From Charlie in Washington
"I still remain blown away that I can call remote southern Russia (near Chechnya and Iran) for 4 cents (U.S.) a minute and Belize for 20 cents + per minute."
_______________________________
Not only that VOIP the newspapers say is going to continue to be blocked, and recent articles in the media castigate the Prime Minister for continuing Lord Ashcroft's policies with high phone prices.
The one point I agree on, is the lawsuit to allow BTL ( now belonging to the Belize Government through NATIONALIZATION, and run through the Prime Minister, Dean Barrow and his relatives and flunkies ) to make SMART, Lord Ashcroft's other competitive telephone company pay a fair share fee for using the fiber optic undersea cable to the rest of the world owned by BTL.
The speculation coming from the media articles and letters is that the Prime Minister 'over - estimated' the value of BTL since he nationalized it ( at $300 milion bz. ) and now that he has ordered the Social Security Board to buy $50 million in shares in BTL at an artificial price, he himself has set, the continuation of Lord Ashcroft's plundering Robber Baron policies with BTL are now being continued by Prime Minister Dean Barrow to dig himself out of a mismanaged hole.
Plain obstructionism and monopoly politics is now the rule of the day with government controlled BTL and unfair trade practices. The Prime Minister WILL NOT allow BTL shares to be sold on the open market within Belize, to Belizeans in a BID and ASK auction system, that ALL shareholding PUBLIC companies should do. He is; it is charged in the media, playing MONOPOLY Robber Baron POLITICS again, just like Lord Ashcroft did and does.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Belize - the story of chocolate and cacao in Belize.
THE STORY OF CACAO AND CHOCOLATE IN BELIZE IN THE NEW MILLENIUM
October, 2010
This is an OPINION PIECE by Ray Auxillou, filling in some historical background and looking at the wider picture, to encourage possible foreign investment in cacao production. The world market is there for processed chocolates, can we fill some of the foreign demand and earn foreign exchange is the debate.
Today Cacao production is at an all time high, even though in the rest of the world, cacao is having a downturn in production and prices. Today in 2010, more than 1100 small growers and subsistence milpero campesinos grow Cacao, primarily in the Stann Creek and Toledo Districts. The crop is an add on, to growing corn and beans and raising a few pigs. To date, those 1100 small campesinos live across 52 different small jungle communities and together produce 47 tons of cacao beans annually. Their organization is a NON – PROFIT, CALLED THE TOLEDO CACAO GROWERS ASSOCIATION.
Armando Choc is the current General Manager. In the 1980´s HERSHEY was the only buyer and had a plantation in the Northern Maya Mountains. World wide production had gone up and prices dropped and the world market collapsed. Cacao beans were the money of the olden time two Mayan Empires, going back around 3500 years. About 1100 years ago, a two hundred year drought decimated the Mayan Empire and the whole political feudal structure collapsed. About five hundred years ago, the Spanish invaded and started conquering the many large Indian Empires throughout the Americas. Pirates came into being also. About three hundred years ago, a locust plague hit the Yucatan and Belize for three years, starving millions of Maya people. Four hundred years ago, the British entered our area and started cutting logwood, a dye producing wood that had a big market in England. By then the population of the whole of what is now Belize was not more than 30,000 people, scattered all over the jungles. The British enclave started with the port of Belize City, A shipping and merchant situation for serving the interior of the Yucatan, the Peten and what today we call Belize. The total population when I arrived in the then British Colony called British Honduras in late 1959 still only numbered about 30,000 people. Population today of the country is around 350,000. We await the new census results.
The Cacao Association reactivated itself when a contract was signed to supply Whole Earth Food Ltd., now called Green and Black´s in 1993 over in the UK. The Toledo Cacao Growers Association signed it´s first contract with the assistance of these community development minded people of the UK and received with their guidance an ORGANIC certification for jungle grown shaded cacao production by remote hill farmers. This certification enabled a higher price and the Soil Association and FAIRTRADE by the FLO made the TCGA a pioneer in the Fair trade business in Central America. The TCGA now have a rolling 5 year contract and higher prices than world price.
Between 1994 and 2001 the output exported ran around 20 tons annually of cacao beans. At the time, this was a supplemental cash flow income for around 200 farmers living off the land, who had no cash flow before, or very small cash flow from selling a pig, to the small 5000 population Punta Gorda town market on the coast. Productivity has been increasing until Hurricane Iris cut a swath through the southern district destroying the jungle and villages. There were no resources to rehabilitate and as far as we know, the so called government depot for the National Emergency Management system in Punta Gorda, had no transportation for boatloads of emergency donations delivered from Caye Caulker to Punta Gorda by lobster and tourist rescue conveys. The situation was a shambles. The Belize government failed miserably in the emergency. About 400 temporary shelters were built by the Mennonites and paid for by a collection done on the internet via the Belize Culture listserve membership at the time. Around $50,000 usa was donated. Instrumental in this money raising effort was a USA hero, Marty Casado, living in Oregon, who ran a website called Ambergris Caye.com. Hurricane Iris is the only recorded hurricane to have hit this high rain fall jungle area in the Southern part of Belize. The Central Government had no money and spent whatever they had on the port town of Belize City for the most part, up in the central coast of the country, where there is a colonial mentality still despite national independence in 1982. Only the private sector enabled the scattered villages of the Toledo District to survive and recover. About 50% of the cacao trees were rehabilitated somewhat with assistance from FAIRTRADE and Green & Black´s. Production came in very low after that. Chainsaws and pruning equipment were donated for the tangled jungle undergrowth. Very few farmers participated. Cash for gasoline and oil was not available to subsistence jungle farmers. Many farmers were showing renewed interest and Green & Black wanted a better cacao pod. The MAYA GOLD BAR needed more production and a better flavored bean and the Trinitario beans were used to replant.
To put things on a more sustainable footing, the TCGA was reorganized and the idea was to go for more members and bigger acreage. The project was financed by Green & Blacks DFID, or international development department with assistance from HIVOS a Dutch support organization. Technical training and extension services were created, management capability and directors involved. The best record of production since then was 42 tons in 2006 and averages around 30 tons annually, more than pre-Hurricane Iris disaster. Today the number of jungle farmers involved is about 1100 producers for this year 2010 and farmers are now cultivating the local hybrid Trinitario, which in turn is a cross of Forastero a hybrid mixed with the Criollo, a very aromatic specie. Farmers are now under extension officers encouraging an average of 2 acres each, with a 12 ft x 12 ft spacing. It takes about 4 years for a tree to produce cacao beans. Intercropping with timber and leguminous trees and other staples like plantain are encouraged during those early growing years.
The new TCGA has extension training in all facets of cacao bean production. Farmers are taught the necessary skills to cultivate, ferment and dry cacao beans as demanded by the European market. Satellite buying centers for beans are now established around the Southern half of Belize to provide quality beans for export.
The guaranteed market and certification organic and FAIRTRADE standards are the biggest assets the TCGA have. This foundation was set in 1994. There are now even four local CHOCOLATE PRODUCERS. Kakaw, Goss, Cotton Tree and Cirila´s Chocolate. These are very small home industries and do not have an export market as of yet. 90% of the cacao beans are exported. 10% are utilized by local processers.
The growth is only upward. Green & Black want 450 tons annually and are only getting 42 tons. The rest of the world produces 70% of the Cacao, but the TCGA controlled crop enjoys HIGHER PRICES and a niche market for quality. The cacao producers earn about $2.30 a pound for fermented and dried cacao beans. In addition FAIRTRADE gives them another .14 cents a pound as premium and the organic certification gets another .18 cents per pound. The NY world market is higher right now than the local price, but there is a guaranteed market despite world price fluctuations. Pricing is currently being set to the International Cocoa Organization´s daily price adjustment schedule. Prices have gone up over the last 7 years when the worldwide market started to recover. The current price is $2.30 a lb and likely to stay the same right now.
The goal is to have the TCGA become a self sustainable business. There are many overseas inputs, from UNDP, CARD project, Help for Progress, HIVOS, Irish aid, ACICAFOC and DFID who have contributed in small ways over the last ten years. Even the Norwegian government is contributing through CATIE, a research center system. Local Belizean farmers are being taught practically ´- in the field-
The E mail for the Toledo Cacao Growers Association is tcgatoledo@gmail.com. Or tcga@btl.net Slow mail address is: Box 160, Punta Gorda town, Toledo District, Belize Central America.
Most of this statistical information comes from the Belize Agriculture Report, a quarterly local publication by Beth Robinson and John Carr. If you are interested in Belize Agriculture ask them: editor@belizeagreport.com
The Ag Report is available for International subscription and is a very good publication and informative about agriculture in general in Belize.
