Tegucigalpa, Oct 14 — Amnesty International presented a report last Friday in Honduras that puts much of the blame for the worsening refugee crisis in Central America on the governments of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Honduras home owners are vulnerable to gang extortion, photo for illustration. "Although countries like Mexico and the U.S.A. are utterly failing to protect Central Am...

CHAPADA DOS GUIMARAES, Brazil — Maia grunts and nervously moves her huge body back and forth while being released from a transport container to a new home. Here, there are no gawking crowds for the Asian elephant that has spent her life in captivity. There are no blows from bull hooks, no one demanding tricks like people did when she was in the circus. Wikimedia Commons Instead, the first e...

By Wendy Anders Source: United Travelers using a flexible search feature on the United Airlines site came up with a slew of low round-trip fares from different U.S. cities. The low fares were found for dates between Wednesday, October 26 and Tuesday, November 1, 2016. A 10-day advance purchase is required for the tickets, said Airfarewatchdog.com. Some of the low fares found to and fr...

Thomson Reuters Foundation/by Anastasia Moloney - Gang violence has become so deadly in parts of Central America that many people are living in what is a war zone, Amnesty International said on Friday, adding that some migrants who have fled danger are killed within weeks of being deported home. Every year violence at the hands of gang members drives tens of thousands of people, including child...

Asuncion, Oct. 13 — Representatives of political parties from 34 Latin American countries have gathered in Paraguay to articulate a shared vision against the "resurgence of neoliberalism and authoritarianism" in the region. Copppal plenary session in Paraguay, Oct. 13, 2016, Facebook post. Paraguay's former president, Fernando Lugo, made those remarks Thursday at the start of the 34th Perma...

Asuncion, Oct. 12 — Paraguayan Indians on Wednesday expressed their rejection of an Oct. 12 national holiday marking the anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas and also denounced the expulsion of indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands. Pai Tavytera indigenous in Paraguay, Wikipedia Leaders of 75 Indian communities who are part of the Coordinating Body of Indigen...

REUTERS- Home to the vast Amazon, Brazil has reduced its deforestation rate by more than 70 percent since 2003, but Latin America's largest country is still losing the equivalent of two football fields of rainforest every minute. The country aims to reduce net new deforestation to zero by 2030. Key tools in the fight are new satellite monitoring technologies, rural titling schemes to encoura...

By Wendy Anders Cocaine trafficking, Costa Rica Costa Rica’s drug control police completed the bust of a drug ring based out of southern Costa Rica with nine arrests yesterday in different parts of the country, reported the Public Security Ministry. Three other members of the group were previously arrested, two in 2015 and one last month. Research conducted by the drug police reveals ...

Guatemala City, Oct. 8 — Some 800,000 young people in Guatemala neither work nor study, and therefore represent a "risk" to society and to themselves as their unemployment becomes permanent. Elementary school in Guatemala, Facebook. That was the alarm sounded in an interview by EFE with Veronica Spross, director of Entrepreneurs for Education, one of the 13 organizations that make up the NG...

Bogota, Oct. 7 — Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said Friday he was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in the name of all Colombians and particularly the millions of victims of the decades-long armed conflict. "Colombians, this prize is for you. It's for the victims, so there won't be one more death" from the armed conflict, Santos said in a brief statement, accompanied by his wife, Maria C...

By Wendy Anders At least a dozen flights both entering and leaving Costa Rica around noon today were cancelled due to  Hurricane Matthew, reported Aeris, the managers of the Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO) in Alajuela, Costa Rica. Several outbound flights on Jet Blue, American Airlines, and Spirit Air heading towards Miami, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, Florida were cancelled arou...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rican leaders ready for a trade mission next week to enhance trade relations with South Korea. Last year 71 Costa Rican companies exported 62 different products to South Korea, including radio and television parts, green coffee, medical prostheses, bananas, and pineapples, said the Foreign Ministry yesterday. Costa Rican officials will seek to expand market opportuni...

LATIN AMERICA US/CUBA Thousands of Cuban in shelters across Costa Rica in 2015 and early 2016. (CIDH/Twitter) Panama City, Oct. 5 — Panamanian Vice President and Foreign Minister Isabel de Saint Malo said Wednesday that the United States still has not responded to the request made more than a month ago by nine Latin American governments to review its immigration policy vis-a-vis Cuba and th...

