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☆ Vast Maya Kingdom Is Revealed in Guatemalan Jungle
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Aylin Woodward | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Part of the ancient Maya city El Mirador in northern Guatemala that was detailed using light-detection and ranging equipment. Nestled in the jungle of northern Guatemala, a vast network of interconnected Maya settlements built millennia ago has been mapped in unprecedented detail. The civilization featured towering pyramids, palaces, terraces, ball courts and reservoirs connected by a sprawling web of causeways, an international group of archaeologists reported during a presentation at Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala City this month.

☆ Mexico finds over 50 unaccompanied kids from Guatemala in migrant truck
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MEXICO CITY, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Mexican authorities on Thursday stopped a crowded truck transporting nearly 70 migrants from Guatemala, mostly unaccompanied children, the country's National Institute of Migration (INM) said in a statement. The INM said federal Mexican agents spotted the truck at a checkpoint in Mexico's northern Chihuahua state, which borders the United States. It said there were 67 migrants from Guatemala traveling in the truck, including 57 unaccompanied minors, mostly boys, aged between 14 and 17. The truck driver was referred to Mexico's Attorney General's Office, it added, while the family and unaccompanied kids will be handed over to state authorities for the protection of children and teenagers. Earlier in January, Mexican immigration agents found three unaccompanied Salvadoran children stranded on an islet on the Rio Grande, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.

☆ Guatemalan ex-president Colom dies from cancer, says former minister
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

GUATEMALA CITY, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Guatemala's former president Alvaro Colom died on Monday aged 71 from esophageal cancer, his former security minister Carlos Menocal told Reuters. The former president, who led the Central American country from 2008 to 2012, was very sick and released from the hospital a week and a half ago, Menocal told Reuters. Colom, a soft-spoken politician and textile businessman, beat former head of army intelligence Otto Perez Molina in 2007 to become Guatemala's first leftist president since the country's civil war ended in 1996. When he died, Colom was under preventative home arrest still awaiting a trial. Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Writing by Valentine Hilaire; Editing by Sarah MorlandOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Can an AI 'angel' help find thousands in Mexico who were forcibly disappeared?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Marina E. Franco | Noticias Telemundo | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +11 min

The software is able to process thousands of documents and databases and find connections and patterns that elude the human eye. Relatives of people who were forcibly disappeared during the counterinsurgency period in Mexico between 1964 and 1985, at a march in 2001. Jorge Uzon/AFP via Getty ImagesAngelus is currently focused on reviewing facts about people who were forcibly disappeared between 1964 and 1985. He noted that when it comes to cases of missing persons as part of government repression, it's never about just one person missing. Angelus' reach is widening now that prosecutors are beginning to show interest in it to help them solve their cases, Yankelevich said, visibly frustrated for the delay.

☆ Guatemala Widens Prosecutions Against Former Anticorruption Officials
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Santiago Pérez | Juan Carlos Rivera | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Guatemalan authorities have issued several recent arrest warrants and brought criminal charges against more judges and prosecutors previously given the job of weeding out corruption in Guatemala’s government. The moves have fueled concerns among the U.S. government and rights groups about democratic backsliding in Guatemala. More than 30 Guatemalan anticorruption judges and prosecutors have left the country under threat of arrest over the past two years. The departures occurred amid weakening accountability for corruption, according to Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group.

☆ Guatemala summons ambassador in Colombia for consultations in defense minister tussle
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

GUATEMALA CITY, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Guatemala summoned its ambassador in Colombia for consultations, Guatemala's foreign ministry said on Tuesday, a day after Colombia did the same in regard to a conflict over Colombia's defense minister. Guatemala on Monday accused Colombian Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez, who led a United Nations anti-corruption unit in the Central American country, of committing illegal acts. Colombian President Gustavo Petro came out to defend the minister, saying he would not accept any "order for the arrest" of Velasquez. Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei told Spanish news agency EFE on Tuesday that Velasquez was not facing "criminal prosecution." Arrest warrants were issued for several others as part of the investigation, including former Guatemalan Attorney General Thelma Aldana.

