CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 30: In Costa Rica, evidence collected by the press and prosecutors of Rodrigo Chaves rigging a public-relations contract leads the Supreme Court to discuss the possible removal of his immunity — an unprecedented corruption probe against a sitting president.

In Honduras, President Xiomara Castro will be interim defense minister after ruling-party presidential candidate Rixi Moncada leaves for the campaign trail. Moncada’s exit blunts her direct conflict of interest as former head of the armed forces, an institution under scrutiny for its handling of the primaries.

This episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier with audio production and original soundtrack by Omnionn. Additional reporting from Ramiro Guevara. El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.

Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 29: The attorneys general of El Salvador and Guatemala meet and agree to increase cooperation, in the most public show of support from the Bukele regime for Consuelo Porras. Weeks after Guatemalan prosecutors threatened to launch an investigation into USAID funding to independent media, the Salvadoran legislature approves a Foreign Agents Law to choke off international aid to critical civil society groups.

In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo modify the recently rewritten constitution to eliminate the right to double-citizenship. Around the seventh anniversary of the start of the mass uprising against the regime, the Inter-American Court issues a sweeping report on migratory repression in the last two years of dissidents and former political prisoners.

This episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier with audio production and original soundtrack by Omnionn. Additional reporting from Ramiro Guevara. El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.

Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 28: In El Salvador, Nayib Bukele sends the Military Police to disperse families in front of his personal residence, as they pleaded not to be evicted from their homes. As the regime arrests another lawyer accompanying families threatened by displacement, Bukele claims international interference against his government, reactivating a 2021 plan to place high taxes on donations to civil society organizations.

On Thursday, El Faro’s 27th anniversary, we launched Central America Monthly, a digital magazine where we will seek deeper, sharper answers to pressing questions in our region. The inaugural issue includes a judicial chronicle from Guatemala, our exclusive video interview on gang leaders’ decade-long relationship with Bukele —the publication of which set off a firestorm of government retaliation in El Salvador— and more.

This episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier with audio production and original soundtrack by Omnionn. El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.

Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 27: Even if Jose Rubén Zamora, who is 68 years old, successfully defends himself at retrial in the original case against him, he looks set to face years of legal challenges as the hydra of spurious accusations against Guatemala’s former top publisher continues to grow.

On April 21, the Bernardo Arévalo administration said they are finishing chalking up a journalist-protection policy for the Executive Branch. Press advocates warn that any safeguards can only have a limited effect without an end to persecution and change of leadership at the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The attorney general selection process is set to end in May 2026.

This special May episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier with audio production and original soundtrack by Omnionn. El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 26: It may have come as a surprise in the U.S. when Trump and Bukele shrugged off a court order to bring back wrongfully deported immigrant Kilmar Ábrego. In El Salvador, presidential non-compliance has been business as usual since 2020.

El Faro is on vacation for Holy Week. Today, in a shorter episode, we share the perspectives of two Salvadoran columnists from our flagship El Faro English newsletter. Subscribe here.

El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.

Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 25: The U.N. Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua names Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo, and dozens of regime officials in a report on crimes against humanity. It’s their second major release in two months, compounding U.N. evidence-gathering on the Ortega-Murillo regime as the 2018 state repression turns seven years old.

Days before Nayib Bukele is set to meet with Donald Trump at the White House, the State Department certifies his government as respectful of human rights and softens the advisory for U.S. citizens traveling to El Salvador. The DOJ puts a senior attorney on leave for not “zealously advocating” for the administration’s policy of deportations to El Salvador.

El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.

Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 24: The key to El Salvador’s prisons, and the Nayib Bukele administration that runs them, are facilities that most observers abroad have never heard of: black boxes where reports of systematic torture have emerged in survivor testimony, disease proliferates and medical care is denied, and at least 375 people have reportedly died in custody.

These prisons are a focal point of political corruption investigated by Salvadoran and U.S. authorities, from the top brass of the Ministry of Security to rank-and-file officers. They were also the stage of Bukele’s pact with MS-13 and 18th Street from 2019 to 2022 — the collapse of which led to the installment of the state of exception now three years old.

This special April monthly episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier with audio production and original soundtrack by Omnionn. El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.

Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 23: Former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Ronald Johnson, a friend and promoter of Nayib Bukele, tells the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “I don’t doubt” that Pegasus could have been used against civil society and U.S. officials during his tenure in El Salvador.

The Panama government allows fugitive ex-president Ricardo Martinelli —once famous for using Pegasus against political opponents and his mistress— to leave for Managua. In February 2024, Martinelli claimed asylum in the Nicaraguan Embassy to evade a 10-year money-laundering sentence in Panama City.

El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.

Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 22: Nayib Bukele and Elon Musk propose that U.S. judges ruling against Donald Trump’s agenda be impeached, citing the illegal 2021 removal of the Salvadoran constitutional chamber magistrates as a model to follow. Bukele claims that a judge’s order against recent deportations to Salvadoran prison is a “judicial coup” against Trump.

In the Honduran primaries, ruling party candidate Rixi Moncada says she will resign as defense minister in May. Salvador Nasralla, casting himself as MAGA-friendly, emerges for the Liberal Party. The National Party courts Trump operative Roger Stone, who claims the 2024 drug conviction of Juan Orlando Hernández is part of a “globalist” plot against a U.S. friend.

El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.

Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 21: The Sunday primaries in Honduras await results as civil society monitors criticize delayed ballot delivery and the press reports violations of the chain of custody of ballots by the Army. Ruling party Libre receives the most votes, according to projections.

Tension grows between the two main electoral institutions. Minister of Defense Rixi Moncada, who is also the Libre presidential candidate, deflects responsibility for the blunders to the National Electoral Council (CNE). The CNE, meanwhile, denounces a contractor for the ballot disarray.

In Guatemala, a judge orders journalist Jose Rubén Zamora back to prison and he re-enters Mariscal Zavala after an appellate court vacates months of proceedings. In the same breath, the judge denounces threats against his court and plaintiffs file yet another money laundering case against Zamora.

El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.

Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.