Havana, Oct. 4 — Hurricane Matthew, the most powerful storm to strike the Caribbean in nine years, made landfall Tuesday in southeastern Cuba packing sustained winds of up to 240 kph (149 mph), the island's Insmet weather service said. Hurricane Matthew beating Jamaica, from Facebook. Authorities ordered nearly 900,000 residents of the provinces of Camagüey, Granma, Las Tunas, Santiago, H...

The launch of Mexico's anti-trafficking hotline, from Facebook. Mexico City, Oct. 3 — Mexican authorities rescued 51 women from traffickers and arrested seven people, the capital district attorney's office said Monday. The suspects hired the women as dancers, but then forced them to perform nude and engage in prostitution at two bars in Mexico City's Cuauhtemoc borough, the office said in a...

MEXICO PRESS Photo of Barbara McClatchie Andrews from her Facebook page Mexico City, Oct. 1 — Canadian photographer Barbara McClatchie Andrews was found dead on a highway in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatan, local authorities reported Friday. She was 74. According to a bulletin issued by the Attorney General's Office of Yucatan, the woman's lifeless body was found Friday morning a...

COLOMBIA PEACE VOTE  Bogota, Oct. 2 — The president of Colombia late Sunday recognized the victory of the "No" side in the referendum on the peace agreement signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and said this result would open a new political reality which could be an opportunity for the country. Juan Manuel Santos, who had promoted the "yes" campaign, ordered governme...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Denmark's tax minister said the government will buy data leaked from Mossack Fonseca, the law firm involved in the Panama Papers scandal. Police officers stand guard next to a company list showing the Mossack Fonseca law firm outside their office in Panama City April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso Taxation Minister Karsten Lauritzen said an anonymous of...

EFE- At least 56% of Latin Americans are connected to the internet, 10% more than the world average despite the lack of technological infrastructure, reveled the study “Uses of the Internet in Latin America” presented September 29th in Panama City. The investigation, with an error margin of less than 2.5%, according to its director Venezuelan Carlos Jiménez, told EFE, this study was done throu...

Although Costa Rica has not been affected yet by Hurricane Matthew and is expected to only receive an indirect effect, Costa Rica's National Emergency Commission (CNE) declared green alert for the South Pacific and Caribbean, heavy rain is expected as of Saturday night and throughout the weekend specially in the counties of Corredores, Osa, Golfito, Coto Brus, Buenos Aires and Pérez Zeledón. If yo...

Los Angeles (USA), Sept. 27 — More and more US companies are offering their workers health plans with the option of traveling to a Latin American country for medical treatment, as unveiled today during the "Latin American Health Tourism Summit" held in Los Angeles. “Five percent of US employers are offering their employees medical tourism plans. The growth in two years of these programs has bee...

By Wendy Anders Facebook post denouncing xenophobic attitudes in wake of the Education Ministry's inclusion of Nicaragua's culture in independence day festivities. On September 15, Costa Rica’s Education Ministry issued a memo indicating that schools in San Jose with a high percentage of Nicaraguan students could sing the Nicaraguan national anthem at the close of this month’s celebrations ...

By Wendy Anders Nicaraguan school children evacuated after 5.5 quake. This morning at 10:48 local time, a 5.5 magnitude earthquake struck Nicaragua in La Paz, a small town in the province of León, north of Managua. Electricity was out in La Paz Centro, and schools in the surrounding region, including Managua were evacuated and closed after the quake, reported Nicaragua's El Nuevo Diario....

PANAMA TOURISM Panama City, Sept. 27 — The Panamanian government hopes that an international advertising campaign to be launched at the end of this year will attract tourists from the United States, Europe, and South America, its main markets, Tourism Minister Gustavo Him said Tuesday. "We have great hopes for that campaign because we're going to move from having zero promotion to having a f...

NICARAGUA - U.S. A Russian T-72 battle tank, similar to those heading to Nicaragua. (CC) Managua, Sept. 27 — Nicaragua's vice president spoke out on Tuesday about a proposal in the U.S. Congress that would threaten Managua's access to funding from international lenders. "It's something that in this day and age provokes embarrassment. We're in the 21st century. I believe that some gentlem...

Interview with political analyst Juan-Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua by Democracy Now's Amy Goodman on the 10th anniversary of the FBI assassination of Puerto Rican nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios on Sept. 26, 2005 in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico. Mural of Ojeda in Puerto Rico, photo from Facebook. For the past four decades Filiberto Ojeda Rios had been a leading figure in the fight for Puer...

CUBA JAPAN (Report) Source: Discovery Havana, Sept. 23 — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wrapped up Friday his two-day state visit to Cuba, during which he paved the way for Japanese companies to do business on the Caribbean island, where the thaw in relations with the United States has sparked renewed interest in the Oriental economic power. Abe's presence in Cuba is the first visit ...

