Archaeologists have discovered a Mayan palace in Kulubá in Yucatán state. The remains of the building, six metres tall, 55 metres long and 15 metres wide, suggest it was inhabited for two long periods between AD600 and AD1050
Continue reading...Category Archives: Mexico
Mexico releases Texas woman who tried to deliver Christmas gifts to migrants
Authorities had arrested Anamichelle Castellano, who runs a not-for-profit, after finding ammunition in her car on Monday
A Texas woman has been allowed to leave Mexico after being detained while trying to deliver Christmas gifts to a sprawling refugee camp housing people waiting in limbo at the border for US court dates to deal with their asylum claims.
Relatives of Anamichelle Castellano say she was arrested by Mexican authorities Monday at a bridge crossing from Brownsville, Texas, to Matamoros, Mexico.
Continue reading...Mexican Catholic group says late leader Marcial Maciel abused at least 60 minors
Leader of ultra-conservative group was ordered to retire over allegations, but died before facing accusers
Sexual abuse of minors was rife among superiors of the Legionaries of Christ Catholic religious order, with at least 60 boys abused by its founder, Father Marcial Maciel, a report by the group revealed.
Maciel, who died in 2008, was perhaps the Roman Catholic Church’s most notorious paedophile, even abusing children he had fathered secretly with at least two women while living a double life and being feted by the Vatican and church conservatives.
Continue reading...Cruise ships collide off Mexican port of Cozumel – video
Carnival Glory was manoeuvring to dock when it collided with Carnival Legend, leaving one person injured and damage to the boat's stern
Continue reading...Architect of Mexico’s war on drugs held in Texas for taking cartel bribes
Genaro García Luna, who ran Mexico’s federal police for six years, charged with accepting briefcases of cash to protect Sinaloa cartel
A former minister who was considered an architect of Mexico’s war on drugs has been arrested on charges that he allowed the Sinaloa cartel to operate with impunity in exchange for briefcases stuffed with cash.
Genaro García Luna, who oversaw the creation of Mexico’s federal police, was arrested in Texas on Monday.
Continue reading...Back to the border of misery: Amexica revisited 10 years on
A decade after publishing his vivid account of the places and people most affected by the US-Mexican ‘war on drugs’, Ed Vulliamy returns to the frontline to see how life has changed
If you drink the water in Ciudad Juárez, there you’ll stay, goes the saying – Se toma agua de Juárez, allí se queda. It’s not a reference to the quality of drinking water (about which polemic abounds because it is so dirty) but to the beguiling lure of this dusty and dangerous yet strong and charismatic city. It’s a dictum that might be applied to the whole 2,000-mile Mexico-US borderland of which Juárez and its sister city on the US side, El Paso, form the fulcrum.
Ten years ago, I returned from several months’ immersion along that frontier, reporting on a narco-cartel war for this newspaper and eventually writing a book, Amexica, about the terrain astride the border, land that has a single identity – that belongs to both countries and yet to neither. A frontier at once porous and harsh: across which communities live and a million people traverse every day, legally, as do hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of goods annually.
Continue reading...‘Just leave’: Delhi, Beijing and Mexico City residents on how to cope with pollution
As air quality plummets on the Australian east coast as a result of devastating bush fires, residents of cities clogged with smog share their coping strategies
The east coast of Australia is in the grip of a bushfire and air pollution crisis. But plummeting air quality levels are a regular occurrence in cities in India, Latin America and China. Here, residents and experts from Delhi, Beijing and Mexico City explain how they survive the smog.
Continue reading...Evo Morales heads to Cuba amid talk of an eventual comeback
Bolivia’s toppled president flies out of Mexico for what his former health minister says is a medical appointment
Bolivia’s recently toppled president, Evo Morales, has left Mexico for Cuba as part of what some observers suspect is the first step in a bid to stage a dramatic political comeback.
On Friday night, less than a month after being forced into exile in Mexico, Morales flew out of the country on a plane bound for Havana.
Continue reading...Death toll rises to 21 after attack on Mexican town
Suspected cartel members shot at Villa Unión’s mayor’s office before being chased by police
Security forces have shot dead seven more suspected cartel gunmen after a weekend attack on a northern Mexican town, according to authorities, bringing the death toll to 21 and adding fuel to a debate about whether the gangs should be deemed terrorists.
The government of Coahuila state said 10 gunmen and four police were killed in shootouts on Saturday in Villa Unión, days after Donald Trump fanned bilateral tensions by saying he would designate cartels as terrorists.
Continue reading...Brad Gobright, renowned US rock climber, dies after fall in Mexico
The American was abseiling in El Potrero Chico near Monterrey when he plunged about 300m to his death
One of the world’s most renowned rock climbers, the American Brad Gobright, has died after falling off a mountain in Mexico.
The fall occurred on Wednesday on an almost sheer face known as El Sendero Luminoso on the El Toro mountain in the El Portrero Chico area near the northern city of Monterrey, civil defense officials said.
Continue reading...Trump plan to label Mexico cartels as terror groups defies logic, experts say
Analysts say designation would be largely cosmetic as the already illegitimate groups are driven by money, not politics
Mexican drug cartel thugs have hanged bodies from bridges, set fire to crowded buildings and tossed hand grenades into crowds.
