<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>https://english.elpais.comSun, 19 Apr 2026 01:50:35 +0000en1hourly1<![CDATA[Against the terror of ICE, the Mayans of Brooklyn keep the faith]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-03-23/against-the-terror-of-ice-the-mayans-of-brooklyn-preserve-their-faith.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-03-23/against-the-terror-of-ice-the-mayans-of-brooklyn-preserve-their-faith.htmlMon, 23 Mar 2026 09:45:03 +0000The usual thing for la migra is to roam the subway stations around 79th Street, to prowl the corner of 18th and New Utrecht Ave., in the early hours just before dawn, hunting for folks who run ahead of the sun wearing steel-toed boots and cement-stained jeans, Quiché traces in their accents. On January 15, though, agents are conducting a stakeout inside a van in front of a gray apartment building on Bay Ridge Parkway, in Guatemalan Bensonhurst, in the heart of Maya Brooklyn. The security camera catches how Sebastián Renoj, grainy in the low-fi footage, leaves the block sometime between 5 and 6 a.m., pulls his hood up to stave off New York’s winter cold, and walks off down the sidewalk. The camera doesn’t record how the officers jump him, how Renoj is arrested, how six other men, all Guatemalan, all bricklayers on their way to work, follow in his footsteps, one by one.

Seguir leyendo

]]> Corrie Aune<![CDATA[Hostages of extortion in Mexico]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-06-15/hostages-of-extortion-in-mexico.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-06-15/hostages-of-extortion-in-mexico.htmlSun, 15 Jun 2025 04:00:00 +0000A man and a woman showed up late at night, and exchanged looks. The neon sign at the taco stand glowed “open” in red letters, like an old neighborhood movie marquee. On the side of the stainless steel cart, an electronic panel flashed the words: “Ruben’s Tacos, kickass taquería.”

Seguir leyendo

]]>Mónica Juárez<![CDATA[Mexico and the United States decimate Los Chapitos]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-30/mexico-and-the-united-states-decimate-los-chapitos.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-30/mexico-and-the-united-states-decimate-los-chapitos.htmlFri, 30 May 2025 08:38:58 +0000Los Chapitos have become an endangered species. Only a few of their top bosses — the very ones immortalized in corridos for a few pesos or whose initials adorn caps sold on the streets of Culiacán — are still standing. Imprisoned, killed, extradited to the U.S., or voluntarily surrendered to U.S. authorities as part of plea deals to reduce sentences, the Sinaloa Cartel faction is rapidly vanishing.

Seguir leyendo

]]>José Betanzos Zárate <![CDATA[No fingerprints, no suspects, no motive: The elusive trail of the hitmen who murdered top aides to Mexico City mayor]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-22/no-fingerprints-no-suspects-no-motive-the-elusive-trail-of-the-hitmen-who-murdered-top-aides-to-mexico-city-mayor.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-22/no-fingerprints-no-suspects-no-motive-the-elusive-trail-of-the-hitmen-who-murdered-top-aides-to-mexico-city-mayor.htmlThu, 22 May 2025 10:04:47 +0000The hitman waited in the traffic. This wasn’t the first time: he — or one of his accomplices — had done so on previous days, and he knew that every morning, around 7 a.m., Ximena Guzmán would stop her car at that exact spot on the busy Tlalpan thoroughfare, near the Moderna neighborhood, to pick up her colleague José Muñoz. The two would then head from the Miguel Hidalgo borough to their jobs at the top of Mexico City politics, as members of the inner circle of Mayor Clara Brugada. Guzmán, as the mayor’s personal secretary; Muñoz, as an advisor.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Rogelio Morales <![CDATA[The tragedy of Iván Morales, a Mexican national hero and victim of the cartels’ vengeance]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-05/the-tragedy-of-ivan-morales-a-mexican-national-hero-and-victim-the-cartels-vengeance.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-05/the-tragedy-of-ivan-morales-a-mexican-national-hero-and-victim-the-cartels-vengeance.htmlMon, 05 May 2025 15:31:22 +0000The Mexican political elite lined up, with then-president Enrique Peña Nieto in the middle, applauding with solemn gestures as a police officer in full dress uniform, his face deformed by fire, advanced toward them. Upon reaching Peña Nieto, the officer stopped, shook the leader’s hand, and received a commemorative badge. On that December day in 2015, a former non-commissioned officer of the now-defunct Federal Police, Iván Morales Corrales, was honored: months earlier, on May 1, he had fallen from the sky in a burning helicopter during a failed attempt to capture the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.”

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Four hours under fire from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel: ‘We’re going to have a party’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-25/four-hours-under-fire-from-the-jalisco-new-generation-cartel-were-going-to-have-a-party.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-25/four-hours-under-fire-from-the-jalisco-new-generation-cartel-were-going-to-have-a-party.htmlFri, 25 Apr 2025 08:42:04 +0000The first vehicle burst into flames around 2 p.m. on Wednesday. It was a truck from a delivery company.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Cartel violence erupts in Michoacán, Jalisco and Guanajuato in a new wave of attacks]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-24/cartel-violence-erupts-in-michoacan-jalisco-and-guanajuato-in-a-new-wave-of-attacks.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-24/cartel-violence-erupts-in-michoacan-jalisco-and-guanajuato-in-a-new-wave-of-attacks.htmlThu, 24 Apr 2025 10:15:53 +0000The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) is in revolt. The Mexican government has tightened its grip on the powerful criminal organization in recent weeks in Michoacán, Jalisco, and Guanajuato, a strategy aimed at weakening the CJNG’s strength through confrontations and the arrests of key logistics operators. The goal is to strike the cartel in its major strongholds and gradually suffocate it. The cartel, led by Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho,” reacted Wednesday afternoon with roadblocks and by burning vehicles and businesses in the three states. El Mencho, the most wanted drug trafficker in the United States, is flexing his muscles on his home turf and demonstrating that his organization will sell its skin dearly.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[The endless horror of Mexico’s clandestine graves: ‘They told us there was one body buried there, and we’re already up to 11’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-23/the-endless-horror-of-mexicos-clandestine-graves-they-told-us-there-was-one-body-buried-there-and-were-already-up-to-11.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-23/the-endless-horror-of-mexicos-clandestine-graves-they-told-us-there-was-one-body-buried-there-and-were-already-up-to-11.htmlWed, 23 Apr 2025 10:10:25 +0000They arrived, as they usually do, after an anonymous call. Once there, it wasn’t difficult to find the bodies: here a leg sticking out of a pile of dust, there a disembodied hand. Thus, “half-buried,” says María Isabel Cruz, barely having to use a shovel, nine corpses emerged. Dead without a grave or name, abandoned in the Mezquitillo community, an hour from the open-air morgue that the Sinaloa Cartel war has turned Culiacán into. A little scraping of the earth unearthed two more. Some were already bare bones, others were still fresh. The place, “a clandestine cemetery,” had been a dumping ground for years. A random Tuesday morning in Sinaloa: six graves, 11 corpses, and the hope of finding more shreds of life in those holes in the ground.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Victoria Razo<![CDATA[Teocaltiche, a town abandoned to violence in Mexico: ‘The people cannot continue living amid fear, violence, and pain’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-18/teocaltiche-a-town-abandoned-to-violence-in-mexico-the-people-cannot-continue-living-amid-fear-violence-and-pain.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-18/teocaltiche-a-town-abandoned-to-violence-in-mexico-the-people-cannot-continue-living-amid-fear-violence-and-pain.htmlFri, 18 Apr 2025 10:27:48 +0000Teocaltiche is a municipality in rural Jalisco, with a population of just under 40,000, near the border with Aguascalientes and Guanajuato. It’s a town that thrives on farming and, in the last decade, increasingly on the monthly remittances sent back home by residents who emigrated to the United States. Teocaltiche is also one of the lands where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has established its roots, producing bodies dumped in the streets, subservient authorities, and social terror.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[The US targets La Familia Michoacana in its crusade against fentanyl]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-04-16/the-us-targets-la-familia-michoacana-in-its-crusade-against-fentanyl.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-04-16/the-us-targets-la-familia-michoacana-in-its-crusade-against-fentanyl.htmlWed, 16 Apr 2025 10:23:21 +0000In his personal crusade against fentanyl—the latest chapter in the United States’ long-running war on drugs — Donald Trump is now setting his sights on La Familia Michoacana. Washington has accused the Mexican criminal organization, primarily based in Guerrero and Michoacán, of trafficking “fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine” into the U.S.; laundering the profits through the U.S. financial system; “poisoning” the American public; and engaging in “acts of terror and violence in Mexico.”

