Police in Guatemala Search Party Offices of Progressive Presidential Candidate

Guatemalan agents and police raided the offices of the Seed Movement of presidential candidate Bernardo Arévalo on Friday as part of an investigation into alleged wrongdoing in the party’s formation.

  • Jul 21, 2023
  • 3:53 PM

Center-Left Surprise in Guatemalan Elections

Left-of-center opposition legislator Bernardo Arévalo shattered all forecasts, seizing second place in Guatemala’s presidential elections on Sunday and advancing to an August runoff. Arévalo will face political boss Sandra Torres.

  • Jun 26, 2023
  • 12:28 PM

FROM EL FARO ENGLISH: Mild Reaction by US to Zamora Sentence in Guatemala

After Zamora’s sentence, Brian A. Nichols, Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, stated that “This verdict threatens independent journalism and freedom of expression in Guatemala.”

  • Jun 16, 2023
  • 1:33 PM

Guatemala Sentences Renowned Journalist José Rubén Zamora to Six Years in Money Laundering Case

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — A Guatemalan tribunal sentenced newspaper founder José Rubén Zamora to six years in prison Wednesday in a money laundering case, concluding a trial that press freedom groups decried as a political persecution aimed at silencing a critical voice.

  • Jun 14, 2023
  • 6:01 PM

Where Is Central America on the Political Map?

Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador’s nods to Russia and China are often read as a jealousy game in the U.S. bilateral relationship. Regional leaders claim sovereignty and multipolarity as their mantra. Experts say that non-ideological short-term calculus and a search for impunity are instead guiding their actions.

  • May 1, 2023
  • 2:13 PM

Taiwan Jilted by Central America

The president of Taiwan traveled today to Guatemala to shore up its last allies in the isthmus after Honduras decided to shift its support to China earlier this month. While the U.S. warns of Beijing’s growing influence in Central America, the region is not buying the Cold War framing.

  • Mar 31, 2023
  • 5:14 PM

Guatemala: Electoral Officials Clear Path for Conservative Candidate, Daughter of Ex-Dictator

After candidate registration for Guatemala’s June elections closed this weekend, electoral authorities, toeing the line for far-right political operatives, have spuriously excluded two presidential tickets, clearing the way for conservative Zury Ríos.

  • Mar 28, 2023
  • 3:40 PM

Indigenous Farmworker Leader Bids for Guatemala Presidency

An Indigenous female farmworker leader hopes to become Guatemala’s next president. But Thelma Cabrera faces an uphill fight after the country’s Electoral Tribunal refused to allow her to register her candidacy.

  • Mar 16, 2023
  • 10:49 AM

Brownlisted: Putting the ‘Con’ in ‘Congressman’

A wrap-up of the most important and interesting Latino news items from the past week

  • Jan 18, 2023
  • 5:06 PM

From EL FARO ENGLISH: Central America Journalists Create United Front Against State-Sponsored Attacks

The Network of Central American Journalists hopes to protect independent news media from state-sponsored attacks, spur regional collaboration, and increase the international visibility of press freedom strained by criminalization and public and private-sector censorship.

  • Nov 9, 2022
  • 2:21 PM

EL FARO ENGLISH: Who Will Inherit Giammattei’s Power in Guatemala?

Nine months before the presidential election, the country’s right-wing regime is fracturing into rivaling projects as progressive groups discuss the elusive idea of a united candidacy. Meanwhile, electoral authorities are indulging the pre-campaigning by the ruling party and top conservative Zury Ríos.

  • Oct 5, 2022
  • 5:18 PM

‘¡No Nos Callarán!’: Guatemala Continues Attacks on Journalists, Press Freedom

“¡No nos callarán!” —They will not shut us up!— chanted dozens of concerned citizens and journalists outside the Palace of Justice in Guatemala City on Monday morning as they waited for the hearing of prominent journalist José Rubén Zamora.

  • Aug 3, 2022
  • 3:57 PM

Guatemala Arrests Migrant Smugglers Wanted by the US

Guatemalan authorities arrested more than a dozen alleged members of a migrant smuggling network near the shared border with Mexico early Tuesday, including four sought by the United States in connection with the death of a migrant in Texas in 2021.

  • Aug 2, 2022
  • 11:55 AM

From EL FARO ENGLISH: Just How Powerful Are Guatemalan Drug Rings?

The Huehuetenango-based crime ring Los Huistas is trafficking cocaine produced by Colombian FARC dissidents for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel through the turf of its rival, the Sinaloa Cartel. The arrests of colluding Guatemalan military officers and the Huistas’ family ties to legislators beg the question of just how far the drug trade has penetrated the government and politics.

  • Jul 8, 2022
  • 2:07 PM

From EL FARO ENGLISH: Central America Talks Back to Biden

Central America, in Brief: After the no-show of the Northern Triangle presidents at the Summit of the Americas, their foreign ministers gave strident speeches defying Joe Biden and named their countries’ terms for U.S. and regional engagement.

  • Jun 15, 2022
  • 1:19 PM

From EL FARO ENGLISH: Summit in LA Showcases Biden’s Central America Problem

Four days before the Summit of the Americas begins on June 6 in Los Angeles, the U.S. is short on friends in the Northern Triangle. Even Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, once President Joe Biden’s ally of last resort, said he will not attend.

  • Jun 2, 2022
  • 1:23 PM

From EL FARO ENGLISH: Top Anti-Mafia Judge Exiled From Guatemala

The judge in possession of incendiary testimony accusing President Alejandro Giammattei of illicit campaign finance announced she has left the country for exile in the United States, saying she feared an assassination attempt from the Guatemalan government.

  • Mar 22, 2022
  • 1:08 PM

From EL FARO ENGLISH: Feminism Under Fire in Central America

Guatemala marked International Women’s Day by voting to increase sentences for abortion and outlaw sex ed. El Salvador announced plans to repeal the violence against women law. There was no 8M march in Nicaragua and key feminist leaders remain in prison. Only Honduras’ first female president stepped up this week by proposing a law against gender violence and weighing lifting a ban on emergency contraception.

  • Mar 14, 2022
  • 11:00 AM

From EL FARO ENGLISH: The Mine That Coopted the Guatemalan Government

A leak of more than eight million company documents revealed how a mining company operating illegally in a Maya Q’eqchi’ town near the Caribbean coastline bought local police and Indigenous leaders, spied on journalists, classified residents as allies or enemies, and sought to expel communities from ancestral land.

  • Mar 9, 2022
  • 2:33 PM

Guatemalan President Funded Campaign with Bribes, Says Witness

An El Faro investigation revealed that a former confidant of President Alejandro Giammattei testified under oath that the Guatemalan leader negotiated a bribe of $2.6 million USD from construction firms to fund his 2019 campaign.

  • Feb 15, 2022
  • 11:30 AM

From EL FARO ENGLISH: US Treasury Says Salvadoran Government Formed Pact With MS-13

As world leaders met for Biden’s Democracy Summit, the U.S. delivered a major blow to the Bukele administration by sanctioning senior officials for leading covert gang negotiations and accusing his chief of cabinet of spearheading a “multiple-ministry, multi-million dollar corruption scheme.”

  • Dec 10, 2021
  • 9:27 AM

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