IN THE FALL of 2010, the Obama administration acknowledged a shocking truth: From 1946 through 1948, officials working in Guatemala for the U.S. Public Health Service conducted tests on some 5,100 unwitting individuals and deliberately infected at least 1,300 with sexually transmitted diseases. None of the victims — who included prisoners, soldiers, the mentally ill and commercial sex workers — consented to this barbaric treatment. At least 83 people died, and many suffered permanent damage. Read full article > >

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Editorial Board: The U.S. must do more for Guatemala over STD study

The papaya, mango, coconuts and pineapple, scented with cinnamon, had simmered for hours in an aluminum pot, filling the Rockville home with the aroma of ponche, a tropical fruit drink. For this family, ponche — introduced two years ago after a son brought it home from a trip to Guatemala — is Thanksgiving . So is the turkey recipe, featuring Goya seasoning, olive oil and garlic, that was taught to an El Salvador native by expatriate Iranians. Read full article > >

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With blended customs, Salvadoran family celebrates Thanksgiving

The United States Drug Enforcement Administration now has five commando-style squads it has been quietly deploying to Western Hemisphere nations that are battling drug cartels.

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U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Expands War on Drugs

MEXICO CITY — Retired army general Otto Perez is leading in the polls going into Guatemala’s presidential runoff election Sunday, and the tough-talking former chief of military intelligence has promised an iron-fisted confrontation with the criminal gangs that have stoked soaring violence in the poor Central American nation. Read full article > >

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Guatemala, Nicaragua go to the polls

She had spent her final week praying for one outcome while preparing for another. With five days left before she was supposed to leave the United States, Paula Godoy explained to her three children what it meant to be deported. With three days left, she packed her clothes and rosary beads into a makeshift suitcase. With two days left, she arranged to live in Guatemala with the only relative still there, a distant uncle whom she would identify at the airport by his orange Hawaiian shirt. Read full article > >

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Amid new guidelines, Va. woman’s deportation case comes down to the last minute

Otto Pérez Molina finished first in the country’s presidential election on Sunday, but short of the 50 percent plus one vote required for outright victory.

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Ex-General to Face Runoff in Guatemala

Rising concerns about gangs and drug cartels seemed to weigh on voters’ minds as they went to the polls to elect local and national leaders on Sunday.

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In Guatemala, an Election Focused on Security Issues

MEXICO CITY — Guatemalans frustrated by soaring crime go the polls Sunday as the front-running candidates promise to aggressively confront the mafias that have turned the poor Central American state into a killing field. The No. 1 issue is violence, according to opinion polls. Armed gangs, bolstered by the incursion of Mexican drug cartels, have taken over towns; more than 90 percent of the cocaine entering the United States crosses the Guatemala border. Martial law has been declared in the provinces. Read full article > >

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Guatemalans head to polls

Consumers of illegal drugs share the blame for fuelling drug-related violence, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom tells the BBC, as he evaluates his years in office.

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Guatemala drug war: Users blamed

U.S. government researchers who purposely infected unwitting subjects with sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala in the 1940s had obtained consent a few years earlier before conducting similar experiments in Indiana, investigators reported Monday. The stark contrast between how the U.S. Public Health Service scientists experimented with Americans and Guatemalans clearly shows that researchers knew their conduct was unethical, according to members of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, which is investigating the experiments. Read full article > >

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U.S. scientists knew 1940s Guatemalan STD studies were unethical, panel finds

Police in Guatemala arrest two men suspected of involvement in the 1982 massacre of 268 people during the country’s civil conflict.

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Guatemala holds massacre suspects

Air show practice, bomb attacks in Iraq, mass killings in Guatemala, sustainable mobility trade fair in Germany and more from around the world. Read full article > >

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Migrant smuggling in Mexico, rising Mississippi, demonstrations in Spain and more in the day in photos

Guatemalan security forces raid locations in the north of the country as some of the 27 victims of the weekend’s mass killing are buried.

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Raids follow Guatemalan massacre

A survivor from a mass killing in Guatemala relives his experiences at the hands of suspected Mexican drugs cartel members.

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Guatemala massacre details emerge

GUATEMALA CITY — Assailants killed at least 29 people — decapitating most of the victims — on a ranch in a part of northern Guatemala plagued by drug cartels, national police said Sunday. The massacre took place early Sunday in the town of Caserio La Bomba in Peten province near the Mexico border, according to National Civil Police spokesman Donald Gonzalez. Among the 29 dead were two children and two women. It is one of the worst massacres since the end of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war in 1996. Read full article > >

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Massacre in drug-ridden northern Guatemala leaves 29 dead, most victims beheaded