A Mexican journalist has been shot dead in broad daylight as violent crime in the country – and attacks on the press – continue amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Related: Mexico’s human rights chief draws fury for asking if journalists have been killed
Continue reading...Vote in border city of Mexicali is unlikely win for farmers and activists over wealthy maker of Corona, Modelo and Pacifico
Voters in a Mexican border city have rejected the construction of a massive, US-owned brewery in an arid region rife with water shortages – an improbable victory for a collective of farmers and activists over a deep-pocketed company backed by state and local officials.
Related: Fate of US brewery in drought-hit Mexico goes to Amlo poll
Continue reading...Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, has announced the closure of the border as Donald Trump warned against 'mass, uncontrolled cross-border movement'.
The announcement comes two days after officials said the US-Canada border would similarly ban all non-essential travel as the pandemic continues. Pompeo also urged all Americans to stay in the country or immediately return home if they are abroad.
At least 83 murdered in 2012-2019, with a third of attacks targeting opponents of energy mega-projects
At least 83 Mexican land and environment defenders were murdered between 2012 and 2019, while hundreds more were threatened, beaten and criminalized, according to a new report.
Latin America is the most dangerous continent in the world to defend environmental, land and human rights, with Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala ranking worst.
Continue reading...President continues direct democracy drive that critics say is skewed towards his desired outcome
The fate of a giant US brewery under construction in Mexico’s parched borderlands will be put to a vote this weekend in the latest attempt at direct democracy by the country’s populist president.
The brewery in Mexicali has provoked controversy in a region where the climate crisis has already caused droughts, and where farmers and residents have taken exception to a US company, Constellation Brands, extracting water to produce beer for export.
Continue reading...The populist leaders of Brazil and Mexico have come under fire after publicly thumbing their noses at growing fears over the spread of the coronavirus.
Related: Trump 'offers large sums' for exclusive access to coronavirus vaccine
Continue reading...A day after thousands protested against the murder of women and girls, López Obrador said he would ‘reinforce the same strategy’
A day after Mexico’s women collectively shut down the country in an eruption of fury over gender violence, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has insisted that he will not try a new strategy to stop femicides.
Thousands of women went on strike on Monday, in a historic protest against the murder of women and girls – and the failure of successive governments’ efforts to stop a crisis in which around 10 women are murdered every day.
Continue reading...As the country grapples with a worsening crisis, the revolt among a new generation of feminists is picking up steam: ‘It’s our last resort’
Dalilah Loza is 15 and dreams of being an orthodontist, or an economist - perhaps even a photographer.
But most of all she wants to be the voice of her mother.
Continue reading...Five people held after 752kg of drug found in 25-tonne blocks imported from Mexico
Police in Spain have seized 752kg of methamphetamine after breaking up a gang that was smuggling the drug into the country by hiding it in special cavities drilled into huge blocks of marble.
The investigation into Spain’s largest-ever methamphetamine seizure of the drug began last August after police and inland revenue officers noticed that a company was importing 25-tonne marble blocks from Mexico to the Spanish port of Valencia despite lacking the necessary resources and infrastructure.
Continue reading...Ruling marks the second involving cross-border incidents preventing cases by foreign nationals in US federal courts
The US supreme court has thrown out a lower court’s ruling that had let the family of a slain 16-year-old Mexican boy pursue a civil rights lawsuit against a US border patrol agent who shot the teenager from across the border in Arizona.
The justices took the action in light of their ruling last Tuesday in a similar case in which they decided on a 5-4 vote to bar a lawsuit against another border patrol agent for fatally shooting a 15-year-old Mexican boy from across the border in Texas.
