Mexico's government released dramatic video footage of the moment its forces briefly captured a son of kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzmán before they were ordered to release the suspected trafficker to avoid any potential bloodshed. A compound holding Ovidio Guzmán was raided by the military. Guzmán's supporters responded with gun battles, prompting him to phone them to call off the attack. Mexico's government later called off the operation after a show of strength from the cartel.
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‘Call it off, please’: video shows how operation against El Chapo’s son fell apart
Government report on failed operation shows soldiers pushing Ovidio Guzmán López to tell brothers to call off rescue attempt
Mexican soldiers who detained a son of the jailed drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán forced him to telephone his brothers in a desperate effort to call off a rescue attempt by cartel gunmen.
Instead, the call triggered a fresh onslaught in the northern city of Culiacán as the Sinaloa cartel mounted a terrifying show of strength that eventually prompted the outnumbered soldiers to free the capo’s son in exchange for their lives.
Continue reading...Mexico’s Day of the Dead festival rises from the graveyard and into pop culture
Mexico City’s parade has grown bigger each year as the holiday becomes a part of Halloween festivities outside of Mexico
The models welcoming guests to an exclusive nightclub for a party to launch Mexico’s annual Formula One race, were tall, mostly blonde and non-Mexican.
Each one had her face painted with the boney features of La Calavera Catrina, the elegant female skeleton once used to mock the rich Mexicans who aspired to be Europeans, but increasingly seen as the personification of the Day of the Dead – and a symbol of Mexican cool.
Continue reading...Mexico: 27 drugs suspects released a week after El Chapo’s son freed after gun battle
Suspects had been arrested after drugs, money and rocket launchers seized in Mexico City
Twenty-seven of 31 suspected drugs cartel members arrested this week in a Mexico City raid have been freed by a judge, marking the government’s second high-profile blow on policing the drugs war in as many weeks.
The suspects were nabbed by security forces in a central district of the capital on Tuesday after authorities seized two laboratories used to produce synthetic drugs, 50 kg (110 pounds) of chemical precursors, more than two tonnes of marijuana and 20 kg of cocaine, as well as an unspecified amount of money, rocket launchers and grenades.
Continue reading...Donald Trump falsely claims he’s building a wall in Colorado – video
Donald Trump on Wednesday talked about the construction of a wall in states that border Mexico, but included Colorado, which is 400 miles away from the frontier. The US president later said on Twitter he had been kidding and added that he had been referring to people in states that weren't on the border, saying they would still benefit from the wall
Continue reading...The lost river: Mexicans fight for mighty waterway taken by the US
The Colorado River serves over 35 million Americans before reaching Mexico – but it is dammed at the border, leaving locals on the other side with a dry delta
The temperature is rising toward 45C (113F) as young brothers Daniel and Dilan Rodríguez skip towards a bridge over the Colorado River in the Mexican border town of San Luis Río Colorado. But there is no water flowing through the channel of one of the world’s mightiest waterways. The pair run down the river bank and cheerfully splash through stagnant puddles dotted about the riverbed.
“We wish we had a river, so we could swim, and jump and sail my cousin’s boat,” said Daniel, 12. “At least we have puddles to make mud balls, that can be fun.”
Continue reading...Obrador and Trump speak in aftermath of shootout over El Chapo’s son
- Minister: leaders agree to restrict flow of weapons to Mexico
- Mexico president defends release of El Chapo’s son
Mexico’s foreign minister said on Saturday that the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Donald Trump had agreed to take swift action to stem the flow of illegal weapons from the US into Mexico.
Related: 'We do not want war': Mexico president defends release of El Chapo’s son
Continue reading...Violent clashes erupt between cartel gunmen and police in Mexico – video report
Intense fighting has erupted in the Mexican city of Culiacán, where masked gunmen threw up burning barricades and traded gunfire with security forces after authorities arrested one of the sons of the jailed former leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán. The chaotic scenes in Culiacán, a long-time stronghold for the Guzmáns' cartel, have increased pressure on President López Obrador, who took office in December promising to pacify a country weary after more than a decade of drug-war fighting.
- 'We do not want war': Mexico president defends release of El Chapo’s son
- El Chapo: Mexican police capture then release drug boss's son after battle with cartel
‘We do not want war’: Mexico president defends release of El Chapo’s son
Andrés Manuel López Obrador said security forces saved lives by releasing jailed kingpin’s son after his brief capture in Culiacán
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has insisted that his government was right to release one of the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, a day after his brief capture by the army sparked a wave of attacks by cartel gunmen who took soldiers hostage and paralyzed the northern city of Culiacán.
“This decision was taken to protect citizens. You cannot fight fire with fire,” López Obrador said in his daily press conference on Friday morning. “We do not want deaths. We do not want war.”
Continue reading...El Chapo: gun battles erupt in Mexican city amid reports of son’s arrest
In Culiacán, masked men exchange gunfire with security forces and erect burning barricades as armed trucks patrol
Intense fighting has erupted in the Mexican city of Culiacán, where masked gunmen threw up burning barricades and traded gunfire with security forces amid rumours that one of the sons of the jailed former leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán had been arrested.
Images shared on social media showed trucks with mounted heavy machine guns patrolling the city streets; another clip showed a gunman with an assault rifle shooting at an unknown target against a soundtrack of continuous gunfire.
Continue reading...Attack in western Mexico leaves more than a dozen police killed
- ‘Armed civilians’ shoot state officers executing a judicial order
- Michoacán state has seen recent spike in violence
At least 13 police officers were killed and three injured on Monday by gunmen in the western state of Michoacán, a region where violence attributed to organized crime has spiked in recent months.