Seguir leyendo

]]>GOBIERNO DE ESTADOS UNIDOS<![CDATA[Don Neto and the Sinaloa old guard who reinvented drug trafficking in Guadalajara]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-14/don-neto-and-the-sinaloa-old-guard-who-reinvented-drug-trafficking-in-guadalajara.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-14/don-neto-and-the-sinaloa-old-guard-who-reinvented-drug-trafficking-in-guadalajara.htmlMon, 14 Apr 2025 16:11:44 +0000Don Neto called his room in Guadalupe Victoria prison, a penitentiary surrounded by a plain of farmland halfway between Durango and Torreón, “the forgotten cell.” In 2011, after two decades in the Altiplano prison, the health problems that afflicted him at 81 years of age precipitated his transfer. The aging Sinaloa drug lord thought his days of starvation, eating a pittance of cactus every morning for breakfast, and not getting medication for his numerous ailments were behind him. His calculations were wrong, and the warden of his new home forbade him from going out into the yard for fear of being attacked by other inmates. His daughter Esther protested: “Since he arrived, he doesn’t know if it’s day or night, because he remains immersed in darkness. They don’t even let him read the Bible.”

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, released at 95]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-10/ernesto-fonseca-carrillo-founder-of-the-guadalajara-cartel-released-at-95.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-10/ernesto-fonseca-carrillo-founder-of-the-guadalajara-cartel-released-at-95.htmlThu, 10 Apr 2025 14:42:43 +0000Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, or, as he is remembered by the corridos, “Don Neto,” is a free man again at 95, although at his age freedom probably doesn’t differ much from the house arrest he had been under since 2016. Don Neto spent four decades as a resident of the Mexican prison system, convicted of the brutal murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena and Mexican pilot Alfredo Zavala in February 1985. He was arrested by the army shortly thereafter, in April of that year, in a luxurious mansion on the coast of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. Since then, he has spent his life locked up, until Saturday when he was officially released after serving his entire sentence, as federal sources confirmed to EL PAÍS.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Venezuelans trapped in Mexico, between Trump and Maduro: ‘We had the American dream. It didn’t happen’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-06/venezuelans-trapped-in-mexico-between-trump-and-maduro-we-had-the-american-dream-it-didnt-happen.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-06/venezuelans-trapped-in-mexico-between-trump-and-maduro-we-had-the-american-dream-it-didnt-happen.htmlSun, 06 Apr 2025 04:30:00 +0000As soon as Luisa’s family crossed the border into Tapachula, they were kidnapped. For a week, they were enslaved by criminals — cleaning bathrooms, sweeping floors, “all those things.” The captors forced them to write home to Venezuela so relatives would send ransom money. “It wasn’t much, but they sent something,” Luisa recalls.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Seila montes<![CDATA[The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, in the line of fire]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-03-31/the-jalisco-new-generation-cartel-in-the-line-of-fire.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-03-31/the-jalisco-new-generation-cartel-in-the-line-of-fire.htmlMon, 31 Mar 2025 11:46:13 +0000A battle broke out on the border between the Mexican states of Jalisco and Michoacán on March 16. In Guadalupe de Lerma, near where it all began, the first casualties fell. Desperate audio recordings began arriving at the barracks: “Help, help, help! We need help here at the entrance to Tanhuato. They have us in a damned truck. They attacked us on Highway 45.”

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Mexico’s ‘searching mothers,’ alone against the drug cartels and the authorities: ‘We live with more fear than ever’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-03-29/mexicos-searching-mothers-alone-against-the-drug-cartels-and-the-authorities-we-live-with-more-fear-than-ever.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-03-29/mexicos-searching-mothers-alone-against-the-drug-cartels-and-the-authorities-we-live-with-more-fear-than-ever.htmlSat, 29 Mar 2025 04:00:00 +0000Óscar Antonio López Enamorado wanted to study. But in Honduras, back in 2009, this was an impossible dream. At the age of 19, he left behind a country mired in violence and overtaken by a military coup. He managed to reach the United States. He met some young men who promised him work and a good salary in Mexico. He trusted them. He retraced his steps and crossed the border south. They took him to a ranch in the Mexican state of Jalisco. And there, 15 years ago, in the town of San Sebastián del Oeste, the trail went cold.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Alfredo Moya<![CDATA[‘I have nothing, but I have drugs’: The forgotten victims of the war on fentanyl]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-03-23/i-have-nothing-but-i-have-drugs-the-forgotten-victims-of-the-war-on-fentanyl.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-03-23/i-have-nothing-but-i-have-drugs-the-forgotten-victims-of-the-war-on-fentanyl.htmlSun, 23 Mar 2025 04:00:00 +0000The bullet took mercy on him. They forced him to his knees, the gun against his head. The shots —“bang, bang, bang” — pierced the quiet of the early morning at Laguna Salada, deep in the vast, desolate desert that surrounds Mexicali. “I didn’t feel anything, just heat. When the bullet hit me, everything went blurry, and I fainted.”

