Feed aggregator

Being part of Geert Wilders’ short-lived government cost the right-wing farmers’ party seats, but not survival

Die am 13. Dezember 1924 in Berlin geborene Maria Riva wuchs als Kind eines Weltstars auf. Sie verfolgte zunächst eine Schauspielkarriere, widmete sich später aber der Pflege ihrer berühmten Mutter.

Many internet users and international news outlets have mistakenly assumed that the law sets a speed limit for pedestrians

Der irische Radprofi Sam Bennett wechselt zum Schweizer Team Q36.5. Der 35-jährige Sprinter wird nun Teamkollege von den Schweizern Matteo Badilatti und Fabio Christen.

Michelle Gloor spürte eine Verhärtung im Bauch, die Kontrolle zeigte: Eine erneute Operation ist nötig. Nur wenige Wochen später steht die Bob-Anschieberin wieder auf der Bahn und kämpft weiter um ihren Olympia-Traum.

Das EU-geförderte Milliardenprojekt gilt als Schlüssel, um die Iberische Halbinsel enger an Frankreich und Deutschland anzubinden und den Umstieg vom Flugzeug auf die Bahn zu fördern.

An der Heim-EM wuchs sie über sich hinaus – jetzt wächst sie an der Herausforderung fern der Heimat. Livia Peng kämpft in London um ihren Platz im Tor ihres Traumklubs Chelsea.

Le débat sur l’accès aux soins est relancé en France : la question du titre de séjour pour soins, un dispositif de 1998, est de […]

L’article Les étrangers malades dans le viseur : la France veut supprimer le titre de séjour pour soins est apparu en premier sur .

Der mediterrane Winter wird gerade wiederentdeckt. Denn man muss keine Fernreise buchen, um den Winter am Meer zu erleben. Fünf Tipps für typische Sommer-Destinationen, die man in den kommenden Monaten ohne Rummel bei milden Temperaturen geniessen kann.

Merlyn Sandoval next to the rainwater collection tank built on the small plot where she lives, in the village of San Jose Las Pilas, in eastern Guatemala. She and her family participate in a program to alleviate the effects of the drought in the Central American Dry Corridor. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN LUIS JILOTEPEQUE, Guatemala, Oct 30 2025 (IPS)

Water scarcity that relentlessly hits the rural communities in eastern Guatemala, located in the so-called Central American Dry Corridor, is a constant threat due to the challenges in producing food, year after year. But it is also an incentive to strive to overcome adversities.

The peasant families living in this region struggle to counter hopelessness and, with the help of international cooperation, manage to confront water scarcity. With great effort, they produce food, aware of the importance of caring for and protecting the area’s micro-watersheds."Unfortunately, last year the rainy season also ended in September and we harvested almost nothing, there was no rainy season, there was no water. So it's difficult for us here, that's why they call it the Dry Corridor, because we don't have water" –Ricardo Ramirez.

“We are in the Dry Corridor, and it’s hard to produce the plants here, even if you’ve tried to produce them, because due to the lack of water (the fruits) don’t reach their proper weight,” Merlyn Sandoval, head of one of the families benefiting from a project that seeks to provide the necessary tools and knowledge for people to overcome water insecurity and produce their own food, told IPS.

Sandoval is a native of the village of San Jose Las Pilas, in the municipality of San Luis Jilotepeque, in the department of Jalapa, in eastern Guatemala. Her community has been included in the program, funded by Sweden and implemented by several organizations, such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), together with the Guatemalan government.

The initiative, which began in 2022 and ends this December, reaches 7,000 families living around the micro-watersheds of seven municipalities in the departments of Chiquimula and Jalapa, in eastern Guatemala. These towns are Jocotan, Camotan, Olopa, San Juan Ermita, Chiquimula, San Luis Jilotepeque, and San Pedro Pinula.

The project focuses on creating the conditions to promote food and nutritional security and the resilience of the population, prioritizing water security that allows for food production.

“The strength of the (project’s) goals lies in the training and the action of the micro-watershed concept… people were trained depending on whether they were upstream, downstream, or in the middle of the watershed,” Rafael Zavala, FAO representative in Guatemala, told IPS.

He added: “The area is highly expulsive of labor due to migration, and this causes women to be the heads of households.”

