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GUATEMALA CITY — Just hours after tendering his resignation as president of Guatemala, Otto Pérez Molina was sent to jail to await the conclusion of a hearing examining his role in a multimillion dollar customs fraud case that has shaken the nation and sent reverberations throughout the region. The decision to jail Mr. Pérez Molina highlighted the seismic change sweeping through Guatemala after the corruption accusations in April, and offered a dramatic validation of a growing street demonstration movement demanding his ouster and prosecution. For much of Guatemala’s violent history, marked by dictatorship and military repression, such a scene would...

Despite all the backlash the United States received for its decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city, another country has decided to follow suit. The president of Guatemala announced Sunday that his country plans to move their embassy to Jerusalem as well. "Dear people of Guatemala, today I spoke with the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. We discussed the excellent relations that we have had as nations since Guatemala supported the creation of the state of Israel," President Jimmy Morales wrote on his official Facebook account."One of the most important topics...

Ten Guatemalan parliamentarians signed a letter to the president of Guatemala in which they requested to transfer their embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, according to Israel Hayom. The letter was also reportedly given to MK Haim Yellin (Yesh Atid), who visited the Guatemalan parliament last week with MK Yifat Shasha-Biton (Kulanu). The letter joins yesterday's report that Guatemalan Foreign Minister Sandra Jovel said Guatemala supports President Trump's statement ...

In multiple embassies around the world, particularly those staffed entirely by career Foreign Service officers, no portrait of President Trump or Vice-President Pence has been hung. Up until last week, the swamp had an excuse – there was no official portrait and the swamp refused to go to the trouble to find unofficial ones. But it’s not just the entrances to embassies where it seems the 2016 election never happened. All throughout the government, Obama-holdovers who rabidly oppose President Trump and his policies still hold positions of extraordinary power. The swamp is alive and well. Consider the National Security...

Residents of a Mexican city are upset about immigrants causing crime, according to a Tuesday report from El Universal. The report said that there was a press conference was held in Tapachula by a leader of a local group called: “For a different Mexico.” The group’s president, Victorino Alvarez Fuentes, said that immigrants were also masturbating in public and sexually assaulting women and minors. Tapachula is near the Guatemalan border and besides immigrants from Central American countries, there has been a recent influx of African immigrants entering Mexico seeking to eventually get to the U.S. The El Universal story centered...

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - A Guatemalan comedian who has tapped into public anger over government corruption looks set to clinch the presidency on Sunday in a run-off against a former first lady struggling to distance herself from a discredited political establishment.

Fr. Stanley Rother Could Become First Beatified Martyr from the United StatesA Theological Commission of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints has recognized the martyrdom of Fr. Stanley Rother, a priest from Oklahoma. According to the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, the vote is a crucial step in advancing his cause of Beatification. If beatified, Fr. Stanley Rother would be the first Catholic martyr and priest from the United States to receive such recognition. Fr. Rother, a native of Okarche and a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, was murdered by an unknown assailant on July 28th, 1981. At...

Iconographic studies of Teotihuacan murals confirm the extension of the lineage of a ruler of the ancient city of Tikal, Guatemala, already revealed by epigraphists of the Maya area. The aforementioned investigation sums up to interpretations of Stele 31 of Tikal that relate to the dynastic line of Atlatl-Cauac ("Dart-thrower Owl"), possible ruler of Teotihuacan between 374 and 439 AD, and whose son, Yax Nuun Ayiin I, was seignior of Tikal. The emblem of this lineage would be represented by the image of a bird with a shield, observed in Teotihuacan murals, declared Dr. Raul Garcia Chavez, researcher at the...

Immigration has emerged as perhaps President Obama's worst issue -- definitely for today, and maybe of his entire presidency -- when it comes to public perception. A new poll from AP-GfK shows more than two-thirds of Americans (68 percent) disapprove of Obama's handling of the immigration issue in general. Just 31 percent approve -- down from 38 percent two months ago. When you separate those most passionate about the issue, the difference is even more stark, with 57 percent opposed and just 18 percent in favor. That's more than three-to-one. We tried to find an issue on which Obama has...

NRO is hearing from a GOP aide that Senators John McCain and John Cornyn, of Arizona and Texas, respectively, are working on a Senate version of the House supplemental-funding bill aimed at addressing the border crisis that is expected to move forward tomorrow. -snip- It will likely provide new funding for immigration courts and enforcement agencies, as well as some aid for Central American countries from which the migrants currently crossing the border hail. Senator Ted Cruz’s proposal to halt the president’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program by refusing funding for the program is not expected to be included...