October, 2010
This is an OPINION PIECE by Ray Auxillou, filling in some historical background and looking at the wider picture, to encourage possible foreign investment in cacao production. The world market is there for processed chocolates, can we fill some of the foreign demand and earn foreign exchange is the debate.
Today Cacao production is at an all time high, even though in the rest of the world, cacao is having a downturn in production and prices. Today in 2010, more than 1100 small growers and subsistence milpero campesinos grow Cacao, primarily in the Stann Creek and Toledo Districts. The crop is an add on, to growing corn and beans and raising a few pigs. To date, those 1100 small campesinos live across 52 different small jungle communities and together produce 47 tons of cacao beans annually. Their organization is a NON – PROFIT, CALLED THE TOLEDO CACAO GROWERS ASSOCIATION.
Armando Choc is the current General Manager. In the 1980´s HERSHEY was the only buyer and had a plantation in the Northern Maya Mountains. World wide production had gone up and prices dropped and the world market collapsed. Cacao beans were the money of the olden time two Mayan Empires, going back around 3500 years. About 1100 years ago, a two hundred year drought decimated the Mayan Empire and the whole political feudal structure collapsed. About five hundred years ago, the Spanish invaded and started conquering the many large Indian Empires throughout the Americas. Pirates came into being also. About three hundred years ago, a locust plague hit the Yucatan and Belize for three years, starving millions of Maya people. Four hundred years ago, the British entered our area and started cutting logwood, a dye producing wood that had a big market in England. By then the population of the whole of what is now Belize was not more than 30,000 people, scattered all over the jungles. The British enclave started with the port of Belize City, A shipping and merchant situation for serving the interior of the Yucatan, the Peten and what today we call Belize. The total population when I arrived in the then British Colony called British Honduras in late 1959 still only numbered about 30,000 people. Population today of the country is around 350,000. We await the new census results.
The Cacao Association reactivated itself when a contract was signed to supply Whole Earth Food Ltd., now called Green and Black´s in 1993 over in the UK. The Toledo Cacao Growers Association signed it´s first contract with the assistance of these community development minded people of the UK and received with their guidance an ORGANIC certification for jungle grown shaded cacao production by remote hill farmers. This certification enabled a higher price and the Soil Association and FAIRTRADE by the FLO made the TCGA a pioneer in the Fair trade business in Central America. The TCGA now have a rolling 5 year contract and higher prices than world price.
Between 1994 and 2001 the output exported ran around 20 tons annually of cacao beans. At the time, this was a supplemental cash flow income for around 200 farmers living off the land, who had no cash flow before, or very small cash flow from selling a pig, to the small 5000 population Punta Gorda town market on the coast. Productivity has been increasing until Hurricane Iris cut a swath through the southern district destroying the jungle and villages. There were no resources to rehabilitate and as far as we know, the so called government depot for the National Emergency Management system in Punta Gorda, had no transportation for boatloads of emergency donations delivered from Caye Caulker to Punta Gorda by lobster and tourist rescue conveys. The situation was a shambles. The Belize government failed miserably in the emergency. About 400 temporary shelters were built by the Mennonites and paid for by a collection done on the internet via the Belize Culture listserve membership at the time. Around $50,000 usa was donated. Instrumental in this money raising effort was a USA hero, Marty Casado, living in Oregon, who ran a website called Ambergris Caye.com. Hurricane Iris is the only recorded hurricane to have hit this high rain fall jungle area in the Southern part of Belize. The Central Government had no money and spent whatever they had on the port town of Belize City for the most part, up in the central coast of the country, where there is a colonial mentality still despite national independence in 1982. Only the private sector enabled the scattered villages of the Toledo District to survive and recover. About 50% of the cacao trees were rehabilitated somewhat with assistance from FAIRTRADE and Green & Black´s. Production came in very low after that. Chainsaws and pruning equipment were donated for the tangled jungle undergrowth. Very few farmers participated. Cash for gasoline and oil was not available to subsistence jungle farmers. Many farmers were showing renewed interest and Green & Black wanted a better cacao pod. The MAYA GOLD BAR needed more production and a better flavored bean and the Trinitario beans were used to replant.
To put things on a more sustainable footing, the TCGA was reorganized and the idea was to go for more members and bigger acreage. The project was financed by Green & Blacks DFID, or international development department with assistance from HIVOS a Dutch support organization. Technical training and extension services were created, management capability and directors involved. The best record of production since then was 42 tons in 2006 and averages around 30 tons annually, more than pre-Hurricane Iris disaster. Today the number of jungle farmers involved is about 1100 producers for this year 2010 and farmers are now cultivating the local hybrid Trinitario, which in turn is a cross of Forastero a hybrid mixed with the Criollo, a very aromatic specie. Farmers are now under extension officers encouraging an average of 2 acres each, with a 12 ft x 12 ft spacing. It takes about 4 years for a tree to produce cacao beans. Intercropping with timber and leguminous trees and other staples like plantain are encouraged during those early growing years.
The new TCGA has extension training in all facets of cacao bean production. Farmers are taught the necessary skills to cultivate, ferment and dry cacao beans as demanded by the European market. Satellite buying centers for beans are now established around the Southern half of Belize to provide quality beans for export.
The guaranteed market and certification organic and FAIRTRADE standards are the biggest assets the TCGA have. This foundation was set in 1994. There are now even four local CHOCOLATE PRODUCERS. Kakaw, Goss, Cotton Tree and Cirila´s Chocolate. These are very small home industries and do not have an export market as of yet. 90% of the cacao beans are exported. 10% are utilized by local processers.
The growth is only upward. Green & Black want 450 tons annually and are only getting 42 tons. The rest of the world produces 70% of the Cacao, but the TCGA controlled crop enjoys HIGHER PRICES and a niche market for quality. The cacao producers earn about $2.30 a pound for fermented and dried cacao beans. In addition FAIRTRADE gives them another .14 cents a pound as premium and the organic certification gets another .18 cents per pound. The NY world market is higher right now than the local price, but there is a guaranteed market despite world price fluctuations. Pricing is currently being set to the International Cocoa Organization´s daily price adjustment schedule. Prices have gone up over the last 7 years when the worldwide market started to recover. The current price is $2.30 a lb and likely to stay the same right now.
The goal is to have the TCGA become a self sustainable business. There are many overseas inputs, from UNDP, CARD project, Help for Progress, HIVOS, Irish aid, ACICAFOC and DFID who have contributed in small ways over the last ten years. Even the Norwegian government is contributing through CATIE, a research center system. Local Belizean farmers are being taught practically ´- in the field-
The E mail for the Toledo Cacao Growers Association is tcgatoledo@gmail.com. Or tcga@btl.net Slow mail address is: Box 160, Punta Gorda town, Toledo District, Belize Central America.
Most of this statistical information comes from the Belize Agriculture Report, a quarterly local publication by Beth Robinson and John Carr. If you are interested in Belize Agriculture ask them: editor@belizeagreport.com
The Ag Report is available for International subscription and is a very good publication and informative about agriculture in general in Belize.
Monday, October 4, 2010
BELIZE OBSERVES THE OUTSIDE WORLD CHANGES
WOMEN CONTROLLING GOVERNMENTS IN SOUTH AMERICA IS INCREASING!
BRAZIL TO GET NEW FEMALE PRESIDENT, FORMER GUERILLA WHO WAS TORTURED BY THE MILITARY REGIMES.
( The world around Belize is changing. The UK is now a second world power and fast changing to a third world power. )
Former guerrilla Dilma Rousseff set to be the world's most powerful woman
Brazil looks likely to elect an extraordinary leader next weekend
By Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Sunday, 26 September 2010
The world's most powerful woman will start coming into her own next weekend. Stocky and forceful at 63, this former leader of the resistance to a Western-backed military dictatorship (which tortured her) is preparing to take her place as President of Brazil.
As head of state, president Dilma Rousseff would outrank Angela Merkel, Germany's Chancellor, and Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State: her enormous country of 200 million people is revelling in its new oil wealth. Brazil's growth rate, rivalling China's, is one that Europe and Washington can only envy.
Her widely predicted victory in next Sunday's presidential poll will be greeted with delight by millions. It marks the final demolition of the "national security state", an arrangement that conservative governments in the US and Europe once regarded as their best artifice for limiting democracy and reform. It maintained a rotten status quo that kept a vast majority in poverty in Latin America while favouring their rich friends.
Ms Rousseff, the daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant to Brazil and his schoolteacher wife, has benefited from being, in effect, the prime minister of the immensely popular President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the former union leader. But, with a record of determination and success (which includes appearing to have conquered lymphatic cancer), this wife, mother and grandmother will be her own woman. The polls say she has built up an unassailable lead – of more than 50 per cent compared with less than 30 per cent – over her nearest rival, an uninspiring man of the centre called Jose Serra. Few doubt that she will be installed in the Alvorada presidential palace in Brasilia in January.
