Ten bodies left in SUV outside Mexican state governor’s office

Zacatecas governor says bodies of people left in front of palace near Christmas tree showed apparent signs of beating and bruising

An SUV filled with 10 bodies was left outside the office of a Mexican state governor in a public square lit up with holiday decorations, officials said on Thursday.

The bodies were crammed into a Mazda SUV left before dawn near a Christmas tree in the main plaza of the state capital of Zacatecas.

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Canada charter passengers who flouted Covid rules could be stranded in Mexico

Justin Trudeau calls revellers who partied onboard flight ‘idiots’ as three airlines refuse to fly them home

A group of passengers who filmed themselves partying without masks onboard a chartered flight from Montreal to Mexico face being stranded after three airlines refused to fly them home to Canada.

Sunwing Airlines cancelled the return charter flight from Cancún that had been scheduled for Wednesday and Air Transat and Air Canada also both said they would refuse to carry the passengers.

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Trump’s border wall and the slow decay of American soil | Carlos Sanchez

The ‘big, beautiful wall’ has kept US citizens away from the no man’s land it created – and in effect ceded territory to Mexico

Several miles south of the small town of San Juan, Texas, beyond acres of onion fields, orange groves and other cash crops sits a historic cemetery and the site of the beginning of a slow decay of American soil.

I hadn’t been to this area for more than a year because of the pandemic, and I was startled at how different this remote part of Texas had become. The most obvious change is the steel 18ft-high bollard fencing, among the last vestiges of Donald Trump’s glorious border wall with Mexico.

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‘It was civil war’: photographing Mexico’s women’s rights protests

Mahé Elipe captures the visceral anger as International Women’s Day protests turned into a violent clash with police

On 8 March 2021, women across the world took part in protests to mark International Women’s Day. In Mexico, there is an added poignancy to the annual event, as at least 10 women are murdered in the country each day; in 2021 the date was was marred by additional violence.

In the runup to the day fences were erected around the national palace in Mexico City’s main square, where thousands of women were due to gather.

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UK zoo helps lost Mexican fish live to see another Tequila sunrise

Declared extinct in the wild in 2003, species has been reintroduced to its native river after being bred in Chester

A “charismatic little fish” declared extinct in the wild has been reintroduced to its native Mexico after being bred in an aquarium at Chester zoo.

The tequila fish (Zoogoneticus tequila), which grows to no bigger than 70mm long, disappeared from the wild in 2003 owing to the introduction of invasive, exotic fish species and water pollution.

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‘Our house was gone, it was sea and sand’: life on the vanishing coasts – in pictures

Coastal communities in Mexico, Bangladesh and Somalia are struggling to adapt to the climate crisis. Many people have already lost livelihoods and homes to rising waters

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‘A lot of abuse for little pay’: how US farming profits from exploitation and brutality

Two dozen conspirators forced workers to pay fees for travel and housing while forcing them to work for little to no pay

In June, a farm worker from Mexico, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, was transported through a trafficking network from Monterey to work on farms in Georgia.

They paid the traffickers 20,000 pesos, about $950, loaned from their mother, taking frequent trips back and forth to Monterey, before being told it was safe to leave. Then they were finally transported across the border.

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Mexicans pay tribute to Vicente Fernández, icon of ranchera music

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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