During President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Mexico, hundreds of migrants and rights activists in four cities protested Obama’s deportation policies and called for inclusive, comprehensive immigration reform in the United States.
As many as 10,000 people assembled on the Zocalo, the main square of Mexico City last Wednesday to celebrate another anniversary of the Chicago Haymarket Rebellion that ushered in the labor movement at the turn of the century. This year’s May Day in Mexico came after a sweeping reform in its Federal Labor Law enacted this past December. Unions participating mostly protested the reforms, which they call a threat to the future of their jobs and wages.
Horacio Cartes, tobacco tycoon and political novice, had a resounding victory in Paraguayan presidential elections, bringing back to power the Colorado Party, which ruled the country with a tight grip of power for over sixty years until 2008.
Cartes, who has accusations of narcotrafficing, smuggling and money laundering[CP1] all of which he was denied, won the elections with 45.8% of the votes, while second runner-up, Efrain Alegre, got 36.94%. 68.57% of the more than 3.5 million Paraguayans that could vote went to the polls to cast their ballots and choose not only president and vice president, but also members of congress, governors and representatives to the Mercosur parliament.
Obama last visited Mexico during the G-20 summit in Los Cabos last June. He and his entourage will touch down again today for talks with Mexico’s new president, Enrique Peña Nieto. Since his election, Peña Nieto’s team has worked to shift media focus away from violence related to the drug war and towards the economy, something that will likely be reinforced during this visit.
On March 7 one of Uruguay’s strongest myths was broken: trust in state enterprises. That day those who turned on their faucets were met with a foul smell and those who were drinking coffee or maté found a strange taste. The company in charge of the water supply, the State Sanitary Works (OSE), had to [...]
Recently, I attended the Gathering of Mesoamerican Peoples where I heard this: “Faced with the threat that the mining industry represents in Mesoamerica, we call out to the peoples and communities of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Canada and Mexico to strengthen our networks of resistance and to build broad alliances based on [...]
Catalyzed by a teachers’ strike against federal education reform, a new popular movement is gaining momentum in Mexico. And in expanding its agenda to encompass long-standing grievances ranging from environmental destruction to insecurity and indigenous rights, the movement is posing a serious challenge to not only the policies of new President Enrique Pena Nieto, but the broader economic and political direction of a country ravaged by three decades of neo-liberalism as well.