Like President Jose Mujica of Uruguay, Brazil's neighbour, Ms Rousseff is unashamed of a past as an urban guerrilla which included battling the generals and spending time in jail as a political prisoner. As a little girl growing up in the provincial city of Belo Horizonte, she says she dreamed successively of becoming a ballerina, a firefighter and a trapeze artist. The nuns at her school took her class to the city's poor area to show them the vast gaps between the middle-class minority and the vast majority of the poor. She remembers that when a young beggar with sad eyes came to her family's door she tore a currency note in half to share with him, not knowing that half a banknote had no value.
Her father, Pedro, died when she was 14, but by then he had introduced her to the novels of Zola and Dostoevski. After that, she and her siblings had to work hard with their mother to make ends meet. By 16 she was in POLOP (Workers' Politics), a group outside the traditional Brazilian Communist Party that sought to bring socialism to those who knew little about it.
The generals seized power in 1964 and decreed a reign of terror to defend what they called "national security". She joined secretive radical groups that saw nothing wrong with taking up arms against an illegitimate military regime. Besides cosseting the rich and crushing trade unions and the underclass, the generals censored the press, forbidding editors from leaving gaps in newspapers to show where news had been suppressed.
Ms Rousseff ended up in the clandestine VAR-Palmares (Palmares Armed Revolutionary Vanguard). In the 1960s and 1970s, members of such organisations seized foreign diplomats for ransom: a US ambassador was swapped for a dozen political prisoners; a German ambassador was exchanged for 40 militants; a Swiss envoy swapped for 70. They also shot foreign torture experts sent to train the generals' death squads. Though she says she never used weapons, she was eventually rounded up and tortured by the secret police in Brazil's equivalent to Abu Ghraib, the Tiradentes prison in Sao Paulo. She was given a 25-month sentence for "subversion" and freed after three years. Today she openly confesses to having "wanted to change the world".
In 1973 she moved to the prosperous southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, where her second husband, Carlos Araujo, a lawyer, was finishing a four-year term as a political prisoner (her first marriage with a young left-winger, Claudio Galeno, had not survived the strains of two people being on the run in different cities). She went back to university, started working for the state government in 1975, and had a daughter, Paula.
In 1986, she was named finance chief of Porto Alegre, the state capital, where her political talents began to blossom. Yet the 1990s were bitter-sweet years for her. In 1993 she was named secretary of energy for the state, and pulled off the coup of vastly increasing power production, ensuring the state was spared the power cuts that plagued the rest of the country.
She had 1,000km of new electric power lines, new dams and thermal power stations built while persuading citizens to switch off the lights whenever they could. Her political star started shining brightly. But in 1994, after 24 years together, she separated from Mr Araujo, though apparently on good terms. At the same time she was torn between academic life and politics, but her attempt to gain a doctorate in social sciences failed in 1998.
In 2000 she threw her lot in with Lula and his Partido dos Trabalhadores, or Workers' Party which set its sights successfully on combining economic growth with an attack on poverty. The two immediately hit it off and she became his first energy minister in 2003. Two years later he made her his chief of staff and has since backed her as his successor. She has been by his side as Brazil has found vast new offshore oil deposits, aiding a leader whom many in the European and US media were denouncing a decade ago as a extreme left-wing wrecker to pull 24 million Brazilians out of poverty. Lula stood by her in April last year as she was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer, a condition that was declared under control a year ago. Recent reports of financial irregularities among her staff do not seem to have damaged her popularity.
Ms Rousseff is likely to invite President Mujica of Uruguay to her inauguration in the New Year. President Evo Morales of Bolivia, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay – other successful South American leaders who have, like her, weathered merciless campaigns of denigration in the Western media – are also sure to be there. It will be a celebration of political decency – and feminism.
Female representation: A woman's place... is in the government
In recent years, female political representation has undergone significant growth, with dramatic changes occurring in unexpected corners of the globe. In some countries women are dominating cabinets and even parliamentary chambers. By comparison, the UK falls far behind, with only 22 per cent of seats in the Commons currently held by women.
Bolivia In the Bolivian cabinet, 10 men are now matched by 10 women. In 2009, women won 25 per cent of seats in the lower chamber, and 47 per cent in the upper chamber.
Costa Rica In 2010, women won 39 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Argentina In 2009, women won 39 per cent of seats in the lower chamber and 47 per cent in the upper chamber.
Cuba In 2009, women won 41 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Rwanda In 2009, women won 56 per cent of seats in the lower chamber and 35 per cent in the upper chamber.
Mozambique In 2009, women won 39 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Angola In 2009, women won 38 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Switzerland Has a female-dominated cabinet for the first time. In 2007, women won 29 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Germany In 2009, the cabinet had six women and 10 men. That year, women won 33 per cent of lower chamber seats.
Spain Nine women compared with eight men in cabinet. In 2008, women won 37 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Norway Equal numbers of men and women in the cabinet. Women won 40 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Denmark Nine women and 10 men in cabinet. In 2007, women won 23 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Netherlands Three women and nine men in cabinet. In 2010, women won 41 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
BRAZIL TO GET NEW FEMALE PRESIDENT, FORMER GUERILLA WHO WAS TORTURED BY THE MILITARY REGIMES.
( The world around Belize is changing. The UK is now a second world power and fast changing to a third world power. )
Former guerrilla Dilma Rousseff set to be the world's most powerful woman
Brazil looks likely to elect an extraordinary leader next weekend
By Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Sunday, 26 September 2010
The world's most powerful woman will start coming into her own next weekend. Stocky and forceful at 63, this former leader of the resistance to a Western-backed military dictatorship (which tortured her) is preparing to take her place as President of Brazil.
As head of state, president Dilma Rousseff would outrank Angela Merkel, Germany's Chancellor, and Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State: her enormous country of 200 million people is revelling in its new oil wealth. Brazil's growth rate, rivalling China's, is one that Europe and Washington can only envy.
Her widely predicted victory in next Sunday's presidential poll will be greeted with delight by millions. It marks the final demolition of the "national security state", an arrangement that conservative governments in the US and Europe once regarded as their best artifice for limiting democracy and reform. It maintained a rotten status quo that kept a vast majority in poverty in Latin America while favouring their rich friends.
Ms Rousseff, the daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant to Brazil and his schoolteacher wife, has benefited from being, in effect, the prime minister of the immensely popular President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the former union leader. But, with a record of determination and success (which includes appearing to have conquered lymphatic cancer), this wife, mother and grandmother will be her own woman. The polls say she has built up an unassailable lead – of more than 50 per cent compared with less than 30 per cent – over her nearest rival, an uninspiring man of the centre called Jose Serra. Few doubt that she will be installed in the Alvorada presidential palace in Brasilia in January.
Like President Jose Mujica of Uruguay, Brazil's neighbour, Ms Rousseff is unashamed of a past as an urban guerrilla which included battling the generals and spending time in jail as a political prisoner. As a little girl growing up in the provincial city of Belo Horizonte, she says she dreamed successively of becoming a ballerina, a firefighter and a trapeze artist. The nuns at her school took her class to the city's poor area to show them the vast gaps between the middle-class minority and the vast majority of the poor. She remembers that when a young beggar with sad eyes came to her family's door she tore a currency note in half to share with him, not knowing that half a banknote had no value.
Her father, Pedro, died when she was 14, but by then he had introduced her to the novels of Zola and Dostoevski. After that, she and her siblings had to work hard with their mother to make ends meet. By 16 she was in POLOP (Workers' Politics), a group outside the traditional Brazilian Communist Party that sought to bring socialism to those who knew little about it.
The generals seized power in 1964 and decreed a reign of terror to defend what they called "national security". She joined secretive radical groups that saw nothing wrong with taking up arms against an illegitimate military regime. Besides cosseting the rich and crushing trade unions and the underclass, the generals censored the press, forbidding editors from leaving gaps in newspapers to show where news had been suppressed.
Ms Rousseff ended up in the clandestine VAR-Palmares (Palmares Armed Revolutionary Vanguard). In the 1960s and 1970s, members of such organisations seized foreign diplomats for ransom: a US ambassador was swapped for a dozen political prisoners; a German ambassador was exchanged for 40 militants; a Swiss envoy swapped for 70. They also shot foreign torture experts sent to train the generals' death squads. Though she says she never used weapons, she was eventually rounded up and tortured by the secret police in Brazil's equivalent to Abu Ghraib, the Tiradentes prison in Sao Paulo. She was given a 25-month sentence for "subversion" and freed after three years. Today she openly confesses to having "wanted to change the world".