Continue reading...The carnival in Coyolillo, a town in the coastal state of Veracruz in Mexico, dates back more than 100 years. This non-religious festival includes parades, dances, music and feasting and is the heritage of sugar cane workers and slaves of African origin freed from farms. The event is known for the colourful robes, capes and animal masks – of bulls, deer, goats and cows – worn by participants. As such, the carnival is a unique expression of African-Mexican folk art
Continue reading...Exhibit at the Bronx Documentary Center, the first in a year-long series, aims to document the current president’s overturning of decades of American immigration policy and law, and its profound effects on American society and the lives of immigrants
Continue reading...It is a place where worlds converge, a vast melting pot of different peoples, all in search of a better life. Yet the US-Mexico border is also, increasingly, a focal point for human suffering
Milson, from Honduras, sits with his 14-year-old daughter, Loany, on the reedy riverbank beside the bridge connecting Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, with downtown Brownsville, Texas, across the Rio Grande.
On the far reach – a few yards but another world away – is a vast tent (officially a “soft-sided facility”) erected to cope with the sheer numbers seeking asylum in the US. In a few weeks’ time, on the date stipulated on their “notice to appear” document, the people staying here will have their “credible fear interview” by video link.
Continue reading...Demonstration stemmed from outrage over killing of Ingrid Escamilla and publication of photos of her mutilated corpse
Dozens of activists gathered outside Mexico’s presidential palace on Friday to protest against violence against women, chanting “Not one murder more” and splashing one of its large, ornate doors with blood-red paint and the words “femicide state”.
Related: 'Why did she have to die?' Mexico's war on women claims young artist
Continue reading...Avelina Lésper said it was almost as if Gabriel Rico’s piece knew how much she disliked it
An art critic has destroyed a contemporary piece at Mexico’s premiere art fair, sparking a debate about what constitutes art.
Critic Avelina Lésper said she accidentally shattered the installation on Saturday at the Zona Maco art fair in Mexico City when she placed an empty soda can near it to express her disdain for the piece: a sheet of glass with a stone, soccer ball and other random objects suspended inside.
Continue reading...The deaths of two butterfly conservationists have drawn focus to a troubling tangle of disputes, resentments and violence
The annual migration of monarch butterflies from the US and Canada is one of the most resplendent sights in the natural world – a rippling orange-and-black wave containing millions of butterflies fluttering instinctively southward to escape the winter cold.
The spectacle when they reach their destination in central Mexico is perhaps even more astonishing. Patches of alpine forest turn from green to orange as the monarchs roost in the fir trees, the sheer weight of butterflies causing branches to sag to the point of snapping. Tens of thousands of the insects bounce haphazardly overhead, searching replenishment from nearby plants.
Continue reading...Ostentatious wedding to groom with underworld links is seen as reminder of bride’s family’s power
It was the society wedding of the year in Mexico’s drug cartel heartland: Alejandrina Gisselle Guzmán, daughter of the convicted kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, tied the knot with the kin of another member of Mexico’s underworld.
And in the ostentatious style of a family accustomed to getting its way, they were married in a closed-door ceremony in the cathedral of Culiacán – the city at the centre of the Sinaloa cartel’s criminal empire.
Continue reading...A Mexican environmental activist who fought to protect the wintering grounds of the monarch butterfly has been found dead in the western state of Michoacán, two weeks after he disappeared.
Homero Gómez González, a former logger who managed El Rosario butterfly reserve, vanished on 13 January. His body was found floating in a well on Wednesday, reportedly showing signs of torture.
Continue reading...Steel panels being installed between Calexico and Mexicali are part of the US president’s attempt to enhance the border barrier
A section of Donald Trump’s much-vaunted border wall between the United States and Mexico has blown over in high winds, US border patrol officers have been reported as saying.
The steel panels, more than nine metres (30ft) high, began to lean at a sharp angle on the border between the Californian town of Calexico and Mexicali in Mexico amid gusts on Wednesday.
Continue reading...National guardsmen in riot gear have blocked the path of hundreds of Central Americans near the town of Frontera Hidalgo in southern Mexico.
Security forces corralled the migrants and hauled them on to buses, as Mexico continues with efforts to contain mass migration under pressure from the Trump administration.