Central America

Central America, in Brief: Persecution of judges and prosecutors, expulsion of international anti-corruption monitors, and cooptation of courts have spread in the region.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The top U.S. diplomat in El Salvador said Tuesday she sees “a decline in democracy” in the country, where President Nayib Bukele changed his Twitter profile to read “the coolest dictator in the world.”

El Salvador, in Brief: Mass protests gripped San Salvador on Central America’s bicentennial anniversary of independence, marking a new phase for the opposition to President Bukele’s increasingly authoritarian rule. Bukele accused the international community of financing the protests to undermine his government.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Thousands of people gathered in El Salvador’s capital Wednesday for the first mass march against President Nayib Bukele, who protesters say has concentrated too much power, weakened the independence of the courts and may seek re-election.

In the summer of 2020, Corona, Queens was the epicenter neighborhood of the epicenter city of the global coronavirus pandemic.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender Tuesday, but the rollout stumbled in its first hours and President Nayib Bukele said the digital wallet used for transactions was not functioning.

Bukele administration officials have forcefully denied new evidence of their negotiations with gangs. While gang negotiations have become common practice for politicians in El Salvador, broad public hostility toward such talks incentivizes secrecy.

Latino Rebels Radio: August 26, 2021

Salvadoran prosecutors obtained groundbreaking evidence confirming that the Bukele administration negotiated a reduction in homicides with the country’s three gangs and that top prison officials removed potentially incriminating evidence from their facilities.

Seven months into Biden’s term, the administration is considering reinstating Remain in Mexico and is ramping up Title 42 border expulsions. The future of DACA and TPS recipients also remains in limbo as Congress stalls on immigration reform.

A proposal to reform the Salvadoran constitution would loosen current limits on judicial power and extend the presidential term. Lawyers question the legitimacy of the reform and the implications for Nayib Bukele’s tightening grip on power.

The new Bitcoin Law is priming Salvadoran banks to run afoul of international regulators and could tip the country into an inflation crisis, says conservative economist Steve Hanke. Skepticism of bitcoin in rural, cash-based economies may also hamper broad public use of the cryptocurrency.

A national strike shook Guatemala last week following the removal of a top anti-corruption prosecutor. In El Salvador, while walking a precarious fiscal tightrope, Nayib Bukele handed a rare olive branch to civil society groups critical of his administration.

Home to about 1,000 people, the town in western Honduras was hit by two powerful hurricanes within three weeks, natural disasters made far worse by local deforestation and climate change. La Reina was buried by a landslide.

The firing of an anti-corruption prosecutor has sparked an angry reaction from civil society and demands for the resignations of President Alejandro Giammattei and Attorney General María Consuelo Porras.

For more than three years, Juan Francisco Sandoval headed the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI), a prosecutorial unit specialized in high-stakes corruption cases investigating the upper echelons of Guatemalan politics and business.

“We still have no testing or contact tracing strategy to control the pandemic,” Óscar Chávez, of independent think tank and data clearinghouse Lab Datos GT, told El Faro English. “As we see a spike in cases almost double that of the peak in 2020, in reality, we know that the impact of the pandemic is much broader, but we just can’t see it.”

Some long-time leftists say that old regional alliances and unwavering support for the Cuban regime are cracking.

Latino Rebels Radio: July 8, 2021

The resolution immigration officials issued to Lizárraga specifies that he was denied his work permit and residence due to his inability to prove he is an editor or journalist.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — A Honduran man was convicted of homicide Monday in the 2016 killing of Berta Cáceres, a prize-winning environmental and Indigenous rights defender.