In 1973 she moved to the prosperous southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, where her second husband, Carlos Araujo, a lawyer, was finishing a four-year term as a political prisoner (her first marriage with a young left-winger, Claudio Galeno, had not survived the strains of two people being on the run in different cities). She went back to university, started working for the state government in 1975, and had a daughter, Paula.
In 1986, she was named finance chief of Porto Alegre, the state capital, where her political talents began to blossom. Yet the 1990s were bitter-sweet years for her. In 1993 she was named secretary of energy for the state, and pulled off the coup of vastly increasing power production, ensuring the state was spared the power cuts that plagued the rest of the country.
She had 1,000km of new electric power lines, new dams and thermal power stations built while persuading citizens to switch off the lights whenever they could. Her political star started shining brightly. But in 1994, after 24 years together, she separated from Mr Araujo, though apparently on good terms. At the same time she was torn between academic life and politics, but her attempt to gain a doctorate in social sciences failed in 1998.
In 2000 she threw her lot in with Lula and his Partido dos Trabalhadores, or Workers' Party which set its sights successfully on combining economic growth with an attack on poverty. The two immediately hit it off and she became his first energy minister in 2003. Two years later he made her his chief of staff and has since backed her as his successor. She has been by his side as Brazil has found vast new offshore oil deposits, aiding a leader whom many in the European and US media were denouncing a decade ago as a extreme left-wing wrecker to pull 24 million Brazilians out of poverty. Lula stood by her in April last year as she was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer, a condition that was declared under control a year ago. Recent reports of financial irregularities among her staff do not seem to have damaged her popularity.
Ms Rousseff is likely to invite President Mujica of Uruguay to her inauguration in the New Year. President Evo Morales of Bolivia, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay – other successful South American leaders who have, like her, weathered merciless campaigns of denigration in the Western media – are also sure to be there. It will be a celebration of political decency – and feminism.
Female representation: A woman's place... is in the government
In recent years, female political representation has undergone significant growth, with dramatic changes occurring in unexpected corners of the globe. In some countries women are dominating cabinets and even parliamentary chambers. By comparison, the UK falls far behind, with only 22 per cent of seats in the Commons currently held by women.
Bolivia In the Bolivian cabinet, 10 men are now matched by 10 women. In 2009, women won 25 per cent of seats in the lower chamber, and 47 per cent in the upper chamber.
Costa Rica In 2010, women won 39 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Argentina In 2009, women won 39 per cent of seats in the lower chamber and 47 per cent in the upper chamber.
Cuba In 2009, women won 41 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Rwanda In 2009, women won 56 per cent of seats in the lower chamber and 35 per cent in the upper chamber.
Mozambique In 2009, women won 39 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Angola In 2009, women won 38 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Switzerland Has a female-dominated cabinet for the first time. In 2007, women won 29 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Germany In 2009, the cabinet had six women and 10 men. That year, women won 33 per cent of lower chamber seats.
Spain Nine women compared with eight men in cabinet. In 2008, women won 37 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Norway Equal numbers of men and women in the cabinet. Women won 40 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Denmark Nine women and 10 men in cabinet. In 2007, women won 23 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
Netherlands Three women and nine men in cabinet. In 2010, women won 41 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.
BELIZE IMPORTS COCONUT WATER FOR FOOD PREPARATION.
BELIZE IMPORTS COCONUT WATER
One time in my youth, Belize exported coconut meat. There was a thriving industry in coconuts. A disease came down from the Yucatan and destroyed all those lovely native tall coconut palms, that were so productive. In recent decades the coconut variety has been replaced by dwarfs imported from abroad, that are disease resistant to that particular problem. Unlike the olden times, the coconuts of today do not produce much meat, but do produce coconut water. Strange as it may seem our small population actually imports coconut water in plastic containers for cooking and drinking purposes. The Caribbean is acting in some parts as an import/processing-packaging and re-exporting industry today. Coconut water is no exception, as we do not produce it ourselves in commercial scale. World wide sales in the last three years have risen to over $20 usa. Million. Our local production is about 850,000 nuts per year. Coconut water is known to produce good health. Coconut water besides being sterile, is rich in electrolytes, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals all in a natural form. The world market seems insatiable. US packagers cannot keep up with the demand, nor find the supplies. The coconut trees around Belize nowadays are the 5 year bearing Mayapans and the dwarf types which bear in 2 or 3 years. I have them around my house and in my yard. Coconuts for coconut water are harvested at 5 to 6 months. Current production in Belize is about 850,000 nuts per year. Coconuts are sold at .38 cents a nut, though locals come to me and get mine FREE. I do occasionally get offered .25 cents each, which I usually refuse for the half dozen somebody may want for local food preparation.
Our current store bought coconut water is imported from Thailand and Singapore, but is re-packaged either in Trinidad, or Jamaica and exported to us here in Belize under a CARICOM preferential customs tariff agreement. We also import coconut oil for cooking from the FAR EAST. A 16 oz container of coconut water retails for $2 Bz currency. The cans are about $2.75, or up to $3.50 depending on who is selling.
One time in my youth, Belize exported coconut meat. There was a thriving industry in coconuts. A disease came down from the Yucatan and destroyed all those lovely native tall coconut palms, that were so productive. In recent decades the coconut variety has been replaced by dwarfs imported from abroad, that are disease resistant to that particular problem. Unlike the olden times, the coconuts of today do not produce much meat, but do produce coconut water. Strange as it may seem our small population actually imports coconut water in plastic containers for cooking and drinking purposes. The Caribbean is acting in some parts as an import/processing-packaging and re-exporting industry today. Coconut water is no exception, as we do not produce it ourselves in commercial scale. World wide sales in the last three years have risen to over $20 usa. Million. Our local production is about 850,000 nuts per year. Coconut water is known to produce good health. Coconut water besides being sterile, is rich in electrolytes, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals all in a natural form. The world market seems insatiable. US packagers cannot keep up with the demand, nor find the supplies. The coconut trees around Belize nowadays are the 5 year bearing Mayapans and the dwarf types which bear in 2 or 3 years. I have them around my house and in my yard. Coconuts for coconut water are harvested at 5 to 6 months. Current production in Belize is about 850,000 nuts per year. Coconuts are sold at .38 cents a nut, though locals come to me and get mine FREE. I do occasionally get offered .25 cents each, which I usually refuse for the half dozen somebody may want for local food preparation.
Our current store bought coconut water is imported from Thailand and Singapore, but is re-packaged either in Trinidad, or Jamaica and exported to us here in Belize under a CARICOM preferential customs tariff agreement. We also import coconut oil for cooking from the FAR EAST. A 16 oz container of coconut water retails for $2 Bz currency. The cans are about $2.75, or up to $3.50 depending on who is selling.
BELIZE EXPERIMENTING WITH DIESEL SUBSTITUTE JATROPHA OIL PRODUCTION
BELIZE GOVERNMENT CENTRAL FARM RESEARCH STATION ACCEPTS CHALLENGE TO DO COSTING STUDY FOR JATROPHA DIESEL PROCESSING.
Jatropha plant for the production of agro diesel fuel goes back to World War 2, when it was then used to produce an agro based diesel substitute for oil
The current argument is that; nobody locally knows if it would pay to grow and process Jatropha oil, as an energy substitute for saving of local foreign exchange, used to pay for imported diesel. Labor costs are relatively high in Belize. About half of what they are in the USA, but double of what they are in Africa, or Sri Lanka.
The enzyme PAPAIN was one such failed experiment carried out some 40 years ago in Sarteneja, on a 90 acre plot of PAPAYA plants by Ray Auxillou of Caye Caulker. It was found the world price in New York was lower than the cost we could produce the enzyme PAPAIN in Belize. We could not compete in labor costs with Africa and Sri Lanka and Burma.
The question now arises about the Jatropha oil as a diesel substitute. The plant grows wild in Belize and most of the tropical world.
The OAS has supplied funding for a pilot project at the Central Farm Government MAF (?)
research grounds. A five acre plot of the Jatropha plant is being established at Central Farm and will serve as a data collection facility for interested farmers, researchers and other scientists.
The email for this project is: Clifford Martinez Jr., Research and Development station at Central Farm in the Western Cayo District rdcfarm@yahoo.com, or telephone 501 804 2129
Jatropha plant for the production of agro diesel fuel goes back to World War 2, when it was then used to produce an agro based diesel substitute for oil
The current argument is that; nobody locally knows if it would pay to grow and process Jatropha oil, as an energy substitute for saving of local foreign exchange, used to pay for imported diesel. Labor costs are relatively high in Belize. About half of what they are in the USA, but double of what they are in Africa, or Sri Lanka.
