Free Republic

I'm live at Freedom Fest's Global Financial Summit 2012 in the Bahamas. Trevor Bradley of Georgetown Trust joins me to discuss global banking jurisdictions. Georgetown Trust specializes in helping you obtain asset protection, management, and diversification. All of their work is offshore and is protected with respect to privacy and confidentiality. Trevor and I agree, Belize is one of the best banking jurisdictions out there. Belize has never had a banking failure in its history, and banks in Belize are regulated to keep a 24% liquidity rate all year round. You need to consider offshoring a portion of your wealth....

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...

Police say that they were patrolling on Fabers Road today when they conducted a search on a sewer waste site in the Dykes area. This led to the discovery of two sacks of cannabis; the sacks contained many smaller parcels of cannabis that had been neatly packed in black plastic bags. Police say that the total amount of the find is estimated to be 27 ¼ pounds, for a street value of $10,000. Police say that they also conducted a search on an abandoned lot in Hattieville yesterday. This search led to the discovery of an AK-47 rifle with a...

A jaguar that escaped from its cage at a Belize animal rescue center during Hurricane Richard has been blamed in the mauling death of a U.S. citizen whose body was found on Tuesday. The 4-year-old male jaguar named Max escaped when a tree fell on his cage on Sunday, the same day the Category 1 hurricane hit the country's Caribbean coast with howling winds and rain. Authorities found the victim's body near the animal center on Tuesday. It had bite marks on the forearm and neck, and the man had apparently been attacked the day before and dragged for some...

An American couple says the crocodile preserve they ran in Belize was burned down by a mob of locals who were apparently inspired by a psychic. Vincent and Cherie Rose, formerly of Aspen, Colo., said about 100 angry Mayans stormed their compound in Punta Gora over the weekend after a local psychic told them the Roses had kidnapped two local children and fed them to the crocs. "I'm going to get a lawyer and sue the Mayan village that's responsible for destroying our lives and our not-for-profit crocodile sanctuary," Rose told the Aspen Times. The newspaper said Thursday that the...

Jason and Elizabeth Pearce moved from Canada to Belize three years ago. They bought a piece of property on the sea. A year later, they built a house. Today, they live in a beautiful Santa Fe adobe-style home with gardens all around. The pair lives very comfortably, without wants or financial worries. They've had no trouble making friends in their new community because the folks in Belize speak English. They eat out three or four times a week. They barbecue lobster and filet mignon at home. They have reliable Internet to keep them connected to the outside world. By choice,...

Police were kept from the crime scene for roughly three hours while a mysterious smell was investigated by a hazmat teamA man covered in blood directed police to the 11th floor of the Miami Beach Resort late Saturday night, saying he had just witnessed the shooting of a friend. But after responding to a 911 call from the hotel on Collins Avenue around 10 p.m., authorities were interrupted on their way to the crime scene by an alarming and very strong odor. A hazmat team was dispatched, and an estimated 1,000 guests, many part of a wedding party underway on...

'Rogue' internet firm 3FN shut down An internet firm linked to many of the internet's criminal gangs has been shut down. The US Federal Trade Commission said Belize-based 3FN aided gangs that ran botnets, carried out phishing attacks and traded in images of child abuse. The servers and net hardware of 3FN have been seized and are due to be sold off as the firm is dismantled. The operators of 3FN must also pay back $1.08m (£750,000 ) they are reputed to have made by hosting criminal sites. Servers seized The FTC began its legal action against 3FN in...

Note: The following text is a quote: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEThursday, December 17, 2009 Guyanese National Charged with Smuggling Indian Nationals to the United States A Guyanese national has been indicted on charges of conspiracy and alien smuggling in connection with her role in the smuggling or attempted smuggling of four Indian nationals to the United States. Annita Devi Gerald, aka Annita Rampersad, 52, was charged in a nine-count indictment returned yesterday by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Texas. Gerald was arrested by ICE special agents in Houston on Nov. 17, 2009, and has been held without...

November 05, 2009, 0:00 a.m. Small MiracleHow one tiny, endangered nation became an economic giant. By Clifford D. May People forget how small Israel is. Its entire population is a little more than 7 million — smaller than Lima, Peru. Its land area is about 8,000 square miles, smaller than New Jersey or Belize. By comparison, Jordan, its neighbor to the east, occupies 35,000 square miles; Egypt, its neighbor to the West, covers 386,000 square miles. There are more than 20 Arab states, which have a combined population of 325 million, and more than 50 majority-Muslim states, which have...

