If employees don't get paid when they expect to be paid, you're asking for trouble and, ultimately, you're bound to lose more money in the long-run -- in the form of lost time and production and destruction of property -- than your negligence is worth.

By Marco Cáceres
One of the principal weaknesses of underdeveloped nations like Honduras is their wage payment systems. Whether it's the government or a business or a household, there is often a problem with paying employees on time... every time. It's kind of like a shell game... sometimes it's there, not there, there... oops, wrong again. Putting aside the issue of paying fair wages (which is another huge problem), there is a seemingly constant struggle in Honduras for employers to meet their basic obligation to reimburse their employees for time and services rendered. Putting aside the issue of inadequate job performance of workers (which is another huge problem), all too many employers in Honduras simply do not place a high enough priority on ensuring that their people receive the money they are owed punctually so that they can then proceed to pay their bills, buy the things they need, and repay their debts. The reasons for this negligence include poor administration and record-keeping, insufficient funds, corruption, and just plain forgetfulness or lack of caring.

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Fox said that the goal of the federal government should be to seek peace as has been achieved in other countries, including Colombia, where its former president, César Gaviria, did not negotiate the law with drug dealers, yet he still reached an arrangement with them.

Milenio
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox claimed that the United States government and the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) are negotiating with Mexican drug traffickers, including Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, offering them reduced sentences and even money to "informants" in order to dismantle the drug cartels in Mexico. In this regard, he said during an interview with Carlos Marín on Milenio Television that, in the neighboring country to the north, there are many more drugs than in Mexico and "I have not heard (President) Obama say enough is enough. Could it be that we are doing the job for them?" asked the former Mexican president.

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Although they're fairly commonplace in the United States, sunglasses and reading glasses can be a valuable commodity in Honduras. Reading glasses can be difficult to find in remote regions. Sunglasses are also important, Kirkpatrick said, because their patients tend to spend more time outdoors than most Americans.

By Silas Allen
In the United States, getting a pair of reading glasses can be as simple as walking into a drugstore and choosing a pair off the rack. But in more remote regions of Honduras, a US$15 pair of reading glasses can make a world of difference, said Megan Kirkpatrick, a student in Northeastern State University's College of Optometry. Kirkpatrick, president of the NSU chapter of Student Volunteer Optometric Service to Humanity, is one of about 16 students who will travel to Honduras this summer to provide eye care on the island of Roatán.

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One possibility is that the ambush was carried out by local "transportistas"; individuals who move contraband, particularly narcotics, through the country. Two of the more well-known transportistas in the country are Nelson and Javier Rivera, former car thieves and cattle rustlers who moved into the drug trade.

By Edward Fox
An armed group ambushed a Honduran military convoy yesterday, wounding five soldiers, in the northern department of Colón. The attack occurred in a rural area of the Bajo Aguán Valley. Eleven military personnel from the 15th and 16th Infantry Battalions were going to investigate reports of looting in a nearby village. The reports turned out to be false, and the units were ambushed by approximately 30 heavily armed gunmen, reports Proceso Digital. Five of the 11 soldiers were injured in the assault, two seriously. Colonel David Paz Hernández, head of Operation Xatruch II which sent 600 soldiers to secure the area in August of last year, could not confirm reports of the number of gunmen, but said the attack pointed to the presence of combatants in the area, rather than armed peasants, reports El Heraldo.

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When people think about fine chocolate, they associate it with Switzerland or Belgium. But cacao was introduced to Europe by the Spanish conquistadors. Chocolate comes from Central America. Shouldn’t the best chocolate come from there?

-Maribel Lieberman

By Stanley Marrder
The closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) rings at 4:00 pm US Eastern Time to signify the end of a stock trading session. In 1870, when the tradition began, a Chinese gong was used. When the stock exchange moved to it’s current building in 1903, it was replaced by a bell system which is still in use today. The tradition is highly publicized. Millions of people watch it daily through the NYSE Euronext website and TV networks such as CNBC, Bloomberg TV and Fox Business news. It is often done by a representative of a company, but there have been many high profile special guests.

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Honduras Weekly
Honduras-born businesswoman Maribel Lieberman sounded the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York on Wednesday. Ms. Lieberman, who is the founder and owner of MarieBelle New York chocolate retail boutique in New York's Soho district, was selected for the honor of ringing the bell for her outstanding economic achievements. "Generally, they invite people [to ring the bell) who own big businesses and contribute to the economy or government representatives, among others, and that it is really an honor to do it because the entire world watches this market," said Ms. Lieberman, who is originally from the town of Jutiquile in the department of Olancho, Honduras. The NYSE is located on Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is operated by NYSE Euronext. A bell to open trading sounds at 9:30 am (US Eastern Time) Monday through Friday, with a closing bell each day at 4:00 pm

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The consequences of the lack of family structure in Honduras include child abuse. This abuse, especially sexual abuse, is the most common problem...

