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Mexico

Three Amigos No More?

Just a week ago, we wagered that the US and Canadian embassies would soon begin piling pressure on Mexico as the outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (aka AMLO) seeks to pass sweeping constitutional reforms to its mining laws, energy laws and judicial system, among other things, in his last month in office. Just two days later, the US Ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, sent a communique warning that the proposed judicial reforms could have serious consequences for the US’ trade relations with its biggest trade partner: Based on my lifelong experience supporting the rule of law, I believe popular direct election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy. Any judicial reform should have the right kinds of safeguards that will ensure the judicial branch will be strengthened and not subject to the corruption of politics.

Mexico Scores Major Victory Against Bayer-Owned Monsanto

After a four-year legal battle on multiple fronts with Mexico’s AMLO government, Monsanto has finally thrown in the towel. Last Tuesday, Mexico’s National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt) announced that two Mexican divisions of Monsanto — now subsidiaries of German chemicals giant, Bayer, which in 2018 acquired Monsanto in arguably the worst ever corporate merger — had dropped their law suits against the Mexican government over its intention to ban genetically modified corn. As readers may recall, Mexico’s outgoing President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador signed a presidential decree in 2020 seeking to ban all use and importation of GMO corn and the toxic weedkiller, glyphosate.

Mexico: Innuendoes, Distortions, Omissions And Blatant Lies By NACLA

Using Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum’s decision to include Omar García Harfuch in her cabinet, NACLA [North American Congress on Latin America] contributor Suhail Gharaibeh penned a character assassination piece against García Harfuch (29 June 2024), barely three weeks after Claudia’s victory on June 2. A substantial part of the “character assassination” includes a torrent of innuendoes, guilt by association, and plenty of other tricky ambiguities aimed at allegedly “demonstrating” the long-term connection, if not association, between AMLO and narco-traffickers since at least 2006. This is Gharaibeh’s piece’s actual objective and the “character assassination of García Harfuch” is the means to do it.

Democracy Will Not Come Through Compromise And Fear

Half of the world’s population will have the opportunity to vote by the end of this year as 64 countries and the European Union are scheduled to open their ballot boxes. No previous year has been so flush with elections. Among these countries is India, where a remarkable 969 million voting papers had to be printed ahead of the elections that culminated on 1 June. In the end, 642 million people (roughly two-thirds of those eligible) voted, half of them women. This is the highest-ever participation by women voters in a single election in the world. Meanwhile, the European Union’s 27 member states held elections for the European Parliament, which meant that 373 million eligible voters had the opportunity to cast their ballot for the 720 members who make up the legislative body.

Biden Shuts Down US-Mexico Border

Biden signed an executive order temporarily shutting down the US-Mexico border to asylum requests once the average number of daily encounters of migrants at official ports of entry tops 2,500. The shutdown would go into effect immediately, as the average number of people coming through the border through official ports of entry is averaging around 4,000 people per day. This action comes after a bill pushed by Biden failed in Congress earlier this year, which would have jointly enacted harsh restrictions on the border and provided millions in funding to Ukraine. Congressional conservatives rejected the bill due to claims that it was not strict enough on migrants and due to conservative opposition to additional Ukraine funding.

Mexican Indigenous Group Fights To Preserve Sacred Sites

Guadalajara, Mexico — Dressed in white clothing embroidered in colors and symbols representing the sacred universe, Mario Muñoz Cayetano, a man with a good-natured expression and deep gaze, speaks on the importance of a presidential decree to legally protect sacred territory. “For us, nature is one big, gigantic church, but we don’t need cement or even a building in order to respect it. A hill, a cave, a spring, a river, rocks, mountains … to us, they are temples,” says Muñoz, president emeritus of the Wixárika Union of Ceremonial Centers of Jalisco, Durango and Nayarit A.C., an organization made up of Wixaritari that monitors the conservation and protection of sacred sites.

Claudia Sheinbaum Is The Next President Of Mexico

Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum won the presidential election in Mexico on June 2, making her the first female president of Mexico. The scientist, public servant, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and longtime activist ran with the “Let’s Continue Making History” Coalition composed of the Movement for National Regeneration (MORENA), the Labor Party (PT), and the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico. With between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, the highest in the history of Mexican democracy, Sheinbaum defeated Xóchitl Gálvez Ruíz who was the candidate of the right-wing Force and Heart for Mexico Coalition of PRI-PAN-PRD. Jorge Álvarez Máynez came in third with around 10% of the total vote share.

