Mexico & Central America News and Discussions

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U.S. Offers Hurricane Assistance to Cuba Amid Blackouts
by Gisela Salomon
October 19, 2022

Introduction:
MIAMI (AP via Latino Rebels) — The United States said Tuesday it has offered critical emergency humanitarian assistance to the people of Cuba to recover from the devastation caused by Hurricane Ian, an unusual but not unprecedented move after years of bilateral tensions.

The assistance includes $2 million in provisions and supplies that will be delivered through independent non-governmental organizations that have experience and are already working on the island directly with the affected populations, said a senior administration official who asked to remain anonymous following government policies.

“We are responding to a disaster by working with our international humanitarian assistance partners to deliver critical assistance directly to those most in need,” she said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press before the official announcement. “We stand with the Cuban people and will continue to seek ways to improve their political and economical well-being.”
Conclusion:
The full embargo can only be lifted with authorization from the U.S. Congress, and the official said the aid will be consistent with U.S. laws and regulations.

The official said the U.S will continue its demands for the release of political prisoners and respect for human rights on the island.
Read more here: https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/10
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Cartel lays siege to Mexican city after recapture of the son of 'El Chapo'
Source: Los Angeles Times

Armed men took hostages, burned vehicles and stormed an airport in northern Mexico on Thursday after federal forces captured Ovidio Guzmán, one of the world’s most wanted cartel leaders and the son of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The drug boss was arrested after a predawn gunfight in the city of Culiacán, a stronghold of Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel, and was later flown to Mexico City, according to Mexican Secretary of Defense Luis Cresencio Sandoval González.

Officials canceled flights, suspended school and ordered residents to shelter in place as cartels responded to Guzmán’s arrest by throwing up road blockades across the state of Sinaloa, with the worst of the violence concentrated in Culiacán. Sandoval said cartel fighters blocked all six entrances to the city with burning vehicles and attacked the city’s airport as well as an air force base located nearby.

One local journalist, Marcos Vizcarra, said he had been effectively taken hostage along with other civilians in a hotel, their cars confiscated by armed gunmen to be incinerated in the streets.
Read more: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... n-captured
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University Ethics Panel Finds Mexico Supreme Court Justice Plagiarized Undergrad Thesis
by Cody Copeland
January 12, 2023

Introduction:
MEXICO CITY (Courthouse NewsN) — An ethics committee at the alma mater of Mexico Supreme Court Justice Yasmín Esquivel Mossa confirmed Wednesday evening that her undergraduate thesis was a “substantial copy” of one presented the year before.

The controversy stems from a LatinUS report from Dec. 21 claiming Esquivel had plagiarized a significant portion of the thesis she presented in 1987 from one presented the year before at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Esquivel was a candidate for the chief justiceship in December but lost the job to Norma Piña Hernández, who became the first woman to lead the court in early January. Legal scholars told Courthouse News at the time that the plagiarism scandal played a role in tanking her candidacy.

The justice did not respond to a request for comment, but she did make several attempts to defend herself and her reputation in response to the allegations. On the day the LatinUS report was published, she posted a press release by her thesis adviser Martha Rodríguez Ortiz, in which the adviser claimed that the thesis was original work.
Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/univers ... d-thesis/
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Nicaragua Frees Hundreds of Political Prisoners to the United States
Source: New York Times
Nicaragua released 222 political prisoners early Thursday in a deal negotiated with Washington, marking one of the biggest prisoner releases ever involving the United States, according to senior Biden administration officials with knowledge of the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly about a sensitive matter.

The Nicaraguan government sought nothing in return, the officials said, but agreed to release the prisoners as a way to signal a desire to restart relations with the United States. The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on the government and the family of President Daniel Ortega as the country has slid into autocratic rule and targeted its opponents in civil society, the church and the news media.

A total of 224 political prisoners were offered refuge in the United States, but two declined. The American government sent a chartered flight to Nicaragua’s capital, Managua, which took off at about 7:45 a.m. E.S.T. to take the prisoners to Washington, where the plane was expected to land at about noon local time.

Many of the prisoners had been arrested over the last few years for their political dissent against the Ortega family with many sentenced to prison or house arrest in what critics and family members called sham trials.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/worl ... lease.html
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Low-income Families Hit Hardest by Mexico’s Rising Inflation
by Cody Copeland
February 10, 2023

Introduction:
MEXICO CITY (Courthouse News) — As Americans start to glimpse the light at the end of the inflationary tunnel, the trend continues to rise in Mexico, and it’s hitting the lowest earners the hardest.

While the annual inflation rate in January rose slightly to 7.91%, households earning an average of 3,313 pesos (US $177) per month are currently experiencing 10.2% inflation, according to a statistical analysis by the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO).

Citing data from Mexico’s national statistics institute Inegi, IMCO found that number greatly contrasts with the rate felt by higher-earning households. Those with monthly incomes averaging 11,122 pesos ($595) are seeing 8.82% inflation, while those bringing in $54,427 pesos ($2,910) are enjoying a rate lower than the national average at 7.68%.

