CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 12: Expecting increased U.S. deportations, Honduran President Xiomara Castro threatens to expel a key Southcom military base. Her Guatemalan counterpart Bernardo Arévalo, meanwhile, says the country is “open” to taking in deportations of other Central American nationals.

After weeks of claiming that the Chinese military controls the Panama Canal and mistreats U.S. businesses, Trump says he will not rule out military intervention to take back control of the canal zone. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino retorts that the “sovereignty of the canal is non-negotiable.”

In the span of a day, the Guatemalan Supreme Court prepares to notify publisher Jose Rubén Zamora that he would be sent back to preventive prison, while the Constitutional Court rejects an appeal to stop the criminalization of journalists.

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. 11: In a major universal jurisdiction trial, an Argentinian judge has requested the arrest of Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo, and a battery of top Nicaraguan officials implicated in hundreds of killings and other 2018 state crimes against humanity.

Two-thirds of the big business-friendly Guatemalan Congress approved an anti-monopoly law that was a priority of President Bernardo Arévalo, amid debates over whether the new rules will curb market concentration or provide insider loopholes.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights sets regional precedent by condemning the Salvadoran state for “obstetric violence” by denying Beatriz a therapeutic abortion in 2013 — but stops short of naming the state responsible for the woman’s 2017 death.

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. 10: In 2024, Bernardo Arévalo failed to remove the Guatemalan attorney general from office, the Salvadoran press published evidence that Nayib Bukele’s family is acquiring significant assets, and Central American leaders eyed Donald Trump’s return for political gain.

In 2025, U.S. immigrants’ organizations plan to again turn to religious organizations to fight Trump deportations and expect DACA to eventually be struck down. In Central America, Nayib Bukele expresses interest in pursuing the press and the November elections will test Xiomara Castro’s democratic commitment.

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 this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 9: The Salvadoran Court of Accounts planned to let Agriculture Minister Pablo Anliker off the hook for $60 million in Covid-19 fraud while ordering six of his subordinates to repay the money from contracts he signed.

After three years of negotiations, El Salvador secures a $1.4 billion debt refinancing lifeline from the IMF and stands to obtain more from other financiers — in exchange for rolling back plans for Bitcoin, which will no longer be legal tender.

The Nicaraguan Central Bank pushes to de-dollarize to increase monetary control, decreeing that most goods and services be quoted in córdobas. The regime, close to BRICS nations China and Russia, has criticized the “global dictatorship of the dollar.”

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 this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 8: The Nicaraguan regime tightens border controls, pulls passports, and puts a legal veneer on the cancellation of citizenship to keep a leash on insiders and critics alike.

U.S. congressmen from both parties criticize arbitrary arrests in El Salvador. But Republican Chris Smith cites Joe Biden’s signing-off on Nayib Bukele’s unconstitutional reelection to assert that Bukele obtained a “democratic majority” in February.

Guatemalan courts reactivate the lawfare against reporters from Jose Rubén Zamora’s paper elPeriódico, a third arrest warrant is issued for exiled journalist Juan Luis Font, and anti-femicide law is wielded against Diego España, a courtroom reporter who publicly questioned a woman prosecutor.

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 this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 7: Top editors of Costa Rica’s leading daily newspaper resign, citing editorial pressures on coverage. Salvadoran authorities raid the home of a radio journalist whose station is critical of Bukele’s mining project.

Guatemalan AG Consuelo Porras picks apart the Public Prosecutor’s Office in a dramatic reshuffling of dozens of staff, and dismantles the special war-crimes unit.

A Stanford-led study projects that the state of exception has doubled and will continue to fuel the swelling rate of tuberculosis in Salvadoran prisons, which hold the largest per capita incarcerated population in the world.

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 this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 6: After the express approval of a new data privacy law in El Salvador, a freshly created State Cybersecurity Agency will order the removal of online content deemed “inadequate” or “inexact” from the internet.

Nayib Bukele declares on X that El Salvador’s watershed 2017 prohibition of metallic mining is “absurd”. In Nicaragua, toxic mining and settler violence against Indigenous communities in affected areas run deep.

The IMF is reportedly close to a $1.4 billion dollar deal with El Salvador in the coming weeks, all while the Fund reports that Nicaragua —which is in the middle of dismantling the separation of powers— “is maintaining robust economic performance.”

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 this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 5: Two years into the Honduran state of exception, reports abound of illegal raids, torture, forced disappearance, and extrajudicial killings. Extortion, the purported reason for the measures, remains unscathed.

In Nicaragua, the Ortega-Murillo regime slates constitutional changes to officialize the position of “co-president”, removing any room for doubt that Rosario Murillo plans to hold onto the presidency should Daniel Ortega pass away.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the primary enforcer of Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans, is acquiring new surveillance tools like those deployed against civil society, politicians, and journalists in El Salvador and Panama.

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 this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 4: Rodrigo Chaves awards Nayib Bukele Costa Rica’s highest diplomatic honors and receives dozens of Salvadoran soldiers in Costa Rica —which abolished its Army in 1948— before getting permission from the legislature.

Donald Trump taps top Republican foreign policymaker Marco Rubio, a staunch critic of Nicaragua, as secretary of state. He also nominates Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, head of the El Salvador Caucus, to lead the Department of Justice.

Daniel Ortega expels the head of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua as the regime surveils, jails, and banishes Catholic clergy as a criminal organization.

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 this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 3: In congratulating Donald Trump on his return to the White House, Nayib Bukele flashes his teeth at his critics. The Honduran foreign minister says a hardening of U.S. immigration policy will “affect the whole region.”

An El Faro investigation reveals that, while Bukele was running for reelection last year, the Office of the Presidency bought plots of land around his personal residence — despite the fact that a presidential residence already exists.

A Guatemalan court orders the release of over a dozen military officers in one of the most infamous forced disappearance cases in Latin America. The attorney general fires the prosecutor leading the Ixil genocide case against Benedicto Lucas García.

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 this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.