can never be viable.
(6) Complex giant technology has given rise to complex way of living, due to which greed and selfishness have captured human minds and we have lost the way of happiness.
(7) Real happiness is possible only through simple living, which is possible through simple and small technology only. Complicated machinery makes simple thing also complicated.
(8) World can live in peace and harmony only if we create self sustained societies.
(9) When production is made for consumption and not for marketing, present theories of economics crumble down.
(10) Small is possible at every stage, in every industry, in every country. Small is inevitable in every industry related to primary needs of the common masses in every country.
(11) Present tax collection systems can exist only on centralized form of heavy industries. This facilitates and increases legalized robbery of people by Governments.
(12) Transport is the curse to the mankind. It facilititates spreading of evils. Worldwide transport gives rise to worldwide exploitation.
My Horror
Whenever I see any big factory or industry, I am horrified to look at it, because it looks me as DEMON threatening the existence of humanity, its culture, its liberty, its freedom etc.
My Solace
Whenever I see any tiny cottage industry, I am pacified to look at it, because it looks me as GOD's blessing enriching the life-style of mankind, its culture, its liberty, its freedom etc.

V.K. DESAI
B.E.(Mech.), LL.B.
Managing Director

HUGE SCOPE OF TINY THERMAL POWER PLANTS

Liberalization of power generation has opened vast opportunities for small generation capacities in villages. Steam energy is coming back very fast as blessing for local distributed generation.There is bright scope of establishing 10 million tiny thermal power plants of 10 kw capacity in farms and villages of India. Tiny thermal power plant to which we call tiny steam power plant specifically is the simplest power plant consisting of only two equipments i.e. small biomass boiler where steam will be produced by burning any biomass and steam engine which is revolved by steam to give mechanical power to runect any machine such as water pump for irrigation, rice huller for rice milling, flour mill for grain grinding, sugarcane crusher to extract sugarcane juice, oil expeller to get cooking oil or generator for electricity and lighting. Such tiny steam power plants will have the following eye catching advantages:-

(1) Rural electrification is unsolved problem since last 60 years. 80 million poor homes have no electricity in villages of India. Giant thermal power plants with transmission and distribution lines involving thousands of crores of rupees will not solve this problem fully even in next 20 years. Installing Tiny Steam Power Plants is the quickest solution at minimum cost. All unelectrified villages can be electrified in 2 years at 20% cost of the budget being spent by the government for this purpose. For tiny thermal power plant, no transmission lines, no distribution lines, no losses.

(2) Tiny thermal power plants will be very cheap. 10 kw steam power plant costs only Rs 4 lakhs which may become cheaper by mass production. Considering cost of transmission and distribution lines, transformers, losses in it, losses in converting electricity to mechanical power etc, investment in tiny power plants will be only 30% than in giant thermal power plants. So with same investment, about 3 times capacity can be built in a very short period of 3 years only..

(3) Tiny power plant will use steam engine which is simple technology. The technology of steam engine is not a new technology. We should remember that entire British empire was built and expanded in the world by using steam engines in boats and steamers, in vehicles and railways, in war equipments, in factories, in textile mills and so on. Steam engine is so much simple that even in villages, it can be produced on lathe.

(4) Tiny power plants with steam engines will greatly contribute for water lifting problem. Entire rural India is facing heavy shortage of electric power in agriculture sector and as electricity is never available in time, farmers are losing their crops. This can be avoided and problem can be solved by Tiny power plants with steam engines.

(5) Tiny steam power plants can be operated on biomass, agricultural waste, crop residue, forestry waste, wood etc. So farmers can produce their own power. So farmers will be independent from the harassment and tyrrany of electricity authority. THIS WILL BE THE BIGGEST HAPPINESS TO VILLAGERS. In India, about 20000 MW power can be produced from 280 million tonnes of biomass through tiny steam power plants.

(6) Tiny power plants with steam engines will greatly encourage co-generation with Combined Heat & Power application in oil milling, sugarcane crushing, rice milling etc. Waste heat of steam engine can be gainfully utilized for ice making and refrigeration without any running cost. So tiny steam power plants will be highly efficient and blessing to villagers. The huge amount of heat created by burning coal is simply wasted in giant thermal power plants which is not possible to use it. Huge amount of cooling water is required in giant thermal power plant simply tto dispose off heat energy in atmosphere which creates huge problem of water and envirnment.

(7)Tiny power plants with steam engines will be established in villages and hence it will greatly save transport expenses of agricultural produces from villages to cities. So import of diesel will be reduced and traffic burden on highways will be reduced.

(8) Tiny steam power plants will greatly contribute for rural development, income and employment generation in villages and homogeneous development of the country. Benefits of this can not be measured in rupees. In fact, this will be real development.

(9) In most of the industries, direct mechnical power will be more convenient and generation of electricity will not be required. So investment cost of generators and motors will be saved. Efficiency of direct mechanical power is always higher than converting in to electricity and using electric motors for mechanical power.

(10) Tiny boilers of tiny steam power plants are designed to accept any type of biomass fuel. It can work for coal also. So small steam steam power plants will be blessing to small farmers. it will get more and more importance particularly in agriculture and agro processing industries. In case of giant thermal power plants, design of boiler is for specific type of coal only. Any type of coal can not work there. So if it is designed for the coal of Jharkhand, it can not work with Meghalaya coal.

(11) Gestation period of giant thermal power plant is 3 to 4 years and that of atomic power plant is 10 years, while tiny power plant can be installed in maximum one month.

(12) Tiny steam power plants can be converted in to tiny SOLAR power plants in future simply by adding solar concentrator which will become cheaper and affordable and economically viable in a few years only. Giant thermal power plants can not be converted to solar power plants. So when solar power will be abundant, huge investment made for giant thermal power plants will be simply wastage.

Thus we can bring real revolution in rural India by establishing 10 million tiny steam power plants.

V K DESAI

Managing Director,

AADHUNIK GLOBAL ENERGY

C/o Tinytech Plants,

Tagore road, Rajkot 360002

Tele: 92 27 60 65 70
___________________________________________

from the BLOG: Westernbelizehappenings.blogspot.com With 10,000 hits per month statistics.
_____________________________________________

CHAT ON: belize-technical-group@googlegroups.com listserve

SMALL STEAM ENGINES FROM INDIA PHOTOGRAPHS

2012-01-06T10:47:00.000-08:00

VIDEO OF TINYTECHINDIA steam engines working in demonstration room.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msOH1M8ulxQ

5 hp compound steam engine by Peter Carlich.
MARSHALL steam engine, built 1900,
8 HP SISSON STEAM ENGINE
3 hp steam engine by Mike Brown, will run a 1500 watt generator. The small two cylinder steam engine, will start itself, whereas single cylinder steam engines have to have their flywheel turned by hand to get them going.
5 hp tinytech steam engine
Tinytech 5 hp steam engine from India.

5 HP STEAM ENGINE FOR SALE

STEAM ENGINES FROM INDIA
Manufacturer Tiny Tech India email: tinytech@tinytechindia.com
____________________________________________

WHAT WE WANTED WAS TO RUN A STEAM ENGINE USING A BOILER HEATED BY THE NEW E-CAT TECHNOLOGY OF MR. ROSSI. Unfortunately his ECAT heater only produced steam at 28 psi. To run a steam engine we need 150 psi or greater. The problem seems to be with the boiler and the way we can heat it, using E-cat heating technology. Such redesign of how to heat a boiler remains yet to be solved, producing about 200 psi. In Belize, we could use, either used BUTANE TANKS, or SCUBA TANKS. Scuba tanks hold up to 3000 psi of air. A blow out valve, with a replacable aluminum disc is used to release air, when pressure increases too high in scuba tanks. I have used these myself and when sitting in the hot tropical sun, on an open boat, waiting for tourists to arrive, it is not unusual to have air tanks blow their safety valves when they get too hot from the sun heat. We don´t have yet a foundry in Belize, to cast iron, or make tanks, valves and V belt wheels. Nobody knows how to do it here, at the BLACKSMITH shop level. Importing parts is a difficult operation, takes a lot of time and you get charged a lot of duties, taxes and transportation costs, both internally and from externally, on which you have to pay taxes.

SOPHISTICATED CORRUPTION OF THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

2012-01-05T15:29:00.000-08:00

SOPHISTICATED CORRUPTION OF THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD´S GOVERNMENTS, AN EXAMPLE HERE.

By
Bill QuigleyAmber Ramanauskas
January 3, 2012
Haiti, a close neighbor of the US with over nine million people, was devastated by earthquake on January 12, 2010. Hundreds of thousands were killed and many more wounded.

The UN estimated international donors gave Haiti over $1.6 billion in relief aid since the earthquake (about $155 per Haitian) and over $2 billion in recovery aid (about $173 per Haitian) over the last two years.

Yet Haiti looks like the earthquake happened two months ago, not two years. Over half a million people remain homeless in hundreds of informal camps, most of the tons of debris from destroyed buildings still lays where it fell, and cholera, a preventable disease, was introduced into the country and is now an epidemic killing thousands and sickening hundreds of thousands more.

It turns out that almost none of the money that the general public thought was going to Haiti actually went directly to Haiti. The international community chose to bypass the Haitian people, Haitian non-governmental organizations and the government of Haiti. Funds were instead diverted to other governments, international NGOs, and private companies.

Despite this near total lack of control of the money by Haitians, if history is an indication, it is quite likely that the failures will ultimately be blamed on the Haitians themselves in a “blame the victim” reaction.

Haitians ask the same question as many around the world “Where did the money go?”

Here are seven places where the earthquake money did and did not go.

One. The largest single recipient of US earthquake money was the US government. The same holds true for donations by other countries.