This trend is primarily due to the distribution of people’s consumption patterns, according to Ana Gutiérrez, head of foreign trade and labor markets at IMCO. Mexico's lowest-earning households can end up spending more than half of their monthly income on food, which has seen the some of the highest price hikes both in Mexico and elsewhere in the world in recent years.

“When half of their consumption is focused on food, and food has the highest inflation, then obviously the pressure on those households is higher than on the other end,” said Gutiérrez.
Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/low-inc ... nflation/
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40 killed in fire at immigration detention center in Mexico

Source: AP

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — After migrants in northern Mexico placed mattresses against the bars of their detention cell and set them on fire, guards quickly walked away and made no apparent attempt to release the men before smoke filled the room and killed at least 40, surveillance video showed Tuesday.

Hours after the fire broke out late Monday, rows of bodies were laid out under shimmery silver sheets outside the immigration detention facility in Ciudad Juarez, which is across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas, and a major crossing point for migrants.

Twenty-nine people were injured and were in “delicate-serious” condition, according to the National Immigration Institute.

At the time of the blaze, 68 men from Central and South America were being held at the facility, the agency said.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/mexico-fire- ... ed1cf572b3
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Mexico: Despite ‘Coup,’ Castillo Legal President of Peru
March 30 , 2023

Introduction:
MEXICO CITY (AP via Latino Rebels) — Mexico’s president said Wednesday that Peru‘s ousted president, Pedro Castillo, remains “the legal and legitimate president” of that country and that he was jailed as part of a “coup.”

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador also claimed Peru’s current government is “racist” and had jailed Castillo because he is Indigenous. The comments were the most forceful indication yet that López Obrador doesn’t recognize current Peruvian President Dina Boluarte.

“I maintain that he (Castillo) is the legal and legitimate president,” López Obrador said at his morning press briefing. “He suffered a coup.”
“They won’t accept Pedro Castillo because he is from the mountains, he is Indigenous,” the president said.

Boluarte took office on December 7 after then-President Castillo was removed by Parliament and jailed for trying to dissolve Congress to avoid a vote on his removal from office. Castillo, who was Peru’s first leader from a rural Andean background, was plagued by corruption scandals and a revolving-door cabinet.
Read more here: https://www.latinorebels.com/2023/03/3 ... illocoup/
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Indigenous Anti-Mining Activist Found Slain in Mexico
April 5, 2023

Introduction:
MEXICO CITY (AP via Latino Rebels) — An Indigenous anti-mining activist has been killed in a dangerous part of western Mexico, authorities confirmed Tuesday.

The killing of Eustacio Alcalá comes just over two months after two other community anti-mining activists disappeared near where Acalá’s body was found.

It reinforced Mexico’s reputation as the deadliest place in the world for environmental and land defense activists, according to a report by the nongovernmental group Global Witness, which said Mexico saw 54 activists killed in 2021.

Alcalá was found dead days after he disappeared while driving on a highway known for violent incidents on Saturday. He was driving a group of nuns or lay religious workers —it wasn’t clear which— in his truck, when they were pulled over by armed men. The nuns were later released, the activist group All Rights For Everyone said.

Alcalá had led a largely successful fight to prevent an iron ore mine from opening near his Nahua village of San Juan Huitzontla. Residents argued the proposed mine would pollute waterways and damage the environment.
Read more here: https://www.latinorebels.com/2023/04/0 ... admexico/
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Mexico Supreme Court Invalidates National Guard Transfer to Army
by Cody Copeland
April 18 , 2023

Introduction:
MEXICO CITY (Courthouse News) — In a brutal blow to the agenda of Mexico’s president, the country’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that last year's transfer of the civilian National Guard to the military was unconstitutional.

The transfer was approved this past September via a legislative reform to the 2019 law that created the National Guard. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador initially tried to push the transfer through with a constitutional reform, but he did not have the necessary support from Congress.

The project received the minimum eight votes necessary to rule a law unconstitutional. López Obrador appointees Loretta Ortiz Ahlf and Yasmín Esquivel Mossa — currently in hot water for having plagiarized both her undergraduate and doctoral theses — voted against the initiative, as did former Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar.

The National Guard must now return operative and administrative control to the Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection.
Although López Obrador and other advocates of the move reject the term "militarization," opponents of his security strategy hailed the court’s decision as a step in the right direction toward putting checks on this and other actions of the current federal administration.

“The Constitution clearly says that the National Guard is a civil institution,” said María Elena Morera, executive director of the watchdog group Causa En Común. “This ruling slaps a hand on the table, telling the president and his party that we still have separation of powers in Mexico and they can’t go over the Constitution to do whatever they feel like.”

Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/mexico- ... -to-army/
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Shocking video shows Mexican drug cartels in shootout that left 11 dead in violence plagued Baja California region
An armed cartel member can be seen gunning down attendees of a car race in Ensenada, Baja California in horrifying video posted on Twitter.

The video shows several men wielding guns and shooting at cars about 2:18 pm Saturday.

Rounds of automatic weapon fire can be heard firing nonstop in the footage posted by Mexican journalist Alfredo Alvarez.

The carnage reportedly left 11 dead and seven injured and sent terrified witnesses scrambling across the street to try and hide from the danger.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... video.html
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