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Geopolitics

Mexican Riot Police Training Turns Into A Riot Of Its Own

Mexican Riot Police Training Turns Into A Riot Of Its Own
Alidad Vassigh

SAN LUIS POTOSÍ — As Mexican National guardsmen were busy training to learn new methods to limit street violence, they began to, well, fight among themselves.

The National Guard, founded in 2019 as a better-trained, more disciplined gendarmerie corps to fight organized crime, confirmed that videos circulating of the sordid incident were real — and training in San Luis Potosí in northern Mexico, had "gotten out of control," Azteca television and La Jornadanewspaper reported this week.

Footage of the session shows it began well enough, with one group of officers acting as rioters and others fending them off with plastic shields. At one point two colleagues appeared locked into a real fight, which led to some flying kicks — and it wasn't clear anymore if this was part of the training — and one officer going to the back of the defensive line to give his peers a piece of his mind.

The two groups then devolved into the kind of mêlée that they were being trained to defuse, with whistling and calls by female officers to call it off. The National Guard stated Internal Affairs would investigate the matter and vowed it would not tolerate any conduct "degrading the institution's image."

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Too Soon, Too Late: What’s Really Blocking Ukraine’s Entry To NATO?

Volodymyr Zelensky has made his demand clear: full NATO membership for Ukraine, perhaps as soon as this year. Yet member countries, from the U.S. to top European allies, are still stuck in the mindset of not “provoking” Russia. But if not now, when?

Image of Volodymyr Zelensky standing at the arrival ceremony for the Summit of the European Political Community in Bulboaca, Moldova

Volodymyr Zelensky standing at the arrival ceremony for the Summit of the European Political Community in Bulboaca, Moldova

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — Volodymyr Zelensky knows what he wants, and he’s not afraid to say it loud and say it clear. Yesterday in Chisinau, Moldova, before the leaders of 47 European states, the Ukrainian President demanded that NATO open its doors to Ukraine — and to do it as early as 2023.

"This is the year of decision", he added before an impressive array of heads of state and government gathered in Moldova, just across the border from his war-torn country.

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But it’s not that simple. Several of the Alliance's heavyweights, starting with its leader, the United States, are more than reluctant to let a country at war join an organization whose charter includes Article 5. This is the article that defines automatic solidarity with a member state under attack.

And beyond the United States, also Germany, and until recently France, which has begun to take action, fear being drawn unwittingly into a direct confrontation with Russia. For the past 15 months, they have been careful to calibrate their involvement so as not to become "co-belligerent," though that has not prevented them from arming Ukraine.

Between now and next month’s NATO summit in Vilnius, the U.S and its allies must find an answer to the pressing demands of Ukraine and its friends in Eastern Europe.

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