Worldcrunch
MEXICO CITY — The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG, has long controlled the drug trade in nine states in Mexico’s south and west. But in recent months, the cartel has edged out Mexican and Colombian rivals to conquer the narcotics market in the U.S. Writing for Mexico City daily El Universal, investigative journalist Laura […]
Sorry, little spider monkey of Crococun zoo, near Cancun: My favorite zoo is still Hamburg’s Tierpark Hagenbeck. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
The Ford Motor Company’s decision not to open an auto plant in Mexico — in a swift reaction to Donald Trump’s offhand threat to slap tariffs on all imported vehicles — is another sign that when the president-elect tweets, people pay attention. It’s also a reminder that Trump doesn’t need to build a wall to […]
-OpEd- MEXICO CITY — “Little civil wars’ are proliferating in Mexico. Yet the simmering cauldron fomenting these conflicts could also prove transformative. It would depend on how the dynamics are managed and, more importantly, if anyone will be able and willing to take charge of this process of change. These low-grade conflicts are being fought […]
MEXICO CITY — Mexico is one of the world’s most linguistically diverse countries, but many of its indigenous tongues are in serious danger of extinction. And unless efforts are undertaken to preserve them, about 50 of those languages could disappear within the next 20 years, the Mexico City-based daily El Universal reports. There are a […]
-OpEd- MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto recently told a gathering of CEOs at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit that his country sees no need to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States. Instead, it merely should be “modernized” or updated. That, he stated, would mean adding […]
TIJUANA — Martin Pina stands in the courtyard of the “Casa del Migrante,” which was founded 29 years ago by Catholic Scalabrinian missionaries to help migrants in this teeming Mexican border city. Sporting a tattoo of his mother Belinda on his left arm and Mexican singer Selena on his right, Pina says that he had […]
Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican novelist who died in 2012, wrote more than a decade ago of a U.S. president who, through punitive measures, would almost shut Mexico down and accidentally revive the art of letter-writing.
La Jornada, Nov. 14, 2016 As U.S. president-elect Donald Trump begins to reveal if and how he will follow through on his campaign promises, Mexico is keeping a close eye on his immigration plans. In an interview with CBS “60 Minutes” program on Sunday night, Trump indicated that his pledge to build a wall between […]
Donald Trump shows disdain for both Latinos in his own country, as well as some basic tenets of international relations.
WASHINGTON — The morning after Donald Trump once again embraced his hard-line immigration posture in a shouted speech, at least four members of his two-week-old Hispanic advisory council said they might not vote for the Republican presidential nominee and warned that his harsh rhetoric would cost him the election. At meetings Thursday on the 14th floor of Trump Tower in Manhattan, the candidate’s top aides held the opposite view. They thought his tough talk on immigration — combined with a whirlwind trip to Mexico on Wednesday — had, in the words of one adviser, “won him the election.” “How do […]
Donald Trump dominated global headlines once again this morning after meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City, and later reaffirming his hardline stance on immigration in a speech in Phoenix, Arizona. In front of a cheering crowd, the Republican presidential candidate delivered enough anti-immigrant applause lines for his supporters’ hands to get […]
A reviled U.S. presidential candidate visiting a very unpopular Mexican president. How did Donald Trump’s flash visit Wednesday to Mexico City look to the people and press south of the border? After the Republican nominee’s diatribes and insults against Mexicans and vows to build a “huge” wall, what was President Enrique Peña Nieto seeking by […]
Trump’s rough discourse has uncovered simmering resentment against Mexico among Americans, which began with NAFTA and the job losses that it entailed for parts of the U.S.
One of the best things about traveling in organized tours is that you get priority tickets for everything, meaning that we never had to wait in line to get into the Vatican, the Taj Mahal, or in this case, the Mayan city of Tulum.
PUEBLA — Mexico’s recently opened International Museum of the Baroque, in this historic colonial city, is as much a work of art as the numerous 17th- and 18th-century pieces it contains. Designed for Puebla by Japanese architect Toyo Ito, the structure — with its 53 white walls, all a little different from each other, and […]
Former employees from German gun company Heckler and Koch face charges in German court for illegal deals with Mexico. But were government officials complicit?
