A man shot and wounded a security guard and held 40 people hostage at a call centre in Guatemala City on Monday.
Guatemala is investigating radio advertisements seeking elite ex-soldiers, who have been known to work for drug cartels, to smuggle goods into Mexico, officials said on Thursday. The ads were broadcast in the lawless northern jungle region of Peten, home to a tough military training centre for Kaibil soldiers, infamous during Guatemala’s civil war as a brutal guerilla-fighting
A crowded bus plunged off a cliff into a deep ravine in Guatemala on Friday, killing 37 people and injuring 25, emergency workers said. The bus was packed with people traveling to the village of Chiquimulilla in southern Guatemala when it skidded off the edge as it sped around a bend.
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/ 5 November 2007
Centre-leftist Alvaro Colom won Guatemala’s presidential election on Sunday, denying power to a retired general who had sought to unleash the army to fight a violent crime wave. Colom, a soft-spoken textile businessman, had an unassailable lead of 5,4 percentage points over General Otto Perez Molina.
Fifa is backing down from its ban on international soccer matches in Bolivia’s capital of La Paz, the agency’s leader said Friday. Fifa president Sepp Blatter said he was responding to a request from Bolivian President Evo Morales, who led a campaign to overturn a ban announced in May on international soccer matches at altitudes of over 2 500m.
An innovative concept and the backing of Russian President Vladimir Putin were key factors in the surprise decision to award the 2014 Winter Games to Russia’s Sochi. Sochi, on the shores of the Black Sea with a palm tree-lined coast, built a bid around the city’s mild climate and the nearby Krasnaya Polyana snow-capped mountain range.
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/ 24 February 2007
A 100m-deep sinkhole swallowed about a dozen homes early on Friday in a crowded, Guatemala City neighbourhood, killing at least two teenagers and forcing the evacuation of nearly 1 000 people. Officials said recent rains and an underground sewage flow from a ruptured main caused the sinkhole.
An angry mob snatches two accused child molesters in a Guatemalan highland village, ties them to a lamp post in the central plaza, douses them with gasoline and threatens to burn them alive. The attack last week was among the latest in Guatemala’s long history of mob violence, which has seen an upsurge this year.
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/ 14 October 2005
A string of violent and mysterious killings targeting Guatemalan gang members and criminals has prompted rumours of a ”social cleansing” in a country where crime is rising and gangs are rampant. In recent weeks, at least two previously unknown groups have left fliers in parks claiming to be civilian vigilantes at war with gang members.
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/ 11 October 2005
Fears rose on Tuesday that the death toll from devastating mudslides in Guatemala could reach 2 000, as rescuers suspended their search for hundreds of people buried for six days under solidifying mud near a volcano west of Guatemala City. More than 650 are confirmed dead, but 1 400 still are listed as missing.
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/ 10 October 2005
The official death toll from massive floods ravaging Central America and Mexico has surged to 770 as hundreds more were feared dead in Guatemala on Monday, following last week’s mudslide that swallowed two small towns in the west of the country. Only 71 bodies have been recovered in the mudslide-hit area so far.
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/ 10 October 2005
The official death toll from massive floods ravaging Central America and Mexico surged to 763 late on Sunday as hundreds more were feared dead in Guatemala following last week’s mudslide that swallowed two small towns in the west of the country.
Mudslides and floods sparked by Tropical Storm Stan have killed 508 people in Guatemala alone, a Guatemalan official said on Saturday, bringing to 610 the number killed when the storm lashed Central America and Mexico with heavy, unrelenting rains.
Tropical Storm Stan left a trail of devastation across Central America and Mexico, killing at least 225 people and forcing 225 000 others from their homes after unleashing five days of relentless downpours, authorities said on Thursday. The death toll in Guatemala surged late on Thursday to 134 after a mudslide killed 55 farmers.
Tropical Storm Stan only briefly reached hurricane strength but by Thursday killed at least 160 people as it roared across Mexico and Central America. Forecasters warn the remnants of Stan can still produce heavy rains and trigger severe flooding and landslides. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Tammy is bringing rain to Florida.