Brother of top Mexican drug lord arrested in Jalisco state

Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, brother of cartel boss ‘El Mencho’, is third member of family to be arrested by Mexican authorities

The brother of one of Mexico’s top drug lords has been arrested, the Mexican military said, marking another high-profile capture amid a wave of violence that has overwhelmed the country.

Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, brother of the Jalisco New Generation cartel boss known as “El Mencho”, was arrested on Tuesday in the state of Jalisco by the Mexican army working with the national guard, the attorney general’s office and the national intelligence agency.

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Confusion and tension high at US-Mexico border despite upholding of Covid-era rules

Emergency housing, food and other essentials had been set up in preparation for an influx of migrants at Texas border cities

Along the US southern border, two cities – El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez just across the waters of the Rio Grande in Mexico – were trying to prepare for a new surge of as many as 5,000 new migrants a day as pandemic-era immigration restrictions were set to expire this week, setting in motion plans for emergency housing, food and other essentials.

Even with the ruling from the US Supreme Court on Monday evening that the restriction known as Title 42 would not end after all, as had been ordered by a lower court, confusion and tension were high.

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Mexico news anchor survives shooting amid surge in violence against journalists

Ciro Gómez Leyva was unharmed when an attacker fired at his car, but 42 journalists have been killed during Amlo’s term

One of Mexico’s most prominent news anchors has survived an apparent assassination attempt near his home in the capital, in one of the most brazen attacks against a journalist the country has seen in recent decades.

Ciro Gómez Leyva, a news anchor for the national news network, Grupo Imagen, was driving a bulletproof SUV when the pillion rider on a motorcycle opened fire on him late on Thursday.

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Mexico president asks Bad Bunny to give free concert after Ticketmaster debacle

Andrés Manuel López Obrador calls on Puerto Rican reggaeton star to perform after fans turned away from sold-out show

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has called on Bad Bunny to give a free concert in the capital’s central Zócalo plaza after hundreds of fans were locked out of the Puerto Rican rapper’s sold-out show last weekend thanks to a Ticketmaster debacle.

During his regular morning news conference, López Obrador, or Amlo as he is commonly known, said Bad Bunny was a “supportive” and “sensitive” person, adding that, although the government could not pay the artist, it would fund limited production costs for the concert.

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Mexico requests extradition of American charged in tourist death

Shanquella Robinson reportedly died while on holiday after viral video shows her being beaten, apparently by an American woman

The US is weighing an extradition request from Mexico after authorities in the country charged an American woman with murdering another US woman shown being beaten while they vacationed in a viral video.

Prosecutors in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur have not named the suspect in the death of North Carolina’s Shanquella Robinson, who reportedly died of a severe spinal cord or neck injury while on holiday in Mexico on 29 October.

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Three US tourists found dead in Mexico City Airbnb from carbon monoxide

Friends, who were there to celebrate Day of the Dead holiday, died from apparent carbon monoxide poisoning last week, officials say

Three American tourists were found dead last week in a Mexico City Airbnb apartment they were renting after apparent carbon monoxide poisoning, Mexican authorities confirmed to Reuters on Wednesday.

Friends Kandace Florence, Jordan Marshall and Courtez Hall were visiting the Mexican capital to celebrate the Day of the Dead holiday, according to US news site WAVY, based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where Florence and Marshall were from.

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Mexico will try to ‘deceive the world’ at Cop27, experts warn

President not expected to attend summit but critics cast doubt on veracity of pledges the country could make

Cop27 live – latest news updates

Mexico, one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, is expected to announce a hotchpot of old, inadequate and undeliverable climate pledges that will leave its Paris pledges in tatters, experts have warned.

Climate action has nosedived under the leadership of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had to be blocked from rolling back Mexico’s modest Paris greenhouse gas targets by the country’s supreme court, and emissions are rising.

A reduction in methane emissions from the state-owned oil company, Pemex – an important but existing target for which Pemex has been fined for non-compliance.

A 1,000MW state-opened solar plant – construction is already under way for a 180MW project, and the government had previously already ruled out further investment to expand the energy potential.

A lithium commitment. Mexico has the ninth-largest identified deposits of lithium – a crucial mineral for electric vehicles and other green technologies – but there has been no government investment so far in advancing extraction, and none is currently being mined. Experts say the country is years away from producing its first gram of lithium.

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Panel criticizes Mexico for dropping arrest warrants in missing students case

International group says it’s ‘incomprehensible’ why 21 of 83 arrest orders were dropped amid investigation into 2014 disappearance

An independent panel has criticized Mexico for withdrawing arrest warrants, mostly for military members, in the investigation into the 2014 disappearance of 43 students, saying there was sufficient evidence to press charges.

The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) said it did not know why 21 of 83 arrest orders were dropped just as investigators were moving forward with detentions, including that of Mexico’s former top prosecutor, in one of the country’s most notorious human rights scandals.

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Gun used by Mexican cartel to shoot down military helicopter bought in US

Investigation into the 2015 incident revealed the 0.50-caliber weapon for the Jalisco cartel was purchased in Portland, Oregon

The 0.50-caliber gun used by the Mexican Jalisco cartel to shoot down a Mexican military helicopter in 2015 came from a gun supplier in Portland, Oregon, a joint Mexico-US investigation has found.

On Wednesday, the Louisville Courier Journal reported confirmation of the connection between the incident and Portland, Oregon by federal firearm officials.

