| San Pedro Daily |  |
Friday,
January 8,
2010 Belize's Daily- 7 Days a Week |
 |
 |
 |
ISLAND
SUPERMARKET "Best Prices - Best Quality - Best Service" Phone: 501-226-2972 or 501-226-2973 FREE DELIVERY IN TOWN |
 |
| |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
US Ambassador to Hand over Equipment
to Minister of National Security
On Friday January 8, 2010, U.S. Ambassador
Vinai Thummalapally will
hand over US$63,000 worth of equipment purchased through the U.S.
Government’s Merida Initiative to Minister of National Security, Hon.
Carlos Perdomo.
The Merida Initiative is a multi-year regional effort to strengthen the capacities of the governments in Central America, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti to combat the violent national and transnational gangs. The Initiative is also directed at fighting organized narcotics trafficking organizations that plague the region. Equipment to be turned over on Friday includes bullet-proof vests, handcuffs, cameras, binoculars, night vision equipment, metal detectors, metal scanners, video projectors, computers, flashlights, and Global Positioning System receivers. This equipment will be distributed to more than 20 branches of the Belize Police Department and the Belize Central Prison. This equipment comprises only a fraction of the equipment and training that is being provided to the Government of Belize through Merida Initiative funding. To date, more than US$500,000 of equipment and training has been ordered through the Merida Initiative. Belize is expected to receive a total of US$1.5 million from the agreement. When the Guardian asked Ambassador Thummalapally if he thought the funds allotted to Belize was adequate to accomplish the goal of the Initiative, he said that because of Belize’s geographical position in regards to drug trafficking - “the funds to Belize can only increase. Guardian FIRST FUEL PRICE INCREASE OF THE
YEAR GOES INTO EFFECT
The price of regular and premium fuel
increased nominally
overnight
and in these dire economic times it means that motorists will once
again have to dig deeper into their pockets to keep their vehicles
filled. It’s a slight raise of about twenty-five cents per gallon
nevertheless the increase adds to the already unbearable gas pain
consumers complain about. This morning we visited a few service
stations around town and what we discovered was nothing
groundbreaking. Yesterday the pumps read $8.72 and $8.97 to the
gallon
of regular and premium respectively; today fuel is being metered at
$8.92 and $9.20. So what’s the vibe at the pumps upon learning of
the
increase?
Customer two I wasn’t aware that it had gone up but it means that you are going to have to dive deeper into your pocket because money is hard to come by now. I have to live with it because there is nothing that I can do about it. I do not like it though. Also affected by the new increase is the tourism industry. Rise in the cost of fuel translates to higher prices for tour operations. Customer one Whenever it comes to tourists the price of the tour goes up, food prices go up; everything goes up. The government needs to work with the tourism sector to give tour guides an incentive or lower the cost of fuel a little bit. This is so that we can have cheaper tours and much more tours for the day. During the first year of the Barrow administration there was talk of regulating the price hike on fuel. Since then prices are inching closer to the ten dollar mark; relatively expensive considering the sharp decrease in 2008. Customer one Right now it is ridiculous. We have an oil industry and we are not getting anything in return. I think the government if failing big time in that aspect. For some there is the belief that there isn’t enough effort being placed in minimizing the cost of fuel. Customer two Seeing the economic times that we are in, they are not trying hard enough. Something could be worked out somewhere but I guess they have their difficulties anyway. As part of Petro Caribe Belize imports fuel wholesale from Venezuela and prices fluctuate based on acquisition costs. Love FM Measuring the quality of education in
schools
What defines the quality of education in
schools? That is a question
that the Ministry of Education is grappling with. Well, on Wednesday,
the Quality Assurance and Development Services, an arm of the Ministry,
launched a pilot project to evaluate the curriculum and the management
of schools. Parents and the community will be partnering with QUADS and
UNICEF is providing funding for the project which will hopefully
provide answers to improve the quality of education provided in
schools. Duane Moody has a report on this new initiative.
