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...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...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...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...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...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...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...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...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...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...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...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...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...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.”
Continue reading...Gunmen massacred up to nine members of a family, most of them believed to be children, in Mexico on Monday. These victims’ ages, and reported US citizenship, propelled the story into the headlines. But this is a country where nearly 100 people are murdered each day, one every 15 minutes, and many deaths go unmarked.
Donald Trump, via Twitter, called on Mexico to “wage WAR on the drug cartels”. That disastrous strategy, first unleashed in 2006 in response to an explosion of violence, only exacerbated the problem – fracturing cartels into smaller factions battling for power. Two hundred thousand deaths later, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, popularly known as Amlo, took power vowing to use “hugs not bullets” to bring peace.
Continue reading...LeBaron family relatives say nine victims, mainly children, dead in attack on dirt road between Chihuahua and Sonora states
Cartel gunmen in northern Mexico have killed at least six children and three women in an ambush that left six other children wounded, one baby unharmed and reports that another child was still missing.
Victims and survivors of the attack near the border between the states of Sonora and Chihuahua all belong to a well-known Mormon family that is based in Mexico but has dual US/Mexican citizenship and deep roots on both sides of the frontier.
Continue reading...The 14 October massacre that left 13 state police dead was just one extreme episode of violence in a recent litany of horrors
At first glance, the human skull lying beside the road looked like a piece of rubbish. Once spotted, it was impossible to ignore: charred, broken and punched through with a bullet hole.
Continue reading...Around the world, mobile library programmes are taking books, educational support and even counselling to communities in serious and urgent need
Every week, two converted blue buses stocked with children’s books carefully navigate the streets of Kabul, avoiding areas where deadly explosions are common. These travelling libraries stop off at schools in different parts of the city, delivering a wealth of reading material directly to youngsters who have limited access to books.
“A lot of schools in our city don’t have access to something as basic as a library,” says Freshta Karim, a 27-year-old Oxford University graduate who was inspired to start Charmaghz, a non-profit, in her home city having grown up without many books herself. “We were trying to understand what we could do to promote critical thinking in our country.”
Continue reading...In a country with nearly 100 murders a day President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has vowed to tackle the social roots of crime but change is slow to come
Brianna Rojas seemed her usual breezy self as she set off for work.
“I’ll see you later!” friends remember the 20-year-old calling out as she headed to her insurance company’s bright yellow offices on Tijuana’s Calle del Carmen.
Continue reading...US efforts to curb the opioid fentanyl were behind the brief arrest of a son of imprisoned kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán last month, Mexico’s security minister has said.
After the US requested his extradition, Ovidio Guzmán was briefly arrested, then freed by outnumbered officials who feared a bloody confrontation with cartel henchmen.
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