HONDURAS | Trade rebounds The first half trade deficit for the year was US$2.5bn, an increase of 5.7% over the US$2.4bn reported by the central bank in the equivalent year-earlier period. Exports came in at US$2.3bn, up by 4.4% annually, thanks in particular to stronger coffee sales, as Honduras and other small producers benefit from a poor harvest in Brazil. As such, coffee exports rose by over a third to reach US$829m in the first half, with a very sizeable 25% increase in volumes shipped and a 9% increase in prices. Coffee exports are destined mostly for Europe and the…

In the first seven months of this year there were 3,000 homicides recorded in Honduras, marking a trend which, if maintained, could lead to a 20% fall since 2014. San Pedro Sula registered the greatest decline. In the past five years the number of homicides rose steadily from 5,280 to a peak of 7,172 in 2013. They then fell by 10.3% in 2014, with a bigger decline expected this year. In January-July, there were 489 cases in San Pedro Sula, an unexpected 29.2% lower than in the same period of 2014. In the central district (which comprises Tegucigalpa and Comayagüela)…

The constitutional chamber of the supreme court has issued a ruling which could be a game changer in El Salvador. As the government led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén has taken the fight to the country’s mara street gangs, leading to violence spiralling out of control, the court ruled that mara members can be described as terrorists and that belonging to one of the gangs is a crime. While President Sánchez Cerén celebrated the court’s interpretation of the country’s anti-terrorism law, the ombudsman, David Morales, warned against the risk of it being used to justify “abuses of authority”. Until this…

***President of Guatemala resigns As we went to press, Guatemala’s presidential spokesperson, Jorge Ortega, announced that President Otto Pérez Molina had resigned over recent corruption allegations. This will be covered in full in the next Weekly Report. In the meantime please consult our website for up-to-date analysis. Nearly two weeks after the first round of legislative elections [WR-15-32], Haiti’s provisional electoral council (CEP) released preliminary results. With just a few candidates for the entire newly expanded 118-seat lower chamber of congress having secured a victory (and none of the candidates for the two-thirds of the 30-seat national senate), the CEP’s…