With anti-corruption feeling at an all-time high, a populist comedian has swept to power in Guatemala, while Brazil’s president is facing furious calls for impeachment.
Recent events in Mexico’s drug war could easily have been depicted in Don Winslow’s twin novels The Power of the Dog and The Cartel. Drug war capitalism is, at times, stranger than fiction.
‘El Chapo’s’ jailbreak seemingly confirms American narratives that represent Mexico as a corrupt, sluggish and failing state. Overlooked is America’s own role in the rise of powerful drug cartels.
The headlines about thousands of migrants losing their lives at sea are shocking. But as news consumers we hear little about the context pushing these people to leave their homes.
After days of national and international scorn, Mexican authorities finally released 11 persons who were arrested during protests against the disappearance of 43 students in September. President Enrique…
Most murders in the United States are well hidden. Popular tourist cities like Chicago, New Orleans and Washington D.C. have homicide rates substantially higher than the national average. At times they…
The killing of 43 student teachers in Mexico has alerted the world to the country’s deteriorating human rights record. While the US and EU governments have expressed concern, others – including the UK…
Mexico’s problems with organised crime have certainly come to a head this year. We have seen the high-profile arrests of cartel bosses Joaquin Guzman Loera in February and now also Hector Beltran Leyva…
Following President Lázaro Cárdenas’ expropriation of foreign oil company assets in 1938, the oil industry has been a symbol of Mexican sovereignty. This made the state oil firm Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex…
The recent rescue of 458 children and 138 adults from the Gran Familia refuge in the city of Zamora in the state of Michoacán is another grim illustration of the plight of many unprotected and vulnerable…
Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim, the world’s second richest man, has announced he intends to break up his América Móvil telecoms empire to comply with anti-trust reforms introduced by the country’s…
When former Mexican president Felipe Calderon shut down the development of a planned US$2 billion, 4,000 hectare hotel mega-resort in 2012, it looked as though the extraordinary diversity of the Cabo Pulmo…
In 2013, Mexico signed into law an important and controversial set of structural reforms, one of which opens the way for foreign companies to profit from Mexico’s oil holdings. An article in The Economist…
The global financial crisis has morphed into its latest form: an emerging markets currency crisis. Investors are fleeing developing and middle-income countries – even those with strong long-term growth…
On New Year’s Day 1994, the world was taken by surprise. A group of indigenous people staged a rebellion against a Mexican state that had continued the trajectory of racism, neglect, genocide and exploitation…