The enzyme PAPAIN was one such failed experiment carried out some 40 years ago in Sarteneja, on a 90 acre plot of PAPAYA plants by Ray Auxillou of Caye Caulker. It was found the world price in New York was lower than the cost we could produce the enzyme PAPAIN in Belize. We could not compete in labor costs with Africa and Sri Lanka and Burma.
The question now arises about the Jatropha oil as a diesel substitute. The plant grows wild in Belize and most of the tropical world.
The OAS has supplied funding for a pilot project at the Central Farm Government MAF (?)
research grounds. A five acre plot of the Jatropha plant is being established at Central Farm and will serve as a data collection facility for interested farmers, researchers and other scientists.
The email for this project is: Clifford Martinez Jr., Research and Development station at Central Farm in the Western Cayo District rdcfarm@yahoo.com, or telephone 501 804 2129
Saturday, October 2, 2010
UDP REPORT CARD RAISED 2 POINTS TO 57%
BELIZE FOREIGN MINISTER SEDI ELRINGTON EARNS TWO POINTS ON THE UDP REPORT CARD. The REPORT CARD FOR THE UDP GOVERNMENT IS NOW 57%
The two points that Foreign Minister Sedi Elrington of Belize earned for the approval rating for his UDP government, is based on the speech he made at the United Nations.
The essence of which; was that the UNITED NATIONS needs to change it’s development modus operendi, from outright gifts to partnership style, development programs.
The role model for this is: the REPUBLIC OF TAWAIN development model, done in partnership with Belize for many years now. It has been highly successful.
Belize receives private gifts from well meaning people from abroad. We also receive some GRANTS from foreign institutions and even from the FAO in the United Nations. The main development work is done through expensive LOANS, selling out our future earnings, and hampering the present, by incurring an interest payment schedule in scarce foreign exchange, which we need to run the country, but is going to places like the IMF, World Bank and other lending banks. Our educational system is almost 90% driven by all kinds of religious cranks and cults, who build schools we cannot afford to do for ourselves.
Only the TAIWANESE MODEL of cooperative partnership in development bears fruit in any sort of progressive development sense. Our Foreign Minister urged the United Nations to restructure itself, along the TAIWANESE model of development aid.
The two points that Foreign Minister Sedi Elrington of Belize earned for the approval rating for his UDP government, is based on the speech he made at the United Nations.
The essence of which; was that the UNITED NATIONS needs to change it’s development modus operendi, from outright gifts to partnership style, development programs.
The role model for this is: the REPUBLIC OF TAWAIN development model, done in partnership with Belize for many years now. It has been highly successful.
Belize receives private gifts from well meaning people from abroad. We also receive some GRANTS from foreign institutions and even from the FAO in the United Nations. The main development work is done through expensive LOANS, selling out our future earnings, and hampering the present, by incurring an interest payment schedule in scarce foreign exchange, which we need to run the country, but is going to places like the IMF, World Bank and other lending banks. Our educational system is almost 90% driven by all kinds of religious cranks and cults, who build schools we cannot afford to do for ourselves.
Only the TAIWANESE MODEL of cooperative partnership in development bears fruit in any sort of progressive development sense. Our Foreign Minister urged the United Nations to restructure itself, along the TAIWANESE model of development aid.
Friday, October 1, 2010
NEWS ON BNE the Western Belize oil company.
BELIZE OIL FIELDS - MORE LIKE PONDS OF OIL THAN ANYTHING, OR SMALL LAKES!
Somebody sent me this interesting article. Don't know who wrote it, or where? But it reveals light on local TV and newspaper news as oil pioneer Shiela McAffrey in Belize, is accused of allegedly bouncing oil company cheques on the local scene. I found this article informative and interesting. We have been getting all kinds of gossip with this secretive company, registered in the small island nation of NEVIS in the Eastern Caribbean. The oil rigs are pumping about ten miles from my house. The oil is reputed to be running out by 2017 one Belize government official is credited with saying, in things to do with the economy and budget.
Yoga entrepreneur and mind coach Tony Quinn has developed a new career as an oilman – through his directorship of International Natural Energy. But the company has suffered a boardroom rift and shareholder protests, and Quinn himself is the focus of much of the controversy, writes PAUL CULLEN
IT WAS – and this is the only thing that everyone involved now agrees on – like a dream. A tiny bunch of Irish entrepreneurs in a far-off country try their luck in the oil-exploration business. They follow a hunch and strike liquid gold at the first attempt. Dirty black crude belches from a pipe in Central America, promising untold riches for dozens of investors. Industry money pours in and the impoverished locals share in the bonanza.
But maybe it was really a dream, or too good to be true. Today the original promoters are in conflict. Three of the five original directors are gone from the company, and one has died. Writs are flying. Allegations of covert surveillance and intimidation thicken the air. Some locals in tiny Belize are unhappy with their share of the windfall. And despite the millions earned in revenues, no dividend has been paid out to shareholders, apart from a tranche of loans advanced last Christmas.
And yet for one man this is really a dream come true: the one-time yoga guru, health-food entrepreneur, hypnotist and, latterly, business coach Tony Quinn. Best known to the public as the mind trainer of the boxing champion Steve Collins, Quinn has no background in the oil business and wasn’t involved in International Natural Energy when its founders struck oil. Yet today he is a director and owns a considerable shareholding. In 2008, this was worth an estimated €16 million, though it may be less now.
The unlikely oil baron lives in the Bahamas and rarely visits Ireland. To his devoted followers, many of whom have shelled out €18,500 to attend one of his Educo Mind Power seminars, or €63,500 for a higher-level seminar, Quinn was the inspiration for the oil find. To his detractors, who include former adherents, Quinn has attained a position of commercial power and been rewarded with thousands of shares for no clear reason.
The story of International Natural Energy (INE) begins with a partnership between two Northern women, Susan Morrice and Sheila McCaffrey. The pair met on the White House lawn in the mid-1990s, at one of Bill Clinton’s drives to promote investment in Northern Ireland, and teamed up to prospect in the Border counties.
McCaffrey, from Co Fermanagh, had a background in call centres; Morrice, a sister of the former Northern Ireland Assembly member Jane Morrice, was a geologist. They joined forces with an English drilling contractor, Paul Marriott, but found nothing of consequence in Ireland.
Morrice, who has lived in the US for years, then suggested looking for oil in Belize, and McCaffrey and Marriott agreed to give it a try.
Oil exploration requires buckets of money and the intensive application of science. The trio believed, however, that they had a trump card, in the form of mind-focus techniques learned at Quinn’s seminars.
“After understanding this, discovering oil in Belize suddenly seemed much more attainable,” Morrice wrote recently. “Tony showed us how to concentrate even more on our dream so that it stood out even stronger in our minds. The resulting certainty gave us energy, drive and conviction and drew success to us like a magnet.”
The two women turned to others who had attended Quinn’s seminars and persuaded them to invest. More than 300 people and their families stumped up amounts between about €40,000 and €200,000. Most were Irish and 90 per cent were “Educo-ists” who had been through the Mind Power seminars.
The government in Belize granted the company an exploration licence covering 190,000 hectares, but Belize Natural Energy, the INE subsidiary that would conduct the search, had the money to drill only two holes. As Morrice recalled: “Somewhere in this vast acreage we would have to choose where to drill two 20in, 4,000ft-deep holes with the slimmest chance of discovering oil – truly, a needle in a haystack.”
For 50 years the giants of the industry had drilled wells in Belize in a fruitless search for crude. Belize Natural Energy started drilling in the jungle in June 2005 and less than a month later discovered high-grade oil.
As Morrice told The Irish Times last week, oil companies expect to drill 10-15 exploration wells before finding anything, but the Irish found light crude on their first attempt.
So was it pure luck? Morrice says that she had a “tremendous sense of the presence of oil” in Belize and that after going to one of Quinn’s seminars she learned to hold to her belief “despite what everybody else said”.
Today the field in which oil was found is pumping 4,000-5,000 barrels a day and has reserves of almost 12 million barrels – this in a country that, with just 300,000 inhabitants, is the size of Munster. Crude oil now accounts for a quarter of Belize’s exports, and Belize Natural Energy is the single biggest contributor to the country’s tax revenues.
Company infighting started almost as soon as the size of the oil field was confirmed. There was friction among staff as the results of further drilling disappointed. Boardroom rows erupted over whether share ownership should be restricted to people who had been to the Educo Mind Power seminars. Unrest spilled into the shareholder body, and some started campaigning for greater transparency and the release of dividends.
