Honduran president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa announced on that he had signed an agreement with the education workers’ unions ending a 26-day strike by some 55,000 teachers.
A court in Honduras convicted seven men in the 2016 murder of indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres. Until her assassination Cáceres had been leading a campaign against the Agua Zarca dam, a joint project by Honduran company Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA) and Chinese-owned Sinohydro. The dam was being built on the Rio Gualcarque without prior consultation with the Lenca indigenous community that depends on the river for their food and water. Cáceres, who won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015, had received numerous threats for her activism against the dam before she was killed by gunmen at her home in the town of La Esperanza. Two of those convicted are former DESA managers. (Photo by UN Environment/ONU Brasil via Wikimedia Commons)
Honduran police arrested some 150 people while using tear gas and water cannons to disperse a demonstration by teachers, students and others in Tegucigalpa on the 23rd day of a teachers’ strike.
Thousands of Honduran workers marched in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula to demand an increase in the minimum wage and to show solidarity with teachers in the 14th day of an open-ended strike.
Hundreds marched in Changuinola, Panama, in memory of two workers who were killed in July while protesting legislation opposed by unionists and environmental activists.
Local police detained a national Honduran campesino leader, Juan Ramón Chinchilla, in the western department of Copán and held him almost 21 hours without offering a legal justification.
Hundreds students, professors and staff from the University of El Salvador took to the streets to commemorate of the military regime’s massacre of student protesters on July 30, 1975.
In a decision highlighting the implications of US trade pacts for the national sovereignty of member countries, a World Bank tribunal approved a Canadian mining company’s lawsuit against El Salvador.
Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretariat announced that the government of President Felipe Calderón is normalizing diplomatic relations with Honduras, broken off after last year’s coup.
Nike, Inc. announced that it is paying $1.54 million to some 1,600 workers laid off in last year’s closure of two Nike subcontractors in the Choloma region of Honduras.
US Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced that the US will file a case against Guatemala for labor rights violations under terms of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega accused Colombia of granting oil exploration permits in waters disputed between the two countries—with a case still pending at the International Court of Justice.