Right after the earthquake, the US allocated $379 million in aid and sent in 5000 troops. The Associated Press discovered that of the $379 million in initial US money promised for Haiti, most was not really money going directly, or in some cases even indirectly, to Haiti. They documented in January 2010 that thirty three cents of each of these US dollars for Haiti was actually given directly back to the US to reimburse ourselves for sending in our military. Forty two cents of each dollar went to private and public non-governmental organizations like Save the Children, the UN World Food Program and the Pan American Health Organization. Hardly any went directly to Haitians or their government.

The overall $1.6 billion allocated for relief by the US was spent much the same way according to an August 2010 report by the US Congressional Research Office: $655 million was reimbursed to the Department of Defense; $220 million to Department of Health and Human Services to provide grants to individual US states to cover services for Haitian evacuees; $350 million to USAID disaster assistance; $150 million to the US Department of Agriculture for emergency food assistance; $15 million to the Department of Homeland Security for immigration fees, and so on.

International assistance followed the same pattern. The UN Special Envoy for Haiti reported that of the $2.4 billion in humanitarian funding, 34 percent was provided back to the donor’s own civil and military entities for disaster response, 28 percent was given to UN agencies and non-governmental agencies (NGOs) for specific UN projects, 26 percent was given to private contractors and other NGOs, 6 percent was provided as in-kind services to recipients, 5 percent to the international and national Red Cross societies, 1 percent was provided to the government of Haiti, four tenths of one percent of the funds went to Haitian NGOs.

Two. Only 1 percent of the money went to the Haitian government.

Less than a penny of each dollar of US aid went to the government of Haiti, according to the Associated Press. The same is true with other international donors. The Haitian government was completely bypassed in the relief effort by the US and the international community.

Three. Extremely little went to Haitian companies or Haitian non-governmental organizations.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research, the absolute best source for accurate information on this issue, analyzed all the 1490 contracts awarded by the US government after the January 2010 earthquake until April 2011 and found only 23 contracts went to Haitian companies. Overall the US had awarded $194 million to contractors, $4.8 million to the 23 Haitian companies, about 2.5 percent of the total. On the other hand, contractors from the Washington DC area received $76 million or 39.4 percent of the total. As noted above, the UN documented that only four tenths of one percent of international aid went to Haitian NGOs.

In fact Haitians had a hard time even getting into international aid meetings. Refugees International reported that locals were having a hard time even getting access to the international aid operational meetings inside the UN compound. “Haitian groups are either unaware of the meetings, do not have proper photo-ID passes for entry, or do not have the staff capacity to spend long hours at the compound.” Others reported that most of these international aid coordination meetings were not even being translated into Creole, the language of the majority of the people of Haiti!

Four. A large percentage of the money went to international aid agencies, and big well connected non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

The American Red Cross received over $486 million in donations for Haiti. It says two-thirds of the money has been contracted to relief and recovery efforts, though specific details are difficult to come by. The CEO of American Red Cross has a salary of over $500,000 per year.

Look at the $8.6 million joint contract between the US Agency for International Development (USAID) with the private company CHF for debris removal in Port au Prince. CHF is politically well-connected international development company with annual budget of over $200 million whose CEO was paid $451,813 in 2009. CHF’s connection to Republicans and Democrats is illustrated by its board secretary, Lauri Fitz-Pegado, a partner with the Livingston Group LLC. The Livingston Group is headed by the former Republican Speaker-designate for the 106th Congress, Bob Livingston, doing lobbying and government relations. Ms. Fitz-Pegado, who apparently works the other side of the aisle, was appointed by President Clinton to serve in the Department of Commerce and served as a member of the foreign policy expert advisor team on the Obama for President Campaign. CHF “works in Haiti out of two spacious mansions in Port au Prince and maintains a fleet of brand new vehicles” according to Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone, in an excellent article by Janet Reitman, reported on another earthquake contract, a $1.5 million contract to the NY based consulting firm Dalberg Global Development Advisors. The article found Dalberg’s team “had never lived overseas, didn’t have any disaster experience or background in urban planning… never carried out any program activities on the ground…” and only one of them spoke French. USAID reviewed their work and found that “it became clear that these people may not have even gotten out of their SUVs.”

Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton announced a fundraising venture for Haiti on January 16, 2010. As of October 2011, the fund had received $54 million in donations. It has partnered with several Haitian and international organizations. Though most of its work appears to be admirable, it has donated $2 million to the construction of a Haitian $29 million for-profit luxury hotel.

“The NGOs still have something to respond to about their accountability, because there is a lot of cash out there,” according to Nigel Fisher, the UN’s chief humanitarian officer in Haiti. “What about the $1.5 to $2 billion that the Red Cross and NGOs got from ordinary people, and matched by governments? What’s happened to that? And that’s where it’s very difficult to trace those funds.”

Five. Some money went to for profit companies whose business is disasters.

Less than a month after the quake hit, the US Ambassador Kenneth Merten sent a cable titled “THE GOLD RUSH IS ON” as part of his situation report to Washington. In this February 1, 2010 document, made public by The Nation, Haiti Liberte and Wikileaks, Ambassador Merten reported the President of Haiti met with former General Wesley Clark for a sales presentation for a Miami-based company that builds foam core houses.

Capitalizing on the disaster, Lewis Lucke, a high ranking USAID relief coordinator, met twice in his USAID capacity with the Haitian Prime Minister immediately after the quake. He then quit the agency and was hired for $30,000 a month by a Florida corporation Ashbritt (known already for its big no bid Katrina grants) and a prosperous Haitian partner to lobby for disaster contracts. Locke said “it became clear to us that if it was handled correctly the earthquake represented as much an opportunity as it did a calamity…” Ashbritt and its Haitian partner were soon granted a $10 million no bid contract. Lucke said he was instrumental in securing another $10 million contract from the World Bank and another smaller one from CHF International before their relationship ended.

Six. A fair amount of the pledged money has never been actually put up.

The international community decided it was not going to allow the Haiti government to direct the relief and recovery funds and insisted that two institutions be set up to approve plans and spending for the reconstruction funds going to Haiti. The first was the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) and the second is the Haiti Reconstruction Fund (HRF).

In March 2010, UN countries pledged $5.3 billion over two years and a total of $9.9 billion over three years in a conference March 2010. The money was to be deposited with the World Bank and distributed by the IHRC. The IHRC was co-chaired by Bill Clinton and the Haitian Prime Minister. By July 2010, Bill Clinton reported only 10 percent of the pledges had been given to the IHRC.

Seven. A lot of the money which was put up has not yet been spent.

Nearly two years after the quake, less than 1 percent of the $412 million in US funds specifically allocated for infrastructure reconstruction activities in Haiti had been spent by USAID and the US State Department and only 12 percent has even been obligated according to a November 2011 report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The performance of the two international commissions, the IHRC and the HRF has also been poor. The Miami Herald noted that as of July 2011, the $3.2 billion in projects approved by the IHRC only five had been completed for a total of $84 million. The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), which was severely criticized by Haitians and others from its beginning, has been effectively suspended since its mandate ended at the end of October 2011. The Haiti Reconstruction Fund was set up to work in tandem with the IHRC, so while its partner is suspended, it is not clear how it can move forward.

What to Do

The effort so far has not been based a respectful partnership between Haitians and the international community. The actions of the donor countries and the NGOs and international agencies have not been transparent so that Haitians or others can track the money and see how it has been spent. Without transparency and a respectful partnership the Haitian people cannot hold anyone accountable for what has happened in their country. That has to change.

The UN Special Envoy to Haiti suggests the generous instincts of people around the world must be channeled by international actors and institutions in a way that assists in the creation of a “robust public sector and a healthy private sector.” Instead of giving the money to intermediaries, funds should be directed as much as possible to Haitian public and private institutions. A “Haiti First” policy could strengthen public systems, promote accountability, and create jobs and build skills among the Haitian people.

Respect, transparency and accountability are the building blocks for human rights. Haitians deserve to know where the money has gone, what the plans are for the money still left, and to be partners in the decision-making for what is to come.

After all, these are the people who will be solving the problems when the post-earthquake relief money is gone.

BELIZE SWING VOTERS WANT THE CROOKED ELECTION AND BOUNDARIES COMMISSION TO REFORM FOR MARCH MUNICIPLE AND NATIONAL ELECTIONS IN 2012

2012-01-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

WILL THE ELECTIONS AND BOUNDARIES COMMISSION BE CROOKED THIS MARCH ELECTION AGAIN? PARTICULARLY IN THE PORT TOWN.

Elections, both Municiple and National are expected to be held in March, 2012 at the same time. Last BELIZE NATIONAL ELECTION, the PUP gerrymandered the constituency numbers in the port town, to make ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES that were under the minimum 4000 voters on their constituency list, get a position.

WHAT WE WANT TO SEE IS POLITICAL REFORM IN THE CROOKED ELECTIONS AND BOUNDARIES COMMISSION, WITH NO ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE ALLOWED TO HAVE A CONSTITUENCY LESS THAN 4000 VOTERS.

THE STATE OF THE BELIZE ECONOMY IN ELECTION YEAR 2012 DEBATE.

2012-01-05T07:39:00.000-08:00

THE STATE OF THE BELIZE ECONOMY, PRIORITIES AND THE ELECTION YEAR 2012.

Can the PUP make an issue out of corruption by the UDP? I think the answer would be no? If you live in a glass house, why throw stones.

