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Charter Cities: A Fresh Start for Honduras?

A charter city is a new type of special reform zone. It extends the concept of a special economic zone by increasing its size and expanding the scope of its reforms. It must be large enough to accommodate a city with millions of workers and residents. Its reforms must extend to all the rules needed to support exchange in a modern market economy and structure interactions in a well-run city.
-Paul Romer

By Siân Disson
The vibrant image [in the photograph) depicts a few hundred meters of lush green foliage in the Honduran rainforests, acres upon acres of verdant flora growing up over the region’s rolling hills; beautiful scenery that masks a plethora of underlying urban issues. The political problems in Honduras are well known. A republic in Central America, Honduras has been tested by turbulent politics and spiralling levels of crime that have thrown a painful percentage of its population into crippling poverty. The road to recovery appears to have no end. One man is campaigning for a new direction. Paul Romer is a Professor of Economics at the NYU Stern School of Business, and in 2009 he presented the concept of Charter Cities at a TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) event.

George Irwin of Green Living Technologies Will Speak at Honduras Construction Fair

The focus is to encourage public and private sectors to stimulate development of new projects and initiatives in green building.

Honduras Weekly
Rochester, New York-based Green Living Technologies (GLTi) founder George Irwin, aka “Green Wall Editor", is preparing for the keynote address for the Honduras Construction Fair through the US Department of State’s Bureau of International Programs. Invited by the United States Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Mr. Irwin is to present the keynote at Expo Construye 2012 to be held in San Pedro Sula on May 23-26. The event, co-sponsored by the Honduran Construction Chamber, the Honduran Association of Civil Engineers, and the Honduran Chamber of Consulting Firms, is, according to the US State Department, “One of the most important events on the construction sector held in Central America.”

Chávez Drug Ties Hinge on Walid Makled

If I'm a drug trafficker, everyone in the Chávez government is a drug trafficker.
-Walid "The Turk" Makled

Honduras Weekly
Former President of Colombia Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) today accused Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez of having transformed his country into "a paradise for narco-trafficking". Speaking during a luncheon at the Cuban American National Council's 16th Biennial Conference in Miami, Florida, Mr. Uribe said, "Within a year after we began intercepting [aircraft flights] in Colombia, a radar belonging to the United Nations showed that the majority of the illegal flights left Colombian airspace and had entered Venezuela's airspace." He added, "We are always aware of the growing presence of narco-trafficking in Venezuela."

RSF Lobs Serious Accusations at Miguel Facussé

RSF claims that Facussé maintains his own “private militia” which “can count on support from the police and army to impose his will.

By Geoffrey Ramsey
Reporters Without Borders has said that the biggest threat to press freedom in Honduras is powerful landowner Miguel Facussé Barjum, though the accusations do not stop there -- Facussé has been accused of ties to the drug trade, and of waging a violent campaign against land activists. As the organization's report demonstrates, journalists across Latin America are often targeted by criminal groups, from guerrillas to street gangs and drug cartels, but violence can also come at the hands of corrupt state authorities and economic elites.

Human Rights Watch Calls for Investigation into Mosquitia Counter-Narcotics Attack

It is critical that both Honduran and US authorities ensure that the killings are thoroughly investigated to determine whether the use of lethal force was justified.
-José Miguel Vivanco

Human Rights Watch
Honduran and US authorities should ensure a prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation of the alleged killing of four civilians and wounding of four others during a joint counter-narcotics operation in the Mosquitia region of Honduras. In the pre-dawn hours of May 11, a helicopter carrying members of the Honduran National Police and agents of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) opened fire on a boat traveling on a river in the Mosquitia region. According to credible news reports, four civilians were killed, two of whom were pregnant women, and four civilians were wounded, including at least one minor.

50% of the 99%

How do we go about humanizing the economic model, when scarcity is driving it toward more fragmentation, militarism, and aggressiveness? How can we build on concepts like the Andean indigenous “Buen Vivir” (Good living) and women’s defense of human relations and Mother Earth, to create real development alternatives?