Seguir leyendo

]]>Gladys Serrano<![CDATA[‘El Mencho’ and ‘Don Rodo,’ a life of evading justice: From small-time dealers to heads of the most powerful cartel in Mexico]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-03-06/el-mencho-and-don-rodo-a-life-of-evading-justice-from-small-time-dealers-to-heads-of-the-most-powerful-cartel-in-mexico.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-03-06/el-mencho-and-don-rodo-a-life-of-evading-justice-from-small-time-dealers-to-heads-of-the-most-powerful-cartel-in-mexico.htmlThu, 06 Mar 2025 11:19:03 +0000One day in September 1992, two Mexican brothers entered the Imperial bar in San Francisco, California, to sell five ounces of heroin (about 140 grams.) Since 1986, the youngest of the two, Nemesio, had been crossing the Rio Grande with marijuana and other illegal substances on a regular basis. That year, he was arrested in possession of stolen goods and a gun. In the jails of the Californian city, the police took a mugshot in which he looks more like a teenager arrested for smoking pot than the man who will become the DEA’s most-wanted cartel boss. Before that day in the fall of 1992, he had been deported a couple of times, but he always managed to find a way to return. The one who negotiated the deal on that occasion was the elder brother, Abraham, who already had a hefty record. The buyers paid $9,500 for the drugs, but they were police officers and the bills were marked. Three weeks later, the Oseguera Cervantes brothers were arrested on federal charges. Nemesio, known as “El Mencho,” maintained his innocence. Prosecutors warned him: if he doesn’t take responsibility, Abraham will bear the brunt and could be sentenced to life. El Mencho ended up pleading guilty to protect his brother. He would spend a few years behind bars. In the cells, he met guys like him whom, years later, he would recruit for his nascent cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Jaime Maussan, a journalist from another planet: ‘Put me in a debate with any scientist, I’ll tear them to pieces’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-02-02/jaime-maussan-a-journalist-from-another-planet-put-me-in-a-debate-with-any-scientist-ill-tear-them-to-pieces.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-02-02/jaime-maussan-a-journalist-from-another-planet-put-me-in-a-debate-with-any-scientist-ill-tear-them-to-pieces.htmlSun, 02 Feb 2025 04:30:00 +0000Jaime Maussan has seen things that you wouldn’t believe. Strange events that to the untrained eye may seem irrelevant and disconnected, even delusional. But for him, after a three-decade-long career spent deciphering the sky and its hidden messages — through low-resolution videos or solitary sightings at dawn — these events are irrefutable clues to the existence of life beyond Earth.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Aggi Garduño<![CDATA[Gang of Four, the last dance against nostalgia from the band that redefined post-punk]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-09/gang-of-four-the-last-dance-against-nostalgia-from-the-band-that-redefined-post-punk.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-09/gang-of-four-the-last-dance-against-nostalgia-from-the-band-that-redefined-post-punk.htmlMon, 09 Dec 2024 18:41:06 +0000Jon King lands in New York in 1976 and at the airport someone hands him a piece of paper with a skull on it and a warning: do not enter Manhattan. A student of fine arts at the University of Leeds, King is in the city because he has won a scholarship to write his final dissertation: an in-depth article on the great American artist Jasper Johns. His friend Andy Gill, from a different course year, decides to join him on the trip. There they meet Mary Harron, who will be their local guide. Over the years, Harron will direct cult films such as American Psycho or I Shot Andy Warhol, but in the late 1970s she is still a young journalist writing for the newly born Punk Magazine, which covers the avant-garde sounds coming out of the Lower East Side before anyone else. She has time to show them these New York streets with a bad reputation because she has just broken up with her ex, the drummer of a curious band, a mix of rock and poetry, led by a certain Patti Smith.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Medios y Media<![CDATA[Mexico records largest fentanyl seizure in history]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-04/mexico-records-largest-fentanyl-seizure-in-history.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-04/mexico-records-largest-fentanyl-seizure-in-history.htmlWed, 04 Dec 2024 14:53:09 +0000Donald Trump has yet to be inaugurated as president of the United States, but his rhetoric is already causing ripples south of the border. In response to his threats, Mexico has escalated its fight against fentanyl, seizing the largest cache of the opioid in the country’s history. Just hours after Mexico’s Congress approved a law targeting the potent drug, Mexico’s Secretariat of the Navy led an operation in Sinaloa that confiscated approximately 1,500 kilograms of fentanyl pills in two separate actions, according to Public Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch. The security czar of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also announced the arrest of two individuals and the seizure of firearms as part of the operation.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[From protests to power: Chi Ossé, the youngest council member in New York history]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2024-11-18/from-protests-to-power-chi-osse-the-youngest-council-member-in-new-york-history.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2024-11-18/from-protests-to-power-chi-osse-the-youngest-council-member-in-new-york-history.htmlSat, 16 Nov 2024 04:05:00 +0000Chi Ossé likes to say that before the pandemic and his foray into politics, he worked at night. It was 2020, he was 22 years old and wanted to have a good time. He lived with his mother in Brooklyn and organized parties in New York to make a living. But the Covid-19 pandemic put an end to the music, cost Ossé his job and confined him to his home.

Seguir leyendo

]]>CORRIE AUNE<![CDATA[A night at the best bar in the world: Caught between The Great Gatsby and a Hopper painting]]>https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-10-24/a-night-at-the-best-bar-in-the-world-caught-between-the-great-gatsby-and-a-hopper-painting.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2024-10-24/a-night-at-the-best-bar-in-the-world-caught-between-the-great-gatsby-and-a-hopper-painting.htmlThu, 24 Oct 2024 11:40:30 +0000—No crossing the curtain!

Seguir leyendo

]]>Aurea Del Rosario<![CDATA[Nobel Peace Prize winner Oleksandra Matviichuk: ‘I am afraid that the world will get used to the war in Ukraine as it did with the war in Syria’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-09-29/nobel-peace-prize-winner-oleksandra-matviichuk-i-am-afraid-that-the-world-will-get-used-to-the-war-in-ukraine-as-it-did-with-the-war-in-syria.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-09-29/nobel-peace-prize-winner-oleksandra-matviichuk-i-am-afraid-that-the-world-will-get-used-to-the-war-in-ukraine-as-it-did-with-the-war-in-syria.htmlSun, 29 Sep 2024 04:05:00 +0000Oleksandra Matviichuk has a special dress tucked away in the back of her closet, a very pretty one, reserved for one day in a hypothetical future when she will finally see the man she has been trying to bring to justice for a decade — Russian President Vladimir Putin — sitting in front of an international court. She often says that she will wear red lipstick, as she is wearing this Saturday in September. The 40-year-old Ukrainian began her battle against one of the most powerful men in the world in 2014, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, but her work intensified in 2022, when Moscow invaded Ukraine. In 2022, her efforts were rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize, which she won together with imprisoned Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski and the Russian human rights organization Memorial.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Hector Guerrero<![CDATA[Massacre of eight members of the Michoacán self-defense forces underlines the CJNG’s siege]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-08-28/massacre-of-eight-members-of-the-michoacan-self-defense-forces-underlines-the-cjngs-siege.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-08-28/massacre-of-eight-members-of-the-michoacan-self-defense-forces-underlines-the-cjngs-siege.htmlWed, 28 Aug 2024 09:17:47 +0000Commander Teto used to sell spare auto parts. In the town where he lives, Coahuayana, however, the norm is to work in the powerful mining industry or in the banana fields: 7,000 hectares of plantations where more than 350,000 tons of fruit are harvested each year and sold in the United States and Mexico. These are profitable businesses; so much so that the criminal groups in the area have always stalked them. That is why, 10 years ago, Commander Teto left behind his old life, when he was still called Hector Zepeda, and became the leader of an armed self-defense group, one of many in Michoacán, to repel the harassment of the cartels. Initially the struggle was against the Knights Templar. More recently, the enemy has been the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

