SAN PEDRO DAILY, September 8, 2007,Belize,News,Features,Newspapers,Information,Resource,Caribbean,Ambergris Caye

Wind of change in hurricane paths: Meteorologists monitoring unusual pattern

Regional weather forecasters are keeping their eyes on a recent trend which saw intense hurricanes forming or tracking a more southerly direction than was the norm, a top meteorologist has disclosed.
Carlos Fuller, the deputy director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, described the southern hurricane activity as part of a "strange" weather pattern.
"About 10 years ago, we saw one develop in the south Atlantic where your professor would tell you that never occurs.
"Unfortunately, the two hurricanes have been Category Five hurricanes, they made landfall as Category Five hurricanes. It is the first time in history and we have data going back to 1885; this has never happened," the meteorologist said.
Fuller said a high-pressure system, known as the Bermuda High, kept both 'Dean' and 'Felix' on a westerly track.
"We can start to pray that the Bermuda High will weaken so that the systems that do form, and they will form, will go more into the Atlantic as they did in the past.
"The one inhibiting factor that could occur would be if, for example, an El Ni�o were to develop quickly in the Pacific, which would then tend to move the activity more into the Pacific than the Atlantic, but we are certainly not seeing that right now.
"So the outlook is right now for people to keep the plywood that you've been using and look out. We could easily get a third threat," he told a local television station.
He said extreme hurricanes like 'Dean' and 'Felix' were part of a period of high activity, which began back in 1995, and was expected to last foranother 20 to 25 years.
"So we have several more years of this to occur before we go back into a lower cycle," he said.
Fuller said 'Dean' and 'Felix' also surprised weather experts with their rapid intensification and speed, but attributed this to warmer land and sea temperatures.
"If the Caribbean is warmer than it normally is, then you would expect stronger hurricanes and that is exactly what occurred in the Caribbean," he said. Read More

Senate Passes
Petroleum Revenue Fund Bill

The Petroleum Revenue Management Fund Bill – by all accounts it’s a model piece of legislation designed to keep Politicians and their exigencies away from precious petroleum revenue. And even though the Opposition cried that it had not been consulted sufficiently, the House approved it last week and today every Senator spoke favorably of it. Leader of government business Dickie Bradley said it protects what is priceless and Business Senator Godwin Hulse says he wishes there were more legislation like it.
Senator Richard “Dickie” Bradley,
“We don’t have a lot of things in Belize. We have the barrier reef, we have Blue Hole, we have wonderful mountains, we have the best people in the world and we now have oil to add to that. We need to protect it. Just like how you want to protect baboons and protect Blue Hole, that needs to be protected, let us protect the money.”
Senator Godwin Hulse,
“I wish that the protection and the layers of security embodied therein were practiced with respect to the consolidated revenue fund which this year topped $678.5 million. Those levels of security built into this would not know the word corruption, mismanagement, mishandling of funds, those words would not be in our vocabulary at all and perhaps we would have been rivaling Singapore but its an important start because it sets out a precedent which I am sure will find its way into legislation dealing with finance in this country. And so when I read it, I felt a little happy because the work I’ve been doing over many many many years, my prime focus on accountability, is captured in this document.”
And while he later said he loved the bill, Hulse worried that for all its protections it makes no provisions to ensure that Belize earns a fair share from petroleum. He also said that it makes no provision for interest returns which are remitted and can go into the largely un-regulated consolidated revenue fund. Read More

OAS meeting of friends of Belize and Guatemala gets progress report

A progress report on the project to resettle the Santa Rosa community of Guatemalans living in a part of the Adjacency Zone administered by Belize was delivered Friday at a meeting of the Friends of Belize and Guatemala, convened by Secretary General José Miguel Insulza at the OAS headquarters.
Secretary General Insulza described the resettlement of the community of Santa Rosa to Guatemalan territory—the topic of the meeting of countries forming the Group of Friends of Belize-Guatemala—as “the last remaining material obstacle before we directly move into the substantive issues.” He also thanked the Group of Friends for their invaluable support for the process.
In his report, the OAS Secretary General’s special representative for Belize and Guatemala, Raúl Lago, highlighted the progress made in the Santa Rosa resettlement project. He made mention of a framework agreement signed in September 2005, which also includes provisions for confidence-building measures between the neighboring countries. Included in the progress report as well are such matters as the purchase of land to which the community is to be resettled, as well as the phases of the project and the related budget.
During the meeting, Guatemala’s Permanent Representative to the OAS, Ambassador Francisco Villagrán, and the Interim Representative of Belize, Nestor Mendez, expressed appreciation for the OAS’ role in this process, and thanked the Group of Friends for their support. Mendez also stressed the urgent need for central aspects of this Santa Rosa resettlement project to be concluded ahead of elections in both countries.
In this process of negotiation between Belize and Guatemala, the OAS through its Fund for Peace, facilitates the negotiation and supports confidence-and-security-building measures between both countries. This Fund is administered by the Department of Sustainable Democracy and Special Missions, which falls under the OAS Secretariat for Political Affairs. Read More

NOTICES/LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
This is my simple religion. There is
no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own
brain, our own heart is our temple;
the philosophy is kindness
HH the Dalai Lama

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