Guatemala updates

The bizarrity of Guatemalan politics continues, as Alvaro Colom, the center-left president, and his wife, Sandra Torres (pictured), filed for divorce so that she can run as the presidential candidate of his party – something the Guatemalan Constitution would clearly ban if they were (Juan Peron and Eva Person-style) still married (and something leaders of the law-and-order right-wing opposition party says still violates the Constitution). Torres has been active in government during her husband’s term, including helping supervise an anti-poverty program. Updates from Guatemala point to underlying issues: climate change effects (droughts, storms, floods, landslides) and shoddy infrastructure and building construction, the Guatemala-ization of the international drug economy and Guatemala’s militarization in response, the global economic downturn and rising food and energy prices, the large, industrial scale of other parts of the Guatemalan economy (mining, hydroelectric dams, palm leaf plantations) and the related threats to property rights of indigenous people, and the weak government and resulting lack of property rights and lack of personal security (especially among women). -Perry