Category Archives: Mexico

Mexicans pay tribute to Vicente Fernández, icon of ranchera music

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Family, friends and fellow musicians pay their final respects to the man known as ‘El Rey’ (the King) following his death at age 81

Mexicans are in mourning for Vicente Fernández, the elaborately mustachioed icon of ranchera music, whose ballads of love and loss, golden baritones and singular stage presence captured the raw emotions of a nation.

Fans flocked to his ranch in western Jalisco state, where family, friends and fellow crooners paid their final respects to the man known as “El Rey” (the King) – and often just by the diminutive “Chente.”

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Dozens killed after truck packed with people crashes in Mexico

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At least 53 people died and many were injured after the vehicle rolled over on a highway in Chiapas

A cargo truck jammed with more than 100 people thought to be migrants from Central America has rolled over and crashed into a pedestrian bridge in southern Mexico, killing at least 53 people and injuring dozens more.

The crash on Thursday on a highway near Tuxtla Gutierrez, state capital of Chiapas, might have been triggered by the weight of the truck’s human cargo causing it to tip over on a bend, local officials said.

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Number of journalists in jail around the world at new high, says survey

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Committee to Protect Journalists says 293 reporters are in prison, and at least 24 have been killed in 2021

The number of journalists who are behind bars worldwide reached a new high point in 2021, according to a study which says that 293 reporters were imprisoned as of 1 December 2021.

At least 24 journalists were killed because of their coverage, and 18 others died in circumstances that make it too difficult to determine whether they were targeted because of their work, the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists said on Thursday in its annual survey on press freedom and attacks on the media.

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Tourists bask on a battlefield as drug gangs fight over Mexican resort town

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Tulum, jewel of the Mayan Riviera, risks emulating Acapulco, another once glamorous resort now overwhelmed by violence

Bright yellow police tape fluttered in the breeze outside a restaurant just off the main strip in the Mexican resort town of Tulum, as the lights of a nearby police truck flashed blue and red.

Troops in camouflage fatigues stood guard outside the deserted late-night eatery La Malquerida, “The Unloved” – the site of a gangland shooting that killed two female tourists and wounded another three holidaymakers.

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Lives lost at Europe’s borders and Afghan MPs in exile: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Manila

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Remain in Mexico: migrants face deadly peril as Biden restores Trump policy

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The US has struck a deal with Mexico to make asylum seekers wait south side of the border while their applications are processed

The Biden administration’s move to revive Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy will subject thousands of people to “enormous suffering” and leave them vulnerable to kidnap and rape as they languish in dangerous Mexican border cities, migration advocates have warned.

After reaching a deal with Mexico, the US will by 6 December start returning asylum seekers from other Latin American countries to Mexico where they will be obliged to wait while their case is assessed.

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Gangsters use vehicles to ram into Mexico prison and free nine inmates

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The armed group broke into the jail in Tula and opened fire, injuring a guard and a police officer

Mexican gangsters used a convoy of vehicles – including a truck with homemade armour-plating – to ram their way into a prison before opening fire at guards and rescuing nine inmates.

Several other vehicles were also set on fire in the spectacular plot targeting the jail in the central city of Tula. The escapees include José Artemio Maldonado Mejía, alias “El Michoacano”, the leader of a local crime organisation known as Pueblos Unidos.

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El Chapo’s wife Emma Coronel Aispuro sentenced to three years in US prison

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Coronel admitted to acting as a courier between Joaquín Guzmán and other members of the Sinaloa cartel while he was in prison

Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of the imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has been sentenced to three years in a US prison, after she pleaded guilty to helping the Sinaloa drug cartel.

Before her sentencing in a federal court in Washington, Coronel, 32, pleaded with US District Judge Rudolph Contreras to show her mercy.

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The world is watching: TV hits around the globe

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A Spanish trans woman’s memoirs, a Mumbai gangster drama, Israeli sisters in trouble… the Covid era is a rich moment for TV drama. Critics from Spain to South Korea tell us about the biggest shows in their countries

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Pandemic hits mental health of women and young people hardest, survey finds

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Survey also finds adults aged 18-24 and women more concerned about personal finances than other groups

Young people and women have taken the hardest psychological and financial hit from the pandemic, a YouGov survey has found – but few people anywhere are considering changing their lives as a result of it.