Seguir leyendo

]]>César Rodríguez<![CDATA[Emma Coronel, El Chapo’s wife, plans a return to the spotlight ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-08-07/emma-coronel-el-chapos-wife-plans-a-return-to-the-spotlight.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-08-07/emma-coronel-el-chapos-wife-plans-a-return-to-the-spotlight.htmlWed, 07 Aug 2024 20:04:28 +0000After spending two and a half years behind bars for drug trafficking, getting back her freedom and disappearing temporarily from public life, Emma Coronel, 35, wants to return to the spotlight. The wife of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera — who used to be one of the world’s most powerful drug lords, and is now serving a sentence of life in prison at a maximum-security prison in the United States — will star in the music video for a song about her own life. The corrido — a traditional Mexican ballad — is sung by Mariel Colón Miró, the artistic name of La Abogada (The Lawyer), a member of the controversial legal team that defended El Chapo in his battle with the U.S. justice system, as well as Coronel and the multimillionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Now, La Abogada is a performer.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[University Gaza solidarity protests extend to Mexico: ‘We are urgently calling for an end to genocide’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-04/university-gaza-solidarity-protests-extend-to-mexico-we-are-urgently-calling-for-an-end-to-genocide.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-04/university-gaza-solidarity-protests-extend-to-mexico-we-are-urgently-calling-for-an-end-to-genocide.htmlSat, 04 May 2024 00:22:29 +0000The upheaval took Nora by surprise. Many years after the Israeli occupation forced her family to leave Gaza and move to California — where she was born, grew up, studied economics, married Omar — Israel began to bomb her parents’ homeland, which she only knew from vacations, and where she hasn’t set foot for 20 of her 25 years. Many of her family members died in an offensive campaign that has cost the life of 35,000 people. The world witnessed, sadly, angrily, indifferently. In the United States, a fistful of students became fed up and occupied their universities, organized protest camps and demonstrations reminiscent of the ones that their grandparents carried out to denounce the war in Vietnam. They were repressed by the police, expelled from their universities. But the largest U.S. student uprising in years, the one that most resonates with her family’s experience as Palestinian refugees, ignited while Nora was visiting a friend in Mexico.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Nayeli Cruz<![CDATA[Xylazine, the animal sedative adulterating heroin and fentanyl in Mexicali and Tijuana]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-04-23/xylazine-the-animal-sedative-adulterating-heroin-and-fentanyl-in-mexicali-and-tijuana.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-04-23/xylazine-the-animal-sedative-adulterating-heroin-and-fentanyl-in-mexicali-and-tijuana.htmlTue, 23 Apr 2024 11:34:32 +0000In the narcotics underworld of Mexicali and Tijuana there is a new suspect. On the streets it is known as the “zombie drug.” Many believe it is a horse tranquilizer. Its scientific name is xylazine and it is a veterinary sedative that is combined with other anesthetics and analgesics for operations on small animals, or in laboratories where rodents are experimented on. An unpublished study has discovered traces of the substance in syringes discarded by heroin and methamphetamine users in the two Mexican cities. If the fentanyl crisis had already taken over northern Baja California and other points along the U.S. border, the arrival of xylazine represents yet another lethal risk to already extremely vulnerable drug addicts whose chances of a fatal overdose have multiplied.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Gladys Serrano <![CDATA[Chiapas, captive territory]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-04-14/chiapas-captive-territory.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-04-14/chiapas-captive-territory.htmlSun, 14 Apr 2024 06:50:16 +0000Members of a Venezuelan family — en route to the Mexican city of Tapachula — are locked in a rooster cage, awaiting their turn to leave. An old man, frozen from the cold, remembers his escape from his hometown near the border with Guatemala, under the threat of organized crime. A group of sharecroppers, including both teenagers and elderly people, are armed with worn-out hunting rifles and late-model machine guns: they cook over embers, while guarding the entrance to the town of Frontera Corozal. Meanwhile, a Guatemalan colonel and his brigade guard the mouth of the Suchiate River, which flows into the Pacific. “Here,” he notes, “you’ll find all kinds of trafficking: drugs, weapons, people.” Several men disguised as police officers, with guns on their belts, burst into Nueva Palestina with a message: from that moment on, they’re the ones in charge. And, one of the few residents left in the municipality of Chicomuselo — located in the center of the battle between cartels — murmurs a dangerous preference: “Members of the Sinaloa Cartel came here and asked us for support. We gave it to them.”

