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GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA–(Marketwire – Jan. 21, 2010) – Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz led an agricultural trade mission to Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala and the United States to create new market opportunities for Canadian farmers.
“Step by step this Government is working to expand and create new trade opportunities for Canadian farmers and processors,” said Minister Ritz. “Trade is a key priority of Canada’s Economic Action Plan and that’s why Canada is working to level the playing field and give industry the opportunity to be stable and profitable.”
In Mexico, Minister Ritz announced a $5 million investment to boost the Mexican appetite and raise consumer awareness of Canada’s safe and top quality food. The Canada Brand initiative, part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, will drive promotional activities in Mexico for a wide range of Canadian products, including canola. Canadian agriculture exports to Mexico totaled $1.6 billion in 2008.
“Mexican families are looking for top quality and healthy agricultural products such as Canadian canola oil when they go to the grocery store,” said Minister Ritz. “This initiative will further connect the Canadian maple leaf and our commitment to quality to our Canadian agricultural products.”
Minister Ritz also met with Secretary of Agriculture Francisco Mayorga and Secretary of Economy, Gerardo Ruiz Mateos and stressed the need for an expedited scientific process that will reopen the Mexican market to Canadian over-thirty-months (OTM) beef.
Minister Ritz took the opportunity to stop in Colombia to reiterate the Government of Canada’s dedication to implement the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The Minister met personally with Colombian Minister of Agriculture Andres Fernandez, Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism Luis Guillermo Plata, and Colombian Agriculture Institute General Manager Luis Fernando Caicedo. The FTA will provide preferential access to the Colombian market for Canadian agriculture and non-agriculture products and is an important market for Canadian wheat and pulses. In 2008, Colombia imported $123 million in Canadian wheat, durum and barley sales and $72 million of pulse and specialty crops.
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GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Archeologists have discovered a huge Mayan sculptured head in Guatemala that suggests a little-known site in the jungle-covered Peten region may once have been a significant city.
The stucco sculpture, which is 10 feet wide and 11.5 feet tall, was buried for centuries at the Chilonche ruins, close to the border with Belize.
The recent discovery of the head, which dates from the early Classic period between 300 to 600 AD, means the site is much older than previously thought. The Maya often constructed new buildings using older ones as foundations.
“It could be an imaginary being, something from the underworld, perhaps linked to a Mayan deity,” Polytechnic University of Valencia professor Gaspar Munoz, part of the team of archeologists that found the head, told Reuters.
Unlike Guatemala’s famous Mayan cities of Tikal and El Mirador, little excavation has been carried out at Chilonche.
Looters, looking for artifacts to sell on the black market, had dug a small tunnel passing the buried sculpture, which is similar to others decorating a solar observatory at another site, Uaxactun.
Guatemala’s Peten region is home to dozens of Mayan ruins, but the largely jungle-covered area is plagued by looters, poachers and smugglers taking cocaine to Mexico.
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NEW YORK – Alfonso Portillo, the fugitive former president of Guatemala, was charged in the United States on Monday with using foreign banks to launder millions of dollars plundered from charity and government coffers.
Portillo, 58, is accused of “converting the office of the Guatemalan presidency into his personal ATM,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of New York said in a statement.
The disgraced politician already was facing embezzlement charges in his own country. Authorities there on Monday declared him a fugitive after dozens of soldiers and police officers raided five of his properties but didn’t find him.
“He’s being sought because he allegedly embezzled funds from the state and from an aid fund sent by Taiwan for an educational project,” said Judge Belgica Deras.
Portillo’s lawyer, Telesforo Guerra, said his client won’t turn himself in.
“He won’t face a judge and will run away from justice because this is a political process, not a judicial one,” Guerra said.
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Controversy over anti-union violence in Colombia has colleges banning Coca-Cola
It’s early monday morning, but Ray Rogers has the full attention of some 70 students in a Rutgers University classroom. For nearly half an hour, the 61-year-old labor activist rails against Coca-Cola Co. (KO ), taking the beverage giant to task for allegedly turning a blind eye as eight employees of Coke bottlers in Colombia were killed and scores more were threatened or jailed on trumped-up terrorism charges over the past decade.
International investigation finds Guatemalan lawyer ordered own killing to frame president.
A Guatemalan lawyer who accused the country’s president of his murder in a video made before his death actually contracted the hitmen to kill him, U.N. investigators announced Tuesday.
Attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg contacted cousins of his first wife to help him find a hitman to deal with an extortionist — when he really was orchestrating his own slaying amid severe personal problems, according to a special international group commissioned by the government.
“We have to conclude that it was Rodrigo Rosenberg himself who asked for help from … intimate friends and said to them: ‘I have an extortionist who is threatening me and I want to kill him,’” said Carlos Castresana, head of the probe into the May 10 killing. “They received his request and looked for someone capable.”
Castresana said evidence shows Rosenberg bought two cellular phones: one to communicate with his killers and another to deliver threatening messages to his own personal phone.
Distress over personal problems and Rosenberg’s suspicion that the government was behind the murder of two close friends appear to have motivated the Harvard-educated corporate lawyer, the investigation suggested.
