Full Coverage: Central America

26.02.2004 The U.S. needs to develop a model for international trade that will guarantee job security here, while promoting sustainable development and prosperity overseas. As Congress prepares to vote on the Central America Free Trade Agreement this summer, advocacy groups will be rolling out a series of fact sheets assessing the CAFTA proposal in this light.

24.02.2004

Crimes against humanity

A prize-winning forensic scientist who has spent the last 10 years identifying victims of Guatemalan massacres will be in Washington, D.C. to give a talk on Wednesday, Feb. 25. Fredy Peccerelli recently received a human rights award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

20.02.2004 On January 20, the Guatemalan Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a senior military officer, Col. Juan Valencia Osorio, for plotting and ordering the political assassination of Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang in 1990. The colonel has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

20.02.2004 Depuis deux ans, le Canada négocie, presque secrètement, une entente majeure de commerce international, soit l’Accord de libre-échange entre le Canada et l’Amérique centrale (l’ALEAC4), dont certaines discussions ont lieu cette semaine. Les vies et les moyens de subsistance de millions de personnes en Amérique centrale sont en jeu.

20.02.2004

© Radio Netherlands

A group of indigenous women, "Earth, Trees and Water," based in rural Guatemala is actively protecting 50,000 acres of old growth forest, along with over 1,000 natural springs, and fighting against logging efforts. An international NGO working with the group is worried about their survival and asks for support.

20.02.2004 This week's arrest of a former security chief on charges linked to the disappearance of over 500 people during a government crackdown on dissent in the 1960s is a concrete sign that Pres. Vicente Fox means to end impunity for human rights violations in Mexico, according to Human Rights Watch.

20.02.2004 MEXICO CITY, Feb 19 (IPS) - Although 532 victims of forced disappearance from Mexico's ''dirty war'' against dissidents between the 1960s and the early 1980s were probably killed, their families believe they might still be alive, a hope nurtured by this week's arrest of a former intelligence chief--a first in Mexico's political history.

18.02.2004 WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb 18 (OneWorld) -- Immigration and human rights groups are hoping that a legal brief they have submitted to Attorney General John Ashcroft will persuade him to permit women who have suffered severe domestic abuse in their homeland to receive political asylum in the United States.

17.02.2004 Even well before NAFTA, successive Mexican governments embraced free trade with remarkable zeal. Beginning with its membership of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1987, Mexico has signed more trade agreements than any other country in the world.

17.02.2004 Ordinarily, policymakers wouldn't even raise this question, especially for one of the Bush administration's pet "free-trade" programs. But an advocacy group has successfully insisted that they must. Before signing off on CAFTA, studies looking at the potential impact on women and men will now have to be completed.

16.02.2004 De nada valeu as tentativas do presidente mexicano Vicente Fox de impedir uma auditoria minuciosa nos gastos feitos pelo Gabinete Presidencial mexicano. Após forte pressão pedindo a investigação, o neo-liberal do México cedeu. Pivô da questão é esposa do presidente, diretora de uma fundação beneficente. Os bastidores de uma tortilhada presidencial mexicana.

16.02.2004 A Tale of Two Cities animation contrasts the lives of the people who use computers in the UK with those who make them in Mexico. Computers have revolutionised the way Britain works and lives, while electronics workers in developing countries cope with unsafe factory conditions, compulsory overtime, paltry wages and degrading treatment. Clean up your computer.

16.02.2004 Attend a day school on trade union resistance to free trade in the Americas and building solidarity in the UK - 27 March at Hamilton House, London.

16.02.2004 Nicaragua has become the tenth country to reach "completion point" in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC), joining Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and most recently Guyana.

11.02.2004 Les candidats aux élections présidentielles doivent s'engager publiquement à garantir les droits fondamentaux des Salvadoriens et des Salvadoriennes, dans la mesure où ceux-ci concernent tous les aspects de la vie publique et constituent une condition essentielle au respect de la dignité humaine, a déclaré Amnesty International aujourd'hui, 11 février 2004, dans une lettre ouverte aux postulants à la Présidence du Salvador.

10.02.2004 MEXICO CITY, Feb 9 (IPS) - U.S. politicians are not the only ones who have the votes of Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants in mind, but political leaders on this side of the border as well, as a result of discussion of an initiative that might make it possible for Mexican nationals living in the United States to vote in Mexico's presidential elections.

09.02.2004 When officers from the Nicaraguan National Police found a piece of forgotten luggage at the country’s main international airport last Monday, it wasn’t the concern of a terrorist threat that caused their outrage, but a photo album full of child pornography.

06.02.2004

© Amnesty International USA

Local and international women's rights groups and others will gather in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Feb. 14 to commemorate the lives of some 300 women killed in the area over the past ten years and ratchet up pressure on Mexican authorities to find the killer.

06.02.2004 Two views on the Central American Freed Trade Agreement coincide on one key point: it’s a bad deal for Central America. Mark Engler points out that CAFTA is still far from a being a done deal, while Vince McIlhenny lays bare the asymmetric nature of the agreement, providing ample documentation.

04.02.2004 Reporters sans frontières est très préoccupée par les menaces reçues depuis plusieurs semaines par Irene Medrano Villanueva, du quotidien El Sol de Sinaloa. L'organisation demande au procureur général de l'Etat de Sinaloa de tout mettre en œuvre pour qu'une enquête permette d'établir avec certitude l'identité des auteurs de ces menaces.