1. Guatemalan journalist José Ruben Zamora has been released after more than 800 days behind bars on charges that international organizations say were trumped up.
Zamora had been in jail since 2022, accused of laundering money as publisher of elPeriódico, a newspaper that ran investigative stories about corruption in the former government. Zamora says the whole case is a reprisal for that work.
The new president, Bernardo Arévalo, was among those who'd been asking the courts to grant Zamora leniency given the irregularities of the 2023 trial, and a court finally ordered his release to house arrest this weekend and a retrial next year.
2. Colombia is the host of the COP16 biodiversity conference that started yesterday and runs through Nov. 1.
The gathering intends to reach an ecological conservation accord, with participation from governments, NGOs, Indigenous activists and more.