☆ Ancient Maya cities, 'super highways' revealed in latest survey
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

It is the latest discovery of roughly 3,000-year-old Maya centers and related infrastructure, according to a statement on Monday from a team from Guatemala's FARES anthropological research foundation overseeing the so-called LiDAR studies. All of the newly-identified structures were built centuries before the largest Maya city-states emerged, ushering in major human achievements in math and writing. LiDAR technology uses planes to shoot pulses of light into dense forest, allowing researchers to peel away vegetation and map ancient structures below. Among the details revealed in the latest analysis are the ancient world's first-ever extensive system of stone "highways or super-highways," according to the researchers. Reporting by Sofia Menchu and David Alire Garcia, editing by Deepa BabingtonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck 2 environmental engineers and a crypto enthusiast used to raise $4.1 million for their Web3 carbon-credit startup
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Open Forest Protocol, a Web3 climate-tech startup, has raised $4.1 million in pre-seed funding. An environmental engineer by trade, he launched a nonprofit devoted to helping reforestation projects find funding. Open Forest ProtocolFournier, Open Forest Protocol's CEO, cofounded the startup with Aureline Grange, a fellow environmental engineer at his nonprofit, and Michael Kelly, an early contributor to the Near blockchain. But on Open Forest Protocol, they can do so at no upfront cost. Here's an exclusive look at a version of the pitch deck Open Forest Protocol used to raise $4.1 million:

☆ Explainer: Why migrants are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in record numbers
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-08 | by ( Mica Rosenberg | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

What is happening at the U.S.-Mexico border now and why are there record numbers of crossings? U.S. Border Patrol made more than 2.2 million arrests at the U.S.-Mexico in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended last September, the most ever recorded. The number of Venezuelans crossing the border plummeted after Mexico agreed to accept expulsions of Venezuelan migrants last October. The Biden administration has said it wants to surge resources to process more claims quicker but faces budgetary and other constraints. The Biden administration also set a goal of resettling 125,000 refugees in 2022 who apply from abroad after Trump dramatically slashed admissions during his term.

☆ I work in party hostels all around the world. I clean gross rooms and host all-night pub crawls in exchange for a free place to live — here's what it's like.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Jenny Powers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Taylor Futch works at party hostels and does everything from leading pub crawls to manning the desk. I worked at 4 hostels in 2022After Brazil, I worked at one of Europe's famous party hostels, Rising Cock Party Hostel in Lagos, Portugal, for two months and had an incredible experience. My job is to get to know the guests and host a series of nightly events like beer pong and pub trivia. You're bound to find some interesting things while cleaning inside a party hostel. My birthday fell on a Thursday, which is when my hostel has its weekly party, so I wound up DJing.

☆ Lasers revealed 5 ancient civilizations that were hiding in plain sight
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-01 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Archeologists beam lasers from the sky to unearth ancient settlements hiding in plain sight. State-of-the-art laser technology is transforming archaeology by creating 3D renderings of ruins. A hidden 2,000-year-old Mayan civilization in northern GuatemalaResearchers found a 2,000-year-old Mayan civilization in northern Guatemala using LiDAR. 61,000 previously unknown structures hidden under the dense Guatemalan jungleLiDAR laser technology found ancient cities with more than 60,000 structures in Guatemala. An overgrown ancient civilization buried in the Bolivian AmazonA LiDAR image of an ancient Amazonian urban network in what is now Bolivia.

☆ Thriving network of fixers preys on migrants crossing Mexico
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +23 min

With soaring numbers of people entering Mexico, a sprawling network of lawyers, fixers and middlemen has exploded in the country. Detained migrants stand in the outdoor area of the Siglo XXI Migrant Detention Center in Tapachula, Mexico, on Oct. 4. When the immigration agency was asked directly, via freedom of information requests, it said it was just one. An empanada vendor's stall advertises information, and immigration documents outside the main immigration office in Puebla, Mexico, on Sept. 23. By mid-December, the immigration agency suddenly announced the closing of the camp with no explanation.

☆ U.S. Treasury says consumer leases can qualify for EV tax credits
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The announcement is a win for South Korea and some automakers that earlier this month sought approval to use the commercial electric vehicle tax credit to boost consumer EV access. The $430 billion U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in August ended $7,500 consumer tax credits for purchases of electric vehicles assembled outside North America, angering South Korea, the European Union, Japan and others. Treasury said it was using "longstanding tax principles" to determine consumer leasing could qualify for the EV tax credit. The commercial credit does not, however, have the sourcing restrictions of the consumer credit. That law lifts the 200,000-vehicle per manufacturer cap that had made Tesla (TSLA.O) and General Motors (GM.N) ineligible for EV tax credits starting Jan. 1.