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Mexico falls back but won’t spring forward as summer time abolished

Congress votes to scrap daylight savings and just keep standard time, meaning end to changing clocks twice a year

Pedro López, an office worker in the Mexican state of Veracruz, gets up before dawn, and drives in the moonlight an hour and a half to his job. “Leaving my house in the dark every single day and driving under the moon is horrible, especially in a landscape as beautiful as Veracruz,” he said.

But, for half a year at least, he’ll be driving in the sunlight. Mexico’s congress voted on Wednesday to abolish summer time, and when Mexicans set their clocks back this weekend, it will be for the last time. In March, they will not be turned forward.

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Two dead after Hurricane Roslyn hits Mexico Pacific coast

Roslyn hit land as category 3 hurricane before weakening as it headed inland

Two people died on Sunday from destruction caused by tropical storm Roslyn after it made landfall along Mexico’s Pacific coast as a powerful hurricane before weakening farther inland, authorities said.

A 74-year-old man was killed in the town of Mexcaltitan de Santiago Ixcuintla when a beam fell on his head, Nayarit state’s ministry of security and citizen protection said. A 39-year-old woman died when a fence collapsed in the state’s Rosamorada district.

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More than 800 evacuated after fuel tanker crash sparks huge blaze in Mexico

A dozen people were rescued from burning homes after a tanker truck crashed into a railway overpass in the central town of Aguascalientes

A huge blaze erupted in central Mexico after a fuel tanker truck crashed into an overpass by a rail line, scorching homes, engulfing the area in thick smoke and leading to a mass evacuation, but causing no fatalities, authorities said.

Video footage of the fire on social media showed a cargo train hurtling through the flames after Thursday’s accident in the city of Aguascalientes, as stunned drivers at the scene retreated from their cars holding children close.

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Mexico mayor among 18 killed in town hall massacre

Attack in southern state of Guerrero was followed by fatal shooting of lawmaker in neighbouring state of Morelos

Attackers gunned down a mayor, his father and 16 other people in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero on Wednesday, authorities have said.

The state’s attorney general, Sandra Luz Valdovinos, told Milenio television late on Wednesday that 18 people were killed and two were wounded in the town of San Miguel Totolapan. Among the dead were the mayor, Conrado Mendoza, and his father, a former mayor of the town, she said. Two additional people were wounded.

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Mexico: reporters and activists hacked with NSO spyware despite assurances

Country’s current government had sworn it would no longer use the hacking software

Journalists and human rights defenders in Mexico were hacked using spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group as recently as 2021, even after the country’s current government swore it was no longer going to use the hacking software, new research has found.

The alleged victims of the spyware include two journalists who report on issues related to official corruption and a prominent human rights defenders, according to digital rights researchers at R3D (Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales) and The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which tracks such infections.

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Hurricane Orlene strikes Mexico’s Pacific coast with 80mph winds

Nearby ports are closed and emergency shelters open as 10in of rain and dangerous surf are expected

Hurricane Orlene has made landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast near the tourist town of Mazatlán, with winds of more than 80mph (130km/h).

Electrical cables swayed and sent off showers of sparks in the town of El Rosario, about 40 miles (65km) south of Mazatlán, close to where the hurricane hit.

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More than 1,700 environmental activists murdered in the past decade – report

Figures likely to be an underestimate, says Global Witness, as land defenders are killed by hitmen, crime groups and governments

More than 1,700 murders of environmental activists were recorded over the past decade, an average of a killing nearly every two days, according to a new report.

Killed by hitmen, organised crime groups and their own governments, at least 1,733 land and environmental defenders were murdered between 2012 and 2021, figures from Global Witness show, with Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, Mexico and Honduras the deadliest countries.

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At least two dead in Mexico after second earthquake strikes within a week

Michoacán state suffers another temblor, felt as far away as Colima, Jalisco and Guerrero states

A powerful magnitude 6.8 earthquake has struck Mexico, causing at least two deaths, damaging buildings and setting off landslides.

The earthquake struck at 1.19am on Thursday near the epicenter of a magnitude 7.6 quake that hit three days earlier in the western state of Michoacán. It was also blamed for two deaths.

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Major earthquake shakes Mexico on anniversary of two previous tremors

Quake registered at 7.5 magnitude and struck off the coast of La Placita de Morelos on the anniversary of two devastating tremors

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake has struck western Mexico on the anniversary of two earlier devastating tremors, killing at least one person and causing flooding on the Pacific coast.

The quake hit at 1.05pm local time, striking near the town of La Placita de Morelos in the state of Michoacán at a depth of 15km.

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Retired Mexican general arrested over disappearance of 43 students in 2014

Ex-officer was head of army base in Iguala when students were abducted in what a report called a ‘state crime’

Mexican authorities have arrested a retired general and two other members of the army for alleged links to the disappearance of 43 students in the south of the country in 2014.

The assistant public safety secretary, Ricardo Mejia, said that among those arrested was the former officer who commanded the army base in the Guerrero state city of Iguala in September 2014, when the students from a radical teachers’ college were abducted.

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Mexican rebels donate museum money for canoes to refugee rescues

Madrid museum buys three hand-carved canoes from Zapatistas, with proceeds going to Open Arms NGO

Three exquisitely decorated canoes hand-carved in the jungles of southern Mexico and borne across the Atlantic on a ship tasked with a peaceful, symbolic – and cumbia-soundtracked – invasion of Spain could soon find a permanent mooring in the heart of Madrid.

More importantly, proceeds from the sale of the small boats could help save some of the tens of thousands of men, women and children who risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean each year.

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