BARROW and his UDP have a lot going for him. From his pre-election interview last night on TV, he is NOT GOING TO RESIGN in favor of new BLOOD, like Patrick Faber as party leader. As they say, POWER CORRUPTS and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So far, the incumbent UDP record except with small glitches, is pretty good. They took the deal they were handed at the last election and BARROW in a one man show of a EL CAUDILLO, or MAFIA DON controlled government events, that saw Belize come through the WORLD FINANCIAL DEBACLE and subsequent recession, very well for three difficult yearS. KUDOS to BARROW on that, and I believe ALL, or most of the voters, particularly the SWING VOTERS realize that. More good news, that the Economy showed 2.7 or something GDP growth in 2011. The forecast is 3.0 GDP for 2012. If one of the two exploratory oil drilling companies actually find a pool of oil, then we are going to break the 3.2 GDP barrier, which shows POSITIVE GROWTH and economic expansion. We can only wait and see. I was happy to see, where Mr. Barrow had given instructions to the bureaucracy to step up the assistance to starting small businesses, recently. Innovation and attack are needed by a moribound bureaucracy, who clearly do not know how to serve and LEAD. Certainly, for NATIONAL self sustainability, that should be the emphasis. We cannot rely on oil ponds alone. There doesn´t seem to be enough of it, to do more than pay off the known interest rate costs on our Belize Bonds, created by the PUP created debt. That however, allows us to use what we get from GST taxation and other fees, to run this big bureaucracy of ours, for the size of our population.

One of the puzzles is EDUCATION. I cannot for the life of me, understand how TERTIARY higher education, is producing nothing but dunces? Here we are, spending tons of money, the biggest part of our tax revenues to educate people higher than PRIMARY SCHOOL. Yet, they do nothing with this HIGHER EDUCATION financed by our tax dollars, but complain and cry they cannot find SALARIED JOBS. What kind of nonsense is that? Our tax money should be giving HIGHER EDUCATION TO PEOPLE who will create small businesses to start off with, to create EXPORTS and to hire the less educated people in the country via salaried jobs. It is the poor and uneducated that need salaried jobs in most places, outside of the MENNONITE 60,000 population who are creating jobs, businesses, exports and other things, by teaching themselves. Our EDUCATED ELITE need to be creating EXPORT businesses. I certainly have no sympathy, or understanding for people with DEGREES of higher ACADEMIA, bellyaching that there is no work in Belize. The OPPORTUNITIES ARE SO MANY, we cannot enumerate them.

Either we cut back on higher education financed by tax revenues, or the tertiary education establishment start revising WHAT THEY ARE TEACHING, to suit our local population level, the environment, and what our population need and want, as a developing 2 nd or 3rd world small country. Which is LEADERS IN BUSINESS from people with DEGREES. Self Starters, who can use that fancy tax paid supported education we are giving them, to create businesses. In summation, the EDUCATION system is off track. The EDUCATION system needs to come back to the NEEDS of our society. The SAD thing is, I don´t believe they are capable? We are not the industrialize European countries. I don´t believe our existing educational leaders have a clear idea of what to do, and certainly they have proved they do not know, HOW TO DO WHAT IS NEEDED to build our nation for future generations of Belizeans. Our tax money spent on EDUCATION should produce results and that result will be a growing GDP past the 3.2 level. PM BARROW has said, he wants more results out of our bureaucracy, for small businesses. I agree, but think his effort is too MILD. Self sustainability needs many MORE SMALL BUSINESSES, particularly those that EXPORT.

HOLLYWOOD MOVIE STARS HIT HIGH TOURIST WINTER SEASON IN BELIZE

2012-01-05T01:16:00.000-08:00

Michael Douglas, Hollywood movie star enjoying himself in Belize. I enjoyed his movie recently on late night tv where he played this hotshot computer trader and turned $100 million into a billion by trading. My own trading for 2011 actually I lost 26% drawdown of my account. Cést la vie! His movie was encouraging though. ( grin ! )

Michael Douglas visits Lamanai Mayan ruins.
HOLLYWOOD MOVIE STARS AND FASHION MODELS HIT BELIZE FOR THE WINTER TOURIST HIGH SEASON.

Photos and rumors are circulating about Michael Douglas, George Clooney ( whoever he is? ) and Halle Berry ( who I remember from a famous photograph ), among others; seeking to be ordinary folks, were nobody knows who they are. Hollywood has been visiting Belize since the middle 1960s, over 46 years. Never knew who they were, nor cared. I carried a bunch of them myself during my younger years as a THEN famous tourist guide, with my various boats, like ATOLL QUEEN and Winnie Estelle.

State of Belize Economy through 3 rd quarter 2011.

2012-01-04T08:21:00.000-08:00

STATISTICAL UNIT REPORTS ON THE BELIZE ECONOMY UP TO THIRD QUARTER OF 2011

The Reporter NEWSPAPER:

Tuesday, 03.01.2012, 03:39pm (GMT-6)

High world prices for oil and citrus caused Belize’s economy to grow 2.7 per cent, according to the latest statistics published by the Statistical Institute of Belize last week.
Figures for the last three months of 2011 aren’t in yet, but in the first nine months of this year, the Belizean economy grew 2.7% as compared to only 1.8% for the same period last year.
This prosperity was fuelled in large part by a rise in world oil prices as Belize’s export earnings grew 7.8% to $604 million for January to October 2011, as foreign importers were willing to pay for Belize’s sweet crude petroleum.
This caused the earnings from our exports to rise by $64.12 million. The value of citrus concentrate exported also rose by $14.7 million, more than off-setting a $15.1 million drop on the earnings from banana exports.
Agricultural earnings dipped 5% and the electricity and water sectors were down almost 3%.
All other economic sectors showed an increase, with trade, retail and wholesale, showing a 7.7% growth.
Hotels and restaurants also reported a 2.1% hike in business, derived in part from a 3.3% increase in overnight tourist arrivals. Tourism also proved a boon for the transport and communications sector which grew 2.5%.
Fishing and construction also reported good news, as earnings from the fisheries sector increased 14.5%, while the construction industry showed a 7.4% rise.
Increases in the price of fuel and food caused the overall consumer price index to rise by 1.2% for the period from February to October 2011, increasing on average 0.3% per month, even though fuel prices and the cost of food and beverages did dip slightly in March.
Basic food items increased in price about 0.5% per month on average, with vegetables showing the highest increase of 19.7%, fats and oils rose in price 9.4% and butter, cheese and other dairy products increased in price 6.5%. Sea food, once the traditional staple of Belize’s poor, rose 4.89% in price, while meats rose 3.5%.
The overall cost of living did not rise so sharply, because the price of rice fell 2.4%. While this was good news for consumers, it was bad for rice farmers. Fresh fruit prices also fell 5.4%.
The value of imports also increased by 19.9% over last year’s figures for the same period. Imports from January to October 2011 totalled $1.35 billion, which was a $224.1 million increase over the same period last year.
The Corozal Free Zone increased its imports by $98.9 million, our national fuel and lubricants bill went up $58.5 million, and the citrus and shrimp industries showed imports valued at $35.5 million.
Belize still buys most of its imports from the United States, which supplied 31.5% of our imports over the past 10 months.
Trade with Central America and China remained stable at 29% of the country’s imports.
The U.S. remains our largest trading partner, as they also bought 57.7% of our exports as compared to 43.1% last year, while trade with the former colonial power, Great Britain, has slacked off from 27.9% last year to only 19.9% this year.

BELIZE E-CAT, ION CATALYTIC HEATER DEBATE ON PRODUCING ELECTRICITY IN BELIZE.

2012-01-03T10:35:00.001-08:00

BELIZEAN ENGINEERS REJECT E-CAT HEATER STEAM PRODUCTION, FOR ELECTRICAL GENERATION, for home use, or to supply the National Grid.

The Belizean debate is ongoing:
__________________________________________

The E CAT heater is a metal tube containing hydrogen gas, and nickel nano powder, plus a catalyst which is actually a couple of nickel isotopes, you can buy online. Common stuff and cheap. You heat the tube artificially to expand the hydrogen gas. This starts the reaction. Rossi blew up a few tubes in experiments. Expanding hydrogen via heat is limited to the strength of the tube material. Heating the tube from outside, is an off and on thing, like a space heater. Once the reaction starts, you only have to prime it periodically ( half hour ) with shots of outside heat and you get more heat out than you put in. Anyway you make as many heaters as you want to boil water and change it to steam. You can get more heat out, but it gets trickier and trickier the higher you go with the reaction temperature, as you are expanding the hydrogen gas in the tube, which puts pressure on the nano size nickel powders to create the condition for a self perpetuating heat production. The heat is used to boil something. The thing is, you can, THEY SAY, run a heating tube for about six months, ( Rossi says he´s done it ) for about $55 usa in hydrogen gas, nickel powders and hydrogen gas fill. I forget the temperature reached, but it is something like a 1000 degrees farenheight. This cost includes an outside heating element, that clicks on and off, to keep the reaction primed.
If you want to compare, think of a ten inch, by one inch, galvanize pipe containing the reaction ingredients producing the heat of a single burner butane hot plate, for $55 usa per six months of continuous 1000 degrees farenheight heat. You could boil a lot of water with many heater tubes and not have to touch them for six months. The catch for me, was that the output measurement of the steam was stated at 120 centigrade. This as KURT says, a steam engineer I believe? Giving steam pressure around 20 to 28 psi. There is not enough horsepower in that low a wet steam to produce work, as turning an electrical generator with load. You have residual losses before doing work from such low pressure steam. Desai a steam engine and electrical manufacturer in India, says you need 150 psi to produce work to generate electricity. He uses autmotive type pistons, that are 3 inches in diameter and have about a 3 inch stroke. The Russians made a heat electrical generator for kerosen lamps long ago. You simply set it on the top of the kerosene glass and the rising heat, spun the blades,which turned a generator, and ran a radio, or lit a small bulb. I´ve wanted one for ages. It would not be hard to make this right here in Belize, with scrap materials locally. I´ve forgotten the math calculations I used to know when young to design and wind a generator like this. With epoxy paste and metal filings easy to do.