McCaffrey was replaced as chief executive of Belize Natural Energy by a local businessman, and in 2007 she was removed altogether from the running of the company. Marriott resigned and another director, a French geologist named Jean Cornec, tried to sell up.
Trading in shares was suspended for a time as Morrice blamed personality issues for making her job more difficult. “Individual desires and personal egos were beginning to override the collective good of the company,” and “negative rumours” were undermining the share price, she told members.
Quinn was given 64,000 shares, amid arguments at board level about what, if anything, he should provide in return and about the legitimacy of his appointment as a director.
Morrice accepts Quinn wasn’t formally involved at the start but says the group would not have come together except for him. “The originators had all been to his seminar and understood what he meant about the workings of your mind. We wouldn’t have found oil if it were not for Tony. That’s why he was given a share of the company.” She adds: “Tony is ahead of his time. Look how he brought yoga to Ireland 10 years before it became the norm.”
Others are less positive about Quinn’s influence. George Hamilton, a small shareholder, believes Quinn was appointed in the hope that he could help find more oil. “The directors were in awe of him and believed that they had only been successful because of his Educo seminars,” he says. No new oil has been found in recent years, though Morrice says recent drillings could provide “good news”.
Mike Garde, director of Dialogue Ireland, an organisation that focuses on new religious movements, says it has dealt with more than 200 people with issues arising from their involvement with Quinn’s organisation. He says the cases involve allegations of “people’s loss of ability to think straight once their mind has been taken over”.
Morrice rejects any suggestion that she is in thrall to Quinn. “No, quite the opposite,” she responds. “People who attend his seminars are not likely to be influenced by others, because they understand the workings of their own minds.”
Quinn’s position on the board was secured after Cornec sold his shares on condition that he first recognised Quinn as a director. That deal is now the subject of US court proceedings, with Cornec claiming he is owed millions and International Natural Energy counter-claiming that it was entitled to stop payments because, allegedly, he broke an agreement not to “disparage” the company by making “negative remarks”.
Five years after oil was found the company has yet to pay a dividend. Dermot Bruton is a small shareholder who invested €20,000 in 2006. “I had a few bob at the time and was hearing about the oil company at the gym I go to,” he says. “Against my better nature I went on one of the seminars, so as to be able to buy the shares.”
He is now anxious to cash in his investment but can’t, having tried without success to sell his 90 shares for two and a half years. On several occasions the company has told him there are no names on the list of approved buyers. “I can’t sell up, I can’t get a return and I can’t get out.”
Hamilton is critical of the lack of information as well as the failure to pay a dividend. “There’s been no word of an agm this year, no accounts for last year and no up-to-date valuation of our shares.” He admits his €8,000 investment six years ago was a gamble and that he could have sold up a few years ago but didn’t when a second well was discovered. His shares were once valued at €120,000, he says, but are now worth “probably nothing”, because of the difficulty in selling them.
Morrice says the disgruntled shareholders are in a small minority. She points out that the company controls just 54 per cent of the oil field; the rest is owned by a US partner and the Belizean government. Money had to be borrowed to develop the field, and the banks involved won’t allow the payment of dividends at this stage, she says.
Last autumn Quinn’s appearance at the RDS, in Dublin, was marred by a picket manned by former followers and by members of Dialogue Ireland. As the internet hummed with the complaints of aggrieved shareholders, the company warned that those behind a campaign of “misinformation, negative publicity and personal harassment” would be pursued with the full weight of the law.
By now McCaffrey was suspended from her position as a director of International Natural Energy, and shareholders were warned about having contact with her. Her house in Belize was searched by police. Friends say she is currently examining her legal options.
Matters came to a head last September, when rebel shareholders tried to organise an extraordinary general meeting in Dublin. Lawyers for INE warned the group the meeting was illegal.
At an agm later in the month, photographs of those who attended the dissidents’ meeting were projected on a screen. Marriott and McCaffrey each circulated statements rejecting allegations made against them by the company.
The company announced a loan-release program for investors. Shareholders would be given loans against future profits rather than a dividend; the company said this was more tax efficient. But the loan was conditional on co-operation with the company’s “ongoing investigations into alleged misconduct by members”. Only shareholders held to be in good standing would qualify.
A number of shareholders have claimed to The Irish Times that they have been followed by a private investigator. Asked about this allegation, Morrice says it shows that a small group will do anything to undermine the company. “We will not stand for it. This is too important a company, not just for the members but for Belize.”
She acknowledges that photographs have been taken of people attending the meeting of dissident shareholders. “We got the photographs from members and put them up on the screen. I don’t know whether or not they were taken with their knowledge.” She said this was done because members wanted to know about the negativity that was preventing them selling their shares.
In a message to shareholders last October Tony Quinn urged them to “go after the millions and don’t bother with the pennies” and to end to the “noise” – or disagreements – within the company.
An €80 million deal with a potential investor broke down because of “the NOISE!”, he claimed. “Frankly we on the board cannot waste too much time dealing with the noise. It really is decision time for all of you.”
Morrice puts the discord down to the desire of a minority to “get money fast”. This group is “undermining” the company, thereby thwarting the efforts of small shareholders to trade their shares.
In a statement she said: “BNE and the country of Belize are going from strength to strength because our endeavors have yielded real and tangible benefits to the people and Government of Belize, as well as the members of the Company and our financial backers. Our strategy is supported by the vast majority of our investors . . . There is a small minority who do not agree with our approach for their own personal reasons and agenda.”
She also told The Irish Times the share valuation, which started at $15 and at one time soared to $400, had “plummeted” because of the resulting negative publicity.
Morrice also describes the loan-release programme as a creative and tax-efficient solution that is supported by 95 per cent of shareholders and that resulted in a payout this year of more than €7 million.
International Natural Energy is privately owned and incorporated in Nevis, a tiny Caribbean tax haven, making it difficult to obtain financial information. Morrice told members last January that members had realised profits of €15 million from an initial €4 million investment through sales of their shares.
Back in Belize there have been rumblings from opposition politicians, who claim the country should be getting a bigger share of the bonanza. Belize Natural Energy says the government’s cut is comparable with other “frontier oil” scenarios where costs and risks are high.
For now the stalemate continues. Morrice says the company takes the disputes very seriously. “This company is the backbone of Belize. We must have loyalty. These people trying to undermine it are a small group acting at the expense of the small shareholder.”
The company hasn’t communicated with shareholders since January. Its oil-prospecting concession runs out at the end of the year, although discussions with the Belizean government about a renewal are ongoing.
Tony Quinn is due back in Ireland next month, prompting speculation that an agm may be held shortly. The only certainty is that the oil keeps coming.
Larger than life: Tony Quinn's controversial career
Tony Quinn has been a familiar and controversial figure in Irish life for almost four decades, even though he has lived for years as a tax exile in the Bahamas.
His website claims he is “often credited” with bringing yoga to Ireland in 1971; by 1974, when he was interviewed by Niall Stokes in The Irish Times, his empire extended to 20 schools around the country. The schools were branded as teaching Tony Quinn’s yoga because “we didn’t want to be associated with any other type of yoga – Hindu or Tibetan or whatever”. Asked by Stokes how he learned yoga, Quinn replied: “I didn’t learn. I believe in reincarnation and I can remember past lives, and I believe I can remember the lessons from past lives.”
Bodybuilding was another passion, and Quinn claims to have won a string of titles, such as Mr Ireland and Mr Health Strength. In 1976 he opened his first health-food shop, on Eccles Street in Dublin, which survives today. Further shops followed around the country, as did a mail-order business.
By the 1980s he was a household name, thanks to the nationwide distribution of his Blueprint for Living newspaper, with its trademark emphasis on good news and positivity together with the promotion of vitamins and supplements. Quinn then studied hypnosis and neurolinguistic programming and was seen on The Late Late Show hypnotising patients who then underwent procedures without anaesthetic.
But his greatest moment came when Steve Collins took him on as a mind coach as the boxer challenged for the WBO middleweight fight against the holder, Chris Eubank. Collins took the title. Eubank later claimed he was “spooked” by the belief that Collins was hypnotised before he went into the ring. Collins and Quinn later parted company, and Collins revealed that he had paid his mentor more than €400,000 for his services.
Clients flocked to learn Quinn’s techniques in the years after the Collins fights, and he began holding large seminars promoting his Educo system of “mind technology”. In 1992 1,200 people paid almost €200 each to learn how to achieve their potential at a weekend seminar at the National Concert Hall. He moved his business to Jersey, and his home to the Bahamas, as the seminars became more elaborate. Two-week training sessions in Monaco, Egypt and other far-flung places cost €18,500 during the years of the Celtic Tiger, and the fee for higher-level seminars was more than €60,000.
