Hurricane Delta rapidly intensified on Tuesday, becoming a category 4 storm with 140mph winds, on course to hammer south-eastern Mexico and the US Gulf coast.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: if discovery is confirmed it will have global implications as 90% of people breathe dirty air
Tiny air pollution particles have been revealed in the brain stems of young people and are intimately associated with molecular damage linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
If the groundbreaking discovery is confirmed by future research, it would have worldwide implications because 90% of the global population live with unsafe air. Medical experts are cautious about the findings and said that while the nanoparticles are a likely cause of the damage, whether this leads to disease later in life remains to be seen.
Continue reading...A vote is expected on Tuesday on a proposal to abolish 109 public trusts and divert about $3bn to other priorities such as the pandemic
Scientists, human rights defenders and artists in Mexico have warned that a plan to overhaul government funding structures threatens the future of activities as diverse as medical research, disaster response, film production and journalist protections in the country.
Mexico’s lower house of congress is expected to vote on Tuesday on a proposal to abolish 109 public trusts, diverting approximately $3bn to other priorities such as the Covid-19 pandemic response.
Continue reading...Country has one month to deliver outstanding 289m cubic metres and ensure water for 14 major cities and growers
Mexican farmers in the drought-stricken state of Chihuahua are pitted against riot squads from the national guard in an increasingly violent standoff over their government’s decision to ship scarce water supplies to the United States.
The confrontation has already led to bloodshed: earlier this month, a woman was shot dead and her husband was wounded after guardsmen opened fire on farmers wielding sticks and stones.
Continue reading...The region has seen some of the longest lockdowns in the world but experts are urging countries not to reopen too soon
The scene in Rio de Janeiro was as though much of 2020 had never happened.
The beaches at Ipanema and Copacabana heaved with visitors, the white sand obscured by bronzed bodies, sun loungers and parasols, as locals enjoyed the blistering 38C heat.
Continue reading...Feminists seize human rights office to force President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to tackle grim toll of rape and murder
As Mexicans prepared to mark Independence Day celebrations on 15 September, a different kind of commemoration was held at the headquarters of the country’s human rights commission (CNDH).
Under a fluttering purple anarchy flag, women in black balaclavas lined the upstairs balconies of the 19th-century building – and speaker after speaker expressed their fury at the country’s crisis of violence against women.
Continue reading...More of a travelogue than a documentary, Perkins begins in the border town of Tijuana, where she finds tequila-fuelled parties sit uneasily alongside the scale of asylum seekers’ suffering
Watching Sue Perkins present a programme always brings to mind the moment in Blackadder when Edmund, in financial straits, is showing prospective buyers around his home. “You’ve really worked out your banter, haven’t you?” says one of them. “No, not really,” replies Blackadder. “This is a different thing – it’s spontaneous, and it’s called wit.”
Wit is Perkins’ USP. All presenters have warmth and intelligence, though both can vary in degree and kind, and in the proportions in which they are blended. But it is Perkins’ ability to think on her feet – and, I suppose, the willingness of her editors to keep it in and not flatten her into traditional affectlessness – that marks her (and the likes of Grayson Perry and Paul O’Grady when he lets rip) out. It adds zest to proceedings. This is always welcome, even when – as with last night’s opening episode of the two-part Sue Perkins: Along the US-Mexico Border (BBC One) – the programme’s subject matter is notably colourful stuff on its own.
Continue reading...The Hollywood actor almost fell into a police trap when he met with the fugitive Mexican over a film deal, reveals new book
He is one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed actors, at one time known as much for his hellraising, turbulent marriage and interest in humanitarian causes as for his films. Now it has emerged that Sean Penn’s taste for adventure – and a potential movie part – almost led him into a trap that had been set for the notorious Mexican drug smuggler and fugitive Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The tale, recounted in a new book, El Jefe: The Stalking of Chapo Guzmán, sheds new light on an international spying operation set up to apprehend the drug lord who was responsible for ordering as many as 200 murders, according to prosecutors.
Continue reading...Jorge Castañeda, once Mexico’s foreign minister, looks at the neighbour to the north – and where it might be heading
In 1830, Lorenzo de Zavala, the principal author of the 1824 Mexican constitution, found himself in exile. So decided to visit a nation he had long admired.
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Continue reading...Leaked deposition by recently extradited former head of state oil company Pemex alleges staggering scale of high-level corruption
Mexico’s political establishment has been shaken by claims that three former Mexican presidents and an all-star cast of lawmakers and aides may have been involved in alleged acts of corruption.