GARBAGE DUMP SOLUTION AT THE NEW DUMP PLANNED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF BELIZE.
I think in Belize if you are going to do this, we should use the new garbage dump. With methane gas bleeder pipes in the garbage fill like in Florida and other places and flame the methane to produce FREE HEAT to turn low power turbines. There does not seem to be enough energy produced by E CAT low pressure steam from water, comparative to BUTANE. Slightly better cost effectiveness, but if you cannot get the steam pressure up enough to produce horsepower to do work, useless. There may be a low temperature hot air turbine you could make, with a chimney, like a 2 inch pipe to turn a generator though. Just not practical from steam, as your CATCH 22 situation prohibits taking advantage of the technology. You want to heat a building it works. The nano level physics of this, the scientists say, is different that our reality level of physics. Nano level physics bypasses the thermo dynamic laws in ion transfers as we understand them at our macro level.
To me, methane would be a more practical choice to run an electrical generator. Especially if your garbage was seperated into organic garbage from other garbage. You could feed a pig farm, or you could make fertilizer and in the process produce enough methane, to make a flame and heat and turn a low power generator, at low rpm. The Russians made one during the Cold War, that sat on a kerosene lamp. I´ve tried to get one for ages. You simply set it on the top of the kerosene glass and the rising heat, spun the blades,which turned a generator, and ran a radio, or lit a small bulb.

From: Bill Holly
To: belize-technical-group@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 3, 2012 6:37 PM
Subject: Re: [-BTG-] Re: Steam Engines

I now see why Ray is so fixated on 120 C steam - very wet steam. Dry steam is at least at 200 C. Dry steam appears not to be so hard on the engine components. But even wet steam can be up at high pressures, not dependent on heat alone. That depends on how much space the steam is generated in. The larger the volume, the less pressure. Boyles' Law.
I don't see why the e-cat cannot produce higher temps, depending on the setup, of course.
I do see that the developers are a bit cautious in this beginning stage and keep the temp down a bit.

On 1/3/2012 5:55 PM, Hugh Leyton wrote:
> Hi Kurt,
>
> Pressure in The Boiler, must, by definition be controlled to a large extent, by the Injection Pump.
> First point to note, is that the Steam Pressure in the Boiler, will be Exactly the same as the Water Pressure in the Boiler.
>
> If the pressure in the boiler is allowed to go higher than the Injection Pump delivers, due to over boiling and restrictions in the Steam exit from the boiler, then The Injection Pump will simply STOP delivering more water, until the escaping steam results in the boiler pressure dropping back to the normal Injection Pressure.
>
> But yes, boiler pressure can go higher than the Injection Pump for a while. And there is the danger.
>
> Rgds Hugh
>
> p.s. Perhaps I have not made the situation clear.
> I am talking about the long term, steady situation, and not short term of unbalanced operation, when there is more heat going in to the system, than the Engine can use for its Load.
>
>
>
> On 03/01/2012 03:32, Kurt wrote:
>> On 03/01/12 05:29, Hugh Leyton wrote:
>>> Hi Ray,
>>>
>>> Yes, low pressure are just toys for demonstration and much safer in the hands of kids.
>>> 300 psi is 20 atmospheres and dangerous to play around with. There have been many serious accidents and people killed with steam at these high pressures.
>>
>> True
>>>
>>> Ray - It is the Injection Pump that creates the Pressure.
>>> Once the high pressure water is in the boiler, it is then converted to Steam, which is looking for a way to expand, it can only expand as it gets out of the boiler through the Engine Cylinders or Turbine blades. So the exit pipes will need to be a larger diameter than the input pipe, going to the condensers.
>> NO. The water pump is there to maintain correct water level in the boiler. The heat from the furnace is what turns the water into steam. Maintaning correct water level in the boiler is important, if certain parts of the boiler go dry they over heat in the neat from the furnace and can fail, catastrophically.
>>
>>>
>>> It is the cold, or cool water After the Pressure Pump that determines the Pressure of the system.
>> Utter crap!
>> It is the heat from the furnace, together with the rate of steam usage that determines the pressure in the boiler. In something like a steam locomotive the operator has to be very careful how he contrtols his fire, if he does not want to end up stranded half way up a hill. Too high a pressure is not a problem, that is what the pressure relief (safety) valve is there for. Questions of the grade angle also have to be taken into account, so that the furnace end of the boiler never runs dry and overheats.
>>
>> Kurt

MUSLIMS FACE CHALLENGE IN SEPERATING RELIGION AND STATE GOVERNMENT, TO CREATE A DEMOCRACY.

2012-01-03T07:26:00.001-08:00

MUSLIMS FACE CHALLENGE IN 2012 AND 2013, IN HOW TO SEPERATE THEIR RELIGION FROM STATE GOVERNMENT. DEMOCRACY IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH A HUMAN ENGINEERED RELIGIOUS DOMINATED STATE.

It is time for all Muslims to revise the Koran. Their religious rules of ancient times, have to be updated to fit the new technological era of human development in the world, to be relevant.

E CAT cannot run a steam engine to turn an electrical generator.

2012-01-03T07:12:00.000-08:00

THE QUESTION OF BUILDING A STEAM ENGINE TO RUN A GENERATOR USING THE E-CAT ion transfer catalytic process, to generate hot water and steam. Output temperature of steam from an E- Cat generator is at best 120 centrigrade, whereas boiling water is 100 centigrade
________________________________

Thankyou very much for that tidbit Kurt. Settles the question in my mind, whether to invest or not. The answer is NOT! The reason according to Desai in India who builds and sells small steam engines, is that the pressure at room temperature would be too low to run the pistons in a steam engine. He runs his at 150 psi. So the E-Cat then, is basically a water heater, for heating cold climate homes. We don´t have that problem in Belize. You cannot run a steam engine at 28.8 psi is my understanding. Horsepower and torque I presume is a result of the amount of pressure?

From: Kurt
To: belize-technical-group@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 3, 2012 10:20 AM
Subject: Re: [-BTG-] E-Cat Weekly -- December 8, 2011
On 03/01/12 18:36, Ray Auxillou wrote:
> I´m still trying to figure out, if there is enough steam pressure, to run a steam engine, to turn a generator. All I can get from the reports is that,
> the output steam is 120 centigrade and boiling water is 100 Centigrade. This is the temperature, but can´t figure the pressure. A lot of the time an amateur like me, does not know enough to ask the right questions.
Saturated steam at 120 degrees C will be at a pressure of 28.8 psi (at sea level).
Whether or not that will drive a steam engine for electricity production is a question of engineering.

Kurt
who googled Steam Tables
--
Related Subject, News Web Sites : >>>> .
Watts Up With That : .................. http://wattsupwiththat.com
BBC Technology : ....................... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology
BBC Science & Environment : ...... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment
Earthquakes : ............................. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps
Live Science : ............................ http://www.livescience.com
CERN : ..................................... http://public.web.cern.ch/public
SPACE : ................................... http://www.space.com/news
NASA Science News : ............... http://science.nasa.gov/science-news
Space Weathar : ........................ http://spaceweather.com
NOAA Weather information : ...... http://www.ssd.noaa.gov

THE EXCHANGES DAY TRADER HANDICAP RULE IN THE USA.

2012-01-01T10:02:00.001-08:00

THE DAY TRADER RULE FOR OPTION TRADERS

Option trading being a wasting asset, when the price melts on you, called TIME DECAY, the Day Trader rule set by the EXCHANGES is a real set back and difficulty for straight buying and selling OPTION TRADE CONTRACTS.

The basic requirement seems to be the EXCHANGES, want to penalize amateur traders, the small retail trader. You can open a trading account with as little as $2000 depending on your broker. However, the EXCHANGES in their WISDOM, or something else; have designated that if you do not have $25,000 in your account, should you DAY TRADE too much, you will be penalized and forced to trade with such a smaller account, in multiple day trading.

Given that trend followers, where the money is made, need to CLOSE at the END OF THE DAY, and put the profit in the bank, the overnight requirement by the EXCHANGES is a HANDICAP. The way it works I´m told by advisors with THINK or SWIM brokerage is that if you make 3 day trades per 5 day period, you are clear, but if you make a fourth trade, same day, you will be BLOCKED from day trading. At least that is what I thought, when I got a box on my screen that said I AM JUDGED TO BE A PATTERN TRADER and prohibited from closing a trade the same day, unless I increase my $10,000 account to $25,000.

Now I can´t figure out, why one can day trade with $25,000 and not with $10,000, or $2000, but that is the RULE from the EXCHANGES.

In the latest advisory from my broker, I am told I CAN day trade, or practice the art of closing a winning trade by the END OF THE DAY. Or closing a losing trade. I can do it TWO TIMES for the week, but I must otherwise hold my trade into multiple days,not knowing what the heck is going to happen. Lose more often than not. Due to not being able to cut my losses short, or correct a mistake by closing and reversing, or put a profit in the bank at the end of the day.

So much, for cutting LOSSES SHORT, or rectifying a mistake and closing and reversing your trade. If you make that Fourth trade in a week of 5 trading days, you get blocked.

However the latest advisory is that I can close a day trade up to twice in a 5 day period. Other trades must be held into multiple days. I´ll have to think about that as a strategy a LOT. As the OPTIONS ON INDEXES, I TRADE, are a MELTING ASSET. They lose premium each day due to TIME DECAY. If you are in the last week before the monthly EXPIRATION DATE, it gets even worse.

Just got an update from my BROKER. Said that I am only allowed TWO DAY TRADES per 5 day period. The THIRD TRADE must be multiple days, overnight holding. A FOURTH TRADE WOULD BE BLOCKED, REJECTED.