La Prensa, May 18, 2016 MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has announced a proposal to Congress to legalize same-sex marriage across the country. Tuesday’s announcement, which took place during an event in celebration of the National Day of the Fight Against Homophobia, dominated Mexico’s front pages on Wednesday. “Gay Wedding, OK!” was […]
Uber may have global ambitions, but the Mexican city of Guadalajara offers an example of how local resourcefulness can still hard to beat. By welding on extra features, including passenger seats, some Guadalajara entrepreneurs are turning electric rickshaws and scooters brought in from India and Italy into bike taxis that are giving Uber a run […]
“Enough!” writes the Mexico City daily La Prensa on the front page of its Monday edition, a day after more than 5,000 women participated in Mexico’s first national march against gender violence. Marches took place in more than 40 cities, including the Mexican capital, where a sizeable crowd protested what they see as government apathy […]
GUADALAJARA — Mexico”s state of Jalisco is experiencing a violent crime wave against women. Mexico City-based daily El Universal reports that the number of murders of women, also known as femicides, rose to 150 there in 2015, part of a troubling rise in killings since 2009, when only 58 were recorded. While the notoriously violent […]
RUSSIAN WITHDRAWAL BEGINS IN SYRIA After yesterday’s unexpected announcement from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian armed forces have begun to withdraw from Syria on the civil war’s fifth anniversary. A first group of warplanes has already left its Syrian base for Russia, the Defense Ministry said. “The main task now is to take every measure […]
The streets of Mexico’s capital are littered with plastic and styrofoam, the constant remnants of an irresponsible culture of consumption, an essayist writes. If we can’t change simple habits only we can control, no summit or government in
MEXICO CITY — Will the mask come off? A Mexican judge has ruled that sedition and terrorism charges have expired against 13 rebels of the Zapatista Liberation Army (EZLN), including those filed against the group’s masked enigmatic former leader, Subcomandante Marcos, La Jornada and other media reported. The EZLN rose in revolt in 1994 to […]
SALTILLO — An alleged “illegal singing” case last week this city in northern Mexico might have wound up as a light source of laughter in the pages of a local newspaper. But when police in Saltillo tried to arrest a man for singing as he walked on the street, telling him he had no permit […]
PRE-CEASEFIRE, SYRIA FIGHTING ESCALATES Fighting has intensified in Syria just days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov announced that an agreed ceasefire would begin by the end of this week. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital 70 […]
La Prensa, Feb. 12, 2016 “Welcome!” reads Friday’s front page of Mexico City-based daily La Prensa, greeting Pope Francis as he’s set for an afternoon arrival in Mexico for his first visit as pontiff. Ahead of his five-day trip, which includes a visit to a prison in the crime-riddled city of Ciudad Juarez, the Pope […]
PRESSURE ON MERKEL MOUNTS In stark contrast to the popularity German Chancellor Angela Merkel has enjoyed for most of her 10 years in office, a full 40% of Germans now want her to resign over what they believe is her misguided open-door refugee policy, a poll published today shows. The survey was conducted before yesterday’s […]
Parts of the Mayan city of Tulum, along the east coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, were dedicated to the worship of the Diving God. He has since given way to more humble beach-going mortals enjoying the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea.
La Prensa, Jan. 11, 2015 “Horrified!” Monday’s front page of Mexican daily La Prensa reads, quoting White House reaction to the Rolling Stone”s interview — by actor Sean Penn — with the world’s most prominent drug trafficker, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Mexican authorities started U.S. extradition proceedings late Sunday against the Mexican drug kingpin, who […]
The mural on the northern wall of Mexico City’s Central Library, on the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico — the largest university in Latin America — is a sight to behold. The central section depicts the mythical founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the former capital of the Mexican Empire, with an eagle eating a […]
MEXICO CITY — Who’s killing Mexico’s journalists? Reporters and editors have increasingly been targeted for murder during the ongoing war against Mexican drug cartels. But a recent investigation by Mexico City-based newspaper El Universal shows that a majority of the journalists killed were not investigating narcotics trafficking, but local police news and national politics. Some […]
SYRIA SUMMIT BEGINS IN VIENNA Envoys from 17 countries are gathered in Vienna for the broadest peace talks since the beginning of the Syrian war, a summit nevertheless marked by the notable absence of both the Syrian government and its opposition, The Guardian writes. The U.S., France, Turkey, Russia and China are among the participants, […]
MORELIA — The violence-plagued state of Michoacán on Mexico’s central Pacific coast has risen to become the center of narcotics production in the country, according to an investigative report by leading Mexican newspaper El Universal. Mexico is the world’s leading supplier of methamphetamines, as identified in a 2014 UN report . And Michoacán, where some […]
I’ve never gone to a country to lie on the beach, but I am happy to bring my camera along to capture a seascape or two.
This week we shine the spotlight on Mexico: CHILD TRAFFICKING PROBE IN SONORA Mexican national daily Excelsior reports that the country’s Attorney General formally charged two officials from the northern state of Sonora with child trafficking. The case first emerged last month, when Vladimir Alfredo Arzate and José Hernández López, both officials at a government […]
The Mexican government’s recent actions suggest the ruling party yearns for the days when it governed unchallenged through cronyism. But order comes at a price.
A Mexican journalist’s corruption investigations led to death threats and persecution against her. She has been forced to flee her country, but many of her colleagues were murdered before they could do the same.