The Senate on Wednesday narrowly advanced an emergency funding measure to respond to the influx of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the southern border that has triggered a humanitarian crisis. -snip- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is opposed to the Senate Democratic measure, initially voted in favor to advance the bill. But once it looked like the legislation might collapse, he switched his vote to “no.” A McConnell aide said when the outcome of the procedural vote looked murky, “many of our members wanted to be on record in opposition to a bill that didn’t even include the minor...

TENOSIQUE, Mexico — For years, Mexico’s most closely watched border was its northern one, which generations of Mexican migrants have crossed seeking employment and refuge in the United States. But the sudden surge of child migrants from Central America, many of them traveling alone, has cast scrutiny south, to the 600-mile border separating Mexico and Guatemala. :snip: Last year, Mexico deported 89,000 Central Americans, including 9,000 children, the bulk of the returnees coming from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, officials have said. In the fiscal year that ended last September, the United States sent back 106,420 from those countries. So...

Assemblyman V. Manuel Pérez unveiled an immigration resolution Friday at Coachella City Hall that he plans to introduce for California to meet the humanitarian challenges faced with tens of thousands of unaccompanied children arriving at the U.S. border. :snip: "They need due process, and if they are found to face a threat should they be returned to their home country, they should be seen and identified as refugees." :snip: Pérez said he always felt safe and never saw violence while visiting Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala, but he sensed a difference in the latter when it came to political corruption....

SYRACUSE -- Arely Tomas Orozco hardly ever went out.

Guatamala City has introduced women-only buses aimed at reducing instances of harassment and violence against women on public transport across the Guatemalan capital. The project came about after a congresswoman, Zury Rios Montt, started a petition to draw attention to the fact that hundreds of women were sexually harassed on buses every year. According to the Association of Transport Users in Guatemala, of the 1,500 complaints received annually about passenger abuse, more than a third of them involve the sexual harassment of women and girls. "Women have the right to travel in safety, as demanded by law," said Luis Gómez,...

Border: Mexico's Zetas have drawn a bead on Guatemala's 2011 presidential election, and former U.S. officials say the cartel is stockpiling arms to do the same to Mexico in its 2012 election. Is there a White House plan? Smuggling military-grade weapons from Fort Worth through El Paso and Columbus, New Mexico, the Mexican cartel known as Los Zetas may be doing so not just to fight other cartels but to disrupt Mexico's 2012 election, according to report quoting former officials in the El Paso Times that ran July 13. Phil Jordan, a former director of El Paso's DEA Intelligence Center,...

TRENTON - Bail for an illegal alien from Guatemala accused of kidnapping, duct taping and robbing a woman was nearly doubled today by a Mercer County Superior Court judge. An illegal immigrant detainer was placed on Sergio Sarceno Cano, 30, who was charged with kidnapping, terroristic threats, criminal restraint, theft and weapons offenses for the Feb. 21 alleged assault, said Assistant Prosecutor Skylar Weissman. Cano allegedly kidnapped the victim from her Hamilton home, bound her arms, legs and mouth with duct tape and moved her around various places in the township against her will, the prosecutor said. “He taped her...

The Inter-Press Sevice (IPS) is reporting that the head administrator of the Mexican Superintendency of Tax Administration, Raul Diaz, has confirmed that his government is building a wall in the state of Chiapas, along the Mexican/Guatemalan border. The official reason is to stop contraband from coming into Mexico, but as Diaz admitted: “It could also prevent the free passage of illegal immigrants.”

When the Los Angeles Police Department faced hundreds of protesters on the streets of the Westlake District, some were people drawn to the event from other parts of the city for political reasons. Twenty-two people were arrested Tuesday night after protesters clashed with police near a vigil for Manuel Jamines, a Guatamalan-born day laborer fatally shot Sunday by an officer who said Jamines refused to drop a knife. Among those arrested was Jubilee Shine, 40, a South Los Angeles activist who heads the Coalition for Community Control Over the Police. Shine said he was arrested on 6th Street near Bonnie...

The Guatemalan government has issued a public protest after three Guatemalans were arrested this month by immigration agents at a Federal Express office in Florida, when one of the immigrants went to pick up a package containing his newly issued Guatemalan passport. Suspecting that the passport was fraudulent, Fedex officials called ICE agents to alert them when the Guatemalans arrived to collect the package...Two of the Guatemalans were illegal immigrants who have been deported, and one is in deportation proceedings.Guatemalan diplomats said that Fedex and American officials had examined and seized legitimate passports without notifying them and had improperly disrupted...