Nayib Bukele, an outsider candidate, claims victory in El Salvador election Gene Palumbo and Elisabeth Malkin New York Times February 3, 2019
“Analysts said…Mr. Bukele was able to set himself apart on the issue of corruption, which has roiled politics across Latin America and paved the way for candidates promising to combat it. In El Salvador, both traditional parties made for easy targets. Former President Tony Saca, an Arena politician, is serving a 10-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty last year to charges of embezzlement and money laundering in the diversion of more than $300 million in public funds. Mauricio Funes, a former television broadcaster who was the F.M.L.N.’s first president, is accused of embezzling $351 million. In 2016, he fled to Nicaragua, which has granted him asylum. ”

Killings of Guatemala’s indigenous activists raise specter of human rights crisis  Maria MartinNPR January 22, 2019
“Maya communities bore the brunt of almost four decades of a civil war that ended in 1996, leaving over 200,000 casualties, the majority indigenous Guatemalans, according to the United Nations. Now the mostly Maya organizations and many human rights groups worry that the violence is making a comeback: In just the last year, 26 members of mostly indigenous campesinoorganizations have been killed.”

Honduran crisis produces new caravan Jan Egeland Inter Press Service January 16, 2019