"Thousands mark ‘Day of the Dead’ with rituals, flowers" Associated Press, November 03, 2012
MEXICO CITY — Mexicans cleaned the bones of dead relatives and decorated their graves with flowers and candy skulls.
In Haiti, voodoo practitioners circled an iron cross at a cemetery and poured moonshine to honor their ancestors. Some Guatemalans held a wild race of horses to remember the dead.
Across the Western Hemisphere, people are paying homage to lost relatives in observances that began Thursday on All Saints Day and continued Friday with All Souls Day.
The combined celebration known in many places as the Day of the Dead is a particularly colorful and macabre festival in Mexico that goes back to the Aztecs but has become part of Roman Catholic traditions.
--more--"
Unfortunately, more souls were soon added:
"Powerful quake hits Guatemala, killing at least 48" by Romina Ruiz-Goiriena and Sonia Perez-Diaz
|
Associated Press, November 08, 2012
SAN MARCOS, Guatemala — A 7.4-magnitude earthquake rocked Guatemala
on Wednesday, killing at least 48 people as it toppled thick adobe
walls, shook huge landslides down onto highways, and sent terrified
villagers streaming into the streets of this idyllic mountain town near
the border with Mexico. ...
The quake, which hit at 10:35 a.m. in the middle of the work day,
caused terror over an unusually wide area, with damage reported in all
but one of Guatemala’s 22 states and shaking felt as far away as Mexico
City, 600 miles to the northwest....
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"Villagers mourn family; Guatemala quake toll at 52" by Michael Weissenstein and Sonia Perez-Diaz | Associated Press, November 09, 2012
SAN CRISTOBAL CUCHO, Guatemala — The 10 members of the Vasquez family were found together under the rubble of the rock quarry that had been their livelihood, some in a desperate final embrace, others clinging to the faintest of dying pulses.
As Guatemalans sought Thursday to pick up the pieces after a 7.4-magnitude quake, one family’s tragic story came to symbolize the horror of a disaster that killed at least 52 people and left thousands of others huddling in the cold shadows of cracked adobe buildings, most without electricity or water.
On Thursday, neighbors came to pay their respects. They filed past 10 wooden caskets in the Vasquez family living room, and contemplated the unspeakable future that awaits the family’s only surviving son. Justo Vasquez, his wife Ofelia Gomez, six children, and two nephews died in the rubble.
Only the eldest son, Ivan, 19, survived. He had stayed in the house when the rest of his family went to the quarry, taking care of some last-minute details to receive his accounting degree — the first in his family to have a professional career.
His father had been saving for a party to celebrate his Nov. 23 graduation.
‘‘He died working,’’ said Antonia Lopez, a sister-in-law of Justo Vasquez. ‘‘He was fighting for his kids.’’
Hundreds of villagers in the humble town of San Cristobal Cucho ran to dig the family out on Wednesday after Guatemala’s biggest quake in 36 years.
When they uncovered some of the children, one body still warm, two with pulses, they were in the arms of their father, who had tried to shield them from a falling mountain.
The death toll was expected to rise as 22 people remained missing, President Otto Perez Molina said at a press conference.
Eight were killed in the neighboring state of Quetzaltenango.
Perez said a powerful 7.4-magnitude quake, felt even in Mexico City 600 miles away, affected as many as 1.2 million Guatemalans. A little more than 700 people were in shelters, with most opting to stay with family or friends, he said.
‘‘They have no drinking water, no electricity, no communication, and are in danger of experiencing more aftershocks,’’ Perez said. The president said there had been 70 aftershocks in the first 24 hours after the quake, some as strong as magnitude 5.1.
Damaged homes are among the biggest problems the country will face in the coming days, Perez said.
The Vasquezes were the only ones to die in San Cristobal Cucho, a mountain village of cobblestone streets, where buildings suffered some cracks and damage and early reports said the family had perished in a collapsed house.
Like the rest of several thousand people in town, the Vasquez family was humble, the parents without much education. Most of the people in the town are subsistence farmers or sell things on the streets and in the markets.
‘‘We have never seen a tragedy like this. The whole town is sad,’’ said Justo’s brother Romulo Vasquez, whose 12-year old son, Ulises, also died at the quarry.
Justo Vasquez and his wife left for work at 5 a.m. Wednesday to the land they rented to quarry white rock, which is pulverized to make cinder blocks. They returned later in the morning to eat breakfast, then took six of their seven children and two nephews back to the quarry with them, because the children were on vacation from school.
The oldest child to die was Daisy Vasquez, 14, the youngest Dibel Vasquez, 3.