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[La Unión Tepito, the Mexico City cartel that refuses to die]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-03-29/la-union-tepito-the-mexico-city-cartel-that-refuses-to-die.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-03-29/la-union-tepito-the-mexico-city-cartel-that-refuses-to-die.htmlFri, 29 Mar 2024 15:31:47 +0000It is a public holiday, one of those days in the long, warm Mexican spring that are reminiscent of the summer heat. Mexico City is marking the anniversary of Benito Juárez’s birth. People pour into the bars, the parks, the countryside. In a quesadilla restaurant at the foot of the Ajusco volcano, a family celebrates a child’s birthday. The police lie in wait: they believe they are witnessing a clandestine meeting of the leaders of La Unión Tepito, the cartel that has made the capital city its own through blood and extortion. Contrary to their information, however, it is not a criminal summit; it’s just a family picnic.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Rogelio Morales Ponce<![CDATA[Eight Mexican soldiers accused of forced disappearance in Ayotzinapa case returned to prison]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-02-02/eight-mexican-soldiers-accused-of-forced-disappearance-in-ayotzinapa-case-returned-to-prison.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-02-02/eight-mexican-soldiers-accused-of-forced-disappearance-in-ayotzinapa-case-returned-to-prison.htmlFri, 02 Feb 2024 15:43:00 +0000The eight soldiers accused of the forced disappearance of 43 students in the town of Ayotzinapa in the state of Guerrero in 2014, who were released last week, will be returned to prison. A federal court issued the corresponding arrest warrants Thursday, thus quashing the order of a district judge in the State of Mexico that, as of January 21, allowed the soldiers to continue the ongoing judicial process on bail. The lawyer for the former military personnel assured the press that his clients will voluntarily present themselves to the authorities.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Quetzalli Nicte Ha<![CDATA[Armed conflict in Chiapas spills over the Guatemalan border, damages Mexico’s tourism industry]]>https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2024-01-27/armed-conflict-in-chiapas-spills-over-the-guatemalan-border-damages-mexicos-tourism-industry.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2024-01-27/armed-conflict-in-chiapas-spills-over-the-guatemalan-border-damages-mexicos-tourism-industry.htmlSat, 27 Jan 2024 13:52:08 +0000The armed conflict in Chiapas is spreading beyond the state’s borders. While federal and local governments continue to talk about peace, evidence that large sections of Mexico’s poorest state are under the control of drug traffickers is mounting daily, contradicting this official narrative. The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG, in its Spanish acronym), the two most powerful criminal groups in Mexico, are fighting a turf war for control over this southern region in a conflict that has taken an especially heavy toll on the civilian, peasant and indigenous population. The consequences of the violence are also beginning to spread to the international sphere: tourist agencies in France, the United Kingdom and Belgium have decided to stop taking clients to the Lacandon Jungle, while across the border in neighboring Guatemala, authorities have reported incursions and gun battles between members of the CJNG and government forces.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Carlos López<![CDATA[Kid Congo Powers, the flaming Chicano who melted the boundaries of rock with The Cramps, Gun Club and Nick Cave ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-01-12/kid-congo-powers-the-flaming-chicano-who-melted-the-boundaries-of-rock-with-the-cramps-gun-club-and-nick-cave.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-01-12/kid-congo-powers-the-flaming-chicano-who-melted-the-boundaries-of-rock-with-the-cramps-gun-club-and-nick-cave.htmlFri, 12 Jan 2024 23:54:55 +0000It was Kid Congo Powers’ first gig with The Cramps in Los Angeles. It was a home game for the guitar player, a second-generation Mexican-American raised in the Chicano suburbs of the city of stars. It was also the return of a prodigal son who had just joined a band that condensed punk rock and rockabilly to create its own genre, psychobilly, an amalgam that sounded like garage rock and roll and gore, with a taste for the sinister aesthetics of B movies, leather and leopard prints. A bunch of freaks that represented extreme freedom for a gay, extravagant young man in the conservative United States of the early 1980s.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Aggi Garduño<![CDATA[The silence of Captain Marcos]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-03/the-silence-of-captain-marcos.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-03/the-silence-of-captain-marcos.htmlWed, 03 Jan 2024 16:20:34 +0000The captain no longer gives orders. He doesn’t want to be seen too much. Nor does he want to speak in public. Maybe he’s a little wistful because he wasn’t a captain before. He was the subcomandante. Subcomandante Marcos, the sup’, to his friends. Then he changed his nom de guerre to Galeano, but he was still the subcomandante. Now he has been demoted, or they have demoted him. At least he has been able to regain his name. The fact is that the most famous guerrilla in history — with a nod to Che Guevara — is no longer the visible face of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). Or at least he tries not to be, because no matter how much he insists that he is no longer in charge, people don’t care. The guy with the balaclava and the pipe in his mouth is still getting all the attention. He is the last living rock star of the left. Which at this point — the death of ideologies, rampant capitalism and all that — is perhaps not saying much.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Nayeli Cruz<![CDATA[And they shouted ‘enough’: The 30-year-long Indigenous uprising that rewrote Mexican history ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-01/and-they-shouted-enough-the-30-year-long-indigenous-uprising-that-rewrote-mexican-history.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-01/and-they-shouted-enough-the-30-year-long-indigenous-uprising-that-rewrote-mexican-history.htmlMon, 01 Jan 2024 13:32:50 +0000The seams burst into the air. It was a murmur hidden for years. Centuries of rage, deep in the Lacandon Jungle, in the mountains, the villages, the cornfields. An open secret, cooked over slow fire. The dispossessed, without a decent roof over their heads; without land, without work, without healthcare, without food, without education, without freedom, without rights, without peace, without justice. Nobody expected the uprising, because nobody wanted to listen to them. “Them” being the ones who always died quietly, without a fuss.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Damian Dovarganes<![CDATA[Toluca chicken vendors rebel against extortion by Mexican organized crime]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-28/toluca-chicken-vendors-rebel-against-extortion-by-mexican-organized-crime.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-28/toluca-chicken-vendors-rebel-against-extortion-by-mexican-organized-crime.htmlThu, 28 Dec 2023 14:32:30 +0000The branches of organized crime are extending into the most unsuspecting corners of Mexican society. Vendors of chicken, one of the most basic products in the average citizen’s shopping basket, have rebelled against extortion in Toluca, the capital of the State of Mexico. The merchants, tired of having to pay “protection money” for their businesses, have hired private security services and stopped paying extortion fees to the cartels.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[The Nicaraguan political prisoners who resisted torture in Ortega and Murillo’s prisons]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-28/the-nicaraguan-political-prisoners-who-resisted-torture-in-ortega-and-murillos-prisons.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-28/the-nicaraguan-political-prisoners-who-resisted-torture-in-ortega-and-murillos-prisons.htmlTue, 28 Nov 2023 14:26:37 +0000On February 9, 2023, a U.S. plane flew from Managua to Washington. Inside were 222 malnourished Nicaraguans who were cherishing freedom after years of confinement. A few hours earlier, the political prisoners had been taken from their cells without a word. Many thought they were about to die at the hands of the prison guards of the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime, after so much time spent in solitary confinement, subjected to torture and inhumane treatment. To their surprise, they landed safely in the U.S. capital. There were reunions with loved ones, hugs, and tears for those who had been left behind. A surreal feeling of unreality.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Miguel Andrés<![CDATA[The long night of Acapulco: ‘I am powerful with a gun, unarmed I am nobody’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-04/the-long-night-of-acapulco-i-am-powerful-with-a-gun-unarmed-i-am-nobody.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-04/the-long-night-of-acapulco-i-am-powerful-with-a-gun-unarmed-i-am-nobody.htmlSat, 04 Nov 2023 23:07:18 +0000Acapulco is afraid of the dark. Hurricane Otis turned off all the lights more than a week ago and, this Saturday, the vast majority of neighborhoods in the city continue to survive in darkness. The inhabitants have had to learn to live in the uncertainty of the shadows and adapt their clocks to the sun. The first nights, driven by necessity, groups of people looted every last store. There are no supermarkets or pharmacies with stock, and only a few gas stations are beginning to recover their supply. Everything is lacking. Since then, the Army has been guarding all the establishments that were raided with rifles in plain sight; now, when there is nothing left. In the poorest neighborhoods, rumors and paranoia have spread. At night, dozens of groups of citizens patrol the streets — some armed with machetes and handguns — terrified at the risk of losing the little that the storm left them, illuminated by lanterns, torches and pyres of burning garbage.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Gladys Serrano <![CDATA[The forgotten survivors of Hurricane Otis: ‘We don’t even have water to wash with, and now disease is setting in’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-03/the-forgotten-survivors-of-hurricane-otis-we-dont-even-have-water-to-wash-with-and-now-disease-is-setting-in.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-03/the-forgotten-survivors-of-hurricane-otis-we-dont-even-have-water-to-wash-with-and-now-disease-is-setting-in.htmlFri, 03 Nov 2023 00:37:32 +0000When Andrés awoke, there was a fresh grave in the cemetery. Though calling it a grave would be generous: it was a body, wrapped in a sheet, no coffin or headstone, buried quietly in a shallow hole during the early hours of the morning. Lacking everything, the dead body didn’t even have a name. The neighbors had to tie up their dogs: the body was buried so shallow that the animals, attracted by the smell, would try to dig up the corpse. The place the person was laid to rest in is not really a cemetery either — just a few holes, dug into the side of a hill that can’t be reached by car, only by a narrow dirt path that traverses the shadow of Acapulco’s decadent and glamourous facade: the community of San Isidro, in the resort town of Pie de la Cuesta, a neighborhood inhabited by the workers who clean, maintain, and serve the patrons at the nearby resorts and hotels; the people who cook in the restaurants and take tourists out on boats; the workers who survive on the margins of a city that someone who never stepped foot in San Isidro dubbed La perla del Pacífico — The Pearl of the Pacific.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Gladys Serrano <![CDATA[Winds of change for the EZLN: The second death of Subcomandante Marcos]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-31/winds-of-change-for-the-ezln-the-second-death-of-subcomandante-marcos.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-31/winds-of-change-for-the-ezln-the-second-death-of-subcomandante-marcos.htmlTue, 31 Oct 2023 14:57:01 +0000Subcomandante Marcos, the masked face of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), has recently taken another step back in the movement he led for decades. The guerrilla commander, known for his eloquent speeches and political leadership, provided a voice for the Indigenous and marginalized people of Mexico who first took a stand against inequality on January 1, 1994. In 2014, Marcos withdrew from the Zapatista movement’s forefront, adopting the name Galeano in honor of a fallen comrade. He appointed Subcommander Moisés as his successor, signifying a generational shift within the organization. There was little doubt that his decision almost 10 years ago was primarily cosmetic — another calculated move by a crafty and theatrically inclined communicator. Now, a letter has formally announced the symbolic passing of Subcommander Galeano, a type of second death for the man the world once knew as Marcos.