The San Jose River basin is one of the watersheds being targeted for protection and preservation due to its importance for the water security of the towns in San Luis Jilotepeque, in eastern Guatemala. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Drought and poverty

A report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) indicates that the area included in the program shows a significant deterioration of livelihoods and a scarcity of economic opportunities.

It adds that in the department of Chiquimula, 70.6% of the population lives in poverty, while in Jalapa, the figure reaches 67.2%.

The Central American Dry Corridor, which is 1,600 kilometers long, covers 35% of Central America and is home to more than 10.5 million people.

In this belt, over 73% of the rural population lives in poverty and 7.1 million people suffer from severe food insecurity, according to FAO data.

Central America is a region of seven nations, with 50 million inhabitants, of which 18.5 million live in Guatemala, the most populous country, with high inequality and where a large part of poor families are indigenous.

In the home of Merlyn Sandoval’s family in San Jose Las Pilas, the granary for storing the corn and beans, which are so difficult to produce due to the lack of water in the area of eastern Guatemala, is never missing. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Learning to Harvest Rainwater

As part of the project, the young Sandoval has learned the key points about micro-watershed management and has developed actions to harvest rainwater on her plot, in the backyard of her house. There, she has set up a circular tank, whose base is lined with an impermeable polyethylene geo-membrane, with a capacity of 16 cubic meters.

When it rains, water runs down from the roof and, through a PVC pipe, reaches the tank they call a “harvester,” which collects the resource to water the small garden and the fruit trees, and to provide water during the dry season, from November to May.

In the garden, Sandoval and her family of 10, harvest celery, cucumber, cilantro, chives, tomatoes, and green chili. In fruits, they harvest bananas, mangoes, and jocotes, among others.

Next to the rainwater harvester is the fish pond where 500 tilapia fingerlings are growing. The structure, also with a polyethylene geo-membrane at its base, is eight meters long, six meters wide, and one meter deep.

When the fish reach a weight of half a kilo, they can be sold in the community.

“The harvesters fill up with what is collected from the rains, and that helps to give a water change for the tilapia and also to give water to the fruit trees,” said Sandoval, 27.

The young woman also produces corn and beans, on another nearby plot, of approximately half a hectare. These plantings, more extensive than the garden and fruit trees in the backyard, cannot be covered by irrigation from the tank.

Ricardo Ramirez shows the inside of the macro-tunnel (a small greenhouse) where he has managed to harvest cucumbers, tomatoes, and green chilies, and where the plants of the new tomato planting can already be seen, on his small farm in eastern Guatemala. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

As a result, these crops, in this region of the Dry Corridor, are always vulnerable to climatic fluctuations: they can be ruined both by lack of rain and by excess rain during the same rainy season, from May to November.

Sandoval has already lost 50% of her harvest due to excess rain, she stated, with a hint of sadness.

This has also happened to Ricardo Ramirez, another resident of San Jose Las Pilas, who has experienced these fluctuations of lack and excess of water in his crop of corn and beans, staples in the Central American diet.

“Unfortunately, last year the rainy season also ended in September and we harvested almost nothing, there was no rainy season, there was no water. So it’s difficult for us here, that’s why they call it the Dry Corridor, because we don’t have water,” said Ramirez, 59, referring to his bean crop, planted on two plots totaling half a hectare, of which he has lost roughly half.

From the rainwater collection tank, Ricardo Ramirez manages to drip-irrigate the crops in the macro-tunnel, as this type of greenhouse is called. The system has allowed him to harvest produce despite water insecurity in eastern Guatemala. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Green Hope

However, the support from the program driven with Swedish cooperation funds has been vital for Ramirez, not only to stay afloat economically as a farmer, but also to bet, with hope and enthusiasm, on the land where he was born.

Through this international initiative, Ramirez was also able to set up a rainwater collection tank with a capacity of 16 cubic meters, as well as an agricultural macro-tunnel: a kind of small greenhouse, with a modular structure covered by a mesh that protects the crops from pests and other bugs.

Inside the macro-tunnel, he planted cucumbers, tomatoes, and green chili, among others, and watered them by drip irrigation through a hose that carried water from the tank, just three meters away.