The eldest son, Ivan, was too distraught to speak or even stay at the red-and-yellow block house where hundreds of people gathered, passed by the caskets, or waited outside the door marked by candles and just a few flowers. Wood smoke bathed the memorial as more than a dozen women in the back of the house cooked rice, beans, corn, and eggs to feed the crowd.
‘‘He was a very good father, he was a very good neighbor,’’ said Antonia Lopez, who was among the many paying respects.
Guatemalans fearing aftershocks huddled in the streets of the nearby city San Marcos, the most affected area, where at least 40 people died. Others crowded inside its hospital, the only building in town left with electricity.
More than 90 rescue workers continued to dig with backhoes at a half-ton mound of sand at a second quarry that buried seven people.
‘‘We started rescue work very early,’’ said Julio Cesar Fuentes of the municipal fire department. ‘‘The objective is our hope to find people who were buried.’’
But they uncovered only more dead.
--more--"
Doesn't disease usually follow such things?
"Guatemalan police arrest software guru McAfee" December 06, 2012
GUATEMALA CITY — Software company founder John McAfee was arrested by police in Guatemala on Wednesday for entering the country illegally, hours after he said he would seek asylum in the Central American country.
The antivirus guru was detained at a hotel in an upscale Guatemala City neighborhood with the help of Interpol agents, then taken to a building used to house migrants who enter the country illegally, said Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla.
It was the latest twist in a bizarre tale that has seen McAfee refuse to turn himself in to authorities in Belize, where he is a person of interest in the killing of a neighbor, then go on the lam, updating his progress on a blog.
Earlier Wednesday, McAfee said he had formally requested asylum in Guatemala after entering the country from Belize, where he says he fears for his safety because he has sensitive information about official corruption and has refused to donate to local politicians.
Isn't the best thing to do for safety's sake is put it out there? I don't know what this case is about and don't really have time to investigate, but it sure does stink.
‘‘Yes, we are presenting this, and I want it to be clear, because of the persecution, not because of the murder,’’ he said of his asylum bid.
Police in Belize deny they are persecuting McAfee and say there is no warrant for his arrest. Since there are no restrictions on his travels, it is unclear why McAfee would need any special status in order to stay in Guatemala.
McAfee went on the run last month after officials tried to question him about the killing of Gregory Viant Faull, who was shot to death in early November on the Belize island where both men lived.
--more--"
And he ended up where?
"Antivirus software developer McAfee arrives in US" by Curt Anderson | Associated Press, December 13, 2012
MIAMI — Antivirus software founder John McAfee arrived in the United States on Wednesday night after being deported from Guatemala, where he had sought to evade police questioning in the killing of a man in neighboring Belize....
An FBI spokesman in Miami, James Marshall, said in an e-mail that the agency is not involved with McAfee’s return to the United States.
Authorities from US Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the US Marshals office, and the US attorney’s office did not immediately respond to questions about whether McAfee would be questioned or detained in the United States. They said there was no active arrest warrant for McAfee that would justify taking him into custody.
The British-born McAfee’s 20-year-old Belizean girlfriend, Samantha Vanegas, who has accompanied him since he went on the run, was not with him on the ride to the Guatemala airport, though she later showed up at the terminal.
‘‘I’m free. I’m going to America,’’ McAfee said before boarding the plane.
McAfee said Sunday that he wanted to return to the United States and ‘‘settle down to whatever normal life’’ he can.
His expulsion from Guatemala marked the last chapter in a strange, monthlong odyssey to avoid police questioning about the November killing of American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull, who lived a couple of houses down from McAfee’s compound on Ambergris Caye, off Belize’s Caribbean coast.
McAfee acknowledges that his dogs were bothersome and that Faull had complained about them days before some of the dogs were poisoned, but denies killing Faull.
Belizean authorities have urged him to show up for questioning, but have not lodged any formal charges against him. McAfee has said he feared he would be killed if he turned himself in to Belizean authorities.
--more--"
Coming full circle:
"Viron Vaky, ‘giant’ of diplomacy in Latin America" by Matt Schudel | Washington Post, December 10, 2012
WASHINGTON — In 1979, Mr. Vaky attempted to persuade Nicaraguan strongman Anastasio Somoza Debayle to give up power during what became known as the Sandinista revolution. Somoza refused to yield and ended up unleashing bombs on neighborhoods suspected of harboring Sandinista sympathizers. Hundreds of civilians were killed and many others were tortured.
A government backed by the United States.
‘‘No negotiation, mediation or compromise can be achieved any longer with a Somoza government,’’ Mr. Vaky said in 1979. ‘‘Too much blood, too much hate, too much polarization have occurred for this to be possible.’’
