News stories by Danilo Valladares, page 13

'We do not see a real willingness on the part of Europe to take Central America's interests seriously,' Guatemalan deputy minister for integration and foreign trade Raúl Trejo said in Brussels, at the final round of negotiations for a treaty between the two regions.

More than nine months after the coup d'etat that overthrew the government of Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, the country is still isolated and remains outside of the Central American Integration System (SICA) and the Organisation of American States (OAS).

On the evening of Apr. 26, 1998, as Bishop Juan Gerardi returned to the parish house at St. Sebastian's Church, three blocks from the seat of national government in the heart of the Guatemalan capital, he had no idea it would be the last day of his life. That night, his head was bludgeoned with a concrete block.

The Cerro Blanco gold and silver mine in the southeastern Guatemalan province of Jutiapa, on the border with El Salvador, is under fire from environmentalists in both countries concerned about the threat it poses to the shared Lake Güija and rivers on either side of the border.

The Central American Parliament (Parlacen) has been caught up in the political confrontation in Honduras between Manuel Zelaya, the president who was ousted on Jun. 28, and the leader of the coup government, Roberto Micheletti, because the regional body is having a hard time deciding which of the two it should accept as a member.

Stepped-up efforts against drug trafficking in Colombia and Mexico are increasingly driving drug mafias into Central America, where drug-related corruption and violence are on the rise.

Civil society groups in Guatemala say a court decision authorising former Guatemalan president Alfonso Portillo's extradition to the United States is just a first step in a lengthy process.

'This is a time of great tension because we know that at any moment, when we least expect it, our lives can be cut short at a stroke,' Tito Gálvez, a leader in the Resistance Front for the Defence of Natural Resources and Rights of the Guatemalan Peoples (FRENA), told IPS.

The victory of Laura Chinchilla in Costa Rica's presidential elections, and the growing participation of women in Central American parliaments, point to their progress in the region's spheres of political power. But they still have a long way to go, experts say.

Guatemala knows that when it comes time to demonstrate compliance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of global anti-poverty and development target to be met by 2015, it will make a poor showing.