• Guatemala's homicide rate falls for third year in a row
• Guatemala: Unprecedented Maya mural found, contradicts 2012 'Doomsday' myth
• Guatemala: Newly discovered calendars give insight into Maya culture

• Mayan community in Guatemala embraces Transcendental Meditation
• Programmes to support peace and stability bear fruit in Guatemala
• Guatemala: Youth in schools, probation centres thrive with Transcendental Meditation, promote peace in their nation

• Guatemala's top court annuls Rios Montt genocide conviction
• Guatemalans live in fear again as drug gangs move in
• Guatemala: Massacre work of Mexico drug gang Zetas

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Positive Trends
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Guatemala's homicide rate falls for third year in a row
2 January 2013 - Homicides in Guatemala, which has one of the world's highest murder rates, fell in 2012 for a third year as authorities ramped up their battle against Mexican drug cartels and other organized criminals, the security ministry said on Wednesday 2 January. (more)

Guatemala: Unprecedented Maya mural found, contradicts 2012 'Doomsday' myth
12 May 2012 - In the last known largely unexcavated Maya megacity, archaeologists have uncovered the only known mural adorning an ancient Maya house, a new study says-and it's not just any mural. In addition to a still vibrant scene of a king and his retinue, the walls are rife with calculations that helped ancient scribes track vast amounts of time. Contrary to the idea the Maya predicted the end of the world in 2012, the markings suggest dates thousands of years in the future. Perhaps most important, the otherwise humble chamber offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Maya society. (more)

Guatemala: Newly discovered calendars give insight into Maya culture
10 May 2012 - Newly discovered wall writings found in Guatemala show the famed Maya culture's obsession with cycles of time. But they also show calendars that go well beyond 2012, the year when the vanished civilization, according to popular culture, expected the end of the world. 'So much for the supposed end of the world,' says archaeologist William Saturno of Boston University, lead author of a study in the journal Science, which reported the discovery on Thursday. (more)

Maya lunar calendar notes discovered in Guatemala show world continuting on for octillions of years
10 May 2012 - On the wall of a tiny structure in Guatemala, archaeologists have discovered a scribe's notes about the Maya lunar calendar, which they say could be the first known records by an official chronicler of this ancient civilization. These notes pertain to the same Maya calendar that is sometimes erroneously thought to predict the world's end on or about 22 December 2012. The researchers who helped uncover and decipher the wall's inscriptions said the Maya calendar foresaw a vast progression of time, with the December 2012 date the beginning of a new calendar cycle called a baktun. 'The Maya calendar is going to keep going and keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future, a huge number that we can't even wrap our heads around,' said William Saturno of Boston University, an author of an article on the find in the journal Science. (more)

Guatemala: Lost city revealed under centuries of jungle growth
30 April 2011 - Hidden for centuries, the ancient Maya city of Holtun, or Head of Stone, is finally coming into focus. Three-dimensional mapping has 'erased' centuries of jungle growth, revealing the rough contours of nearly a hundred buildings, according to research presented earlier this month. (more)

Guatemala: Discovery of huge Mayan sculpture suggests significant city
25 January 2010 - Archaeologists have discovered a huge Mayan sculptured head in Guatemala that suggests a little-known site in the jungle-covered Peten region may once have been a significant city. The recent discovery of the head, which dates from the early Classic period between 300 to 600 AD, means the site is much older than previously thought. (more)

Mexico, Guatemala electricity link completed
27 October 2009 - Mexico and Guatemala inaugurated a $50 million electricity link on Monday that will allow the Central American nation (Guatemala) to buy cheaper power from its northern neighbour, the Mexican government said. Backers of the regional power grid say it will cut energy costs for the impoverished countries of Central America and make investments in new generating capacity more attractive. (more)

Guatemala apologizes to Cuba for Bay of Pigs
17 February 2009 - Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom apologized to Cuba on Tuesday for his country's having allowed the CIA to train exiles in the Central American country for the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. During a visit to Guatemala in March 1999, President Bill Clinton said any US support given to military forces or intelligence units that engaged in 'violent and widespread repression' was wrong. 'And the United States must not repeat that mistake.' (more)

New programme in Guatemala hopes to build lasting peace
24 December 2008 - Guatemala's government is hoping the steep, rutted road to Cocop is a path to lasting peace. Abandoned for years, the repaired dirt roadway has restored access to an isolated valley that the army stormed in 1981. It may not seem like much, but the road represents a new level of war reparations: Government aid that tries to rebuild wartorn communities as a whole, rather than handing victims cash payments that often sow resentment among their former enemies. This fall the government-run National Program for Reparations War Victims provided the fuel to power the local government's road grader. Next year, the programme wants to help Cocop peasants grow fruit and vegetables that are more profitable than traditional crops of corn and beans. And plans are under way to build a common building for occasional dances and traditional ceremonies. (more)

