Central America
Fists fly in Honduran Congress ahead of new president’s inauguration
AFP
Lawmakers exchanged blows in the Honduran Congress Friday as a dispute among members of president-elect Xiomara Castro’s party turned violent.
Legislators from her leftist Libre party protested after 20 rebel members proposed Jorge Calix, one of their cohorts, as provisional congress president.
Castro loyalists claimed this violated a pact with Libre’s coalition partner.
Amid cries of “traitors” and “Xiomara!”, angry Libre legislators forced their way to the podium while Calix was being sworn in, causing him to flee under a hail of punches and much pushing and shoving.
It was the first sitting of the 128-member Congress since elections last November.
Following an emergency party meeting later on Friday, the president-elect announced that the 20 members had been expelled from Libre, calling them “traitors” and “corrupt”.
The crisis began late Thursday when Castro called her party’s 50 legislators to a meeting to ask them to support Luis Redondo of the Savior Party of Honduras (PSH) as congress president.
The 20 rebel members did not attend.
On Friday, Libre leader Gilberto Rios told AFP that the 20 are backed by groups that wish to stop Castro’s promised anti-corruption campaign, including people in “organized crime” and “drug trafficking.”
Castro won elections on November 28 to become Honduras’ first woman president and end 12 years of National Party rule.
She won as part of an alliance between Libre and the PSH, to which the presidency of Congress was promised.
Castro accused the dissidents of “betraying the constitutional agreement” and “making alliances with representatives of organized crime, corruption and drug trafficking.”
Her husband Manuel Zelaya, a former president who was deposed in a 2009 coup supported by the military, business elites and the political right, is a senior Libre party official.
Castro is to be sworn in on January 27 along with other senior officials, including the congress president, at a ceremony attended by international guests including US Vice President Kamala Harris.
Central America
El Salvador reaches 270 homicide-free days in 2025, PNC reports
El Salvador closed Wednesday, November 19, with zero homicides nationwide, according to National Civil Police (PNC) statistics released early Thursday morning.
The PNC reported that this latest day without violent deaths brings the total to 19 homicide-free days so far in November 2025, including 13 consecutive days. Throughout 2025, the country has accumulated 270 days with zero homicides.
The 270 homicide-free days recorded this year are distributed as follows: 18 in November, 24 in October, 23 in September, 27 in August, 29 in July, 25 in June, 25 in January, 26 in February, 22 in March, 25 in April, and 25 in May.
Authorities attribute these security results to the government’s public safety measures, including the Territorial Control Plan and the state of exception, implemented in March 2022 to combat gang structures.
Since President Nayib Bukele took office in 2019, El Salvador has registered 1,057 homicide-free days, of which 943 occurred under the state of exception.
Central America
Arévalo warns of ‘Dark Interests’ targeting human rights defenders in Guatemala
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo de León warned on Thursday that human rights defenders are facing serious threats, aggression, and criminalization by “dark interests” embedded within the structures of the State.
“Today we are facing serious levels of threats, aggression, and criminalization against people who promote respect for human rights, coming from actors and criminal networks—sometimes embedded in State institutions—that refuse to accept that Guatemala is changing,” Arévalo said during a public event held at the former Government Palace.
During the event, authorities presented the Public Policy for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders 2025–2035, an initiative developed in compliance with a 2014 resolution from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), issued in response to the killing of activist Florentín Gudiel Ramos in 2004.
Central America
Newborn found in Costa Rican dump survives two days in unsanitary conditions
Costa Rican media outlets report that a newborn baby was found in a garbage dump, where he had reportedly spent two days in unsanitary conditions.
Police located the infant after a resident alerted authorities upon hearing crying coming from a clandestine dumping site in the Rancho Guanacaste area. The newborn was discovered alive inside a drainage channel, covered in waste. He was immediately taken to the National Children’s Hospital, where he received medical care and is now in stable condition.
“The National Children’s Hospital confirms that we indeed received a newborn approximately four or five days old who was found in a wooded area near the Alajuelita roundabout. He was first taken to the Solón Núñez Clinic and then transferred to this hospital. As of now, the baby is in the emergency department in good condition. He arrived a bit cold, but he has been warmed, fed, and his initial physical exam is completely normal,” explained hospital director Carlos Jiménez Herrera, according to CR Hoy.
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