☆ The 'world's coolest dictator' rounded up 60,000 people in a crackdown on MS-13. A shrimp farming community is fighting back.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Danielle Mackey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +29 min

SISIGUAYO, EL SALVADOR — On the morning that Walber Rodriguez was arrested last May, he was just two minutes from his home in Sisiguayo, El Salvador. Outside El Salvador, Bukele is best known for adopting Bitcoin as a national currency. All around them in Sisiguayo and the surrounding Bajo Lempa valley, people were arrested with no satisfactory explanation. Residents of the Bajo Lempa who'd been touched by the arrests had begun meeting weekly at a nearby retreat center. A meeting of the Bajo Lempa families on June 17, 2022.

☆ The 'world's coolest dictator' rounded up 60,000 people in a supposed crackdown on MS-13. A shrimp farming community is fighting back.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Danielle Mackey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +29 min

They had traveled there in anticipation that the COVID-19 restrictions, known as Title 42, would be lifted on Wednesday as ordered by a U.S. court. Title 42 allows U.S. authorities to rapidly expel migrants to Mexico and other countries without a chance to seek U.S. asylum. But in an last-minute move, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed Title 42 to remain in place temporarily while a Republican legal challenge seeking to extend the measures is decided. Under Title 42, the United States typically can only expel migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Venezuela to Mexico. Title 42 was originally issued in March 2020 under Republican former President Donald Trump at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The magnitude of the flow is unprecedented and unheard of,” said Jorge Duany, director of Florida International University’s Cuba Research Institute. Over 6,000 Cuban migrants were interdicted at sea in 2021 while attempting to cross the Florida straits in makeshift boats. Recent migrants have been staying with relatives until they’re able to find work and a room or efficiency to rent. “It’s basically chaos,” said Angel Leal, an immigration attorney in Miami with a large volume of Cuban clients. But previous waves of Cuban migrants, like those who came in the 1990s during the rafter crisis, also leaned Democratic and then ultimately turned Republican.

☆ Child workers found throughout Hyundai-Kia supply chain in Alabama
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +16 min

Hyundai and Kia now have dozens of suppliers in Alabama, according to the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, a business group. The agency, they said, hired underage workers while they worked there. “It was my first job in the United States and this is not what you would expect to see here.”Six other former workers told Reuters they, too, saw underage workers at Ajin’s two factories in Cusseta. Herrera said he raised concerns about the underage workers with managers at SMART, but was brushed off. The officials, wearing shirts that bore Hyundai logos, inspected the assembly line even as underage workers labored there, Herrera said.

☆ Investor group launches campaign to help companies protect nature
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Expert Analysis | Reuters Professional | Calls Grow For Companies To Disclose Impacts On Nature In Bid To Plug Finance Gap | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Luis EcheverriaMONTREAL, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Here's the plan: Select 100 companies whose business burdens nature. Such is the vision of a campaign called "Nature Action 100" launched on Sunday by 11 investment firms hoping to encourage companies to help preserve ecosystems that support more than half the world's economic output. "The aim of Nature Action 100 is to engage those companies that have the highest impact on nature, not only to protect the natural environment but also to mitigate the risks these companies face from mounting pressure to effectively address biodiversity issues," Wearmouth said in a statement. The list of 100 companies will be published next year. Nature Action 100 would seek to select 100 companies for investors to focus on in suggesting how the private sector can navigate any new rules and monitoring their progress, the group said.