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Yoray Liberman<![CDATA[Narcoterror in Zacatecas, Mexico: How a group of teens was kidnapped and killed with impunity]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-02/narcoterror-in-zacatecas-mexico-how-a-group-of-teens-was-kidnapped-and-killed-with-impunity.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-02/narcoterror-in-zacatecas-mexico-how-a-group-of-teens-was-kidnapped-and-killed-with-impunity.htmlMon, 02 Oct 2023 11:05:32 +0000In the Mexican state of Zacatecas, everyone is sleeping. It’s late at night – seven teenagers are resting in two rooms at El Potrerito ranch. It’s not an unusual scene: the farm, a gray cinder block building on the outskirts of the community of Malpaso, often hosts sleepovers.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Nayeli Cruz<![CDATA[In Zacatecas, there is no peace, even in the cemetery: the murderers are also here ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-29/in-zacatecas-there-is-no-peace-even-in-the-cemetery-the-murderers-are-also-here.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-29/in-zacatecas-there-is-no-peace-even-in-the-cemetery-the-murderers-are-also-here.htmlFri, 29 Sep 2023 20:13:01 +0000Here, even at the funeral, the murderers are present. The criminals who killed Óscar Ernesto, Diego, Jorge Alberto, Héctor Alejandro, Gumaro and Jesús Manuel. The men who abandoned their tortured bodies on a mountain in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. They are here, in the Malpaso cemetery, camouflaged among distraught mothers and families destroyed by loss. The “bad guys” are here: the armed men, the cartels, the drug traffickers. They are here to send a clear message: that they are the law. They are the invisible hand that dictates, suffocates, terrifies, executes. Their twisted logic tells them that there’s no peace for the victims, even on the day of their burial. It doesn’t matter if those killed were 18, 17, 16, 15 and 14-years-old — it doesn’t matter that they were only boys.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Nayeli Cruz<![CDATA[Murders, disappearances and drug trafficking: the criminal nightmare of Zacatecas, Mexico ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-28/murders-disappearances-and-drug-trafficking-the-criminal-nightmare-of-zacatecas-mexico.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-28/murders-disappearances-and-drug-trafficking-the-criminal-nightmare-of-zacatecas-mexico.htmlThu, 28 Sep 2023 23:17:26 +0000This past Saturday, seven friends and cousins – between the ages of 14 and 18 – spent the night together at a ranch in the community of Malpaso, in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. The following dawn, a group of armed men entered the property, shooting into the air. They took all of the teenagers, who were still barefoot. Then, in an extortion attempt, they sent a video to their families, in which the young people could be seen walking down a hill. The kidnappers threatened the youngsters’ relatives, so that they wouldn’t go to the authorities. But the mothers and fathers of the prisoners blocked roads and raised their voices to demand justice: they wanted to see their children alive again.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Six bodies and one survivor found in search for kidnapped teens in Zacatecas, Mexico]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-28/six-bodies-and-one-survivor-found-in-search-for-kidnapped-teens-in-zacatecas-mexico.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-28/six-bodies-and-one-survivor-found-in-search-for-kidnapped-teens-in-zacatecas-mexico.htmlThu, 28 Sep 2023 08:38:43 +0000The horror never ends in Mexico. Searchers in the north-central state of Zacatecas have found the bodies of six of the seven teenagers who were kidnapped early Sunday morning in Villanueva, as confirmed to EL PAÍS by the state official Rodrigo Reyes. Only one of the youths, whose identity has not been revealed “out of respect for the families,” has survived and is being treated at the State General Hospital for head injuries and fractured nose bones.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Adolfo Vladimir<![CDATA[Kidnapping of seven Mexican teenagers strikes fear into Zacatecas ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-27/kidnapping-of-seven-mexican-teenagers-strikes-fear-into-zacatecas.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-27/kidnapping-of-seven-mexican-teenagers-strikes-fear-into-zacatecas.htmlWed, 27 Sep 2023 07:22:23 +0000The youngest is only 14 years old, the oldest had just turned 18. The seven Mexican teenagers were friends and family. On Saturday night, the group got together to have dinner with more relatives and enjoy the weekend. But at 4 a.m. on Sunday, several vehicles loaded with armed men broke into the ranch where they were staying, El Potrerito, in the community of Malpaso, in Zacatecas. The seven teenagers were kidnapped. Three days later, there is no news of their whereabouts.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Chiapas: New blood, old wars ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-18/chiapas-new-blood-old-wars.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-18/chiapas-new-blood-old-wars.htmlMon, 18 Sep 2023 11:00:43 +0000Armed men burst into the town, making it clear that they were the law. They assaulted the rural police station and surrounded the commissioner’s house, leaving no room for doubt as to who was in charge. They left behind a message: “From now on, we control the town and the region.” They said that they were members of the Sinaloa Cartel – specifically, hitmen working for Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[One year after the mine collapse in Coahuila, Mexico: The interminable wait to locate the bodies of the 10 miners buried 197 feet underground ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-08-03/one-year-after-the-mine-collapse-in-coahuila-mexico-the-interminable-wait-to-locate-the-bodies-of-the-10-miners-buried-197-feet-underground.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-08-03/one-year-after-the-mine-collapse-in-coahuila-mexico-the-interminable-wait-to-locate-the-bodies-of-the-10-miners-buried-197-feet-underground.htmlThu, 03 Aug 2023 19:33:40 +0000On August 3, 2022, 10 miners were buried underground when the Pinabete coal shaft in Sabinas, Coahuila, Mexico, collapsed. A year later, their bodies remain there. In the first days after the collapse, the mission was a frantic and desperate struggle to rescue the workers alive, but now the sole objective is to recover the remains. The miners’ relatives are experiencing an interminable deferred mourning period, and the goal is to find the dead so that their families can finally bury them in graves marked with names and surnames, where they can mourn the dead, bring flowers, and get some closure after the traumatic experience.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Mario Jasso<![CDATA[In jail with Pablo López Alavez, 13 years behind bars in Mexico for a crime he did not commit]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-08-01/in-jail-with-pablo-lopez-alavez-13-years-behind-bars-in-mexico-for-a-crime-he-did-not-commit.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-08-01/in-jail-with-pablo-lopez-alavez-13-years-behind-bars-in-mexico-for-a-crime-he-did-not-commit.htmlTue, 01 Aug 2023 13:05:49 +0000As the photographer from EL PAÍS takes pictures of the inmate in cell 13, all the other prisoners in Sector C of the Villa de Etla Social Reintegration Center are watchful. Nobody speaks in the gallery – the only sound can be heard from a television that, in the middle of the corridor, is broadcasting a soap opera. Until a moment ago, that show was the main excitement of the day. Looking over the railings from the second floor, or peeking out from their cells, the eyes don’t miss a single click made by the camera.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Rodrigo Oropeza<![CDATA[A helicopter, a harpoon and a ‘bohemian’ adrift: the rescue of Australian castaway Tim Shaddock]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-19/a-helicopter-a-harpoon-and-a-bohemian-adrift-the-rescue-of-australian-castaway-tim-shaddock.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-19/a-helicopter-a-harpoon-and-a-bohemian-adrift-the-rescue-of-australian-castaway-tim-shaddock.htmlWed, 19 Jul 2023 12:48:41 +0000A helicopter flies over the waters of the Eastern Pacific. It scans the blue surface of the ocean, on the trail of a moving black spot that reveals the position of a school of tuna. The operation follows the same roadmap of the past two months: the aircraft finds the fish, alerts the crew of the María Delia and the vessel sets course for the location. On July 12, however, something unusual happened. From the air, the pilots spotted a small white catamaran, with a mast but no sails. There was no movement on deck. A man looked up at the sky, covering his face, dazzled by the sun, signaling for help.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Ciro Gómez Leyva: ‘Saying that the power wants to kill you is very profitable and tempting, but today I have no data to confirm it’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-15/ciro-gomez-leyva-saying-that-the-power-wants-to-kill-you-is-very-profitable-and-tempting-but-today-i-have-no-data-to-confirm-it.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-15/ciro-gomez-leyva-saying-that-the-power-wants-to-kill-you-is-very-profitable-and-tempting-but-today-i-have-no-data-to-confirm-it.htmlThu, 15 Jun 2023 00:01:21 +0000It was a fast and confusing 12 seconds. It was 11.10pm on Thursday, December 15, and Ciro Gómez Leyva was driving back home. Half of Mexico had just seen him, like they did every day from Monday to Friday, presenting the news of the day on Imagen Televisión. There was some traffic on Tecoyotitla street. It was the week before Christmas, a time of company dinners and last minute shopping. He seems to remember trying to pass a car that was obstructing him. Then he heard some bangs. After that, things happened quickly; by the time he realized he was being shot at, they were already upon him. Two people on a motorcycle sped up and got in front of him. One of them twisted his body. That is the image that became imprinted in the journalist’s mind: a man turning to face him, pointing a gun at his head as the motorcycle jerked. Also, a lot of light. A blaze of pastels, white, blue, orange. The motorcycle got under a lamppost. Bang, bang, bang, bang – nine gunshots were embedded in the truck’s armored glass, body and tires. The motorcycle stumbled.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Aggi Garduño<![CDATA[Mexico’s Zapatistas warn Chiapas is on ‘the verge of civil war’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-01/mexicos-zapatistas-warn-chiapas-is-on-the-verge-of-civil-war.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-01/mexicos-zapatistas-warn-chiapas-is-on-the-verge-of-civil-war.htmlThu, 01 Jun 2023 13:42:35 +0000On May 22, Jorge López Santíz was hit by a bullet. It was an attack that also hit the heart of Mexico’s Zapatista Movement, the far-left group that controls territory in the southern state of Chiapas.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Contaminated anesthetic suspected to be cause of Matamoros meningitis outbreak]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-26/contaminated-anesthetic-suspected-to-be-cause-of-matamoros-meningitis-outbreak.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-26/contaminated-anesthetic-suspected-to-be-cause-of-matamoros-meningitis-outbreak.htmlFri, 26 May 2023 11:52:54 +0000History appears to be repeating itself. Authorities in Mexico and the United States believe a contaminated anesthetic drug is behind a meningitis outbreak at two private clinics in Matamoros, Mexico, located close to the country’s border with the U.S. Both clinics, which specialize in cosmetic surgery, were closed on 13 May. Mexico’s Ministry of Health has reported 23 cases: nine involving American patients, and a further 14 infections among Mexican patients. One death has been confirmed in the U.S., where a second fatality potentially linked to the outbreak is being investigated. “Of the [Mexican] cases, four are suspected, with the patients showing symptoms,” the ministry said in a statement on Thursday. “Five are probable cases, with alterations present in the results of cerebrospinal fluid analysis, and a further five cases have been confirmed by the presence of the fungus Fusarium solani.”