Mexico City - Mexico plans to begin construction this year on a space port to send satellites aloft, an official said Monday. The facility will be located in the southern state of Quintana Roo on the border with Belize, said state planning minister Jose Alberto Alonso Ovando. The location was chosen after extensive studies in part because of its proximity to the Equator, he said in an interview. Late last year, the Mexican National Congress approved the founding of a national space agency, Aexa. The agency's headquarters will be located in the state of Hidalgo from where it will oversee...

January 22, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/January/09-crm-060.html Foreign National Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Smuggling East Africans to the United States WASHINGTON – A Ghanian man was sentenced today in the District of Columbia for his role in smuggling East Africans into the United States, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Rita M. Glavin, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeffrey A. Taylor and Acting Assistant Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) John Torres announced. Mohammed Kamel Ibrahim, a/k/a Hakim, 27, a native of Ghana and naturalized citizen of Mexico,...

Please pray for our Missionaries in Punta Gorda,Belize. This will be the second hurricane they will have endured, but this one will be ALOT worse that the 1st. Pray for all in the area that GOD will provide shelter, comfort and relief during this terrible time of trouble!

Doctors thought the strange, bleeding bumps on Aaron Dallas' head might be from gnat bites or shingles. Then the bumps started moving. A doctor found five active bot fly larvae living beneath the skin atop Dallas' head. ... Dallas' wife, Midge Dallas, teased him about it. "I told him, 'I will love you through your maggots,'" she told the newspaper. But Dallas saw little to laugh about. "It's much funnier to everyone else," he said. "It makes my stomach turn over. It was cruel."

A Seattle man convicted of supplying Taliban fighters with cash and computers returned to federal court Tuesday to face charges that he violated his parole by traveling overseas with a false Mexican passport. James Ujaama denied the multiple federal counts that could land him back in prison for two years. Arrested in Belize one month ago, Ujaama had only four months left on his parole stemming from the 2003 conviction. His attorney, Peter Offenbecher, said he hadn't yet gathered all the information that led to his client's arrest. "I'm investigating the facts to determine the appropriate course of action," he...

Ancient Canoe Found by Wichita State University Professor on Belize Research Dig WICHITA, Kan., Oct. 10 (AScribe Newswire) -- An ancient canoe -- more than likely the oldest canoe ever uncovered in Mesoamerica -- was discovered this summer in a cliff-top cave in Belize by an excavation team being led by Wichita State University archaeologist Keith Prufer. Prufer estimates that the canoe very likely dates to 200 to 800 AD, based on previous findings in the area. Carbon testing is currently being wrapped up to confirm that the canoe is indeed the oldest found in Mesoamerica, the geographical region from...

Madrid, Aug 26 (EFE).- The decline of the Maya civilization began some 1,100 year ago when millions of Indians working on the contruction of tall pyramidal temples and palaces learned that their kings weren't gods, Spanish anthropologist Andres Ciudad told EFE. The collapse of this culture with its brilliant mathematicians, astronomers and engineers, came when monarchs stopped being immortal in the eyes of their subjects, said Ciudad, who is deputy dean of the Faculty of Geography and History at Madrid's Universidad Complutense. The inhabitants of Mayan lands, which extended through much of what is now Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Honduras...

(English-language translation) [Guatemalan] Foreign Minister Jorge Briz expressed surprise yesterday over the attitude Belize adopted when it asked member nations of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) not to support Guatemala in its efforts towards [obtaining a] seat in the United Nations Security Council. "The Belize Ambassador [Assad Shoman] made the commitment to us that he would not lobby against Guatemala or promote Venezuela's membership before the members of Caricom," Briz told the Associated Press upon hearing the news about the Belizean government's lobbying with Caribbean leaders during the meeting held in Guyana this week. Belize and Guatemala are involved in a...

TWO Irish women have defied the sceptics by striking oil in a remote wilderness. Sheila McCaffery and Susan Morrice did what major oil companies have failed to do over the past 50 years when they discovered oil reserves in the small South American state of Belize. The Northern Irish pair’s discovery has already seen them hailed as heroines in the country — which has a population of just 290,000. And it comes despite the world’s major oil companies having spent millions of pounds in a fruitless half-century long search in the area. Enniskillen-born Sheila McCaffery and Susan Morrice from Belfast...

Trans-border aggression:Tourist raped, another shot near Caracol! Friday, 19 May 2006 By Ann-Marie Williams - News Editor Decommissioned military men from Guatemala’s scaled-down army are believed to be the ones responsible for the recent series of armed attacks against tourists visiting archaeological sites and other destinations in the Cayo District. The situation has become so bad that the United States Embassy in Belize issued a travel advisory cautioning Americans to stay away from the Cayo district. Days after this caution, a commando force of brigands ambushed three tourist groups on their way from Caracol, stripping each tourist of money and...