The accusations were leveled by Emilio Lozoya, the former head of Mexico’s state oil company Pemex, and will boost efforts by the country’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to portray himself as an anti-corruption crusader.
Continue reading...Photojournalist Ada Luisa Trillo has won the Guardian’s Portfolio Review award at Format photography festival this year. Her powerful piece of work on the migrant caravan follows the people who left Central American countries to reach the US
In January 2020, fleeing violence and poor economic conditions, a group of Hondurans organised a huge migrant caravan that travelled through Guatemala into Mexico. After travelling for eight days, the caravan crossed the Suchiate River into Mexico and were met by the recently established Guardia Nacional composed of former federal, military and naval police.
Continue reading...In July, the remains of nearly 250 migrant workers were repatriated to Mexico City. Two grieving families share their stories and loss
On Saturday 11 July, a plane arrived in Mexico City with the remains of nearly 250 Mexican migrant workers who had died of Covid-19 in the US. A solemn ceremony was held with the participation of the consul general for New York, Jorge Islas López, who had helped organise the repatriation flight.
Continue reading...Experts say indigenous group has been pressured and cheated into surrendering its land
High in the Sierra de Alamos of Mexico’s northern Sonora state, towering pillars of rock loom above thermal springs where for thousands of years, the indigenous Guarijío people would gather to commune with their ancestors.
Now the springs – and the land around them – have been submerged beneath rising waters trapped behind an enormous dam across the Mayo River. The 25-storey Bicentenario-Los Pilares barrier threatens to displace the living, and leave the graves of their forefathers deep under water.
Continue reading...Ten-track record samples recordings of endangered, vulnerable or near threatened birds by artists from same country
The song of the black catbird – with its flute-like chirps and screeching single-note squalls – was once heard across Guatemala, Belize and southern Mexico until large-scale farms began to destroy its habitat.
Now, thanks to a collective of musicians, producers and DJs, the tiny bird’s song – and that of nine other endangered species from the region – could be heard on dancefloors around the world, with proceeds going to conserving the endangered birds.
Continue reading...Press groups have called for justice after unidentified gunmen killed a journalist in southern Mexico, along with a police officer assigned to protect him after a 2016 attack.
Pablo Morrugares was the fifth journalist to be killed in Mexico this year, in attacks which are increasingly killing police guards assigned to the victims. More than 140 journalists have been killed over the past 20 years.
Continue reading...Many countries that believed they were past the worst are grappling with new outbreaks, says WHO
Mexico has recorded more than 9,000 daily coronavirus cases for the first time, as the country overtook the UK with the world’s third-highest number of deaths from the pandemic after the US and Brazil.
The surging numbers were reported as the World Health Organization warned of “response fatigue” and a resurgence of cases in several countries that have lifted lockdowns.
Continue reading...Surging ‘mystery cases’ put Melbourne in stage 4 restrictions; media banned from Republican convention; Mexico deaths are world’s third highest
The Australian state of Victoria has declared a state of disaster and placed Melbourne, the country’s second biggest city, under nighttime curfew as it grapples with hundreds of “mystery cases” of coronavirus.
As countries around the world including the US, the UK and Spain reimpose varying degrees of lockdowns, the Victorian premier announced that the state had to impose the highest level of restrictions in order to overcome a stubbornly high number of cases that cannot be traced.
Continue reading...Andrés Manuel López Obrador has consistently avoided wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus
Mexico’s president has said he will only wear a mask when the country eradicates corruption – a pledge made the day after Mexico surpassed the United Kingdom in total Covid-19 deaths.
Speaking to reporters on Friday morning, Andrés Manuel López Obrador said: “You know when I’m going to put on a mask? When there is no corruption. Then I’ll put on a mask and I’ll stop talking.”
Continue reading...Mexican women’s groups have expressed deep disappointment after the supreme court dodged a ruling on a proposal which could have opened a legal path towards decriminalizing abortion.
In a 4-1 decision, the court voted on Wednesday against the proposal for technical reasons – without addressing arguments that restrictions on abortion violated women’s rights and contravened international treaties to which Mexico is a signatory.
Continue reading...The ruling could set a precedent; in states that have restrictive regulations, injunctions could be granted to allow the procedure
Activists on both sides of Mexico’s abortion debate are bracing for a potentially historic supreme court hearing on Wednesday, which could lead to decriminalisation across the country.
The case before the five judges of the high court’s first bench involves an injunction granted in the eastern state of Veracruz, which ordered the local legislature to remove articles from its criminal code pertaining to abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
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