By Marco Cáceres
In Honduras, more than 50 percent of the population is 15 years old and younger. The average woman is only 15 years old when she gives birth to her first child. In recent years, more than 80 percent of all birth certificates issued in the country do not name a father. According to Ana Alleman of Hogar Suyapa in El Progreso, the reasons for this lack of family structure in Honduras include: large number of men (and increasingly women) leaving for the United States and Spain; high unemployment and underemployment; overall failing of the moral structure of the society in that there is no longer any stigma to having a child outside of marriage; lack of education; lack of a loving, supportive environment within the family which leads to young women having babies in order to have someone to love; macho attitude of wanting to have as many children as possible by as many women as possible.

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At the same time, the Classic Maya would have implicated gods and their "divine" rulers for the collapse. In that way, their abandoned territories became thought of as chaotic, haunted places, and reclaiming any lands from the forest was at best done with great care and ritual.

By Charles Choi
A dread of malevolent spirits haunting forsaken areas could, along with environmental catastrophes, help to explain why some areas in the ancient Mayan world proved less resilient than others when their civilization disintegrated, researchers suggest. The ancient Maya once claimed an area about the size of Texas, with cities and fields that occupied what is now southern Mexico and northern Central America, including the countries of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. The height of the Mayan civilization, known as the Classic period, extended from approximately AD 250 to at least 900. For unknown reasons, the Classic Mayan civilization then collapsed. The population declined catastrophically to a fraction of its former size, and many of their great cities were left mostly abandoned for the jungle to reclaim.

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Honduras Weekly
Canada's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Diane Ablonczy yesterday said in Tegugicalpa that the Canadian government will assist Honduras in purging its National Police and designate a representative to participate on the Commission for Public Security Reform proposed by the administration of President Porfirio Lobo. The commission will consist of five people -- three Hondurans and two foreigners. On Tuesday, President Lobo named former university rector Jorge Casco, sociologist Matías Funes, and former Minister of Interior Victor Meza as the three Honduran representatives. Minister Ablonczy is in Honduras in response to a formal invitation to her government to become involved in the process of improving the country's security system. The government of Chile has also expressed interest in participating in the work through a representative on the commission.

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Mr. Santorum realizes that the less educated people are, the more likely they will be to agree with his feelings about science and, even more important, the more likely it is that they will enthusiastically support his candidacy.

By Christopher Brauchli
Now that it appears that Rick Santorum is more than a flash in the hot (albeit not globally warmed) evolutionary pan, I confess to an oversight that occurred in this space in 2011 when I suggested that Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry were the only ones among the Republican presidential candidates who believed that evolution was nothing more than a theory. I did Mr. Santorum a disservice by failing to acknowledge his long-standing support of creationism and his contempt for the idea of global warming. His support for creationism in the classroom goes back at least as far as 2001.

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We have fought to have a party founded on liberty in order to refound Honduras, but we cannot do this with the same bad habits of the past.

-Edgardo Castro, Libre

By Marco Cáceres
Salvador Nasralla apparently knew what he was talking about last week when he referred to the new Liberty and Refoundation Party, or "Libre", as another "traditional party". He said that while the leaders of Libre "may have good intentions", they "are surrounded by politicians". Mr. Nasralla, who is the founder of the recently-registered Anti-Corruption Party (PAC) and will be its candidate to run for the Presidency of Honduras in 2013, was essentially voicing what many others in Honduras have strongly suspected -- that there's nothing particularly unique about Libre, aside from its political platform, which is based on refounding the country by convening a National Constituent Assembly to review and rewrite the Constitution. While Libre prides itself on being a grassroots organization where power and decisions emanate from the bottom (the people) and move up through the system in a transparent, fluid, and all-inclusive manner, thereby serving as a model for a direct democracy form of government, the reality of how the party operates may be entirely different.

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Honduras officially stated that it does not possess cluster munitions. Officials have said that Honduras destroyed its stockpile of air-dropped Rockeye cluster bombs as well as an unidentified type of artillery-delivered cluster munition in previous years.

Cluster Munition Coalition
Honduras ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions on March 21, becoming the 70th State Party to the treaty. The ratification comes in advance of the Convention on Cluster Munitions Intersessional Meetings that will take place in Geneva during April 16-19. At this meeting governments will take stock of the progress made so far in implementing the Convention on Cluster Munition using the Vientiane Action Plan as a roadmap. “Honduras’ ratification brings us one step closer to full adherence to the ban treaty by Central America. Belize is the only remaining country in the sub-region yet to reject cluster bombs by acceding to the Convention on Cluster Munitions” said Amy Little, Campaign Manager for the Cluster Muniition Coalition. “We hope that Belize will follow the rest of the region and join without delay”.

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