Duane Moody, Reporting Current indicators are showing that there are deficiencies in the education system and as much as about fifty percent of students repeat during primary school years. Nelson Longsworth, Dir, Quality Assurance and Development Services At primary there are eight years, only forty-six percent of children will go through those eight years without repeating or without exiting at some point. So that definitely tells you that something is going wrong because schooling should be for children and I think it is starting to look as though only selected children should participate. I think it speaks to quality, it speaks to some of the practices that we have become too comfortable with. By and large, I think the accountability has been very lacking to a large degree over the years. The initiative is focused on child friendly schools and according to Minister of Education, Patrick Faber, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is providing an initial funding of two hundred thousand dollars to pilot the project in ten schools five in Belize City and five from Toledo. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education This is the money that we are using to make proper plans and this workshop is one such activity. What the money is going to be spent on, we can’t really say until we hear from the stakeholders what they believe should be the primary things, but of course the environment of schools I’m sure will come up. Children need to be in a space that they believe they are comfortable, they believe they are safe and those issues that we have seen come up over and over again in our schools here in Belize. Along with the launch of the pilot project, stakeholders met to come up with what they believe were the elements that define sound education. And while students believed that there is need for an expanded curriculum, others feel that wider participation is necessary, especially from parents. Jamuna Vasquez, Teacher/Principal Teachers need more resources and there needs to be a wider support system. I think it’s high time that we make education a community effort and not just a school, a teacher, a classroom effort. I think that parents are so, so key and are many times left out. Risela Magana, Parent As a parent, the best, but we cannot do that unless we work along with the teachers and at the children at school and at home. Frederick Gordon,Student, Gwen Lizarraga High School Variety is important because nobody is the same, nobody wants to do the same thing and the more you have means more jobs and you can help to better the economy and to have a more stabilized foundation rather than to have people on the streets or corrupted minds to do the wrong thing. When the new improvements kick in, schools will be evaluated to determine the state of finances, curriculum and managements. CH5 Healthy Living has answers
for the sleep deprived 
We are pleased to be back with Healthy
Living and in this edition;
we tackle an issue that quite likely affected many during the holidays.
With the number of social activities and the time spent on
preparations, quite a number of persons lost hours of sleep. But there
are many other factors that contribute to sleep deprivation. And can we
catch up? Here is what the experts say.
Marleni Cuellar, Reporting A good sound sleep is what most of us look forward to at the end of each day with the hope of waking up feeling well rested. For those of us who have had a late night or early morning, we fully understand what happens to our body without sufficient sleep. Inadequate rest can affect the body in many ways. It’s all dependent on how sleep deprived you may be. Dr. John Sosa, Neurologist All of us are somewhat chronically sleep deprived we live in a fast paced society even in Belize. So what happens we’re more aggressive during the day basically because we’re not well rested? Basically, you can be acutely or chronically sleep deprived. Acutely means that a whole night you work but you do that every now and again and basically no rest and the next day you feel tired and sleepy. When it comes to chronic deprivation, very frequently they don’t sleep at night for whatever reason and then in the daytime they don’t function normally and so the chronic one is more of a problem for people. This lack of rest can cause serious health problems that affect the body both physically and mentally. Dr. John Sosa What happens is that it depresses your immune system among other things. So if you depress your immune system you get ill very easily so everything that comes along you pick up because your body is run down. You have some people who just can’t sleep for whatever reason some people are born that way with 2-3 hours of sleep at night they’re totally fine. But then they get into the habit of not really sleeping. They sleep 1-2 hours and then they get sleep deprived. You have those people who need a little bit more normal 8 or 9 hours and they don’t get this and then what happens is that for example you fall asleep on the job if that job for example is driving then it is very dangerous and you don’t perform to the level that you should perform because your reflexes, speed of thinking, the way you respond to people all that goes bad; it gets very slow. You get what we call Bradykinetic. So you get very slow in thinking and in movement and that affects your living. A person who is overwhelmed with stress may not be getting sufficient sleep as well as someone who maybe ill and need to use the restroom several times for the night. But chronic sleep deprivation may be a result of other health conditions. Dr. John Sosa First off there are certain reasons why you cannot sleep; health reasons. The first one is being overly obese that cause problems with your breathing and if you can’t breathe well or you start breathing intermittently at night. You wake up and that affects your sleep. We call that sleep apnea and so you have to have that checked out. If you get a person who without sleep for 11 to 12 days that person will die even if you feed them. They’ve done experiments in World War 2 in Germany, some experiments in the 40’s and the 50’s with people, unethical but they did it. And they found out that without sleep they die. So all of us have to sleep. All of us are in a sense built differently. Normally all adults should sleep 8- 9 hours and the younger we get the more we sleep so for example teenagers should sleep nine to ten, younger kids around ten and if you’re a younger kid you sleep half of the time or half the day. As for catching up on sleep the night after, Think again. The only way to recover is to return to your normal sleeping hours. Dr. John Sosa Unfortunately, you never catch up because what can happen is if you sleep too much you also have a problem. You can have headaches and feel very fatigued because you overslept and your body doesn’t respond well because you’re body has been use to a certain number of hours. So if you sleep well the night before basically just try to sleep your normal number of hours as you have before and eventually when you do that enough day until you get well rested. It’s not that you’re catching up because you’re not sleeping more but you get well rested. Other ways to ensure a good night’s rest is to avoid stimulants at night, don’t eat too late to avoid discomfort, ensure a good sleep environment, exercise and eat healthy. CH5 NOTICES
&
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
|
|
      
 www.grandcaribe.com debbiewade@gmail.com
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
© SAN PEDRO DAILY, PO Box 45, San Pedro Town, Belize. Inquiries to editor@sanpedrodaily.com |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
