Your article (World Bank loan to Honduran bank comes under scrutiny, 1 May) relies on a deeply flawed and over-simplified compliance adviser/ombudsman (CAO) report that is based solely on unfounded allegations about the land disputes in the Bajo Aguán region of Honduras. Overwhelming evidence presented to the International Finance Corporation IFC and the Honduran courts tells a different story. ...
Carlos Arnoldo Lobo, who the US government says trafficked multi-tonne loads of cocaine, will be extradited next week Honduras said it will extradite to the US a drug trafficker who worked for Mexico's powerful Sinaloa cartel , making his the first such case since the country changed the law to allow the process two years ago. Carlos Arnoldo Lobo, who the US government says trafficked multi-tonne...
Criticism of multimillion-dollar loan to private sector comes after internal bank report censured funding of another Honduran firm The World Bank's commitment to change its lending practices to the private sector has been called into question by campaigners over a proposed multimillion-dollar loan to a Honduran commercial bank. It comes months after a damning internal investigation into the bank's...
Gender empowerment projects that focus on girls leave out half of the equation. Our panel suggests ways to engage boys and men to end discrimination Challenge misogyny in public: Some of our most powerful work has been when we've held senior male politicians and public figures accountable for misogynistic statements or abusive behaviour. The documentary film Can't Just Fold Your Arms shows our case...
Investigation by Global Witness reveals there were nearly three times as many deaths in 2012 than 10 years previously The killing of activists protecting land rights and the environment has surged over the past decade, with nearly three times as many deaths in 2012 than 10 years previously, a new report has found. Deadly Environment , an investigation by London-based Global Witness documents 147 recorded...
Swaths of rainforest affected by 'narco-deforestation' caused by landing strips and roads built by and for drug traffickers According to Kendra McSweeney: "Drug trafficking is causing an ecological disaster in Central America." McSweeney, a geographer at Ohio State University, is the co-author of a recent report on the little-known phenomenon of "narco-deforestation" that is destroying...
UN report finds nearly 40% of world's murders were committed in Americas in 2012 The Americas have overtaken Africa as the region with the most murders, thanks to a surge in organised crime, according to a UN report (pdf). Honduras retains the world's highest murder rate, with 90.4 homicides per 100,000 people in 2012, almost double that of Venezuela, whose rate was 53.7. Continue reading... ...
Rising temperatures resulting from climate change are fuelling the growth of rust, a disease ravaging coffee plantations in Central America. We report from Nicaragua's Jinotega hills, where starving villagers are desperate to save their livelihoods In pictures: embattled coffee farmers in Central America Under the coffee bushes, Rosibel and Benjamín Fijardo are on their knees, scraping carefully...
World Trade Organisation has now allowed five countries to appeal against cigarette labelling legislation The World Trade Organisation has granted Indonesia the right to challenge Australias plain packaging laws in front of a panel of trade and legal experts, trade sources say. Indonesia and a number of other countries before it are seeking to challenge the legislation which has required all cigarettes...
10 - 14 March 2014: Catch up with our selection of this week’s development-related news, images and key reports Anna Leach ...
Campaigners want support for company accused of links to murder, kidnapping and forced evictions to be withheld World Bank directors will be urged by Honduran peasant leaders and civil society groups to withdraw support for a major palm oil company accused of links to killings, kidnapping and the forced eviction of small farmers. The bank's European directors, meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, will...
Initiative (IM-Defensoras) in the Mexican capital. "And, of course, we are committed to continue." IM-Defensoras is a three-year-old effort to provide women rights defenders in the region with protection mechanisms that are gender-sensitive and adapted to different contexts, and that go beyond traditional options usually focused on organising some kind of police guard or facilitating exile. The initiative...
s difficult for conservative candidates to move forward because inequality is such an entrenched issue," said Ana Quintana, a Latin America expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "And it's hard to implement free-market, institutional reforms when you need to make sure a significant portion of the population can get enough to eat." Latin America's right could once identify itself as pro-business...
s ethics under scrutiny after Honduras loan inquiry The World Bank's private lending arm has been forced into a U-turn over its dealings with a Honduran palm oil company accused of assassinations and forced evictions of peasant farmers. On Wednesday evening, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) admitted failures in the implementation of its own social and environmental policies when approving...
s private lending arm failed to comply with its own ethical standards when it lent millions of dollars to a Honduran palm oil company accused of links to assassinations and forced evictions. This was the damning verdict by the World Bank's Office of the Compliance Adviser/ Ombudsman (CAO) on Friday. It had investigated whether a $30m (£18.2m) loan by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to Corporation...
s drive to reduce its carbon footprint cheaply is fuelling a dirty war in Honduras, where US-backed security forces are implicated in the murder, disappearance and intimidation of peasant farmers involved in land disputes with local palm oil magnates. More than 100 people have been killed in the past four years, many assassinated by death squads operating with near impunity in the heavily militarised...
t taking the problem seriously." The violence behind today's exodus stems from turf wars between street gangs such as the M-18 and Mara Salvatrucha, the growing power of drug cartels and woefully weak and corrupt state institutions across the region. Many of the refugees tell stories like that of Mirta, a 24-year-old Honduran woman travelling with her two small sons. After years living in New York,...
s opposition to a 2009 coup Two international press groups are calling for a full investigation into the death of Honduran journalist Juan Carlos Argenal Medina, who was found shot to death at his home in the south-eastern city of Danli. The Committee to Protect Journalists and Journalists Without Borders said Argenal was a correspondent for Radio y TV Globo, which has come under attack for its opposition...
t provide much in the way of independent observation. On Sunday, 24 November, Hondurans went to the polls to choose a new president, congress, and mayors. There were a lot of concerns about whether a free and fair election was possible in the climate of intimidation and violence (pdf) that prevailed in the country. As I noted before the vote , members of both the US House of Representatives and the...
s election was fraudulent. The electoral court has declared the conservative Juan Orlando Hernández of the ruling National party as the winner. The court said that with 99% of ballots counted, Hernández had 37% and Castro was second with 29%. Six other candidates shared the remaining votes. Both Castro and her husband, the former president Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted by a coup in 2009, led the protest...