By Laura Carlsen
What’s 50 percent of 99 percent? Hint: This isn’t a math quiz. To put the question in non-numerical terms: where are women in the global economic crisis? The movement of the 99 percent that began in the United States made visible the human beings who suffer the brutal inequality and injustice of an economic system that, in crisis, required them to sacrifice even more. The emphasis on deficits and big banks had relegated the human impact of the crisis to the feature pages or, worse, the obituaries. Women, who in many ways receive the brunt of the crisis, remain even more invisible. Economic planners leave out women as a group in their equations, except to implicitly rely on their unpaid work and the bonus that economies receive from gender discrimination.

Pentagon Will Install Radar Station in Honduras

The new radar for Honduras would supposedly be used in coordination with 10 Honduran Air Force Tucano light attack aircraft which are in the process of being repaired by Embraer of Brazil.

Honduras Weekly
During a visit in Tegucigalpa yesterday with Honduran Minister of Security Pompeyo Bonilla and Minister of Defense Marlon Pascua, United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Western Hemisphere Frank Mora said that the Pentagon plans to install a radar station in northeastern Honduras to detect aircraft smuggling illegal drugs into the country. The facility would apparently be operated by the Honduran military with assistance from US technicians. "Well, first of all, we are installing a radar, or getting ready to establish it. I'm not sure, but we know that it will get done," said Mr. Mora. According to him, the equipment will have considerable capacity to monitor irregular flights. "[It will be] an important radar," noted Mr. Mora. "But sometimes you can do things that do not require a major financial investment, but require a high level of synchronization."

Migrant Kidnappings in Mexico 'Systemic'

Today, the kidnapping of migrants is a systematic and generalized crime, because it is one of the most profitable activities for organized crime in Mexico.

By Sibylla Brodzinsky
The kidnapping of migrants who travel through Mexico on their way to the United States has become a “systematic and generalized” practice by organized crime groups such as the Zetas, who demand ransom payments from families or recruit them into their ranks, according to a new report. In the report titled “Cuaderno Sobre Sequestro de Migrantes: Dimensión, Contexto y Testimonios de la Experiencia de la Migració en Tránsito por México" ("Notebook on the Kidnapping of Migrants: Dimensions, Context and Testimonies” Central American migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who escaped or were released from their kidnapping recount the torture, rape and inhumane treatment they received at the hands of the Zetas.

DEA Agents Present in La Mosquitia Helicopter Attack

Honduras Weekly
Officials from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Washington, DC today confirmed that DEA agents accompanied members of the Honduran military aboard a helicopter that mistakenly killed at least four people and wounded four more in an pre-dawn counter-narcotics operation along the Patuca River in the La Mosquitia region of Honduras last Friday. "We were there in a support role, working with our counterparts," said DEA spokesperson Dawn Dearden. The identity of the Hondurans known to have been killed are Emerson Martínez, Chalo Brock Wood, Candelaria Tratt Nelson, and Juana Banegas. Both Mrs. Nelson and Mrs. Banegas were pregnant. The wounded include Lucio Adán, Melanio Eulopio, Hilda Lezama de Eulopio, and Wilmer López. The victims were in a boat headed toward the town of Ahuas and were transporting lobster divers.

Synthetic Drug Chemicals Bound for Honduras Seized in Mexico

Honduras Weekly
Mexico's Ministry of the Navy yesterday announced that its naval forces and agents from the Mexican Tax Administration Service (SAT) have seized 136 tons of chemicals used to manufacture synthetic drugs such as crystal methamphetamine or "meth", known as "crystal" or "crystal meth". The operation took place at the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas in the state of Michoacan. The chemicals, which had arrived from China in 1,748 barrels packed in two containers, were headed for Honduras. According to a spokesperson for the Ministry, the barrels contained "the chemical substances monomethylamine and phenyl ethyl acetate, both chemical precursors utilized to make synthetic drugs". Most of the crystal meth consumed in the United States is produced in Mexico, but due to increasing pressure from the Mexican military, there appears to be a trend to move production to Central America.