☆ Animals Are Running Out of Places to Live
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Catrin Einhorn | Lauren Leatherby | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +17 min

In many places, poverty, powerful interests and a lack of law enforcement make habitat loss especially hard to address. Because animals there often have smaller ranges to begin with, habitat loss hits them especially hard. “That's the ultimate challenge of forest conservation globally.”Source: Map of Life | Photo: Chien C. Lee MOZAMBIQUE Estimated habitat in 2001 MADAGASCAR Estimated habitat in 2001 MADAGASCAR Estimated habitat in 2001 MADAGASCAR Estimated habitat in 2001 MADAGASCAR Estimated habitat in 2001 MADAGASCAR Est. habitat in 2001 MADAGASCAR MOZAMBIQUE Estimated habitat in 2001 MADAGASCAR Source: Map of Life | Photo: Chien C. Lee MOZAMBIQUE Habitat loss in 2021 MADAGASCAR Habitat loss in 2021 MADAGASCAR Habitat loss in 2021 MADAGASCAR Habitat loss in 2021 MADAGASCAR Habitat loss in 2021 MADAGASCAR Habitat loss in 2021 MADAGASCAR MOZAMBIQUE Habitat loss in 2021 MADAGASCARThis is the 2001 habitat of the white-headed lemur, a primate that eats fruit and flowers. Of the many targets being negotiated, the one that has gotten the most attention seeks to address habitat loss head on.

☆ Guatemalan court approves sending detained renowned journalist to trial
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/6] Journalist Jose Ruben Zamora Marroquin, founder and president of El Periodico newspaper, talks with the media after attending his court hearing in Guatemala City, in Guatemala, December 8, 2022. REUTERS/Josue DecaveleGUATEMALA CITY, Dec 8 (Reuters) - A Guatemalan court decided on Thursday to take to trial a case against a well-known Guatemalan journalist who was arrested four months ago on charges of money laundering, influence peddling and blackmail. Jose Ruben Zamora Marroquin, an outspoken government critic, was detained in late July after a police raid on his home and will now remain in prison until the trial begins. Zamora, 65, is the founder of the elPeriodico newspaper, an outlet famous for investigations into government corruption. Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Writing by Isabel Woodford; Editing by Bradley PerrettOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Guatemalan former president and vice president convicted of fraud, conspiracy
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

GUATEMALA CITY — A court in Guatemala convicted former President Otto Pérez Molina and his vice president, Roxana Baldetti, on fraud and conspiracy counts Wednesday. Johan Ordonez / AFP - Getty Images“It is a lie,” the former president, 72, said during a break in the court proceedings Wednesday. Then President Jimmy Morales ended the CICIG’s mission in 2019 while he was under investigation. Anticorruption efforts have faltered since then and those who worked closely with the international mission have seen the justice system turned against them. Around 30 former anti-corruption officials have fled the country.

☆ Guatemala court sentences ex-President Perez, ex-VP in graft case
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Sofia Menchu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/5] Former Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina leaves the courtroom after being found guilty of a corruption case during his administration, at the judicial building, in Guatemala City, Guatemala December 7, 2022. Perez, who was president of Guatemala from 2012 to 2015, has spent the last seven years in prison awaiting a verdict in the case. Baldetti was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison in 2018 in a separate fraud case. Perez was ordered to pay 8.7 million quetzales ($1.10 million) while Baldetti was fined 8.4 million quetzales ($1.06 million) on Wednesday. The case, known as "La Linea," was originally investigated under the now-defunct International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), backed by the United Nations.

☆ I take a week of 'vacation' every month to travel the world without telling my boss — and I'll keep doing it even if I get caught
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Fortesa Latifi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Insider recently spoke to a 38-year-old who travels for a week each month without telling their job. "But I've found a way to make my love for travel and my job work together." Since May 2021, I've been taking vacations for at least one week every month without telling my employer. I used to only travel once or twice per year because I was so constrained by my limited vacation days. But now, I've found a way to make my love for travel and my job work together.

☆ Netherlands returns over 200 pre-Hispanic artifacts to Mexico
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MEXICO CITY, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The Netherlands has returned 223 pre-Hispanic archaeological pieces to Mexico, Mexico's foreign ministry said on Thursday, as it looks to recover more of its cultural heritage held in foreign collections. The returns were the result of "active cooperation" between the two countries and showed a commitment to restore historical and cultural objects to their place of origin, the ministry said. The INAH this week denounced a Paris auction that included Mexican objects valued in the thousands or tens of thousands of euros. The Netherlands this year returned a collection of 343 pre-Hispanic era ceramics to Panama. Culture ministers from around the world have pledged to boost efforts to return stolen and illegally traded artifacts to countries of origin.

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