Anyway, as a budding beginning amateur OPTION TRADER, that is my current understanding of the EXCHANGE DAY TRADER HANDICAP SYSTEM. January 1st, starting 2012.

Lets see if I go broke this year?

BELIZE - THE FORECAST THAT NEVER HAPPENED.

2012-01-01T09:40:00.000-08:00

So far unspoiled, Belize faces tourism explosion, Developers wait in the wings to pounce The Toronto Star August 13, 1988, Saturday, SATURDAY SECOND EDITION

THE FORECAST THAT NEVER HAPPENED!

AMBERGRIS CAYE, Belize - Jerry McDermott lights a cigarette and looks out his window, a glimpse that takes in paradise: Swaying palm trees along the shore, sand, sparkling water, warm sunlight and, most especially, the second-longest barrier reef in the world, visible less than a mile away across the shallows.

In one sentence, he signs the death knell for the peace and quiet of this unusual and largely undeveloped nation - and at the same time signals its probable destiny as a major tourist destination in the western Caribbean:

"That beauty, that scenery, that landscape, that geography . . . It demands to be exploited."

It is a vision he seems to be quite comfortable with. McDermott is a former oilman, driven to Belize by the collapse of the Texas petroleum industry. He owns and operates one of the best-known tourist facilities in the country, the Paradise Resort Hotel at the north end of San Pedro, the major settlement on Ambergris Caye.

His is a common species in this tiny Central American nation and a powerful one.

Over the years, Americans like him, as well as other foreigners with ample money - or ample energy - have come to try their hand in Belize because here they have found a government friendly to foreign investment and willing to grant business concessions.

Laid-back

It was once called British Honduras, and is still ruled by British law with strong ties to the United Kingdom. It is a multilingual, multi-racial society living under a peaceful and mostly progressive system of government virtually unheard of in volatile Central America. Indeed, only one other country - Costa Rica - is as peaceful.

In fact, most observers say the country is more laid-back Caribbean than revolutionary Central American, and all the evidence supports that view.

By most estimates, Belize is perched on the edge of a tourism explosion. You hear this from hotel owners, from dive-shop operators, fishing guides, government officials, British soldiers, official State Department studies and from tourists who have been coming to Belize for years.

And they're probably right. It's almost inevitable because Belize is a dream vacation spot for North Americans:

* Almost everybody speaks English. It's the official language, and Spanish is taught as a second language. More than 60 percent of the population is bilingual; 16 percent are trilingual.

* The population of Belize (1980 census) was 145,350; present population is estimated at about 150,000. Included in that total are an increasing number of refugees from other Central American nations, especially Guatemala and El Salvador.

Best diving

* Belize is a naturalist's fondest dream. Seventy-five percent of the land is uninhabited. The mainland is filled with thousands of species of birds and animals. Jaguars are here in numbers that insure their survival and are protected by the government.

* The bays and cayes along the coast are filled with marine life; the areas along the reef and near the large offshore atolls offer some of the best diving in the world.

* One of the best atoll areas has been turned into a national park and bird sanctuary. Preservation of the country's small population of manatees is a national priority.

* The game fishing is superb. And the bush area toward the Guatemalan border is filled with unexcavated Maya temples and a wealth of wildlife, including the national animal, the tapir, a big pig.

* Prices are low. On Ambergris Caye, it is possible to find a clean and acceptable hotel room for $20 U.S. a night. Or, you can get wild and spend $400 a night. Meals are varied, good and often cheap.

Calmed down

* You can drink the water. The water is mostly from rivers and wells with little contamination. Most diseases have been eradicated and the general health service in the country is probably the best in Central America, says the Agency for International Development, or AID, a branch of the U.S. State Department that concentrates on developing nations.

* The country is protected by the Belize Defence Force, largely composed of British soldiers. When Belize became independent in 1981, the British government guaranteed its security by placing troops in the country for "an unspecified time."

The troops were sent primarily as a deterrent against Guatemala, which has a long-standing claim to Belize not acknowledged by Great Britain (or the United Nations).

Things calmed down considerably after the British kicked the Argentines out of the Falklands and then told Guatemala that the U.K. was not reluctant to use force in other areas - meaning Belize.

The general population, though poor, is well educated. And to make a sweeping generalization, they also seem to be very friendly, open and proud of their country. Although there is a serious crime problem in Belize City, most of the rest of the country seems to be much safer than either one of its Latin neighbors.

The current government has made tourism its No. 2 priority. Agricultural development is No. 1. The new emphasis on tourism has not yet translated into any major improvements in the way Belize handles its tourism industry, but it does signal a change in philosophy. What is lacking now, and will become a major problem if expected tourism expansion takes place, is central planning.

The country also lacks an infrastructure capable of handling a massive increase in tourists. Water and sewer systems are barely coping now, hotel facilities in many areas are crude, the international airport in Belize City, while quaint, is a logistics nightmare, and there are no nationwide standards for tourist facilities and no uniform building codes for hotels or restaurants.

Another Waikiki

How developed is Belize? Well, the tallest building in the country is the old Maya temple at Xunantunich, near the Guatemalan border.

All this is likely to change, of course.

There are articles in Belize papers from time to time worrying about the expected invasion of North Americans, and the role of the United States in the future ofBelize is a constant topic of conversation around the country.

Belize has a long history of political and philosophical attachments to England and a long history of economic ties to the United States. But there are concerns thatBelize, if it is not careful, will turn into another Cancun or Waikiki.

One thing bothering some observers - North Americans as well as Belizeans - is the increasing role being played by the Agency for International Development and the Peace Corps in Belize.

AID has proposed a number of improvement projects around the country, which the Belize government welcomes but which sometimes carry U.S. requirements that irk some Belizeans - changes in priorities, changes in accounting procedures, U.S. directives on staffing, etc.

Belize also has the largest per capita number of Peace Corps personnel of any country in the world: about 180, or about one volunteer for every 900 Belizeans. There have been charges that some Corps volunteers are incompetent and are actually taking jobs that should go to Belizeans. The United States denies this.

To many Belize-based Americans like McDermott, however, the future of Belize is inevitable - and logical.

"This is no banana republic," he says. "You can't really class it as a Central American country. Look at the racial mix, blacks and whites and Mayans and Chinese and Caribs and Spanish, and there's no appreciable amount of racial prejudice here, and no economic prejudice. There's no keeping up with the Joneses, no conspicuous consumption.

"The country is slowly but surely becoming modernized, and here's something - we're one of the few Third World countries who are current on their debt payments, not just interest, but principal. There's not a Communist in the whole damned country, and both political parties are very right wing.

"It's a perfect place for Americans to take a vacation. It's got it all. The last two years the tourist industry has grown tremendously. I've been here 18 years. The first 16 years, there was zero tourism. But we've had a great deal of publicity, all good, and the whole thing's going to change.

"I thought when I came down here I'd lie back in my hammock, but as you see your investment grow and you get financially secure, you have to make a choice: stop it right here, don't let anybody else come, or accept the inevitable."

He stops, looks out the window, lights yet another cigarette.

"I came here broke, but I had the innate American trait of trying to make a profit. I just don't want to let a good deal go by."
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THE PIONEERING ALGAE GROWING FOOD VENTURE IN BELIZE

2012-01-01T08:53:00.000-08:00

MANNA THE FOOD FROM GOD IN HEAVEN, SAYS THE BIBLE. THE ISRAELITES FLED EGYPT, UNDER MOSES, BUT TOOK THE EGYPTIAN, NILE DELTA ALGAE FARM TECHNOLOGY WITH THEM, TO SURVIVE IN THE SINAE DESERT, for FORTY YEARS, happened over THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO.

Algae food.

Gourmet algae caviar.

ALGAE AS A FOOD BUSINESS IN BELIZE

While many farmers are playing with the fish pond aquaculture, by Tilapia Farming in Belize, nobody is really making any money yet out of a commercial operation.

Something to think about though is an entrepreneurial venture in Belize, to make algae as a food. A paste ( a sort of algae version of CAVIAR ) to eat on corn tortillas, or just mix with your flour in bread, and many others.

Studies have shown that malnourished children will recover if fed a bit of algae each day. Algae in it´s simplist form is easy to produce. The containers might be expensive, but the food of algae is simple to produce.

The algae product industry is vast and NEW. Worldwide it is in the infancy stage. In the past ten years in the EU about 100 algae farms have started. In ten more years there are expected to be over 500 such algae farms. This is a good position for Belize, as we are in the sun belt. We can make algae here. Containers to sell it might be a problem, but otherwise, here is a Belizean business not yet established, but capable of not only diversifying the local food sources, but also for EXPORT.

The KING of small scale, algae micro farming is a guy named Jean Paul Jordan, who lives in Angers, France. Here is a video from him. He will teach anybody how to make algae. It´s not hard. You have to decide on one of the two major types. I go for the covered shallow tank type. Clear cover to allow sunlight for photosynthesis.

http://www.algaeindustrymagazine.com/spirulina-in-france/ (VIDEO TO WATCH )

Algae is superior to all other FOODS on EARTH. Reason being, all foods descend from the original algae back 4 billion years or so ago.

Because of mosquitos in Belize, a covered type artifical tank, or pond is probably the best way to go, with a transparent plastic top. Small scale. Large scale you move to clear plastic tubing, about 4 inches in diameter. You can feed the pond with sugar, or starch and of course some fertilizer, to get it going.

Nutritionally algae is better and richer, than any other food product grown in Belize, or around the world today. So the scientists say. There are markets for algae products of many different kinds and more being discovered scientifically every day. The algae business is just starting to grow.

MANNA, the food that supported the Israelites fleeing from the Pharaoh in Egypt survived in the desert of the Sinai for 40 years, and MANNA was supposed to be algae.