Guatemala to establish diplomatic ties with North Korea
4 October 2007 - Guatemala will establish diplomatic relations with North Korea after the isolated Asian nation agreed this week to suspend its nuclear facilities, the Guatemalan government said on Thursday. Guatemala has now joined a list of over 20 Latin American countries and more than 100 worldwide that recognize North Korea. (more)

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Success of Maharishi's Programmes
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Mayan community in Guatemala embraces Transcendental Meditation
15 November 2011 - In the past few years, hundreds of people in the Mayan indigenous community of Guatemala have learned the Transcendental Meditation Programme and one of its advanced techniques, Yogic Flying. This represents an important step forward, not only for the Mayan community, but also for the country. Guatemala has a history of war, conflict, and violence, but with the peaceful, coherent influence created by hundreds of practitioners of Transcendental Meditation and Yogic Flying, many feel this violence will soon come to an end. (more)

Programmes to support peace and stability bear fruit in Guatemala
23 August 2011 - The foundation for invincible peace, prosperity, and progress will soon be established in Guatemala, when sufficient numbers of people are practising Transcendental Meditation and its advanced programmes together in coherence-creating groups, including in schools and rehabilitation centres of the Mayan people. (more)

Guatemala: Youth in schools, probation centres thrive with Transcendental Meditation, promote peace in their nation
11 July 2011 - In the last six months, many young people in orphanages, probation centres, and schools in Guatemala have been learning the Transcendental Meditation Programme. The country has been plagued by high levels of violence, and through their group meditations, students are helping to create an invincible influence of coherence, harmony, and peace throughout the nation. (more)

Invincibility for Guatemala through the Mayan schools and families of El Estor
18 May 2008 - Speaking recently on Maharishi's Global Family Chat, Raja Jose Luis Alvarez, Raja of Latin America for the Global Country of World Peace, reported on the new programme to create invincibility in Guatemala that has started in the town of El Estor. (more)

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Flops
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Guatemala's top court annuls Rios Montt genocide conviction
20 May 2013 - Guatemala's highest court on Monday overturned a genocide conviction against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt and reset his trial back to when a dispute broke out a month ago over who should hear the case. Rios Montt, 86, was found guilty on 10 May of overseeing the killings by the armed forces of at least 1,771 members of the Maya Ixil population during his 1982-83 rule. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison. However, in a ruling on Monday, the country's Constitutional Court ordered that all the proceedings be voided going back to 19 April. Ana Caba, an ethnic Ixil who survived the civil war after fleeing her home, was stunned by the Constitutional Court's decision. 'I'm distressed,' she told Reuters. 'I don't know what's happening. That's how this country is. The powerful people do what they want and we poor and indigenous are devalued. We don't get justice. Justice means nothing for us.' (more)

Guatemalans live in fear again as drug gangs move in
7 October 2011 - Fifteen years after the end of a brutal civil war in Guatemala that sent tens of thousands of people fleeing to Mexico, refugees are again camping at the border. But these days they are running from a new kind of conflict -- the occupation by drug traffickers of large swathes of Guatemala's territory. Mexican cartels working with local gangs control around 40 per cent of Guatemala. ``There are parts of Guatemala that have been abandoned by the state, where there are no public services, that are being taken over by the capos,'' said Francisco Dall'Anese, who heads a special United Nations panel on corruption in Guatemala. 95 per cent of South America cocaine passes through Guatemala on its way to Mexico and then to the United States. The army says it is now outgunned by cartels after 1996 peace accords shrunk its ranks, and their job is made harder as the Zetas lure some of their former colleagues to their side. The Zetas were formed by deserters from an elite Mexican army unit and look to recruit other well-trained military men. (more)

Guatemala: Massacre work of Mexico drug gang Zetas
16 May 2011 - Guatemalan authorities on Monday blamed a weekend of violence in which 27 ranch workers lost their lives, on the Mexican drug cartel, the Zetas, which has set up shop in Guatemala and brought its terror tactics to the rural indigenous area along the Mexican border. Investigators are looking into ties between the ranch owner, Otto Salguero, and drug trafficking, but none of the victims had ties to drug cartels, authorities said. Rather they were innocent ranch workers and their families caught up in an increasingly bloody war mirroring the Zetas quest for territory in Mexico. Two women and two children were among the dead. Mexican drug cartels now operate virtually uninhibited in Central America. (more)