The annual YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that in many of the 27 countries surveyed, young people were consistently more likely than their elders to feel the Covid crisis had made their financial and mental health concerns worse.

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Migrant caravan and Qatar’s tarnished World Cup: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Pakistan to Poland

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Mexican environmental campaigner missing after attack on villagers

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Irma Galindo Barrios, a member of the Mixtec people, was defending indigenous lands from illegal logging

A Mexican environmental campaigner has been declared missing barely a week after a savage attack on indigenous villagers displaced from the lands she was defending against illegal logging.

Irma Galindo Barrios, a member of the indigenous Mixtec (ñuù savi) people who worked to protect forests in southern Oaxaca state, was last heard from on 27 October. She was scheduled to attend a virtual meeting so she could join a state mechanism for protecting journalists and defenders, but did not attend, according to Rosi Bustamante, a US-based activist who had been in close contact with Galindo.

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At least 19 killed as truck smashes into cars at toll booth in Mexico

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The crash sparked an inferno that also injured at least three people on the highway between Mexico City and Puebla state

A transport truck has smashed into a toll booth and six other vehicles on a highway in central Mexico, leaving at least 19 people dead and three injured, authorities said.

The brakes on the truck apparently failed before it crashed into the toll booth and then the vehicles on Saturday, igniting a large fire on the highway connecting Mexico City with Puebla state.

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Tourists in Mexico shelter after armed gang storms Cancún beach – video

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Staff and tourists near the Mexican resort city of Cancún have been sent rushing for shelter after a group of armed men entered the beach outside a luxury hotel and opened fire. Two men were killed on Thursday in what state officials described as a confrontation between drug dealers at the Hyatt Ziva in Puerto Morelos, just south of Cancún

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Ancient Maya canoe found in Mexico could be more than 1,000 years old

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Boat was discovered in freshwater pool during construction of a tourist train to the ruins of Maya city

A wooden canoe used by the ancient Maya and believed to be more than 1,000 years old has turned up in southern Mexico almost completely intact, officials have said.

The extremely rare canoe was found submerged in a freshwater pool known as a cenote, thousands of which dot Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, near the ruins of Chichén Itzá, once a major Maya city featuring elaborately carved temples and towering pyramids.

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Holy bikini-clad Batwoman! Archive saves Mexico’s scorned popular films

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Permanencia Voluntaria has rescued hundreds of films and is seeking to challenge attitudes towards its legacy

From demons, ghosts and vampires to Martians, mad scientists and spurned lovers, the heroes and heroines of 20th-century Mexican popular cinema faced more than their share of enemies.

Few foes, however, have proved quite as formidable as the combined adversaries of time, critical snottiness and oblivion – not to mention the odd earthquake.

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Regulating indigenous medicine in Mexico ‘could violate rights’

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Academics and traditional medical groups warn against proposed legislation to grant state authority to control practice

Proposed legislation that would grant the Mexican state authority to regulate and control the practice of indigenous medicine could violate the country’s constitution and international conventions on the rights of ancestral communities, academics and traditional medical groups have warned.

The bill, introduced by the governing Morena party and unanimously voted through by the lower house in April, sets out to regulate and standardise traditional and complementary healthcare.

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Californian blogger among two tourists killed in shootout at Mexico’s Tulum

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The two women killed and three tourists injured were believed to have been caught in crossfire of clash between drug gangs

A Californian travel blogger was one of two foreign tourists killed at a restaurant in Mexico’s Caribbean beach resort of Tulum during a shootout between suspected gang members.

The two women killed were identified as Anjali Ryot, an Indian national who lived in San Jose, and German national Jennifer Henzold, though no hometown was immediately available for her. Two German men and a Dutch woman were also injured during the shootout late on Wednesday, the district attorney’s office in Quintana Roo state said.

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US to reopen land borders with Canada and Mexico in November

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The United States’ neighbours have been pressing it to ease restrictions on nonessential travel that have separated families during the pandemic

The US will reopen its land borders to nonessential travel in November, ending a 19-month freeze due to the Covid-19 pandemic as the country moves to require all international visitors to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Vehicle, rail and ferry travel between the US and Canada and Mexico has been largely restricted to essential travel, such as trade, since the earliest days of the pandemic.

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