The type of algae you grow for food, can be found in local areas. Skim some and you have a starter crop.

The story of ARAB MUSLIM migration and the results.

2011-12-31T04:41:00.001-08:00

SEEMINGLY, THE BASIC PROBLEM WITH ARAB CONTROLLED COUNTRIES HAS BEEN THEIR INABILITY TO CREATE A SEPERATION BETWEEN HUMAN ENGINEERED RELIGION AND A STATE GOVERNMENT. The USA is the prime example how well this works, dealing with so many false religions pandering to political power and money making opportunists in the name of a GOD, or creator of the Universe. The DIVISION between religionists and secular government is needed in Arab states, or they will never go anywhere. Always at their religious wars, with each other, SHIA versus SUNNI and any other man made FALSE religion.

This message sent to the Bz-Culture Mailing List from Bill Holly :

> ........ it's the cold hard truth.
>
> The Arabs are not happy
>
> . They are not happy in Gaza .
> . They are not happy in the West Bank ..
> . They are not happy in Jerusalem .
> . They are not happy in Israel ..
> . They are not happy in Egypt .
> . They are not happy in Libya ..
> . They are not happy in Algeria .
> . They are not happy in Tunis .
> . They are not happy in Morocco .
> . They are not happy in Yemen .
> . They are not happy in Iraq .
> . They are not happy in Afghanistan .
> . They are not happy in Syria .
> . They are not happy in Lebanon .
> . They are not happy in Sudan .
> . They are not happy in Jordan .
> . They are not happy in Iran .
>
> Where are the Arabs happy?
>
> They are happy in England.
> They are happy in France.
> They are happy in Italy.
> They are happy in Germany.
> They are happy in Sweden.
> They are happy in Holland.
> They are happy in Denmark.
> They are happy in Belgium.
> They are happy in Norway.
> They are happy in the U.S.
> They are happy in Canada.
> They are happy in Romania.
> They are happy in Hungary.
> They are happy in Australia.
> They are happy in New Zealand.
> They are happy in any other country in the world that is not under Muslim rule.
>
> And who do they blame?
> . Not Islam.
> . Not their leadership.
> . Not themselves.
> . But the countries in which they are happy to live.
>
> Democracy is really good for them:
>
> In a democracy they can live comfortably,
> enjoy the high quality of life which they did not build and work for,
> they don't have to be productive and earn a living,
> they can be wild, and break the law,
> exploit the social services, wear Burkas and make a mockery of our Police
> and Courts and generally bite the hand that feeds them.
> The question is why do they always try to bring their failed system with
> them, why do they want to turn other countries into the country
> they left for a better life...?
> Muslims generally make up about 3% of a population yet our Governments
> are fixated on pandering to them... Why??

BELIZE VULNERABLE TO TRADE WARS, BATTLES FOR MARKET SHARE AND EXPLOITATION BY MEGA INTERNATIONAL CORPORATIONS

2011-12-30T06:16:00.001-08:00

THE VULNERABILITY OF BELIZE TO THE TRADE WARS, AND EXPLOITATION BY MEGA INTERNATIONAL CORPORATIONS

This article gets more pertinent to the problems of Belize with international trade, about half way through.
___________________________________________

