The US State Department has posted a warning on their intercountry adoption page on Guatemala, and it's not pretty.

Read the whole thing, please, if you have any connection with adoptions from Guatemala, but I'll give a quick overview here. Please keep in mind that I am no expert on Guatemalan adoptions ... or much of anything, for that matter ... so am summing up to the best of my understanding a complicated situation from a hard-earned perspective of cynical suspicion.

Basically,... more

Word has it that Guatemala ratified the Hague yesterday. Here's a link to the story that's circulating.

And, just in case anyone missed the announcement from USCIS last week (5.17.07) with the update on processing times for Guatemalan adoptions, here's the link.

Continued from here ... And while we're talking about the bottom perhaps falling out of Guatemalan adoptions, how about the bottom just falling out completely?

A 330-foot-deep sinkhole killed two teenage siblings when it swallowed about a dozen homes early Friday and forced the evacuation of nearly 1,000 people in a crowded Guatemala City neighborhood.

Officials... more

As I wrote a while back, there's a new mess boiling with Guatemalan adoptions at the moment, and the fallout is forming the toxic atmosphere it's renown for. Not unexpectedly, the US Government is well into it now.

Here is what the State Department has issued:

In light of a number of problems... more

The story of Guatemalan adoption facilitator Mary Bridgett Bonn is sloshing around groups, forums and blogs like crazy right now, and like the Lauren Galindo fiasco in the Cambodian adoption mess, there's no shortage of view point and opinion. I'm in no way comparing Bonn and Galindo, simply the hoopla attached, but do worry ... greatly ... that the fallout... more

A few bits of news have crossed my desk this morning that I feel I should pass along. First, from the US State Department, this notice that an adoption service provider in Guatemala is under investigation.

The Office of Children’s Issues has learned from official sources of the arrest of American adoption service facilitator Mary Bridget Bonn in Florida . It is our understanding that Ms. Bonn is charged with... more

Because this is my blog and I can, I'm starting with a couple of articles that are less than complimentary about Mel's Mayan Mess, aka "Apocalypto". (It's almost as much fun trashing Mel Gibson as pointing out disgusting details about the UN ... and I have SO much more respect for Homer Simpson than for either ... or both.)

First, this review that points out how much this movie has to say about the person that is Mel ... the... more

Continued from here ...

In the Americas, the present situation is hit and miss. For Central America, Costa Rica and Panama are looking pretty good, but Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras see political control of media forcing self-censorship.

In Guatemala and Honduras, these problems... more

Thanks to some hot tips from parents of Guatemalan-born kids ... thank you! keep 'em comin' ... starting the month out with news from there seems like a good idea. First, have you heard about the this year's Oscar tie to Guatemala? And I'm not talking Berger, but prize rather than pres.

"Recycled Life" has already won in the "Best Documentary Short" category of a number of film festivals, and has now been nominated for an Academy Award.

The film tells... more

Continued from here ...

From Guatemala, the US Assistant Secretary of Consular Affairs has been talking to reporters, saying that, "improvements need to be made before the U.S. ratifies the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions later this year." And a ... more