Well, I wonder if PABN is sending a team down to Belize to set up a badly needed beer tent (Belikan, the scrumptious local brew no doubt), and start taking low interest rate mortgage applications. Maybe they might even throw in a couple of million shares with each application that gets filled out. That would be one way to increase the float and thereby the interest that this stock so badly needs.
Alternatively they could consider hiring some stock promoters. That would be a novel approach.
BELIZE CITY, Belize - The United States on Tuesday sent a disaster team to Belize as the Central American nation declared a curfew to stop looting after being pounded by fierce winds and rains from a weakening tropical depression.
Responding to appeals for help, the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) said a ground operations team, assembled from Miami and Costa Rica, will go to Belize City to assess damage local officials say will cost millions to repair.
Though Keith, a potentially devastating Category Four hurricane at its peak, was downgraded to a tropical depression on Tuesday, the death toll rose to 10 in Nicaragua.
Power lines were snapped and roofs ripped off in the tiny former British colony of Belize, and thousands were forced from their homes throughout the region as some 30 inches (76 cm) of rain fell since last Friday.
Belizean Prime Minister Said Musa said no casualties were reported but he declared parts of the country disaster areas.
``Belize has been spared the fatal effects of what could have been a devastating hurricane,'' Musa told the nation.
CURFEW TO STOP LOOTING
The prime minister said the army will join police in enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Belize district and appealed to residents not to loot abandoned or damaged buildings. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Keith, which once had 135 mph winds, was losing force and all storm watches and warnings were discontinued.
The center said, however, heavy rains could still produce ''life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.''
The U.S. AID, seven-member team was to carry emergency supplies for 1,000 people, including blankets, plastic sheeting, water jugs and some medicines.
It was not clear when the team would be able to reach Belize City, the main port and largest town with 60,000 inhabitants. But Musa said the airport was open to small aircraft.
Musa also said help was offered by Britain, Taiwan, the International Red Cross and others. Two British naval vessels, HMS Cardiff and RFA Black Rover, were expected to arrive on Thursday or on Friday to help relief efforts.
Formerly British Honduras, Belize with its population of 250,000 lies between Mexico and Guatemala. Its history has been scarred by hurricanes, including a powerful storm in 1961 that resulted in the capital being moved from Belize City to Belmopan.
Keith was one of the fiercest storms of the year but at midday the center of the depression was located inland over the Yucatan Peninsula about 55 miles (90 km) west of Chetumal, Mexico. It was moving west-northwest at about 6 mph with winds near 35 mph.
BELIZE MOPPING UP
Belize authorities said the areas hit hardest were San Pedro, a tourist resort on Ambergris Caye, and Caye Caulker, a tiny island 19 miles east of Belize City.
Officials said the weather was now calm enough to send boats out to pick up tourists who wanted to leave.
In Guatemala the government declared a red alert in the municipality of Melchor de Mencos on the Belize border.
Many communities had been cut off and officials feared a bridge linking Guatemala to Belize would soon collapse due to mounting debris.
In Nicaragua, where officials recalled the devastating passage in 1998 of Hurricane Mitch that killed 10,000 in Central America, authorities declared a state of emergency and said up to 10 people died in the nation's northwest.
Around 2,800 people were evacuated from their homes, President Arnoldo Aleman told local radio.
(Additional reporting by Greg Brosnan in Guatemala City)
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