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Guatemala
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Guatemala is a country located in Central America bordering the Pacific Ocean on the East and the Caribbean Sea on the West. It is bordered by Belize to the Northeast, Mexico to the north, and with Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast.Guatemala was the heart of the flourishing Maya Indian civilization from 440AD to 1100AD. After the collapse of the lowland Maya areas to the north in late 800sAD, the Maya states of the central highland mountainous continued until they were conquered by the Spanish, who first arrived in 1523AD and colonized the area. Guatemala became independent of Spain in 1821 and finally became an independent nation of Guatemala 1840.
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The principal rivers of Guatemala are the Motagua, Usumacinta, Dulce, Polochic, and Sarstún. The Motagua drains and divides the highlands and is navigable in its lower reaches, where it forms the boundary with Honduras before it empties into the Caribbean Sea. The Usumacinta, navigable for 480 km (300 mi), winds through the northern lowlands, forming part of the boundary between the Petén and Mexico, and then meanders across the Mexican state of Tabasco to the Gulf of Mexico. The Salinas, a tributary of the Usumacinta, and the Polochic drain the central Verapaz region. The Dulce, a short but navigable river, provides a scenic connection between Lake Izabal and El Golfete Lake, then empties into the Bay of Amatique on the Caribbean coast at Livingston. The Sarstún forms part of the boundary between Guatemala and Belize.
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According to the World Bank, Guatemala has one of the most unequal income distributions in the hemisphere. The wealthiest 10% of the population receives almost one-half of all income; the top 20% receives two-thirds of all income. As a result, about 32% of the population lives on less than $2 a day and 13.5% on less than $1 a day. Guatemala's social development indicators, such as infant mortality and illiteracy, are among the worst in the hemisphere. Chronic malnutrition among the rural poor worsened with the onset of the crisis in coffee prices. The United States has provided disaster assistance and food aid in response to natural disasters including Hurricane Stan, which caused extensive mudslides in Guatemala in October 2005.
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Guatemala has a tropical climate. Temperatures vary greatly from area to area because of differences in altitude. The plains and lowlands have an average yearly temperature of about 80 °F (27 °C), with little seasonal change. Mountain valleys 4,000 to 6,000 feet (1,200 to 1,800 meters) high are usually comfortably mild. They have a yearly average temperature of 60 °F to 70 °F (16 °C to 21 °C). The higher valleys sometimes have frost, and average 40 °F (4 °C).
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In Guatemala, El Periodico continues to finds its way, with some success. Last year it developed several editorial products designed to attract not just new readers but new kinds of readers. The goal is to become "essential" reading (the specific objective of Readership Institute recommendations) for a much larger and more diverse audience, and to compete more vigorously with Prense Libre, Guatemala's longstanding paper of record. El Periodico has launched a weekly supplement for kids and, to a great extent, by kids. The supplement, created by investigative editor Sylvia Gereda, has an advisory board made up entirely of teenagers, who drive the editorial content. A second new offering is El Periodico in Five Minutes, a daily news digest distributed as part of the main paper.
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In June 2006, Guatemala entered a “Central America-4 (CA-4) Border Control Agreement” with El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Under the terms of the agreement, citizens of the four countries may travel freely across land borders from one of the countries to any of the others without completing entry and exit formalities at Immigration checkpoints. U.S. citizens and other eligible foreign nationals, who legally enter any of the four countries, may similarly travel among the four without obtaining additional visas or tourist entry permits for the other three countries. Immigration officials at the first port of entry determine the length of stay, up to a maximum period of 90 days. Foreign tourists who wish to remain in the region beyond the period initially granted for their visit are required to request a one-time extension of stay from local Immigration authorities in the country where the traveler is physically present, or travel outside the CA-4 countries and reapply for admission to the region. Foreigners “expelled” from any of the four countries are excluded from the entire “CA-4” region. In isolated cases, the lack of clarity in the implementing details of the CA-4 Border Control Agreement has caused temporary inconvenience to travelers.
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