The state police officers had gone to a home in the town of El Aguaje in Aguililla municipality to enforce a judicial order when “several armed civilians fired on them”, Michoacán’s state security department said in a statement.
Continue reading...Family feud sparks hunt for Mexican singer’s body among morgues of Miami
José José’s two elder children say their half-sister won’t reveal where the body is, while the showbiz media stokes the feud
Mexican crooner José José specialized in heart-wrenching ballads which turned him into an icon of extreme Latin American romanticism. Since his death on Saturday, a bitter family battle for control of his body has converted his afterlife into a telenovela.
José José – known as El Príncipe de la Canción, or the Prince of Song – died in Miami on Saturday. He was 71 and was known to have pancreatic cancer.
Continue reading...‘We’ve been taken hostage’: African migrants stranded in Mexico after Trump’s crackdown
Hundreds of migrants from Africa are stuck in Tapachula because of Mexico’s willingness to bow to Trump and stem the flow of migrants
Neh knew she was taking a risk when she got involved with English-language activists in mostly-Francophone Cameroon.
She had no way of know that her decision would eventually force her to flee her country, fly halfway across the world and then set out on a 4,000-mile trek through dense jungle and across seven borders – only to leave her stranded in southern Mexico, where her hopes of finding safety in the US were blocked by the Mexican government’s efforts to placate Donald Trump’s anti-migrant rage.
Continue reading...‘We have made history’: Mexico’s Oaxaca state decriminalises abortion
Lawmakers voted to scrap restrictions on abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in a win for reproductive rights advocates
Women’s rights activists in Mexico are celebrating after the southern state of Oaxaca decriminalised abortion in a move that activists hope signals broader reforms to ensure reproductive rights in what is still a conservative and deeply Catholic country.
Lawmakers voted 24-10 on Wednesday to scrap restrictions on abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, despite vocal opposition from the Catholic Church. Opponents – including priests and the religious – screamed “killers!” at the lawmakers as the vote occurred, while women in the green handkerchiefs of the pro-choice movement chanted, “Yes we can!”
Continue reading...Mexico experts say body parts dumped in well come from 41 individuals
- Tests continue on contents of 119 plastic bags found in Jalisco
- Clandestine burial sites have become common during drug war
Forensic examiners in western Mexico have pieced together 41 bodies from bags full of body parts found in a well earlier this month.
The examiners in the western state of Jalisco said tests were continuing on the grisly contents of 119 plastic bags dumped in a well near the city of Guadalajara. Authorities had to call in backhoes to fully excavate the pit.
Continue reading...Reclaimed lakes and giant airports: how Mexico City might have looked
The Mexican capital was founded by Aztecs on an island in a vast lake. No wonder water flows through so many of its unbuilt projects
Ever since Mexico City was founded on an island in the lake of Texcoco its inhabitants have dreamed of water: containing it, draining it and now retaining it.
Nezahualcoyotl, the illustrious lord of Texcoco, made his name constructing a dyke shielding Mexico City’s Aztec predecessor city of Tenochtitlan from flooding. The gravest threat to Mexico City’s existence came from a five-year flood starting in 1629, almost causing the city to be abandoned. Ironically now its surrounding lake system has been drained, the greatest threat to the city’s existence is probably the rapid decline of its overstressed aquifers.
Continue reading...Cockpit coffee spill caused transatlantic flight diversion – AAIB
Control panel was damaged during Condor flight after captain put cup on tray table
A pilot spilling coffee in the cockpit of a plane flying over the Atlantic Ocean forced it to turn back and land in Ireland.
The hot coffee damaged an audio control panel, which gave off an electrical burning smell and smoke, an accident report found. It created significant communication difficulty for the pilots flying the Airbus A330, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said.
Continue reading...Mexico boasts of crackdown but smugglers say migrant flow continues
President Amlo says his new immigration plan is working, but huge numbers still travel north – aided by smugglers’ bribes
Mario Rosales is organising travel arrangements for his latest clients, a Honduran woman and her two primary school-aged children hoping to reach the United States.
Rosales, 47, a coyote, or people smuggler, sends their photos via WhatsApp to his contact in the Mexican National Immigration Institute (INM) in order to obtain fake identity cards – all part of the family’s travel package, which costs $1,800 per person to traverse about half (1,750km) of the region’s most dangerous migration route.
Continue reading...Mexico’s president seeks inquiry into botched investigation of 43 missing students
López Obrador makes announcement following release of alleged leader of local drug gang believed to have killed the students
Mexico’s president has promised to investigate the botched investigation into the abduction and disappearance of 43 teacher trainees in 2014 – one of the country’s most notorious crimes and an atrocity the then government tried to downplay as a minor local matter.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador made the announcement on Wednesday following the release of an alleged leader of the local drug gang believed to have killed the missing students who were abducted by corrupt police officers in the town of Iguala.
Continue reading...More Cubans seek asylum in Mexico amid clampdown on legal path to US
US-bound Cubans used to encounter far fewer obstacles on the migration passage, but that’s changed due to crackdowns
Yatsel Jerez Ramón has been in Mexico for six weeks, and so far, nothing has gone well for the Cuban migrant trying to reach the United States.
On his first night in Tenosique, a small city in the southern border state of Tabasco, Jerez, 37, narrowly escaped a police raid at his hotel. The following day, a man posing as a state lawyer convinced him to handover $500 to obtain a humanitarian visa with which, Jerez was told, he’d be able to safely continue his passage north.
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