Source Reveals US Secret Services Enabled Jorge Glas Kidnapping

A well-placed individual speaking on the condition of anonymity has informed The Canada Files that US secret services embedded in Ecuador – through spying on Mexico’s embassy – ensured President Daniel Noboa knew of Mexico’s plan to get former Vice President Jorge Glas to Mexico after granting him political assembly, enabling Noboa to order the illegal raid on Mexico’s embassy and kidnap Glas. The kidnapping of Glas, who has faced political persecution through Ecuador’s judiciary since 2017, sparked international outrage as a blatant violation of the Vienna Convention and Mexico’s sovereignty. Mexico cut off diplomatic relations with Ecuador and has taken Ecuador to the International Court of Justice for this violation.

Shifting Policies Led To One Of The Deadliest Incidents For Immigrants

Stefan Arango, a 31-year-old Venezuelan husband and father, felt immediately nauseated by the smells of sweat, urine and feces when Mexican guards ordered him into the cinder block cell in the border city of Ciudad Juárez. The tile floor was strewn with trash, and several men inside lay on flimsy mats that were incongruously covered in rainbow-colored vinyl. The windows were so small that they didn’t allow in much light or air. And, perhaps mercifully, they were so high that the men couldn’t see they were just a short stroll from El Paso, Texas, the destination they had risked everything to reach.

Latin America Condemns Ecuador’s Storming Of The Mexican Embassy

The decision by the government of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa to forcibly enter the Mexican Embassy in Quito with dozens of police officers to arrest former Ecuadorian official Jorge Glas has been met with widespread repudiation across Latin America and the Caribbean. Xiomara Castro, Honduran president and the president pro-tempore of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), announced on Saturday that two emergency meetings of CELAC would be held on Monday April 8 and Tuesday April 9 to address the situation in which the American Convention on Asylum and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations were both violated by Ecuador against Mexico.

Why The UAW Is Standing Up With Mexican Auto Workers

The United Auto Workers announced February 23 that it will provide material support to Mexican auto workers organizing in the independent union movement. As a member of the UAW Executive Board, I’m proud that our union understands how the futures of auto workers in the United States and Mexico are tied together. Our Mexico solidarity project is about empowering our membership to win strong contracts and protecting our jobs in the United States—and it’s also about ensuring justice for workers across the border.

Mexico Provides Non-GM Corn Opportunity For US Farmers

United States commodity organizations have cheered on the U.S. government as it tries to get Mexico’s restrictions on genetically modified (GM) corn declared in violation of our trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, arguing that it cuts farmers’ export markets and sales revenues. But what if Mexico’s modest restrictions could instead turn out to benefit U.S. farmers who shift to premium non-genetically modified (GM) corn markets as international corn prices fall? It sounds counter-intuitive, but it might just be true. The math is pretty simple.

President Of Mexico Fights Back Against New York Times Slander

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, criticized the US news outlet The New York Times (NYT) and stressed that journalists of NYT and other imperialist media outlets consider themselves “a divine race” that cannot be touched, “not even with a rose petal,” despite the fact that they spread slander with impunity. “You, with all due respect, do partisan journalism, because you are biased in favor of groups with vested interests, you are too close to de facto political and economic power,” AMLO said on Friday, February 23, during a tense exchange with Jesica Zermeño, journalist of Univision, during the president’s usual morning press conference.

What’s At Stake If The US OK’s Building This Gas Pipeline To Mexico

In a rural area of West Texas, near the Mexico border, a cluster of geothermal springs once served as an oasis to the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas. Carpeted in grasses and shrubs, the land is home to rare aoudad sheep, deer, wild cats, and bobwhite quail. The muted tans and greens in the small valley and surrounding exposed rock mountains quiet the mind. The pristine site is in the proposed pathway of the 48-inch-diameter Saguaro Connector Pipeline, which would send natural gas produced in Texas’s Permian Basin 155 miles west, across the U.S.-Mexico border, to a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Puerto Libertad, Mexico. “Our concern is that the pipeline is going to go through the hot springs,” said Christa Mancias-Zapata, the executive director of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas. “Anywhere you go in that area is a sacred site to our people.”

US DEA Used Criminals To Spy On, Destabilize Venezuela, Mexico, Bolivia

Numerous reports in major media outlets have documented how the US government has used the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in order to spy on and try to destabilize left-wing governments in Latin America. DEA meddling schemes have targeted Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, Bolivia’s former President Evo Morales, and Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. In these scandals, the DEA has collaborated with known criminals, including drug traffickers and money launderers, to launch sting operations against leftist politicians. The Associated Press revealed this February that the DEA “sent undercover operatives into Venezuela to surreptitiously record and build drug-trafficking cases against the country’s leadership”.
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