“Why the video?” Castresana said. “We don’t have all the answers. But we have a theory.”
In the video, Rosenberg is seen looking into the camera and saying, “If you are watching this message, it is because I was assassinated by President Alvaro Colom.”
The 47-year-old attorney, who served as assistant dean at a private university, claimed Colom’s government was linked to a corruption scandal at a government bank and said any attack on him would be an attempt to cover that up. Colom has denied any involvement in the killing.
Rosenberg’s accusations were distributed to reporters on DVDs at his May 11 funeral and immediately set an already polarized country into a frenzy of protests, allegations of corruption and calls for Colom’s resignation.
Castresana said the commission’s theory is that Rosenberg was motivated by a sense of guilt and frustration over what he believed was the government’s involvement and failure to properly investigate the killing of his client and girlfriend, Marjorie Musa, along with her father, Khalil Musa.
Rosenberg had advised Khalil Musa to accept a seat on the board of directors of the private- and government-sponsored Rural Development Bank. In his video, Rosenberg said if he were slain, it would be to silence him for discovering the killings were linked to money laundering at the bank.
Castresana said that blaming Colom apparently was a way of shaking up the powers that be and “opening up a Pandora’s box that would result on change in the country.”
Rosenberg also appeared to be depressed about the recent death of this mother and losing custody of his children, the investigation said.
His posthumous accusations of corruption became a rallying cry for members of Guatemala’s dominant elite, many of whom are angry over Colom’s attempts to eliminate tax loopholes for corporations and criticize his inability to reduce high rates of violent crime.
Colom is overwhelmingly backed by Guatemala’s mostly Mayan Indian poor for his efforts to tax the rich and build schools and clinics for disadvantaged communities.
Colom has suggested that criminal or political interests were behind the video and expressed relief on Tuesday.
“The day has arrived that I have waited for in silence and patience, where this crime finally been clarified,” Colom told reporters.
The commission’s investigation has led to 11 arrests with three of those people working with investigators as protected witnesses.
The commission said it was able to identify suspects in the killing using security camera footage from where Rosenberg was shot on his bicycle and by tracing cell phone calls.
The cousins implicated in the investigation, Francisco and Estuardo Valdes Paiz, are considered fugitives from justice. Investigators allege they contacted the head of security at their pharmaceutical company to help them find someone to carry out the killing for $40,000.
“The information that (witnesses) have given us coincides down to the millimeter with our investigations,” he said.
In a spectacular launch of the 2010 World Harmony Run, runners in Guatemala carried the World Harmony Torch to the Pacaya Volcano for the 2010 torch lighting ceremony. The torch was lit from the molten lava at the volcano. The run began at 3 pm from San Francisco de Sales, near Guatemala City.
During the global start for the 2010 World Harmony Run, Purnahuti Wagner of Guatemala lights the torch from a river of molten lava near the peak of the Pacaya Volcano in Guatemala, along with runners from 25 countries. Founded by world harmony leader Sri Chinmoy, the run will travel this year to 100 countries on six continents over 56,000 km.
 The Runners celebrate the opening of the 2010 Run atop the Pacaya Volcano after Guatemalan runner Purnahuti Wagner lit the torch from the molten lava. Runners include representatives of Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, Mongolia, India, Russia and many other European nations.
Homagni Baptista, Australia, carries the World Harmony Run torch after it was lit at the Pacaya Volcano in Guatemala.
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Over 250 people showed up to a conference that was held by Vice President Espada. The VP is working together with the Ministry of Environment, headed by Minister Ferrate and his technical team to present a comprehensive action plan to see what can be done about the bloom that has hit Lake Atitlan.
The UDV Auditorium could not hold all the people who wanted to participate in this important event. Over 250 people showed up, the expected attendance was 50 people. Students, friends of Lake Atitlan- “Todos por el Lago”, University Mariano Galvez, University San Carlos, research experts from University del Valle, representatives of the Chemical Engineers Association, and other related professionals and the media.
20 entities and companies presented their proposals for water treatment plants. There was not enough time to hear the proposals of many more companies and entities that have proposals. They will be heard by Minister of the Environment Ferrate later.
The resources needed to address the problem are around $ 32 million dollars, probably much more. But this is the first estimation of the costs. Fortunately the Embassy of Spain has announced this week that the Spanish Government will donate $ 29.5 million dollars for water related issues in Guatemala. Half of the amount will be destined to address specifically Lake Atitlan. The Mayors of the villages surrounding the lake have assumed the responsibility to provide 50% of the required funds from their respective budgets. The search to find more resources is ongoing. McDonalds is one of the local companies who have already made a commitment to raise money for the rescue of the lake.
Source : Guatemala Times
The year 2012, What do modern day Mayans say?
Some predict that the end of the world is going to be December 21 of 2012. A lot of hype and intrigue surround the Mayan calendar.
According to a report in the UK Telegraph the modern day Mayan don’t put any stock into what is being said about 2012. “The famous Mayan prophecy inspired an excellent story,” he said in a recent interview about what he calls the “mother of all disaster films”.