SPAIN PROSTITUTION  Alicante, Spain, Sept. 18 — The Spanish police have dismantled a group dedicated to human trafficking, prostitution and drugs, and managed to arrest six suspects. Police officials announced that this group is part of a criminal organization specialized in sexual exploitation of women of different nationalities to make revenues that have been transferred to Brazil. The ma...

(Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Forest fires raging in northeast Brazil are forcing indigenous people out of their traditional territories and threatening uncontacted tribes, an indigenous leader said on Wednesday. Fire season in the Amazon and surrounding Savannah normally lasts from July to November, but burning has become more intense due to climate change and illegal logging, said Sonia Gua...

  Hundreds of jaguar's teeth have been seized in Bolivia The trafficking of jaguar teeth from Bolivia's natural parks to China has sparked worries that Asian smugglers are boosting this illegal trade. Between 2014 and 2016, 800 jaguar teeth have been seized by Bolivian authorities, suggesting that around 200 animals have been killed, reported the Bolivian Environment Forum (Foro Bo...

By Jessica Farber, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs  To download a PDF version of this article, click here. In an opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times on August 11, titled “How the Most Dangerous Place on Earth got Safer,” Sonia Nazario paints a misguided picture of Honduras as a country that was once ravaged with violence, but has since been bravely resc...

By Wendy Anders Wikimedia Commons “A computer geek who ran a website for the massive Internet-based Platinum Sports Book was fined $400,000 for his involvement in the illegal gambling scheme,” wrote Sam Pazzano for The Toronto Sun last Tuesday. The London, Ontario native, 59-year-old Gordon Baird, pleaded guilty to bookmaking and contributing to a criminal organization. The organizati...

New York, Sept. 18 - Countries throughout the world, led by the United States and Norway, committed themselves on Sunday to supporting efforts to remove landmines in Colombia with an eye toward ridding that country of the weapons by 2021. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at the start of a meeting on the issue held in a New York hotel that removing the landmines is an "essential" part of ...

Shanghai, China, Sept. 15 - The proposed inter-oceanic railroad linking South America's Atlantic coast with its Pacific shores via Brazil and Peru will cost around $60 billion, Peruvian Vice-President and Transport Minister Martin Vizcarra revealed Thursday. "The preliminary report says the corridor would exceed $60 billion; given these figures and other projects that could be more urgent, it h...

Managua, Sept. 15 - A 5.9-magnitude earthquake has hit the Pacific coast of Nicaragua close to three volcanoes, the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies (INETER) said Thursday. The temblor stuck at 23:57 p.m. local time on Wednesday (5:57 GMT) at a depth of one kilometer, three kms to the north of El Hoyo volcano, in Las Paz Centro municipality, León province, the institute said. So f...

Miami, Sept. 15 - Chronic loneliness is more dangerous than alcoholism or obesity and can even kill, says Argentine neuroscientist Facundo Manes, author of "Usar el cerebro" (Using the Brain), a book discussing getting to know one’s mind to be able to live better. "Feeling alone is a biological mechanism like being hungry or thirsty, but the difference is that a person can eat or drink and thei...

By Wendy Anders Border police of Panama As undocumented immigrants from various regions continue to permeate Panama and Costa Rica, and present a growing concern from economic, health and social angles, the countries are scurrying to put into place official information-sharing and other essential mechanisms for tackling the pressing problem. This week, foreign ministry representatives fr...

Bogotá, Sept. 14 - At close to 9:00 pm last night in the northwest Colombian state of Antioquia, a 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck, reported the Spanish news agency EFE. No damages or casualties were reported in Antioquia’s populous capital city of Medellín nor in areas near the epicenter, according to Colombia’s Administrative Department of Disaster Risk Management (DAGRD in Spanish). T...

By Wendy Anders In November 2006, Costa Rica and the state of New Mexico in the United States formed a civil-military partnership under a United States Department of Defense program managed by the U.S. National Guard to exchange and develop best practices in disaster response, emergency management, education, drug demand reduction, border security, and counternarcotics. The National Guard St...

By Wendy Anders Source: PRC FM The China-Latin America 10th Annual Business Summit is set to take place in China's northern Hebei Province in October, reported the China Xinhua News Network Corporation today. Chinese officials visiting Costa Rica say the activity is intended to boost economic and trade cooperation between the two countries, and with the Latin American region as a whole. ...