Earlier in Mr. Vaky’s career, when he was deputy chief of mission in Guatemala, he wrote a sharply worded memo to his superiors at the State Department opposing US support of counterterrorist practices of the Guatemalan government.
In 1968, when kidnapping, brutal interrogations, and political assassinations of suspected Communists by state-sanctioned security forces were rampant, Mr. Vaky wrote that it was morally wrong to ignore the ‘‘violence of right-wing vigilantes and sheer criminality’’ of the Guatemalan regime.
‘‘In the minds of many in Latin America,’’ he wrote, ‘‘we are believed to have condoned these tactics, if not actually to have encouraged them.’’
Although it remained classified for 30 years, Mr. Vaky’s memorandum became known as a touchstone of diplomatic conscience and courage....
Another loss for which you can grieve.
--more--"
"Villagers mourn family; Guatemala quake toll at 52" by Michael Weissenstein and Sonia Perez-Diaz | Associated Press, November 09, 2012
SAN CRISTOBAL CUCHO, Guatemala — The 10 members of the Vasquez family were found together under the rubble of the rock quarry that had been their livelihood, some in a desperate final embrace, others clinging to the faintest of dying pulses.
As Guatemalans sought Thursday to pick up the pieces after a 7.4-magnitude quake, one family’s tragic story came to symbolize the horror of a disaster that killed at least 52 people and left thousands of others huddling in the cold shadows of cracked adobe buildings, most without electricity or water.
On Thursday, neighbors came to pay their respects. They filed past 10 wooden caskets in the Vasquez family living room, and contemplated the unspeakable future that awaits the family’s only surviving son. Justo Vasquez, his wife Ofelia Gomez, six children, and two nephews died in the rubble.
Only the eldest son, Ivan, 19, survived. He had stayed in the house when the rest of his family went to the quarry, taking care of some last-minute details to receive his accounting degree — the first in his family to have a professional career.
His father had been saving for a party to celebrate his Nov. 23 graduation.
‘‘He died working,’’ said Antonia Lopez, a sister-in-law of Justo Vasquez. ‘‘He was fighting for his kids.’’
Hundreds of villagers in the humble town of San Cristobal Cucho ran to dig the family out on Wednesday after Guatemala’s biggest quake in 36 years.
When they uncovered some of the children, one body still warm, two with pulses, they were in the arms of their father, who had tried to shield them from a falling mountain.
The death toll was expected to rise as 22 people remained missing, President Otto Perez Molina said at a press conference.
Eight were killed in the neighboring state of Quetzaltenango.
Perez said a powerful 7.4-magnitude quake, felt even in Mexico City 600 miles away, affected as many as 1.2 million Guatemalans. A little more than 700 people were in shelters, with most opting to stay with family or friends, he said.
‘‘They have no drinking water, no electricity, no communication, and are in danger of experiencing more aftershocks,’’ Perez said. The president said there had been 70 aftershocks in the first 24 hours after the quake, some as strong as magnitude 5.1.
Damaged homes are among the biggest problems the country will face in the coming days, Perez said.
The Vasquezes were the only ones to die in San Cristobal Cucho, a mountain village of cobblestone streets, where buildings suffered some cracks and damage and early reports said the family had perished in a collapsed house.
Like the rest of several thousand people in town, the Vasquez family was humble, the parents without much education. Most of the people in the town are subsistence farmers or sell things on the streets and in the markets.
‘‘We have never seen a tragedy like this. The whole town is sad,’’ said Justo’s brother Romulo Vasquez, whose 12-year old son, Ulises, also died at the quarry.
Justo Vasquez and his wife left for work at 5 a.m. Wednesday to the land they rented to quarry white rock, which is pulverized to make cinder blocks. They returned later in the morning to eat breakfast, then took six of their seven children and two nephews back to the quarry with them, because the children were on vacation from school.
The oldest child to die was Daisy Vasquez, 14, the youngest Dibel Vasquez, 3.
The eldest son, Ivan, was too distraught to speak or even stay at the red-and-yellow block house where hundreds of people gathered, passed by the caskets, or waited outside the door marked by candles and just a few flowers. Wood smoke bathed the memorial as more than a dozen women in the back of the house cooked rice, beans, corn, and eggs to feed the crowd.
‘‘He was a very good father, he was a very good neighbor,’’ said Antonia Lopez, who was among the many paying respects.
Guatemalans fearing aftershocks huddled in the streets of the nearby city San Marcos, the most affected area, where at least 40 people died. Others crowded inside its hospital, the only building in town left with electricity.
More than 90 rescue workers continued to dig with backhoes at a half-ton mound of sand at a second quarry that buried seven people.
‘‘We started rescue work very early,’’ said Julio Cesar Fuentes of the municipal fire department. ‘‘The objective is our hope to find people who were buried.’’