Although he has always enjoyed adulation among supporters, Quinn has attracted much criticism over the past 40 years. Among the issues that have come under scrutiny are his claims to have healing powers, the fanatical devotion he enjoys from his closest confidants, the financial hardship endured by some of those who borrowed heavily to attend his seminars, and his qualifications.
Last year supporters of Dialogue Ireland, an organisation that gathers information on new religious movements, protested outside one of his seminars in Dublin. The group said it was concerned about personal and financial problems experienced by participants on previous seminars.
The recession appears to have blunted demand for Quinn’s seminars, which have dropped in price. Some of his acolytes have seen their business ventures take a turn for the worse, but the 62-year-old guru still counts himself a member of the super-rich, thanks to his incarnation as an oilman in Central America.
Attempts to contact Quinn over the past 10 days were unsuccessful.
_______________________
This email opinion was sent to me and is circulating on various Belize Listserve discussion groups within and outside of Belize. Have no idea if it is true or not?
"Here is what is behind the initiative to embarrass Sheila Macaferty. The original Irish Investors have to day not received any dividend payments in the face of over a billion dollars in revenues and hundreds of millions in profits. They have sued. Jean Cornec (geologist), one of the original 5 owners who sold his shares, after seeing very fishy things happening, has not been paid for his shares and he has also sued. This is a real hornets nest of intrigue and dishonesty with the people's oil, which shall slowly come to light."
Another question that came to light, is that Mark Espat ( a prominent politician ) is supposed to be a SHAREHOLDER OF THE SUCCESSFUL OIL COMPANY. I wonder how much he paid for his shares, as perhaps OTHER PUP Cabinet Ministers of the time, when this company started producing oil in Belize? I would hope the local investigative press would do some articles on local former PUP ministers owning shares in the oil company and tell us how much they paid for them?
Somebody sent me this interesting article. Don't know who wrote it, or where? But it reveals light on local TV and newspaper news as oil pioneer Shiela McAffrey in Belize, is accused of allegedly bouncing oil company cheques on the local scene. I found this article informative and interesting. We have been getting all kinds of gossip with this secretive company, registered in the small island nation of NEVIS in the Eastern Caribbean. The oil rigs are pumping about ten miles from my house. The oil is reputed to be running out by 2017 one Belize government official is credited with saying, in things to do with the economy and budget.
Yoga entrepreneur and mind coach Tony Quinn has developed a new career as an oilman – through his directorship of International Natural Energy. But the company has suffered a boardroom rift and shareholder protests, and Quinn himself is the focus of much of the controversy, writes PAUL CULLEN
IT WAS – and this is the only thing that everyone involved now agrees on – like a dream. A tiny bunch of Irish entrepreneurs in a far-off country try their luck in the oil-exploration business. They follow a hunch and strike liquid gold at the first attempt. Dirty black crude belches from a pipe in Central America, promising untold riches for dozens of investors. Industry money pours in and the impoverished locals share in the bonanza.
But maybe it was really a dream, or too good to be true. Today the original promoters are in conflict. Three of the five original directors are gone from the company, and one has died. Writs are flying. Allegations of covert surveillance and intimidation thicken the air. Some locals in tiny Belize are unhappy with their share of the windfall. And despite the millions earned in revenues, no dividend has been paid out to shareholders, apart from a tranche of loans advanced last Christmas.
And yet for one man this is really a dream come true: the one-time yoga guru, health-food entrepreneur, hypnotist and, latterly, business coach Tony Quinn. Best known to the public as the mind trainer of the boxing champion Steve Collins, Quinn has no background in the oil business and wasn’t involved in International Natural Energy when its founders struck oil. Yet today he is a director and owns a considerable shareholding. In 2008, this was worth an estimated €16 million, though it may be less now.
The unlikely oil baron lives in the Bahamas and rarely visits Ireland. To his devoted followers, many of whom have shelled out €18,500 to attend one of his Educo Mind Power seminars, or €63,500 for a higher-level seminar, Quinn was the inspiration for the oil find. To his detractors, who include former adherents, Quinn has attained a position of commercial power and been rewarded with thousands of shares for no clear reason.
The story of International Natural Energy (INE) begins with a partnership between two Northern women, Susan Morrice and Sheila McCaffrey. The pair met on the White House lawn in the mid-1990s, at one of Bill Clinton’s drives to promote investment in Northern Ireland, and teamed up to prospect in the Border counties.
McCaffrey, from Co Fermanagh, had a background in call centres; Morrice, a sister of the former Northern Ireland Assembly member Jane Morrice, was a geologist. They joined forces with an English drilling contractor, Paul Marriott, but found nothing of consequence in Ireland.
Morrice, who has lived in the US for years, then suggested looking for oil in Belize, and McCaffrey and Marriott agreed to give it a try.
Oil exploration requires buckets of money and the intensive application of science. The trio believed, however, that they had a trump card, in the form of mind-focus techniques learned at Quinn’s seminars.
“After understanding this, discovering oil in Belize suddenly seemed much more attainable,” Morrice wrote recently. “Tony showed us how to concentrate even more on our dream so that it stood out even stronger in our minds. The resulting certainty gave us energy, drive and conviction and drew success to us like a magnet.”
The two women turned to others who had attended Quinn’s seminars and persuaded them to invest. More than 300 people and their families stumped up amounts between about €40,000 and €200,000. Most were Irish and 90 per cent were “Educo-ists” who had been through the Mind Power seminars.
The government in Belize granted the company an exploration licence covering 190,000 hectares, but Belize Natural Energy, the INE subsidiary that would conduct the search, had the money to drill only two holes. As Morrice recalled: “Somewhere in this vast acreage we would have to choose where to drill two 20in, 4,000ft-deep holes with the slimmest chance of discovering oil – truly, a needle in a haystack.”
For 50 years the giants of the industry had drilled wells in Belize in a fruitless search for crude. Belize Natural Energy started drilling in the jungle in June 2005 and less than a month later discovered high-grade oil.
As Morrice told The Irish Times last week, oil companies expect to drill 10-15 exploration wells before finding anything, but the Irish found light crude on their first attempt.
So was it pure luck? Morrice says that she had a “tremendous sense of the presence of oil” in Belize and that after going to one of Quinn’s seminars she learned to hold to her belief “despite what everybody else said”.
Today the field in which oil was found is pumping 4,000-5,000 barrels a day and has reserves of almost 12 million barrels – this in a country that, with just 300,000 inhabitants, is the size of Munster. Crude oil now accounts for a quarter of Belize’s exports, and Belize Natural Energy is the single biggest contributor to the country’s tax revenues.
Company infighting started almost as soon as the size of the oil field was confirmed. There was friction among staff as the results of further drilling disappointed. Boardroom rows erupted over whether share ownership should be restricted to people who had been to the Educo Mind Power seminars. Unrest spilled into the shareholder body, and some started campaigning for greater transparency and the release of dividends.
McCaffrey was replaced as chief executive of Belize Natural Energy by a local businessman, and in 2007 she was removed altogether from the running of the company. Marriott resigned and another director, a French geologist named Jean Cornec, tried to sell up.
Trading in shares was suspended for a time as Morrice blamed personality issues for making her job more difficult. “Individual desires and personal egos were beginning to override the collective good of the company,” and “negative rumours” were undermining the share price, she told members.
Quinn was given 64,000 shares, amid arguments at board level about what, if anything, he should provide in return and about the legitimacy of his appointment as a director.
Morrice accepts Quinn wasn’t formally involved at the start but says the group would not have come together except for him. “The originators had all been to his seminar and understood what he meant about the workings of your mind. We wouldn’t have found oil if it were not for Tony. That’s why he was given a share of the company.” She adds: “Tony is ahead of his time. Look how he brought yoga to Ireland 10 years before it became the norm.”
Others are less positive about Quinn’s influence. George Hamilton, a small shareholder, believes Quinn was appointed in the hope that he could help find more oil. “The directors were in awe of him and believed that they had only been successful because of his Educo seminars,” he says. No new oil has been found in recent years, though Morrice says recent drillings could provide “good news”.
Mike Garde, director of Dialogue Ireland, an organisation that focuses on new religious movements, says it has dealt with more than 200 people with issues arising from their involvement with Quinn’s organisation. He says the cases involve allegations of “people’s loss of ability to think straight once their mind has been taken over”.
Morrice rejects any suggestion that she is in thrall to Quinn. “No, quite the opposite,” she responds. “People who attend his seminars are not likely to be influenced by others, because they understand the workings of their own minds.”
Quinn’s position on the board was secured after Cornec sold his shares on condition that he first recognised Quinn as a director. That deal is now the subject of US court proceedings, with Cornec claiming he is owed millions and International Natural Energy counter-claiming that it was entitled to stop payments because, allegedly, he broke an agreement not to “disparage” the company by making “negative remarks”.
