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Mexico City hosts chili pepper festival
Chili peppers and sauces will take centre stage at a festival being held this week in Mexico City, where the spicy plant, one of the pillars of Mexican cuisine, will be honoured, organizers said. The first Chilis, Sauces and Mortars Festival, which will be held Friday to Sunday, is being organized by the Enchilada Fair, the National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH, said. Mexico ...
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Fitch Revisa Calificaciones de Entidades Financieras Estatales de El Salvador
Lack of Stringent U.S. CMBS Underwriting Could Affect REITs Changes in the availability, pricing, and underwriting stringency of U.S. CMBS financing could affect REITs directly and indirectly, according to Fitch Ratings. In addition, a boom-or-bust cycle for CMBS loan performance would negatively affect REITs that regularly access the CMBS ...
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Coffee Leaf Rust Plant Disease Threatens Central American Crops
Zoom in on the Indian Ocean for our Geo Quiz. We’re looking for an island nation. Its neighbors to the southwest are the Maldives. The island we’re in search of offers an interesting example of how plants changed the world. Back when it was under Dutch control, there were valuable cinnamon plantations across the island we want you to name. In the 19th century the economy shifted ...
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Israels Hand in Guatemalas Genocide
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. (Photo credit: Jim Wallace of the Smithsonian Institution) At the height of Guatemala's mass slaughters in the 1980s, including genocide against the Ixil Indians, the Reagan administration worked with Israeli officials to provide helicopters that the Guatemalan army used to hunt down fleeing villagers, according to documentary and eyewitness ...
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Fitch Affirms Banco Internacional de Costa Ricas IDR at BB+ Outlook Stable
Thu May 23, 2013 4:38pm EDT (The following statement was released by the rating agency) SAN SALVADOR/NEW YORK, May 23 (Fitch) Fitch Ratings has today Affirmed Banco Internacional de Costa Rica's (BICSA) Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'BB+'. The Bank's Viability Rating (VR) and National Ratings in Panama were also affirmed. A full list of rating actions is at the end of this ...
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Mexican Carload Traffic Jumps 15 Percent
Association of American Railroads . This is the highest of this volume seen in 12 weeks.Combined North American carload volume, including all three North American Free Trade Agreement partners, rose 1.7 percent from the same week in 2012, and 1.8 percent week-to-week, to 381,163 carloads. The total North American carload volume for 2013 year-to-date is 0.6 percent less than in the same period in ...
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President Carlos Mauricio Funes of El Salvador Visits Pope Francis
Pope Francis met this morning with Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena, President of El Salvador at the Apostolic Palace today. Shortly after his meeting with the Holy Father, President Funes met with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, who was accompanied by Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Secretary for Relations with ...
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Will Justice Be Possible In Guatemala
Two US military officers are caught delivering weapons to Colombian paramilitaries. Frank Smyth One of them is Guatemala’s president, Otto Perez Molina, a retired general who, according to an ex-soldier testifying in Ríos Montt’s trial, ordered soldiers to burn and loot villages and "execute people." But President Perez Molina was not on trial and no corroborating ...
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Intl Meeting of Emerging Markets Concludes in Panama
Panama, May 23 (Prensa Latina) The Emerging Markets Committee of the International Organization of Securities Commissions, which gathers experts on the subject from more than 80 countries, is concluding its congress on regulation reform today in Panama. During the event, delegates discussed subjects related to the consequences of reforms in the emerging stock markets, various risks, development ...
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Cartel Torches Mexican State Extorts Farmers For Protection
The AP reports that the Knights Templar cartel is terrorizing the Western Mexican state of Michoacan by burning pretty much everything in sight. The group has so far targeted lumber yards, packing plants and even passenger buses in their reign of terror. Like most organized crime units, this particular cartel is offering to spare farmers if they pay protection money. Some are resisting while ...
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El Salvador presses pope on Romero beatification
Pope Francis speaks with El Salvador's President Mauricio Funes as they stand in front of a reliquary containing a fragment of the vestment that archbishop Oscar Romero was wearing when he was assassinated, during a private audience at the Vatican Thursday, May 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Alessandro Bianchi, ...
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Mexican stocks fall to nearly 8-mo low hit key support
MEXICO CITY | Thu May 23, 2013 9:44am EDT MEXICO CITY May 23 (Reuters) - Mexican stocks fell sharply on Thursday, sinking for the fourth session in a row, hurt by concerns that the U.S. Federal Reserve could scale back its stimulus that has fed demand for riskier assets around the world. The IPC stock index shed as much as 1.62 percent to 39,468 points, hitting near a key support that ...
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Chinese vice premier meets Costa Ricas National Liberation Party delegation
Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli on Thursday met with Bernal Jimenez, president of Costa Rica's National Liberation Party (NLP).Zhang reviewed the rapid growth of China-Costa Rica relations since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in 2007, citing frequent high-level exchanges, strengthened political trust and fruitful cooperation in multiple fields.Zhang said China would like to work ...