But they uncovered only more dead.
--more--"
Doesn't disease usually follow such things?
"Guatemalan police arrest software guru McAfee" December 06, 2012
GUATEMALA CITY — Software company founder John McAfee was arrested by police in Guatemala on Wednesday for entering the country illegally, hours after he said he would seek asylum in the Central American country.
The antivirus guru was detained at a hotel in an upscale Guatemala City neighborhood with the help of Interpol agents, then taken to a building used to house migrants who enter the country illegally, said Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla.
It was the latest twist in a bizarre tale that has seen McAfee refuse to turn himself in to authorities in Belize, where he is a person of interest in the killing of a neighbor, then go on the lam, updating his progress on a blog.
Earlier Wednesday, McAfee said he had formally requested asylum in Guatemala after entering the country from Belize, where he says he fears for his safety because he has sensitive information about official corruption and has refused to donate to local politicians.
Isn't the best thing to do for safety's sake is put it out there? I don't know what this case is about and don't really have time to investigate, but it sure does stink.
‘‘Yes, we are presenting this, and I want it to be clear, because of the persecution, not because of the murder,’’ he said of his asylum bid.
Police in Belize deny they are persecuting McAfee and say there is no warrant for his arrest. Since there are no restrictions on his travels, it is unclear why McAfee would need any special status in order to stay in Guatemala.
McAfee went on the run last month after officials tried to question him about the killing of Gregory Viant Faull, who was shot to death in early November on the Belize island where both men lived.
--more--"
And he ended up where?
"Antivirus software developer McAfee arrives in US" by Curt Anderson | Associated Press, December 13, 2012
MIAMI — Antivirus software founder John McAfee arrived in the United States on Wednesday night after being deported from Guatemala, where he had sought to evade police questioning in the killing of a man in neighboring Belize....
An FBI spokesman in Miami, James Marshall, said in an e-mail that the agency is not involved with McAfee’s return to the United States.
Authorities from US Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the US Marshals office, and the US attorney’s office did not immediately respond to questions about whether McAfee would be questioned or detained in the United States. They said there was no active arrest warrant for McAfee that would justify taking him into custody.
The British-born McAfee’s 20-year-old Belizean girlfriend, Samantha Vanegas, who has accompanied him since he went on the run, was not with him on the ride to the Guatemala airport, though she later showed up at the terminal.
‘‘I’m free. I’m going to America,’’ McAfee said before boarding the plane.
McAfee said Sunday that he wanted to return to the United States and ‘‘settle down to whatever normal life’’ he can.
His expulsion from Guatemala marked the last chapter in a strange, monthlong odyssey to avoid police questioning about the November killing of American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull, who lived a couple of houses down from McAfee’s compound on Ambergris Caye, off Belize’s Caribbean coast.
McAfee acknowledges that his dogs were bothersome and that Faull had complained about them days before some of the dogs were poisoned, but denies killing Faull.
Belizean authorities have urged him to show up for questioning, but have not lodged any formal charges against him. McAfee has said he feared he would be killed if he turned himself in to Belizean authorities.
--more--"
Coming full circle:
"Viron Vaky, ‘giant’ of diplomacy in Latin America" by Matt Schudel | Washington Post, December 10, 2012
WASHINGTON — In 1979, Mr. Vaky attempted to persuade Nicaraguan strongman Anastasio Somoza Debayle to give up power during what became known as the Sandinista revolution. Somoza refused to yield and ended up unleashing bombs on neighborhoods suspected of harboring Sandinista sympathizers. Hundreds of civilians were killed and many others were tortured.
A government backed by the United States.
‘‘No negotiation, mediation or compromise can be achieved any longer with a Somoza government,’’ Mr. Vaky said in 1979. ‘‘Too much blood, too much hate, too much polarization have occurred for this to be possible.’’
Earlier in Mr. Vaky’s career, when he was deputy chief of mission in Guatemala, he wrote a sharply worded memo to his superiors at the State Department opposing US support of counterterrorist practices of the Guatemalan government.
In 1968, when kidnapping, brutal interrogations, and political assassinations of suspected Communists by state-sanctioned security forces were rampant, Mr. Vaky wrote that it was morally wrong to ignore the ‘‘violence of right-wing vigilantes and sheer criminality’’ of the Guatemalan regime.
‘‘In the minds of many in Latin America,’’ he wrote, ‘‘we are believed to have condoned these tactics, if not actually to have encouraged them.’’
Although it remained classified for 30 years, Mr. Vaky’s memorandum became known as a touchstone of diplomatic conscience and courage....
Another loss for which you can grieve.
--more--"