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Myths and truths about fentanyl, the drug straining US-Mexico relations]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-15/myths-and-truths-about-fentanyl-the-drug-straining-us-mexico-relations.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-15/myths-and-truths-about-fentanyl-the-drug-straining-us-mexico-relations.htmlMon, 15 May 2023 09:38:53 +0000Everyone is talking about fentanyl. For some time now, the opioid has dominated the public conversation — or, at least, the political agenda. The powerful drug is wreaking havoc in the United States and straining diplomatic relations with Mexico (accused of being one of the largest producers) and with China, in the middle of a new Cold War that seems to intensify by the week. Many things are being said about the drug, some true, some not so much. EL PAÍS brought together three experts who have studied fentanyl from the point of view of pharmacology, anthropology and medicine, including the medical and social implications of addiction, the torture of withdrawal syndrome, the ease of buying doses in streets that are flooded by the law of supply and demand, the high probability of an overdose, and the criminalization of consumers.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Fentanyl’s butterfly effect: End of heroin boom leaves Mexican poppy farmers high and dry]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-18/fentanyls-butterfly-effect-end-of-heroin-boom-leaves-mexican-poppy-farmers-high-and-dry.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-18/fentanyls-butterfly-effect-end-of-heroin-boom-leaves-mexican-poppy-farmers-high-and-dry.htmlTue, 18 Apr 2023 12:03:12 +0000This is a story of globalization, capitalism and drugs, but also of hands gnarled by labor in the fields, lost harvests and dying communities: a story that can be traced from the subsistence farmers who grow poppies in the isolated mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, to the fentanyl addicts on the street corners of Los Angeles. In a world that is interconnected to the point of satiation, the chaos theory idea that the wings of a butterfly in Hong Kong can translate into a hurricane in New York extends to the most unexpected corners of reality. Hard drugs are no exception.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Mexico puts soldiers on its beaches to guard vacationers ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-07/mexico-puts-soldiers-on-its-beaches-to-guard-vacationers.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-07/mexico-puts-soldiers-on-its-beaches-to-guard-vacationers.htmlFri, 07 Apr 2023 21:05:08 +0000White sand beaches, turquoise water, designer bikinis, cold drinks, sun-tanned bodies, and a parade of machine guns and camouflage uniforms. There’s something dystopian about this picture, but it’s a reality these days on Mexico’s coasts. The contrast was stark in several pictures shared by Quintana Roo Governor Mara Lezama: two armed soldiers patrol a Cancún beach while in the background, a tourist in a black swimsuit and sun hat stands in the surf.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[El Cholo Iván, the violent bodyguard in the shadow of El Chapo Guzmán]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-07/el-cholo-ivan-the-violent-bodyguard-in-the-shadow-of-el-chapo-guzman.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-07/el-cholo-ivan-the-violent-bodyguard-in-the-shadow-of-el-chapo-guzman.htmlFri, 07 Apr 2023 00:35:00 +0000The last escape of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, El Chapo, was through a sewer. Almost six months after escaping from the high security prison of El Altiplano through a 1,500 meter tunnel, and after playing cat and mouse with justice in the mountains, the boss of the Sinaloa Cartel had a moment of weakness. He wanted to go to Los Mochis. His security chief, Jorge Iván Gastélum, alias El Cholo Iván, opposed the idea. After embarrassing the Mexican government with his escapes, it was preferable for the drug trafficker to keep a low profile and avoid cities. But El Chapo did not listen to reason. When, in January 2016, a Navy operation surrounded the house where they were hiding, he and El Cholo dragged themselves through a kilometer and a half of sewers, “among the feces and rot,” says Miguel Ángel Vega, an expert in the Sinaloa Cartel.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Grisly kidnapping and murder of family in Mexico City sends shockwaves through capital ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-12-28/grisly-kidnapping-and-murder-of-family-in-mexico-city-sends-shockwaves-through-capital.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2022-12-28/grisly-kidnapping-and-murder-of-family-in-mexico-city-sends-shockwaves-through-capital.htmlWed, 28 Dec 2022 04:18:05 +0000Margarita María Ochoa’s testimony is chaotic and horrifying.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Narco boss José Guadalupe ‘Lupe’ Tapia Quintero arrested in Mexico]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-02-10/narco-boss-jose-guadalupe-lupe-tapia-quintero-arrested-in-mexico.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-02-10/narco-boss-jose-guadalupe-lupe-tapia-quintero-arrested-in-mexico.htmlFri, 10 Feb 2023 16:05:06 +0000The Sinaloa Cartel was dealt another blow when one of its top bosses – José Guadalupe Tapia Quintero – was arrested near Culiacán early on January 9 by Mexico’s National Guard with the Army’s help, said the Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA) to EL PAÍS. According to the US Treasury Department, Tapia Quintero (alias “El Lupe”) has been one of the top logistical operators since 2014 for the group led by Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, one of the two most powerful factions of the Sinaloa Cartel. Zambada’s organization competes directly with Los Chapitos, the faction led by the sons of Zambada’s former partner, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is serving a life sentence in a US prison.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Fifth person arrested in the Mexico City murders of the Tirado brothers and their uncle]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-12-24/fifth-person-arrested-in-the-mexico-city-murders-of-the-tirado-brothers-and-their-uncle.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2022-12-24/fifth-person-arrested-in-the-mexico-city-murders-of-the-tirado-brothers-and-their-uncle.htmlSat, 24 Dec 2022 03:02:29 +0000On December 22, police arrested a fifth person implicated in the murders of Jorge and Andrés Tirado and their uncle, Luis González, in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood. When the woman identified only as Rebeca was arrested, police say, “she was carrying a pawn shop receipt for a laptop computer similar to one stolen from the home where the men were murdered, an electronic tablet and some office supplies.” Sources in the public prosecutor’s office say the suspected accomplice to the murders is a friend of the four people who have already been detained.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[A house in the heart of Mexico City may be the reason three people were murdered ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-12-20/a-house-in-the-heart-of-mexico-city-may-be-the-reason-three-people-were-murdered.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2022-12-20/a-house-in-the-heart-of-mexico-city-may-be-the-reason-three-people-were-murdered.htmlTue, 20 Dec 2022 17:27:41 +0000The home on Medellín Street in Mexico City is now a crime scene and the latest manifestation of the rampant violence that plagues the country. Three people were killed behind the black doors that are now guarded by two police officers. A handful of journalists hang around outside, hoping for new information that will explain why this happened. The only thing the public knows for sure is that Luis Gonzáles and his two nephews, Andrés and Jorge Tirado were found dead in their home on December 18. They were still gagged, and their bodies showed signs of a beating. Two women and a man were quickly arrested as suspects in the murders. Those are the unfortunate facts – three more murders in a country that tallies dozens of homicides every day. The only thing unusual about these particular murders is the motive and alleged perpetrators of the crime – the victims and suspects lived together in the same house. According to sources in the public prosecutor’s office, the victims were beaten, gagged and strangled for refusing to hand over the deed to the house.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Aseptic meningitis outbreak raises alarm in Mexico]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-11-28/aseptic-meningitis-outbreak-raises-alarm-in-mexico.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2022-11-28/aseptic-meningitis-outbreak-raises-alarm-in-mexico.htmlMon, 28 Nov 2022 14:11:26 +0000The northwestern Mexico state of Durango is on alert after an outbreak of aseptic meningitis. At least 12 people – 11 women and one man – have died during the past month in four private state hospitals due to a fungus present in four batches of bupivacaine, a local anesthetic. There have been more than 60 confirmed positive cases reported, the vast majority of them young women, according to the Durango State Health Secretariat (SSD). Despite the fact that the authorities have set up special areas in two public health centers to treat the infection, the situation has not yet stabilized and the number of cases is continuing to rise slowly.

