Category Archives: Mexico

‘We only have a pen’: fury as fourth journalist killed in Mexico this year

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Roberto Toledo was shot dead by three gunmen in a carpark in Zitácuaro, where he reported for a local news outlet

Journalists in Mexico have responded with fury and despair at the murder of a fourth reporter in the country this year, cementing its reputation as the world’s most murderous country for media workers.

Roberto Toledo was shot dead by three gunmen on Monday afternoon in a carpark in the city of Zitácuaro, where he reported for a local news outlet, Monitor Michoacán. Zitácuaro is best known for the nearby monarch butterfly reserves, but the region is rife with violence as drug cartels and criminal groups fight to control illegal logging.

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Mexico: Canadians killed at resort over international gang debts, police say

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Shooting of pair on Caribbean coast allegedly linked to ‘transnational illegal activities that the victims participated in’

The killing of two Canadians at a resort on Mexico’s Caribbean coast last week was motivated by debts between international gangs apparently dedicated to drug and weapons trafficking, according to a senior Mexican prosecutor.

“The investigations indicate that this attack was motivated by debts that arose from transnational illegal activities that the victims participated in,” said Oscar Montes, the chief prosecutor of the Quintana Roo state, on Tuesday. “The information [is] that they were involved in weapons and drug trafficking, among other crimes.”

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Kill the Bill and period protests: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Cambodia to Costa Rica

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Two Canadians killed after tourists shot at Mexican beach resort hotel

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Gunman shoots three Canadians in Playa del Carmen, with foreigners again caught up in drug cartel violence

Three Canadian visitors have been shot by a lone gunman in their hotel in the Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen – in an attack security officials are calling targeted and alleging involved individuals with criminal records.

One of the tourists died of their injuries while being transported to hospital following the incident on Friday, according to the Quintana Roo state public security secretary, Lucio Hernández Gutiérrez, who confirmed the nationality of the victims.

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World’s poorest bear brunt of climate crisis: 10 underreported emergencies

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Care International report highlights ‘deep injustice’ neglected by world’s media, as extreme weather along with Covid wipes out decades of progress

From Afghanistan to Ethiopia, about 235 million people worldwide needed assistance in 2021. But while some crises received global attention, others are lesser known.

Humanitarian organisation Care International has published its annual report of the 10 countries that had the least attention in online articles in five languages around the world in 2021, despite each having at least 1 million people affected by conflict or climate disasters.

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Covid live: China locks down city of 5 million; enough vaccines for Canadians to get fourth dose, says Trudeau

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China locks down city of Anyang, bringing total under stay-at-home orders to 20m; Canada will give eligible people a fourth dose ‘if necessary’

Five million residents in the central Chinese city of Anyang have started home confinement today in a new lockdown to curb the spread of Omicron variant, according to state media and as reported by Agence France-Presse.

Two Omicron cases were detected in the city in Henan province, prompting authorities to announce a lockdown late Monday, issuing a notice ordering residents not to leave their homes or drive cars on the roads, state news agency Xinhua reported.

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Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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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