But such a “prophecy” is news to the modern Maya in Guatemala and Mexico. Instead, they view the burgeoning end-of-the-world 2012 industry with a mixture of confusion, exasperation and anger at what is perceived as a Western distortion of their traditions and beliefs.
”There is no concept of apocalypse in the Mayan culture,” Jesus Gomez, head of the Guatemalan confederation of Mayan priests and spiritual guides, told The Sunday Telegraph.
Cirilo Perez, an adviser to Guatemala’s President Alvaro Colom is a prominent ajq’ij – literally a “day counter”, a wise man who makes predictions and advice on the most propitious dates to marry, plant or harvest. He decried the commercial exploitation of Mayan culture by outsiders.
”This has all become business but there is no desire to understand,” he said. “When foreigners, or even some Guatemalans, see us, they think ‘Look at the Maya, how nice, how pretty’, but they don’t understand us.”
Mayan elder Chile Pixtun recalled how he was bombarded with questions about the end of the world during a recent trip to Britain. “Man, they had me fed up with this stuff,” he said, his frustration clear.
The Maya make up about half of Guatemala’s 13 million people and many live on less than $2 a day as subsistence farmers – an unimaginably far cry from the colossal budget lavished on 2012, which stars John Cusack, Woody Harrelson and the British actress, Thandie Newton.
In neighboring Mexico, the Maya are concentrated in the Yucatan peninsula, a popular tourist destination but where local farmer are struggling with drought-like conditions.
”If I went to Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn’t have any idea,” said Jose Huchim, a Mayan archaeologist in the Yucatan. “That the world is going to end? They wouldn’t believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain.”
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We are just going to have to sit back and wait to see what happens in 2012.
Guatemala Malnutrition Problem
It is hard to believe that here in the Americas that Malnutrition is a serious problem, but it is. When talking about starving children your first thought goes to Africa. But here in Guatemala the problem of malnutrition has become acute.
Guatemala is hardly one of the poorest countries in the Americas but according to Unicef almost half of the children of this war torn country are chronically malnourished. In some areas of Guatemala where the population is mostly Mayan the child malnutrition is over 80%. The diet for these families is mostly corn tortillas.
In my travels through the country side of Guatemala and working and sleeping in villages throughout the highlands I have witnessed hundreds of hungry children and adults. Tortillas are a regular source of food for these families. My wife being a nurse states that a regular diet of this food without a proper balance of fruit, vegetables, and protein will cause permanent damage to these children.
One afternoon we did physicals to some 100 children in a small school in the highlands outside of Patzun. Every child was malnourished, had bad teeth problems, and dehydrated. Most of the children also were underdeveloped do to the fact of being malnourished.
As stated in an article printed in the Economist “That points to a failure of government in Guatemala. The Mayan population were the main victims of a long-running civil war between military dictatorships and left-wing guerrillas. Although democracy came, and eventually peace, social conditions have been slow to improve. Income inequality remains extreme, even by Latin American standards. Two-thirds of the rural population remains poor. Guatemala came second to bottom of a new index measuring inequality of opportunity in Latin America published by the World Bank last year. Whereas Guatemala City has shiny shopping malls, gated mansions and trendy restaurants, many indigenous Guatemalans scratch an inadequate living as sharecropping subsistence farmers. “These people were totally abandoned in the mountains with no infrastructure, no education, no health,” says Rafael Espada, the vice-president”.
Guatemalan people are great people, the Mayan’s have some awesome culture and are loving gracious people.
We are here to help these people and get the word out about what is happening in our neighboring country.
Please consider partnering with us to help these children that are caught in between starvation and political power.
Central America Lake Atitlan is having serious eco problems.
By Tom Johnson
As reported in the Guatemala Times Lake Atitlan is being contaminated daily by population explosions and the increased urbanization around the lake.
The sewage, solid, liquid and industrial waste is dumped indiscriminately into the different water bodies’ additionally massive deforestation and intensive agriculture around the water bodies is also a big problem. All is directly related to overpopulation of humans.
The recent “algae bloom” in Lake Atitlan has triggered an enormous alarm in the population and the media. Many people are panicking and basically believe that something drastic has happened to Lake Atitlan in just a few days, but this assumption is wrong.
The problem has been steadily increasing for many years. But now, because it is has become finally visible to everybody’s eyes, the problem has finally become tangible, we have: “algae bloom”. Now people start to react.
Guatemala has the same phenomenon in Lake Atitlan although this is due to specie of blue green algae. Well, algae is the wrong word, what we see is actually something called: cyanobacteria. Cyanobaceria grow because of excessive levels of nutrients including phosphor and nitrogen in the water.
The cyanobacteria in Atitlan have been identified as Lyngbya hironymusii (Lyngbya hieronymusii), actually a rarity among the cyanobacterias.
This is a serious crisis, but a crisis is also the best time to join forces, accept that we all are to blame for not doing enough and it is a tremendous opportunity to solve the environmental problem of Lake Atitlan for the future.
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