LatinNews Daily - 25 January 2024

*El Salvador’s Foreign Minister Alexandra Hill has held a meeting with Guatemala’s ambassador to El Salvador, Rubén Nájera, to address more general bilateral issues, in which she expressed concern regarding the Cerro Blanco gold mining project in Guatemala’s southern Jutiapa department, which is close to the border with El Salvador. On 18 January Canadian miner Bluestone Resources, which owns the mine, announced that Guatemala’s environment ministry (Marn) had approved an environmental permit amendment to change the mining method from the current underground development to surface mining development. The mine, the licence for which was approved in 2007, has previously caused major concern across the border due to fears that El Salvador’s largest river, the Lempa, which flows across the border from Guatemala into Lake Güija, could be contaminated. A post by El Salvador’s foreign ministry on social media says that Hill “requested the creation of a binational technical commission and the possibility of bilateral dialogue regarding the issue with the objective of guaranteeing the wellbeing of Salvadoreans”.