But Donald Trump’s decision to designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organisations (FTOs) has been questioned by experts, who argue that the move’s main impact would be cosmetic – although it might provide a pretext for possible US military incursions.
Continue reading...Coca-Cola country in southern Mexico – photo essay
In Los Altos, Chiapas, Coke has become a key part of indigenous ceremonies as well as a staple source of hydration. The photographer Diana Bagnoli visited the region to see the effect of this trend on public health
To enter the highlands of Chiapas, in southern Mexico, is to enter a world of vibrant indigenous culture, breathtaking natural beauty, entrenched racism and grinding poverty. It is also to enter the territory of Coca-Cola.
More Coke is consumed per capita in Mexico than in any other country, and some studies suggest the indigenous communities of the highlands, or Los Altos, may be the soft drink’s most loyal customers on the planet.
Continue reading...Mexico’s human rights chief draws fury for asking if journalists have been killed
At least 11 media workers have been murdered in the country since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office
Mexico’s new human rights commissioner has questioned if journalists are actually killed in the country, which has become a cemetery for reporters over the past two decades – and has not become any safer since the arrival of a leftwing government late last year.
After being elected commissioner on Tuesday night, Rosario Piedra Ibarra blithely responded to reporters’ questions on the murder of reporters in the country by asking, “They’ve killed journalists?”
Continue reading...Clashes in Bolivia as Morales supporters challenge interim president’s legitimacy
- Supporters of exiled leader square off against riot police
- Interim president Jeanine Añez pledges fresh elections
Fresh clashes have broken out in Bolivia’s main city as the newly declared interim president Jeanine Añez faced challenges to her leadership in the senate and the streets from supporters of the exiled leader Evo Morales.
Related: Bolivia: Jeanine Añez claims presidency after ousting of Evo Morales
Continue reading...Bolivia: Jeanine Añez claims presidency after ousting of Evo Morales
- Ex-president’s party refuses to recognise senator’s claim
- Morales says army told him of $50,000 price on his head
The Bolivian senator Jeanine Añez has declared herself the country’s interim president after the resignation of Evo Morales, even though lawmakers from his party boycotted the legislative session where she assumed office.
Añez, 52, took temporary control of the Senate late on Tuesday. “I will take the measures necessary to pacify the country,” she said, swearing on a bible to loud cheers and applause. The move is expected to pave the way for fresh elections.
Continue reading...Bolivia’s Evo Morales flies to Mexico, but vows to return with ‘strength and energy’
Former president says it hurts to leave ‘for political reasons’ as foreign minister confirms he has left for Mexico
Bolivia’s former president Evo Morales has boarded a plane bound for Mexico where he has been granted asylum, the Mexican foreign minister has announced.
Earlier on Monday evening Morales tweeted a farewell after his resignation in the wake of a disputed election, saying that he would be take up the offer of asylum in Mexico but would soon “return with greater strength and energy”.
Continue reading...‘US creates monsters’: Trump talk of war on Mexico cartels echoes past failures
After the massacre of a US family, the president offered to help ‘cleaning out these monsters’ but previous interventions have brought little peace
After nine members of a Mormon family with US/Mexican citizenship were slaughtered by gunmen, Donald Trump reacted by urging his Mexican counterpart to let him sort out the drug cartels.
“If Mexico needs or requests help cleaning out these monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively,” the US president tweeted on Tuesday, after news broke of the massacre – the latest in a series of extremely violent events across the country.
Continue reading...How an isolated group of Mormons got caught up in Mexico’s cartel wars
The deaths of nine women and children has thrust into focus a small religious community and their long history in a remote corner of northern Mexico
Amid the scrubby foothills of Sonora’s Sierra Madre mountains, they farmed pomegranates and pistachios, raised large families and preached a fundamentalist Mormon faith.
Related: Child survivors of massacred family spent 10 hours hiding in Mexican hills
Continue reading...Mexico: hymns and tears as victims of attack on Mormon families are buried
- Dozens of vehicles from US travel to La Mora to mourn victims
- Mayor of La Mora in Sonora state says violence has worsened
With Mexican soldiers standing guard, a mother and two sons were carried to the grave in hand-hewn pine coffins on Thursday at the first funeral for the victims of a drug cartel ambush that left nine Mexican American women and children dead.
Clad in shirtsleeves, suits or modest dresses, about 500 mourners embraced in grief under white tents erected in La Mora, a hamlet of about 300 people who consider themselves Mormon but are not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some wept, and some sang hymns.
Continue reading...‘The disappeared’: searching for 40,000 missing victims of Mexico’s drug wars
José Barajas, who was snatched from his home, joins the ever-swelling ranks of thousands of desaparecidos, victims of the drug conflict that shows no sign of easing
As he set off into the wilderness under a punishing midday sun, Jesse Barajas clutched an orange-handled machete and the dream of finding his little brother, José.
“He’s not alive, no. They don’t leave people alive,” the 62-year-old said as he slalomed through the parched scrubland of tumbleweed and cacti where they had played as kids. “Once they take someone they don’t let you live.”
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