Certainly other artists and writers have been inspired by the plight of the banana. Chilean poet Pablo Neruda trounced on the foreign-owned banana companies for their arrogant antics and political interference in Latin America in his poem, "La United Fruit Co." But as we talk, I learn just how intimate Naufus's connection with bananas is.
"It's a weird tropical fruit love poem," Naufus tells me. "It looks at bananas as a source of income. There is such a dependence on bananas in Guatemala. Even for me personally. Maybe there's no way out."
I'm Chiquita banana and I've come to say Bananas have to ripen in a certain way When they are flecked with brown and have a golden hue Bananas taste the best and are best for you You can put them in a salad. You can put them in a pie-aye. Any way you want to eat them. It's impossible to beat them. But, bananas like the climate of the very, very tropical equator. So you should never put bananas in the refrigerator.
– Chiquita Banana jingle
The United Fruit Company (UFCo) introduced the Chiquita name and the Carmen Miranda character and jingle in 1944. There were financial difficulties over the years. The company merged with AMK, a meat producer, in the 1970s and became United Brands. It wasn't until 1990 that they became Chiquita Brands International. Now the largest U.S. distributor of bananas, the company is owned by American Financial Group (AFG), which doesn't seem to have much to do with food. Carl Lindner was chairman of the board, founder and principal shareholder of AFG. He was also CEO of Chiquita from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the board until May of 2002. He has donated tens of millions to both the Republican and Democratic parties, so his concerns are always taken seriously. During his reign, the company was actively donating money and arms to terrorist groups on both sides of the conflict in Colombia.
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To its credit, Chiquita has worked hard to be a better environmental steward. The Rainforest Alliance's Better Banana Project now certifies all of its farms in Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama. The program protects workers, local communities, the environment and wildlife. More than 15 per cent of all internationally traded bananas now bear the little frog sticker. The group also certifies pineapples, mangoes, avocadoes, guavas and citrus fruits. However, in Costa Rica, for example, the label does not guarantee the freedom to join a labour union.
Banana perfection
There are other programs, such as fair trade, that also protect workers. Already popular in European markets since 1996, fair trade bananas hit the North American market in the spring of 2004. As with coffee, tea and chocolate, fair trade bananas are certified through members of the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO). The stickers guarantee that the deal has been made directly with the farmer (usually a cooperative), cutting out the middleman and ensuring that the farmer gets a higher price for the fruit, and also that the working conditions are healthy and safe, and that child labour laws are obeyed. The community benefits too: increased revenue helps the co-op set up schools, health clinics and improve housing in the community. Shoppers pay a higher price for the peace of mind this kind of social accountability brings. A fair trade banana is not necessarily organic, although sustainable farming practices are encouraged. Organic fruit will carry another label if certified.
Chiquita played a pivotal role in the history of the banana. And not just for its memorable jingle and Carmen Miranda-esque branding. They were responsible for setting the quality standards for bananas. Their trademark blue sticker announced: "This seal outside means the best inside."
To be label-worthy, a Chiquita banana had to be eight inches long and have a fullness to it (remember PR man, Bernays, was Freud's nephew). The bunch had to be symmetrical. The fruit had to be free of defects, meaning no blemishes on the peels. The ripening must be uniform. The company was concerned with the visual effects, not nutrition or flavor. And so the perfect fruit was born.
I remember Dr. Vandana Shiva talked about bananas at the lecture I attended at the University of B.C.
"Smallness is dangerous," she said facetiously. "Standardization is the norm for safety. In India, we have hundreds of varieties of bananas. But if we bring small bananas in from Kerala, they will kill you. We must have the big Del Monte rocks you call bananas." We all laughed of course, but us banana eaters knew she spoke the truth.
Chiquita's new quality standards and increased market demand led to the heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers on the crop in the 1960s. That demand for perfection has crossed all fruit and vegetable boundaries now and is part of the reason why consumers find it hard to accept more imperfect looking organic produce.
Trade war
It is also why many developing countries can't compete on world markets. When I was in Belize on a kayaking trip, I asked one of our guides, a marine biologist, about the rough, unrefined sugar we were using. He said they get all the inferior products there because all the good stuff is exported. The fruits in Belize generally go straight to juicing plants for domestic fruit juice. Belize is also at the center of a banana battle between the U.S. and the European Union (E.U.). The trade war over a fruit that neither of them grows began in the 1990s and is still not resolved. While Chiquita has started to clean up its act, it is not above political shenanigans. They have been in the thick of the trade war.
Here's what's been happening. The E.U. has tariffs on Latin American bananas because it has a special deal with its former Caribbean colonies, countries such as Belize, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Dominica and other Windward Islands nations whose economies depend on banana exports. Only seven per cent of the E.U.'s imports were from these countries. These bananas are smaller, sweeter, more delicious and healthier because they use fewer chemicals; the poor farmers can't afford them. Also the black leaf-spot disease has not been present until now.
The E.U. thinks of the trade arrangement as a kind of aid to these small poor countries. Bananas are pretty well all they can grow on the volcanic soil, and the E.U. says without this income, growers would probably grow pot or other narcotics. The Central American plantations can grow other crops however, and they grow bananas so cheaply that without the tariffs they would easily wipe out the Caribbean market.
But even seven per cent was too much for the big U.S. banana companies. The U.S. threatened to slap massive tariffs on European goods like Scottish cashmere sweaters, French wines and Italian cheeses, German coffee grinders and French handbags, unless the E.U. dropped its tariffs on Central American bananas. The World Trade Organization (WTO) tried to mediate, but the U.S. would have none of it. They continued to cry foul on free trade (free for who exactly?), and the WTO ruled in 1998 that it was, well, against their law to favor former colonies. So it was now illegal to help the poor.
After the ruling, many Caribbean farmers were ruined or forced by poverty to migrate to the U.K., Canada or the U.S. When small countries lose their market, it's not like they can just switch to another product over night. They don't have the population base, and so there are efficiency problems. And it is the most efficient (meaning giant, usually from the west) who rule at the expense of the small and the poor. These private companies have bigger annual budgets than many of these small countries. The argument is that big monopolies can give us cheap food and so corporate greed outweighs public good.
This story plays out over and over again in the developing world. Countries like Belize and Guatemala have been battered by this new world trading order, unable to compete with their homegrown products. Belize already lost ground on the citrus market because Mexico (a good friend of the U.S.) was given favoured status under the North American Free Trade Alliance (NAFTA). Apparently, it's okay to favour when it favours the U.S. Just one more example of how unfair and political free trade really is. To mention renegotiation of any of these sacred trade agreements (as Barack Obama did during his first presidential campaign) is blasphemy.
Reign of the 'big banana boys'
But the war didn't end there. The E.U. appealed the WTO banana ruling and the battle continued. A 1999 Guardian Weekly newspaper article gives some background on the dispute. It was reported that U.S. diplomats said privately that they were ready to negotiate a joint aid-and-trade agreement with the E.U. to help the Caribbean Islands. Their main concern, they claimed, was to protect the "principles of free trade." But bananas are just the tip of the iceberg between these two trading partners: there is also the little matter of the Europeans not wanting hormones in the meat coming in from the U.S., and the matter of all matters, the E.U. is dead set against genetically modified crops. The U.S. is in the opposite camp.
Of course, Chiquita wasn't the only banana company throwing its weight around. In fact, it may be the tamest. Bandegua, a subsidiary of Del Monte, has its headquarters in Bananeras, a well-manicured and secure compound complete with company store and one-hole golf course. Crop dusters regularly take off from the company airfield to douse the vast banana plantations that surround the town with a variety of toxic sprays.
Del Monte managed to stay out of trouble for many years, exporting around two billion bananas a year. But then in 1999, they fired 900 employees, blaming a worldwide slump in banana prices and a drop in productivity following Hurricane Mitch. The unions rose up and organized strikes and roadblocks. Vigilante groups struck back with violent force, and families fled in terror. Following suspicious resignations of the union leaders, there was an international outcry. The UN, the president of Guatemala and the US ambassador finally came to an agreement and all workers were reinstated by the following year. The vigilantes did receive light prison sentences, but the union leaders were forced into exile, fearing retaliation. The conflict, complete with firings and protests, continued into the late 2000s.
Heightened competition was the cause of much of the turmoil. In the late 1990s the market was flooded with bananas, in part because of new countries entering the market. That caused prices and stock to plummet and forced the big bananas to search for new ways to slice costs in order to compete. Cutting jobs, lowering wages, and closing plantations were the order of the day. They needed to keep the stockholders happy and keep cheap food in stock.
One country in particular became the banana companies' saviour: Ecuador. The country currently provides 30 per cent of the world's bananas; 25 per cent of North American bananas come from Ecuador. Five companies dominate the Latin American banana industry: Noboa (an Ecuadorian company, sold as Bonita brand in the US); Fyffes (the European giant); Dole; Del Monte; and Chiquita. The big banana boys loved the country because of their low-wage, non-union workforce and their lax rules around workers' rights, the environment and child labor. In 2002, Human Rights Watch found children as young as 10 working 12 hour days and handling dangerous fungicides. Ecuador is dependent on banana revenue; its exports are second only to oil, and the industry employs nearly 400,000 Ecuadoreans. Dole currently gets 31 per cent of its bananas from Ecuador, Del Monte, 13 per cent and Chiquita seven per cent.
Instead of owning their own plantations, more and more of the big boys are contracting out and simply purchasing fruit from a nationally owned producer company. Often the companies, the multinationals and their suppliers, hire temporary labor through sub-contractors. Because these temporary workers are not officially recorded as employees, the companies can sidestep any health or pension benefits or safe workplace conditions. This subcontracting system is similar to the one used in the garment industry (a.k.a. sweatshops), and human rights activists call it a race to the bottom.
More rotten apples
The banana industry cannot lay claim to all the rotten apples. There is plenty of politics in the rest of the fruit world. In pineapple regions like the Philippines and Costa Rica, more and more land is being taken up to grow pineapples. Workers and the environment suffer from the chemical exposure. With less land to grow other crops, the communities have to buy expensive imported food. Labour abuses are common, too. Dole, one of the world's largest exporters of fresh and processed pineapple, has used intimidation to weaken unions. From the 1990s, the company replaced over two-thirds of its workforce in Costa Rica with contract labour to evade any responsibilities for basic employee benefits. In recent months Dole has finally agreed to stop its union-busting.
While banana workers are still some of the most exploited in the world, unions have made a difference in their lives. There are more than 40,000 unionized banana workers in Latin America alone (2002). Chiquita is the most unionized of the banana transnationals in Latin America. They signed a groundbreaking deal in 2001 with their unions and the International Union of Foodworkers. Union benefits include eight-hour workdays with decent wages, around $11 a day or more, on-the-job health and safety measures, adequate housing, healthcare and schooling for their children. By contrast, in Ecuador workers get lower wages and attempts at unionizing have often been met with intimidation, firings and even armed force.
While Chiquita has set new standards in the banana world, they say they can't compete with the lower wages in Ecuador and play that card in contract negotiations with banana unions. But they don't play as dirty as others. When Del Monte threatened to leave Guatemala in October 2001, workers agreed to a 30 per cent wage cut, plus 70 per cent of their health benefits and two-thirds of the school funding.
I corresponded with Alistair Smith, International Coordinator at Banana Link, a Britain-based non-profit dedicated to creating a fair and sustainable banana and pineapple trade. He sent me some very good news on the banana front: a peace agreement on E.U. import tariffs was finally reached and signed in Geneva in December 2009. That same month at the headquarters of the FAO, the World Banana Forum was launched. All the banana majors -- global retailers, growers, trade unions, plantation workers and groups along the supply chain -- will now be working together to ensure a sustainable banana industry.
Sustainable purchasing policies adopted by local governments, hospitals and academic institutions are also helping to address workers rights, social equity, community and environmental stewardship. The City of Sacramento has adopted an environmental purchasing policy. The City of Vancouver has an ethical purchasing policy that complies with codes of conduct set out by the International Labor Organization. The City of Seattle has a sustainable purchasing policy that informs its purchases of goods, materials, services and even capital improvements. In partnership with Local Food Plus, the University of Toronto became the first university in North America to formally commit to purchasing local sustainable food for its cafeterias and residences.
Naufus is not convinced that the banana world can be sustainable. "There is no way bananas can be grown without someone getting exploited," he said when I told him the news from Banana Link. "Bananas are as delicate as orchids. They need a lot of land to grow on. That land is taken away from people. And it takes a lot of labour. Then they have to be refrigerated and sent through a network of exporting. The real cost of a banana is very expensive. It is a luxury that is sold very cheap. They should be thirty dollars a bunch!" His advice, "Stop eating bananas here."
Bananas of our subconscious
I tell Naufus about a line I came across in my research: "A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of ten to twenty bananas, which are known as fingers." It seems an ironic but apt image for the banana multinationals. "Inspiration for a new piece?" I suggest. It also reminds me of my little statue, still lying broken on my dining room table. That night I dream about Carmen Miranda dancing in a banana grove.
Carmen Miranda is an enduring icon of camp. The lady in the tutti-frutti hat was the inspiration for Chiquita Brands logo and for countless drag queen revues. But behind the outrageous costumes and cartoonish sensuality was a real woman battling her own inner demons and trying to live up to the expectations of her new country and her home country of Brazil.
She was a huge recording and film star back home before coming to America. She came from a middle class Portuguese family, but her music had its roots in the black slum samba sounds of Bahia, a northeastern state. Her costume was also inspired by the clothing worn by the poor black women fruit sellers. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, Bahia was a center of sugar cultivation. A vast number of African slaves were imported to work the cane fields; more than 37 per cent of all slaves from Africa were sent to Brazil. Bahia is now the main producer and exporter of cacao in Brazil.
Once in the U.S, the Brazilian Bombshell starred in a bunch of goofy south-of-the-border musicals. The Latin stereotype was born with her: flamboyant, gaudy, fast-talking, with amusing contortions of the English language. And the role paid off for Miranda; in 1945 she was the highest-paid woman in America. Her home country was not amused, accusing her of ridiculing them for the pleasure of entertaining Americans and branding her a sell out. Her participation in Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Program, an effort to improve relations with Latin America, didn't help her image at home. All that stress took its toll on her. She had drug problems, an abusive marriage and was clinically depressed. Like Marilyn Monroe, another tragic icon, Miranda buckled under the pressures of Hollywood. The funny, vivacious woman died of a heart attack at the age of forty-six while performing live on the Jimmy Durante Show. Struck down by powerful outside forces, just like my unsuspecting little statue.
I wondered if the women from these banana-producing countries were really just passive bystanders though. I came across a movement that tells me they are not. For the last 20 years, women banana workers, las mujeres bananeras, or simply bananeras have been organizing, and are gaining a foothold for gender equity issues in unions, workplaces and their communities. Dana Frank tells their story in her book, Bananeras, Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America (South End Press, 2005). The symbol on the front of the book is a redesigned Chiquita label picturing a strong, smiling woman with one arm raised up as a sign of power and solidarity.
"Bananas have been part of Guatemala for so long now, more than a century, so they are now a part of our subconscious," said Naufus. "They come up in our dreams. They are part of our fantasy world. They are no longer just something objective. They are so embedded in the culture now. It is no longer about being communist or capitalist... They are so rooted in that place, that if the industry went away, there would be a wound, even if it would be better economically for the country."
Bananera. I hear the echoes of meaning. From company towns to powerful symbol. I attempt to glue my statue back together and in the process, snap her arm off. I decide to re-attach it pointing upwards and transform her into a bananera.

BELIZE BANKS HAVE TO MUCH MONEY AND NOT ENOUGH GOOD BORROWERS.

2011-12-29T13:32:00.000-08:00

Glen Ysaguirre, Central Bank Governor in Belize.

Courtesy of the Reporter newspaper.