Five years after oil was found the company has yet to pay a dividend. Dermot Bruton is a small shareholder who invested €20,000 in 2006. “I had a few bob at the time and was hearing about the oil company at the gym I go to,” he says. “Against my better nature I went on one of the seminars, so as to be able to buy the shares.”
He is now anxious to cash in his investment but can’t, having tried without success to sell his 90 shares for two and a half years. On several occasions the company has told him there are no names on the list of approved buyers. “I can’t sell up, I can’t get a return and I can’t get out.”
Hamilton is critical of the lack of information as well as the failure to pay a dividend. “There’s been no word of an agm this year, no accounts for last year and no up-to-date valuation of our shares.” He admits his €8,000 investment six years ago was a gamble and that he could have sold up a few years ago but didn’t when a second well was discovered. His shares were once valued at €120,000, he says, but are now worth “probably nothing”, because of the difficulty in selling them.
Morrice says the disgruntled shareholders are in a small minority. She points out that the company controls just 54 per cent of the oil field; the rest is owned by a US partner and the Belizean government. Money had to be borrowed to develop the field, and the banks involved won’t allow the payment of dividends at this stage, she says.
Last autumn Quinn’s appearance at the RDS, in Dublin, was marred by a picket manned by former followers and by members of Dialogue Ireland. As the internet hummed with the complaints of aggrieved shareholders, the company warned that those behind a campaign of “misinformation, negative publicity and personal harassment” would be pursued with the full weight of the law.
By now McCaffrey was suspended from her position as a director of International Natural Energy, and shareholders were warned about having contact with her. Her house in Belize was searched by police. Friends say she is currently examining her legal options.
Matters came to a head last September, when rebel shareholders tried to organise an extraordinary general meeting in Dublin. Lawyers for INE warned the group the meeting was illegal.
At an agm later in the month, photographs of those who attended the dissidents’ meeting were projected on a screen. Marriott and McCaffrey each circulated statements rejecting allegations made against them by the company.
The company announced a loan-release program for investors. Shareholders would be given loans against future profits rather than a dividend; the company said this was more tax efficient. But the loan was conditional on co-operation with the company’s “ongoing investigations into alleged misconduct by members”. Only shareholders held to be in good standing would qualify.
A number of shareholders have claimed to The Irish Times that they have been followed by a private investigator. Asked about this allegation, Morrice says it shows that a small group will do anything to undermine the company. “We will not stand for it. This is too important a company, not just for the members but for Belize.”
She acknowledges that photographs have been taken of people attending the meeting of dissident shareholders. “We got the photographs from members and put them up on the screen. I don’t know whether or not they were taken with their knowledge.” She said this was done because members wanted to know about the negativity that was preventing them selling their shares.
In a message to shareholders last October Tony Quinn urged them to “go after the millions and don’t bother with the pennies” and to end to the “noise” – or disagreements – within the company.
An €80 million deal with a potential investor broke down because of “the NOISE!”, he claimed. “Frankly we on the board cannot waste too much time dealing with the noise. It really is decision time for all of you.”
Morrice puts the discord down to the desire of a minority to “get money fast”. This group is “undermining” the company, thereby thwarting the efforts of small shareholders to trade their shares.
In a statement she said: “BNE and the country of Belize are going from strength to strength because our endeavors have yielded real and tangible benefits to the people and Government of Belize, as well as the members of the Company and our financial backers. Our strategy is supported by the vast majority of our investors . . . There is a small minority who do not agree with our approach for their own personal reasons and agenda.”
She also told The Irish Times the share valuation, which started at $15 and at one time soared to $400, had “plummeted” because of the resulting negative publicity.
Morrice also describes the loan-release programme as a creative and tax-efficient solution that is supported by 95 per cent of shareholders and that resulted in a payout this year of more than €7 million.
International Natural Energy is privately owned and incorporated in Nevis, a tiny Caribbean tax haven, making it difficult to obtain financial information. Morrice told members last January that members had realised profits of €15 million from an initial €4 million investment through sales of their shares.
Back in Belize there have been rumblings from opposition politicians, who claim the country should be getting a bigger share of the bonanza. Belize Natural Energy says the government’s cut is comparable with other “frontier oil” scenarios where costs and risks are high.
For now the stalemate continues. Morrice says the company takes the disputes very seriously. “This company is the backbone of Belize. We must have loyalty. These people trying to undermine it are a small group acting at the expense of the small shareholder.”
The company hasn’t communicated with shareholders since January. Its oil-prospecting concession runs out at the end of the year, although discussions with the Belizean government about a renewal are ongoing.
Tony Quinn is due back in Ireland next month, prompting speculation that an agm may be held shortly. The only certainty is that the oil keeps coming.
Larger than life: Tony Quinn's controversial career
Tony Quinn has been a familiar and controversial figure in Irish life for almost four decades, even though he has lived for years as a tax exile in the Bahamas.
His website claims he is “often credited” with bringing yoga to Ireland in 1971; by 1974, when he was interviewed by Niall Stokes in The Irish Times, his empire extended to 20 schools around the country. The schools were branded as teaching Tony Quinn’s yoga because “we didn’t want to be associated with any other type of yoga – Hindu or Tibetan or whatever”. Asked by Stokes how he learned yoga, Quinn replied: “I didn’t learn. I believe in reincarnation and I can remember past lives, and I believe I can remember the lessons from past lives.”
Bodybuilding was another passion, and Quinn claims to have won a string of titles, such as Mr Ireland and Mr Health Strength. In 1976 he opened his first health-food shop, on Eccles Street in Dublin, which survives today. Further shops followed around the country, as did a mail-order business.
By the 1980s he was a household name, thanks to the nationwide distribution of his Blueprint for Living newspaper, with its trademark emphasis on good news and positivity together with the promotion of vitamins and supplements. Quinn then studied hypnosis and neurolinguistic programming and was seen on The Late Late Show hypnotising patients who then underwent procedures without anaesthetic.
But his greatest moment came when Steve Collins took him on as a mind coach as the boxer challenged for the WBO middleweight fight against the holder, Chris Eubank. Collins took the title. Eubank later claimed he was “spooked” by the belief that Collins was hypnotised before he went into the ring. Collins and Quinn later parted company, and Collins revealed that he had paid his mentor more than €400,000 for his services.
Clients flocked to learn Quinn’s techniques in the years after the Collins fights, and he began holding large seminars promoting his Educo system of “mind technology”. In 1992 1,200 people paid almost €200 each to learn how to achieve their potential at a weekend seminar at the National Concert Hall. He moved his business to Jersey, and his home to the Bahamas, as the seminars became more elaborate. Two-week training sessions in Monaco, Egypt and other far-flung places cost €18,500 during the years of the Celtic Tiger, and the fee for higher-level seminars was more than €60,000.
Although he has always enjoyed adulation among supporters, Quinn has attracted much criticism over the past 40 years. Among the issues that have come under scrutiny are his claims to have healing powers, the fanatical devotion he enjoys from his closest confidants, the financial hardship endured by some of those who borrowed heavily to attend his seminars, and his qualifications.
Last year supporters of Dialogue Ireland, an organisation that gathers information on new religious movements, protested outside one of his seminars in Dublin. The group said it was concerned about personal and financial problems experienced by participants on previous seminars.
The recession appears to have blunted demand for Quinn’s seminars, which have dropped in price. Some of his acolytes have seen their business ventures take a turn for the worse, but the 62-year-old guru still counts himself a member of the super-rich, thanks to his incarnation as an oilman in Central America.
Attempts to contact Quinn over the past 10 days were unsuccessful.
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This email opinion was sent to me and is circulating on various Belize Listserve discussion groups within and outside of Belize. Have no idea if it is true or not?
"Here is what is behind the initiative to embarrass Sheila Macaferty. The original Irish Investors have to day not received any dividend payments in the face of over a billion dollars in revenues and hundreds of millions in profits. They have sued. Jean Cornec (geologist), one of the original 5 owners who sold his shares, after seeing very fishy things happening, has not been paid for his shares and he has also sued. This is a real hornets nest of intrigue and dishonesty with the people's oil, which shall slowly come to light."
Another question that came to light, is that Mark Espat ( a prominent politician ) is supposed to be a SHAREHOLDER OF THE SUCCESSFUL OIL COMPANY. I wonder how much he paid for his shares, as perhaps OTHER PUP Cabinet Ministers of the time, when this company started producing oil in Belize? I would hope the local investigative press would do some articles on local former PUP ministers owning shares in the oil company and tell us how much they paid for them?
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