Full Coverage: Central America

25.08.2005 Synthesis report on 20 ICT case studies from organisations in South Asia, Southern Africa and Central America. Their activities vary from offering wireless communication equipment to tribal nomads and teaching slum children how to use a computer, to training NGOs how to build a website and online broadcasting of radio programmes.

17.08.2005 Lors de sa rencontre avec le gouverneur de État de Chihuahua, Reyes Baeza, et la ministre de la Justice, Patrizia Gonzalez, la secrétaire générale d'Amnesty International, Irene Khan, a accueilli favorablement la volonté qu’ils ont exprimée de s'occuper des affaires d'homicides de femmes. Irene Kahn a néanmoins fait part de sa déception devant le manque d'actions concrètes et les progrès limités accomplis dans de nombreuses affaires, suscitant des doutes quant à l'aboutissement du processus chez les familles des victimes.

17.08.2005 In an Open Letter to all Mexican political parties, Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan challenged the leaders to make human rights the cornerstone of Mexican life and a fundamental central pillar of their electoral manifesto.

16.08.2005 Thousands of women in Central America are being tested for cervical cancer every year thanks to Grounds for Health, a unique partnership between American companies and the coffee-growing communities where they do business, which provides life-saving testing, follow-up, and treatment to co-op member families.

12.08.2005 A free trade agreement under negotiation by the US and Central American governments will work against the poor and worsen unemployment, migration and social problems in the region, according to a leading development group.

11.08.2005 Lurking in the dunes along the highway just 50 kilometers south of the U.S.-Mexico border city area of El Paso - Ciudad Juárez are heaps of uncontained radioactive waste. The secret in the desert sands recently was revealed by Mexican nuclear physicist Bernardo Salas Mar, a former employee of the federal atomic power plant in Veracruz state who was fired after publicly disclosing its radioactive contamination of the Gulf of Mexico.

09.08.2005 When the price of gold started to rise in recent years, investors turned their attention back to Central America, where long-identified mineral deposits can now be extracted with new technologies based on the leaching of gold using cyanide and the enforcement of regulations on the industry is notoriously lax. PDF Document.

06.08.2005 Entre deux inhalations de colle, il tresse un bracelet. Les fils rouge, bleu et orange attachés à son pantalon dessinent tranquillement des motifs de poissons. Il le tend à Lenin, qui approuve. Je le vois esquisser un sourire dans ma direction, avant de replonger son nez dans sa bouteille de plastique. Puis, il repart dans les rues débraillées de Tegucigalpa. Moi, je reste là, avec un bijou d’une valeur inestimable entre les mains...

04.08.2005 Le président du Congrès du Guatemala a donné son appui à une loi qui garantit aux citoyens et aux journalistes le droit d'accès à l' information gouvernementale, selon ce que rapporte le Centre des informations de presse sur le Guatemala (Centro de Reportes Informativos sobra Guatemala, CERIGUA).

04.08.2005 At 12:03 am on July 28th, the House of Representatives approved the Central America-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA. CAFTA, which would expand NAFTA to Central America and the Dominican Republic, would devastate farmers, privatize essential public services, and accelerate the race to the bottom on wages in the US and all over Central America.

04.08.2005 Guatemala’s indigenous peoples are at risk of being denied their right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through the media. Immediate changes to Guatemala’s telecommunications law, now lagging in the legislature, are essential if the long-term survival of community radio is to be assured.

04.08.2005 Rural indigenous residents in Guatemala’s western highlands have discovered that the bicycle can get them from point A to point B in more ways than one. Bicitecnologia, as it is called in San Andres Iztapa, Chimaltenango, can pump their water, wash their clothes, sharpen their tools, and much more.

01.08.2005 After months of White House lobbying, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which Oxfam says will "institutionalize an uneven playing field," was passed in Congress late last week. Although a disappointment to many in the NGO community, many organizations note that the close vote, 217-215, indicates a growing concern for unfair trade agreements.