Guatemala extends state of siege in violent north
18 January 2011 - Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom says he is extending a state of siege in a violent province on the border with Mexico that has been taken over by Mexico's brutal Zetas drug gang. Colom says the monthlong state of siege that began on 19 December when hundreds of police and soldiers were sent to Alta Verapaz province has been successful but that he'll extend it an extra month 'because more needs to be done.' The Zetas began controlling cocaine traffic in the area in 2008 after killing Guatemalan drug boss Juan Jose 'Juancho' Leon. (more)

Drug gang suspects threaten 'war' in Guatemala
28 December 2010 - Men claiming to belong to the Zetas drug gang forced radio stations to broadcast a threat of war in a northern Guatemalan province where the government declared a state of siege last week, authorities said Tuesday. The message, which the radio broadcasters read out Monday, threatened violence if Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom does not fulfill unspecified promises. It said 'war will start in this country, in shopping malls, schools, and police stations.' Residents in the city of Coban say gangs roam the streets with assault rifles and armoured vehicles, extorting and kidnapping people. Shootouts have become a daily occurrence. (more)

Gunshot victims overwhelm Guatemala emergency room
27 December 2010 - Many nights, especially on weekends and paydays, the main public hospital in violence-wracked Guatemala City is flooded with patients suffering from stabbing or gunshot wounds. Massive numbers of cases have stretched the San Juan de Dios Hospital, the city's largest, to the breaking point. The medical facility, along with the city's Roosevelt Hospital, treated 1,224 gunshot and knife-wound patients from January to November this year. Guatemala, with a homicide rate of 50 per 100,000 people annually, is one of the most violent countries in the Western Hemisphere, exceeded only by Honduras, El Salvador, and Venezuela. Health Minister Ludwig Ovalle says treating victims of violence costs about $44 million, or about 10 per cent of the department's total annual budget. (more)

Guatemala rejects war on impunity
14 November 2010 - In this nation whose murder rate more than triples that of Mexico, judges and prosecutors are underpaid, underprotected, and under attack by organized crime. Guatemala teeters on the edge of failed-state status. Yet a UN-backed investigative team that has by all counts been highly effective in prosecuting criminals is suddenly meeting stiff resistance from the very people who should stand to gain from a stronger rule of law: Guatemala's political and business elite. The pushback comes as nearly half the territory in a country of 14 million is controlled by drug gangs and other criminals, with violence even at the capital's swankiest addresses. More than 96 per cent of murders go unsolved. 'We live in a terrifying anarchy,' psychologist Oscar Quintero said. (more)

Former Guatemalan President charged in US
26 January 2010 - Alfonso Portillo, the fugitive former President of Guatemala, was charged in the United States on Monday with using foreign banks to launder millions of dollars plundered from charity and government coffers. Portillo is accused of 'converting the office of the Guatemalan Presidency into his personal ATM,' US Attorney Preet Bharara of New York said in a statement. The disgraced politician already was facing embezzlement charges in his own country. An indictment unsealed in federal court in Manhattan alleges the four-year scheme began in 2000, when Portillo began embezzling $1.5 million in donations from Taiwan. In 2001, Portillo conspired with two members of the Guatemalan military -- an unnamed colonel in charge of his security detail and an intelligence officer -- to embezzle millions of dollars from the government, US prosecutors say. (more)

Budget woes weaken Guatemala army in drugs war
3 October 2009 - The economic crisis has squeezed Guatemala's coffers and left the army strapped for cash and scrambling to pay for gear and supplies as it tries to battle rich and well-armed drug cartels. In the vast Peten jungle in northern Guatemala, drug gangs operate with impunity, laying clandestine landing strips for planes loaded with South American cocaine which is then trucked over the porous border with Mexico and up to the United States. Three-quarters of South American cocaine smuggled north goes via Central America. Much passes through Guatemala's Peten region and the cartels buy off army officers, police, judges, and politicians to protect their interests. (more)

Thousands protest to demand Guatemalan leader quit
18 May 2009 - Thousands of Guatemalans protested Sunday to demand the President resign over accusations that he ordered a lawyer killed, a scandal threatening the rule of the country's first leftist leader more than 50 years. President Alvaro Colom denies Rodrigo Rosenberg's allegations, which were broadcast posthumously after the attorney was shot to death a week ago. He has dismissed calls for his resignation and asked the FBI and a UN panel to investigate the killing. An FBI agent arrived in Guatemala last week to coordinate with local prosecutors and with the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, a UN panel set up in 2007 to clean up corruption. (more)