Renata Avila, one of the authors of Global Voices, the international blog network, writes about how the web is being used by Guatemalan painters and artists, wherever they are in the world.
"Sebastián Sarti is Guatemalan, but was born in Costa Rica, where his Guatemalan father was exiled and married his Puerto Rican mother. He grew up in Nicaragua, lived for a while in Guatemala, and now he is dedicated to his paintings in Aix et à Marseille. He is sharing his works on his personal blog El Desorden de la Cabeza (The Mess Inside My Head)," writes Avila.
She goes on to feature Guatemalan artists in Antigua, New York and France - you can read about them and find links to their blogs here.
Global Voices was founded in 2005 by Rebecca MacKinnon, a former CNN bureau chief in Beijing and Tokyo, and Ethan Zuckerman, a technologist and Africa expert, while both were fellows at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. The idea for the project grew out of an international bloggers’ meeting held at Harvard in December 2004 and it began as a simple blog. (Here's a written report and podcast of that meeting).
— Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
The dangers for journalists in Latin America continue, and the latest report is about Guatemala.
Reporters, media directors and human rights defenders say the greatest risk for journalists is exposure to violence combined with a lack of protection and a lack of commitment to investigate crimes against them, Inter Press Service and Cerigua report.
"It is definitely dangerous to work as a journalist in Guatemala," radio reporter María Teresa López tells Inter Press Service. Journalists outside the capital are especially vulnerable, she says, because "everyone knows us and knows what we’re doing."
The blog of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas reports that "the prosecutor's office for crimes against journalists took legal action on only one of the 36 complaints it received in 2008. But Walter Juárez of the Guatemalan Journalists Assn. says media owners share the responsibility. They "make the reporters stick their necks out by forcing them to sign their stories, while failing to do anything" to protect them, he says.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Mexico City is on high alert this morning as it awaits the arrival of U.S. President Barack Obama, expected here today in his first official visit to Mexico.
Read on »
“This struggle is not just their struggle, it’s our struggle,” said human rights activist and photographer Jonathan Moller at a reception for his photography exhibit, “Our Culture is Our Resistance," showing at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures in Bloomington, Ind.
The Indiana Daily Student reports that Moller discussed his experiences chronicling the brutal violence of Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996. He said the worst killing during years of fighting in Central America was the Guatemalan government's campaign against the country's indigenous, who represent between 60% and 65% of the population. The civil war left more than 200,000 people dead or disappeared, mostly civilians.
Read the rest of the report on the exhibition here.
You can see Moller's pictures here on his website.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Guatemalans celebrated Mayan New Year on Sunday, which is the year 5125 in the Mayan solar calendar, according to the Prensa Latina news agency.
Fire ceremonies, dances and baseball games in different parts of the country were held in honor of the occasion.
According to the report, celebrations of Mayan New Year in the past were held in secret. But, for the first time, different state institutions participated this year. They were led by the Culture Ministry, which organized lectures and workshops to debate about the date's significance.
AFP reports that the traditional celebration is important because it was a ritual observed by the ancestors of modern-day Mayans, a civilization that was once spread across central and south Mexico into the Yucatan and swaths of Central America.
Saturday concluded a week of transition between last year and this year -- the year of 'Iq,' or air, the breath of life.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Forbes magazine takes a peek at Valentine's Day around the world and includes Mexico, Brazil and Guatemala in its sweep.
Valentine's Day, or the day of "love and friendship" (amor y amistad), as it's called here in Mexico City, is a hit with many Mexicans. "According to Jennifer Hirsch, professor of socio-medical sciences at Columbia University, the 'red rain' begins as soon as Christmas is over. It is common for Mexican men and women to exchange flowers, red balloons and anything red and heart-shaped. The gift-giving is an expression of love and prosperity, says Hirsch, especially among migrant laborers."
The Brazilians, on the other hand, celebrate Dia dos Namorados ("the day of lovers") on June 12, not Feb. 14, in honor of St. Anthony, patron saint of matchmaking and marriage. "Single women perform rituals, like writing the names of their crushes on pieces of paper the night before, folding them up and then opening one on the big day to determine who they should marry," reports Forbes.
And in Guatemala, El Día del Cariño, "the day of affection," is much like Valentine's Day in the U.S, only broader.
Guatemalans exchange flowers, chocolates and cards, but the day is also about showing fondness for friends and colleagues.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Readers of the U.K. travel magazine Wanderlust voted the Guatemalan city of Antigua tops for travel in the magazine's annual awards. The Central American city bested Luang Prabang in Laos, winner for the previous two years, to the title.
The decision by U.K. readers and voters was noted with pride by the Guatemala Times in this report, in which Barbara Schieber wrote that it "is a great pride for Guatemala that La Antigua has been chosen as number one city in the world to visit. Number two is Kyoto in Japan, that is a tough one to beat. Paris and New York did not make it to the top ten."
Latin America has been doing well in travel awards of late. Mexico City was declared the world's top religious tourist destination in January, and Peru and Mexico's Michoacan were named two of the top ten cultural destination in the world by Forbes magazine.
Latin American countries dominated the Ethical Traveler's top 10 travel destinations and Conde Nast Traveler's readers' choice awards voted Mexico's San Miguel de Allende and Oaxaca among hemisphere's top 10 cities to visit.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
When Gregory Nava's "El Norte" opened in U.S. theaters 25 years ago, immigration was less of a political hot-button issue than it is today, Reed Johnson reports. Back then, the mass exodus of refugees from Central American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala was driven as much by civil war as by economics. California's Proposition 187 in 1994 and the pro-immigration marches of May 2006 still were years away.
But in recent months, until the global economic swoon took center stage, immigration became one of the most pressing and polarizing issues on the national agenda. That gives a renewed potency to Nava's $750,000 independent movie about a Guatemalan brother and sister's harrowing odyssey to the United States -- including a memorably grueling crawl through a rat-infested tunnel -- and their struggles in adapting to their new life in Los Angeles.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Zaide Silvia Gutierrez in a scene from "El Norte." Credit: Cinecom International Films
More affordable computers and an expanding broadband network are two of the factors helping to push Internet use in Latin America, according to a survey conducted by Pyramid Research for Google.
The Miami Herald reports that the recent expansion of Internet users in Latin America has been dramatic.
In 2007, for example, Colombia added 5.4 million Internet users, or about 12% of its population of 45 million -- an 80% increase in the number of Colombia's Internet users that year.
Brazil added 7.4 million Internet users in 2007 (17% growth), Mexico more than 2.2 million (an 11% increase) and Venezuela 1.58 million (38% growth).
Read the full report through the link above.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
|
|
Chris Kraul
Mexico City:
Deborah Bonello
Ken Ellingwood
San Diego:
Richard Marosi
Washington:
Nicole Gaouette