CENTRAL AMERICA: Mexico's Dead Migrant Body Count Is... Just Beginning.

AP/ DIEGO MENDEZ /      Hundreds of people visited Central American governmental offices after news of the massacre of 72 migrants in Mexico, looking for missing relatives who had left hoping to reach the U.S. Some 21 bodies have been identified as Hondurans, 19 are of other nationalities, and 32... are unidentified.
"The true number of undocumented migrants killed in Mexico in recent years may never be known, but they would almost certainly dwarf the number discovered last week. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said there were witness accounts of 198 mass kidnappings involving 9,758 migrants in a six month-period in 2009."

Coffee Prices...And Climate Change.

GLOBALPOST/
The conditions that give Central America some of the world’s finest coffees also make it vulnerable to climate change. With temperatures already rising, the rainy season is becoming irregular, and pests and fungi may invade altitudes where they previously couldn’t live.
The changes could be devastating. They might be forced to replace coffee trees with other crops. Coffee, the world’s second-largest traded commodity behind petroleum, supports around 25 million growers and 100 million people around the globe.

Guatamala In A "State Of Calamity" Over Food Shortage.

BLOOMBERG.
Guatemala President Alvaro Colom declared a “state of calamity” because of food shortages. “I am making a fervent call to all of the country’s sectors to contribute to confronting this grave problem,” Colom said in a televised address. Inadequate rainfall and a slumping economy are blamed for the shortage.

Drug Dealers And Agribusiness Are Taking Over Guatamala.

GLOBALPOST.COM.
Drug traffickers and agribusinesses are buying thousands of small farms in Guatemala with disasterous social and environmental consequences.

Guatamalan Women Fakes Kidnapping To Extend Foreign Affair.

LAHT.

Police said that a Guatamalan woman invented a kidnapping story to lengthen her vacation in Barcelona, where she went to join a man she met on the Internet.

Guatamala's Poor Educational System.

From COHA.

Guatamalan Minister Resigns Over High Crime Rate.

From the Latin American Herald Tribune:

"Guatemala is in the grip of a crime wave that has driven the murder rate up to an average 17 killings per day."

Will Tweet Send Guatamalan to Jail?

Guatamalan Jean Anleu vented about his country's corruption on Twitter...and urged depositors to withdraw money from a state bank.

Now he's facing a possible five-year prison sentence for undermining trust in the state .

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090627/ap_on_hi_te/lt_tec_guatemala_twitter_arrest_7

Bullets Can't Stop Guatamalan Activist.

Doctor turned environmental activist Yuri Melini was shot seven times... by an unknown assailant... nine months ago.

He is the lead agitator of a Guatamalan environmental advocacy group, CALAS.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-guatemala-enviro11-2009jun11,0,3203312.story

Cheap cantalopes are plentiful. WHY?

Cantalopes/cantaloupes...are back on sale...AGAIN...at H-E-B stores...the giant Texas grocery chain.

One buck apiece! The same price as a couple of weeks ago.

This follows last week's sale... at a low $.88 each...at Randall's, a hedge-fund owned Safeway...found in some Texas cities.

Cantalopes have been on sale here in Central Texas...for a buck or even less at times...since early spring.

Even tiny Sun Harvest Markets had a brief sale on its lopes...for less than one dollar.

I follow the price of cantalopes because...I consume one per day... when they are in season and reasonably priced.

Why not? I'm watching fat consumption....trying to keep it BELOW 50 grams daily.

Cantalopes are filling...low in fat, mostly water...rich in Vitamins A and C.

But why the continuing low prices... and seemingly big surge in quantity recently?

The quality has been pretty good, too.

I actually bought a giant 5.5 pounder...for a mere buck ...at H-E-B. It was tasty, too!

The reason, apparently, for the surge in cantalopes is...Guatamala.

Most of the early crop came from that small troubled Central American country.

I don't remember the quality and supply from Guatamala... ever being so large.

A caution...many of these giant Guatamalan lopes...don't have the usual belly-button some people use to check for ripeness.

Anyway...Guatamala is showing success in cantalope agriculture.

Guatamala has even overtaken Mexico in lgrowing lopes... now accounting for 41% of US imports...followed by Costa Rica.

More here: http://timcoworldwide.com/statistics_cantaloupe.php

What happened to Mexican production...especially in this Age of NAFTA? Why has it dropped off so rapidly?

And what are the Guatamalans doing to their land and water supplies... to sustain this increase in cantalope production?