Wednesday, 28.12.2011, 01:04pm (GMT-6)

Central Bank's Governer, Glenford Ysaguirre, says surplus cash will bring down interests rates
by Dyon A. Elliott
Commercial banks may very well be impelled to further reduce their lending and deposit rates, as the banks’ cash reserves, which are held at the Central Bank, are well above the prescribed limit, Central Bank Governor, Glenford Ysaguirre, told the Reporter on Tuesday, December 20.
Ysaguirre explained that the Central Bank of Belize (CBB) mandates that the commercial banks keep 8.5% of their average deposit liabilities at the Central Bank as cash reserves. However, current figures show that the banks have an excess liquidity of $108.9 million.
“The amount that they are holding at the bank right now is $283.5 million, under the regulations they are supposed to hold $174.6 million,” CBB’s Deputy Governor, Mrs. Christine Vellos, explained.
Looking at it from a merchant’s perspective, the situation does create difficulties for banks because this means there is less demand for their “product”—loans; while there has been a simultaneous increase in their “inventories”—increased deposits.
But, like any prudent business owner, the price of their “product” (interest rates) is expected to come down, as they hope to attract more borrowers.
“High levels of excess liquidity are an indication that savings levels within the system are high. This is good to the extent that it will put pressure on lending rates...Some advertised lending rates are already in single digits which was previously unheard of in Belize,” Ysaguirre noted.
As they apply to loans to the business sector, the rates have also started to come down, although not as fast as some in the private sector would like.
Ysaguirre said the measured reduction is largely due to the high levels of non-performing loans, which is due to poor decisions made by some banks in past years and complicated by global economic pressures. The banks are now left to carry these high levels of defaulted loans, so there is a resistance to lowering the price of their goods, because they are trying to recover some of their losses.
However, while any reduction may be good news to the borrower, it does mean the banks would be “buying” less from their “suppliers”—the depositors, and they would be inclined to lower the interest rates offered, because they are already “overstocked”.
“Given the current international situation, it is not unusual, in the U.S. for example, for deposit interest rates to approximate 0% or even become negative, [that is to say] banks charge depositors a fee for safe keeping of deposits since they already have more than sufficient funds to meet their lending needs,” Ysaguirre explained.
He pointed out that the surplus is different for each domestic bank, because the liquidity isn’t evenly distributed. This means that the interest rates for deposits, or the conditions under which they are accepted, may vary. Even so, Ysaguirre says, there has been a marked decrease in deposit rates, especially as it pertains to large time deposits.
“Some banks may not accept large time deposits, but as far as we know no restrictions are being placed on savings deposits,” he said.
The CBB has gradually reduced the flooring on savings deposits from 4.5% in 2010 to 2.5% in 2011, in order to give the commercial banks more incentives to lower their lending rates, although such a reduction doesn’t automatically result in huge decreases.
“It is necessary to bear in mind that there are other factors that influence the lending rates such as the level of non-performing loans... [And] the domestic demand for loans is also influenced by the level of economic activity in countries that are our major trading partners,” Ysaguirre said.
He reiterated that, in the end, the matter is ultimately determined by the individual bank’s operating costs; and the economic realities across the region and in the United States, where he says, “excess liquidity is so high, interest rates on regular deposits are well below 0.5%.”
But, as it pertains to the overall health of the economy, Ysaguirre pointed out that Belize has recorded a 2.7% growth up to September, which exceeds the 1.8% increase of the same period last year.
He explained that the excess liquidity in the system can in no way be the sole indicator of the economy’s health. There are several other factors to consider such as GDP growth, the level of inflation and growth in the country’s foreign reserves, he said.

BELIZE 2012 ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

2011-12-29T13:16:00.000-08:00

BELIZE 2012 ECOONOMIC OUTLOOK

(It´s the economy stupid!)

The Belize economy was average. The government was still a problem with red tape. Government political corruption is still a problem. Not as bad as under the previous PUP, but still there, with the current UDP. Inefficiency of the government service sector is still a BIG problem. No changes there. THE FOCUS FOR GOVERNMENT has to be on GROWTH through new entrepreneurial business startups.

If I´m remembering right, our International Bonds are at 8.5% and we are not paying anything down on PRINCIPAL, nor according to the government are we allowed to. Just paying interest on the Bonds which is 25% of the revenues of the country. Debt to GDP ratio is 85% and continuing to grow.

Since 2012 is THE ELECTION YEAR, we can expect more Borrowing by the UDP and a worsening of our Debt to GDP ratio, as the fight for control of the treasury tax revenues goes to the competing political ambitions. The UDP is forecasted to sweep elections, as the PUP are still considered controlled by the criminality of the OLD GUARD members. That leaves the United Alliance Party, but they in turn only are fielding 6 elected representatives out of the 31 needed nationwide. So the judgement is the UDP will get it, for a second term. With UDP political spending of your and my tax money on projects to also influence the vote, we can expect next 2013 after the General Election, will find the country in worse financial shape, unless the oil company down south actually hit oil, rather than selling stock abroad. EXTERNAL GRANT FUNDING is the only way the government can meet even a little bit, of the infra-structure requirements during 2012.

For comparison to the EU. The big THREE, Germany, France and Italy in that order. Italy is in trouble. Unable to sell ten year bonds, Italy cancelled the XMAS sale. The Italian Debt to GDP ratio is 120% to GDP. Italy threatens the continuance of the EU as a viable entity. Offers on Bonds are running around 7.89% Italy has the 3rd largest economy in the EU. France is number 2 and Germany is number 1. The U.K. has opted out of the financial EU arrangements. To protect the U.K. Financial Services industry domination over the EU comnpetition.

From: Charlie Trew
To: Belize Culture
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2011 5:54 PM
Subject: Bz-Culture: Belize City Retailers Comment On Christmas Sales

7newsbelize.com:

They say that Christmas, like death, brings its own money - and - as hard as folks say things are - this year, we also saw them shopping hard in the days leading up to Christmas.
Now, looks can be deceiving. Maybe they were just window shopping, so today, I went to downtown Belize City and major business houses to ask a few businesses how sales were.

Here's what they said:

Jim McFadzean Reporting
The bad news came from the majority of retail outlets in the Indian community who say, and most would only talk off camera, that sales were significantly down over last year. One merchant went in so far as to say that this has been the worst year since he opened business in 1982.
But not so at the San Cas Group of stores; it's Chief Executive Officer, Santino Castillo was boasting that sales were up by 8.5 percent this year.

Santino Castillo - Chief Executive Officer, San Cas Group of Companies Limited
"We were up this year from last year. We're up exactly 8 and a half percent, and I did the figures before you came over, and as you know, we're in food. So I believe that this was one of the reasons that accounted for it. People did not hesitate to buy food to put on the table."
But while the San Cas Group enjoyed a prosperous 2011, over at Hofius Hardware Limited, downtown Belize city, sales remained sluggish for much of the year.

Jackie Crump - Managing Director, Hofius Hardware Limited
"They year was sluggish, and it was sluggish all the way up to early December. And then, the momentum started, the christmas shopping took over. It had its energy and it's own momentum. And it certainly didn't disappoint us, but it took a little bit longer to get going. It was much of the last three weeks before Christmas, as opposed to years before when we saw that the momentum started earlier."

Jim McFadzean
"Was your Christmas sales better this year than last year?"

Jackie Crump
"No, I wouldn't say that they were better. Like I said, December was strong, but when we look at the months before December, the overall figures didn't over-exceed last year."

Jim McFadzean
"So were you slightly up, or slightly down in sales, overall?"

Jackie Crump
"For the year, it was more sluggish than last year, slightly."
Crump says the Belizean shopper has become much more savvy in the way they shop. And It's that change in behavior that was most noticeable this year, not necessarily any change in their disposable income.

Jim McFadzean
"Did you do anything different this year in terms of generating sales?"

Jackie Crump
"Absolutely, I think that the Belizean consumer has changed. I think that the Belizean consumer is looking for more of a discount market. They are now used to seeing discounts, and they wait for the discounts. That is something that has only really started happening in the last 2 or 3 years. So yes, we did discount days, customer appreciation days."
That new marketing strategy appears to have taken on wings of its own among many merchants, including the owners of Mirage, a popular clothing outlet on Albert Street.

Milan Hotchandani - Manager, Mirage
"Basically, we had all our customers coming out last year and shopping, so we did well. In the last day we did really good, but we had to offer them some sales, because, I guess, no parking in downtown, so we have to give them an incentive, and I think that help. So we had customers coming out and shopping last minute."

Jim McFadzean
"So you're saying that Christmas sales this year was better than last year? Or are you just speaking specifically of that last day just before Christmas where it had picked up to really make a difference?"

Milan Hotchandani
"It picked up just day. I think the last few days after the 20th, we saw people coming out, but they were actually buying on the 23rd and 24th. So we saw a lot of people buying their gifts on the 23rd and the 24th."
The main downtown shopping thoroughfares were indeed flooded with thousands of shoppers the last several days leading up to Christmas, creating plenty of traffic snarls in the old capital, causing many to wonder where was that last minute infusion of cash coming from?
One possibility is the usual cash flow coming from Uncle Sam.
Silvano Guerrero, Manager of Zitro International told Seven News, his Western Union business has seen an increase in activity over last year. At the San Cas Group, much of that cash was being spent on a whole lot of food and liquor.

Santino Castillo
"I personally believe -it's my belief that the economy is a little better than last year. We've been noticing that trend throughout, and maybe they're just prioritizing differently, and maybe not spending in areas that they don't need to spend. But I do know that on food, they've been spending. So for us, we're glad for the food, and liquor business has been good as well."

Jackie Crump
"We saw more shoppers out in the evening and at night time this year, compared to last year. Last year, people weren't out at night. That changes; there is more confidence on the streets, and more excitement on the streets after hours."

At Wellworth Store on Regent Street, its Manager, Dinesh Bhojwani, told us sales for his store were down by as much as 10 to 15 percent.
A majority of the predominantly Indian owned retail outlets we spoke to, attributed poor sales to increasing cross-border shopping in Chetumal and Melchor.