A meeting between the Honduran government and teachers’ union representatives in Tegucigalpa seemed to be heading towards a settlement of a month-long national strike by 60,000 teachers.
In a series of raids, some 1,000 soldiers and national police troops evicted more than 3,000 Q’eqchi Maya campesinos from lands claimed by an agribusiness firm in the Polochic Valley of Alta Verapaz department, Guatemala.
Thousands of Hondurans demonstrated in a “National Civic Strike” called by teachers’ unions and the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition of unions and grassroots organizations.
Thousands of members of Black and indigenous groups in Honduras marched on the capital, Tegucigalpa, to demand territorial rights and protest recent repression by the regime of Porfirio Lobo.
Honduran riot police threw a tear gas canister at journalists Lidieth DĂaz and Adolfo Sierra from TV Cholusat Sur (Channel 36) as they were trying to film a protest by striking teachers.
Honduran teacher Ilse Ivana VelĂĄsquez RodrĂguez died in a Tegucigalpa hospital from injuries she received when riot police attacked a demonstration of thousands of teachers.
Women’s rights organizations marked International Women’s Day with street protests demanding that Central American governments take measures to stop the killings of women.
Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli said he will ask legislators to rescind a mining law opponents say would encourage open-pit mining by foreign companies and endanger the environment.
The right-wing National Democratic Alliance marched against violent crime in San Pedro Sula, while the leftist National Resistance Front met in Tegucigalpa, pledging to push for constitutional reform.
A US diplomatic cable released by the WikiLeaks group has raised new questions about possible corruption in the de facto regime that ruled Honduras after the June 2009 coup.
Some 5,000 members of Panama’s Ngöbe-BuglĂ© indigenous group held a national protest day against changes to the Mining Code that they said would encourage open-pit mining by foreign companies.
Some 100 members of Mexican drug gang Los Zetas settled in the northwest Guatemalan city of CobĂĄn by early 2009 under protection from “corrupt” police, a WikiLeaks cable states.