“From one row I got 950 cucumbers, and 450 pounds (204 kilos) of tomatoes, and the chili, it just keeps producing. But it was because there was water in the harvester and I just opened the little valve, gave it just half an hour, by drip, and the soil got wet,” Ramirez told IPS, while checking a bunch of bananas or guineos, as they are known in Central America.

All of that generated sufficient income for him to save 2,000 quetzales (about 160 dollars), with which he was able to install electricity on his plot and also buy an electric generator to pump water from a spring within the property, for when the collection tank runs out in about two months.

In this way, Ramirez will be able to maintain irrigation and production.

San José Las Pilas has a community water system, supplied by a spring located nearby. The tank is installed in the high area of the village so that water flows down by gravity, but the resource is rationed to just a few hours a day, given the scarcity.

Nicolas Gomez still has to walk two hours, like many others, to get water from a river when his collection tank runs out during the dry season in eastern Guatemala. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Long Walks to Obtain Water

However, not everyone is as lucky as Ramirez, to have a water spring on their property and to irrigate gardens when the collection tank runs out.

When that happens, Nicolas Gomez has to walk almost two hours to reach the San Jose River, the closest one, and carry water from there, loading it on his shoulder in containers, to meet basic hygiene and cooking needs.

“So now, in the rainy season, we have water stored in this tank. But for the dry season we have nothing, we go to the river to fetch water, to a spring that is quite far, about a two-hour walk, that’s how hard it is for us to obtain it,” said Gomez, a 66-year-old farmer who has also suffered the climate onslaughts of drought and excess water on his corn crops.

Gomez lives in Los Magueyes, a rural settlement, also within San Luis Jilotepeque. Poverty here is more acute and visible than in San Jose Las Pilas. There is no community water system or electricity, and families have to light themselves with candles at night.

“Life here is hard,” stated Gomez, amidst the smoke produced by the wood-fired stove he was using to cook a meal when IPS visited on October 21.

La méningite désigne l’inflammation des méninges, ces membranes vitales qui enveloppent et protègent le cerveau et la moelle épinière. Cette infection du système nerveux central […]

L’article La Méningite : maladie grave du système nerveux, comprendre les causes et les modes de transmission est apparu en premier sur .

ÄNDERUNGSANTRÄGE 699 - 825 - Entwurf eines Berichts Umsetzung der Gemeinsamen Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik – Jahresbericht 2025
Ausschuss für auswärtige Angelegenheiten
David McAllister

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2025 - EP

Die Schweiz ist im Krisenfall das sicherste Land der Welt für das eigene Kapital. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine Studie der Firma Henley & Partners. Deutlich weniger gut schneiden die Supermächte USA und China ab.

Die Wegzeit auf einer Wanderung ist essenziell. Bis die Wegzeiten aufgeführt werden konnten, benötigte es ein Vater-Sohn-Duo, über 150 Wanderungen und eine mathematische Formel.

Tiktokerin Kaelin ist tot. Die Influencerin blieb bis zuletzt hoffnungsvoll und wurde im Kreis ihrer Familie liebevoll verabschiedet.

ÄNDERUNGSANTRÄGE 1 - 324 - Entwurf eines Berichts zur Umsetzung der Gemeinsamen Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik – Jahresbericht 2025
Ausschuss für auswärtige Angelegenheiten
David McAllister

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2025 - EP

Die rätselhaften Prophezeiungen des Nostradamus faszinieren die Menschheit seit Hunderten von Jahren. Blick analysiert die wichtigsten Vorhersagen für 2026. So viel vorweg: Nicht immer lag der Astrologe richtig.

Un pas de plus vers une circulation apaisée à Alger. Ce jeudi, les autorités ont inauguré les deux premiers tronçons du nouveau grand axe reliant […]

L’article Alger se débloque : deux nouveaux axes inaugurés, d’autres en route est apparu en premier sur .

Von Genf aus will die neue Bluelight Humanitarian Airlines Hilfsgüter in Katastrophengebiete fliegen. Und mit einem fliegenden Spital Verletzten helfen. Kopf des Projektes ist Pierre Bernheim. Er stammt aus einer bekannten Schweizer Uhrendynastie.

Despite the collapse of pharma talks, Belgium's health minister has opted to move forward with the 2026 health budget