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Mexican investigators seize boxes filled with cash at office of ex-aide to former governor
MEXICO CITY - Mexican authorities on Wednesday seized five boxes filled with cash as part of an investigation into alleged embezzlement by a former governor of southern Tabasco state, in what could become the latest test for President Enrique Pena Nieto to act against corruption. Tabasco state prosecutor Fernando Valenzuela said bundles of 500- and 1,000-peso bills were found in an office of ...
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Kristin Braswell In Search of Pura Vida The Magic of Costa Rica
vida is a simple phrase that means "pure life." It is a greeting heard as frequently as "hello" -- on every street corner, restaurant and even home in Costa Rica. At the beginning of my travels to La Fortuna de San Carlos in the La Ajuela province, I smiled fondly in response to the phrase from the people who spoke it. But, by the end of my weeklong trip, I internalized these ...
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Protesters at Las Vegas tech show take aim at Mexican billionaires corrupt practices
Jessica Padron, left, and members of Two Countries One Voice protest against Carlos Slim, a Mexican businessman listed as the second richest man in the world by Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, in front of the Venetian Wednesday, May 22, 2013. The group accuses Slim’s telecommunication companies of engaging in predatory and monopolistic practices. The protest coincides with CTIA, a ...
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Costa Rica volcano erupts
Costa Rica's Institute of Volcanology and Seismology says the eruption occurred at around 9 a.m. local time. People in the nearby village of La Central have been ...
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International Friendly Venezuela 2 El Salvador 1
A pair of second-half penalties have secured a 2-1 victory for Venezuela in their friendly international against El Salvador.In preparation for next month's FIFA World Cup qualifier versus Bolivia, Venezuela picked up their second win in five international matches, despite going behind to Darwin Ceren's first-half strike.Venezuela recovered in the opening 25 minutes of the second half, ...
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Guatemalas Genocide on Trial
People celebrate the judge's guilty verdict for Guatemala's former dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt during his genocide trial in Guatemala City, Friday, May 10, 2013. (AP Photo/Moises ...
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Mexican farmers standing up to drug cartels refuse to disarm
Mexican soldiers patrol the streets during an operation searching for criminals in the area called 'Tierra Caliente' (Hot Land) in the Coalcoman community,Michoacan State, Mexico on May 21, 2013. (Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images) COALCOMAN, Mexico - Farmers wearing bulletproof vests and toting assault rifles ride in pick-up trucks emblazoned with the word "self-defense" to ...
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Editorial Justice Interrupted in Guatemala
Securing justice for victims of the brutal civil war in Guatemala that lasted from 1960 to 1996 was always going to be tough. But the ruling by the ...
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A Design Collective Creates Its Own Economy In El Salvador
The Carrot Concept is a multi-disciplinary design collective of artists, architects, and entrepreneurs in El Salvador. They launched their first collection during this past weekend's New York Design ...
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Hudson Valley opponents of Fortis-CH Energy deal gain support from anti-Fortis group in Central America
By WILLIAM J. KEMBLECorrespondent The group Citizens for Local Power today will escalate its fight against the proposed buyout of CH Energy Group by Fortis Inc. of Canada by introducing a watchdog group from the Central American nation of Belize.The grassroots organization has scheduled a press conference for 2 p.m. at the Ulster County Office Building in Uptown Kingston at which Candy and ...
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UN Praises Greater Political Inclusion of Indigenous People
United Nation, May 22 (Prensa Latina) The United Nations Program for Development (UNDP) today praised the increasing political participation of indigenous peoples in Latin America over the past two decades, but also recommended encouraging the inclusion of women. This global institution cited in a report Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru as the countries that favored an ...
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Latin America Haiti Guatemala Paraguay With Highest Malnutrition
UN’s World Food Programme Paraguay, Guatemala, and Haiti are the countries with the biggest problem of food deprivation and malnutrition in Latin America, according to a report by UN. In the study by the World Food Programme, 25.5% of the Paraguayan population is undernourished, while the figure rises to 30.4% in Guatemala and 44.5% in Haiti. Nearly two million people worldwide are ...
Central America Featured
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New construction in tourism industry – signs of recovery or misplaced optimism?
The whole of Central America has been affected by the global downturn. One of the industries effected most has been tourism, and while many construction and expansion projects were planned during the heady days of 2007 and early 2008, the region may now be facing a huge oversupply problem in terms of hotel accommodation, although there are signs of light on the horizon.
In 2006, the Tourism Ministers of various countries in the region came together at San Ramon for a conference and told Central American news providers that the tourism industry for the region as whole had grown by an average of 11%, which account for, on average, 5% of the region’s GDP for that year, in addition, there was astounding growth in the number of European tourists travelling to Central America, a 147% increase in fact. Read more
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