Seguir leyendo

]]>SSDURANGO<![CDATA[What the ‘Infrarealists’ from Bolaño’s ‘The Savage Detectives’ are doing now]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-17/what-the-infrarealists-from-bolanos-the-savage-detectives-are-doing-now.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-17/what-the-infrarealists-from-bolanos-the-savage-detectives-are-doing-now.htmlSat, 17 Sep 2022 21:22:28 +0000They were writers, and most were younger than 20. They wanted — in the words of the Chilean painter Roberto Matta who gave them their motto — to “blow the brains out of the cultural establishment.” They were fast, smart, young — practically teenagers — and they moved through Mexico City in the 1970s with a turbulence to match the times, writing for the cultural supplements of local newspapers, struggling to scrape together enough pesos to buy coffee and a few hours of conversation at Café La Habana. But above all, they were poets: they thought, breathed, and lived poetry; they believed in it as if it were a weapon, loaded with the future. Their entire beings were oriented in opposition to the establishment, to Octavio Paz and any other authors who basked in the comfort of their institutions. They were the counterculture to the counterculture. They were punk before there was punk. They found new ways of writing about politics, about love, about sex and death. They called themselves Infrarealists, and for decades found themselves marginalized from the circles of cultural and artistic influence, forgotten by critics and rejected by publishers. Until many years later, one of them, a Chilean writer who had fled the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and ended up in Mexico, and then later Barcelona, immortalized their milieu in a book that many critics would call the last great Latin American novel. That writer’s name was Roberto Bolaño, and the book: The Savage Detectives.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[El Salvador accused of ‘flagrant’ human rights violations: Torture, arbitrary arrests and deaths in custody]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-06-03/el-salvador-accused-of-flagrant-human-rights-violations-torture-arbitrary-arrests-and-deaths-in-custody.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2022-06-03/el-salvador-accused-of-flagrant-human-rights-violations-torture-arbitrary-arrests-and-deaths-in-custody.htmlFri, 03 Jun 2022 10:48:48 +0000One month into a state of emergency approved by El Salvador’s legislative assembly to counter gang-related violence, the country is mired in a serious human rights crisis, according to a report by Amnesty International published this Thursday.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[An inside look at Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-02-16/an-inside-look-at-mexicos-sinaloa-cartel.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2022-02-16/an-inside-look-at-mexicos-sinaloa-cartel.htmlWed, 16 Feb 2022 18:57:42 +0000The day that “La Vagancia” understood that he could die in a shootout on any given day, he decided to leave a record of his time on Earth. For youths like him, hitmen and pawns of the drug world, death comes early and without warning: on any street corner, during any brawl, settling of scores or from a stray bullet. And even though he dreamed of quitting the Sinaloa cartel and finding a regular job, he also knew that the most likely way of leaving a criminal group is either as a prisoner or as a corpse.

Seguir leyendo

]]><![CDATA[Drones: The latest weapon (and status symbol) of Mexico’s cartels]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2022-02-01/drones-the-latest-weapon-of-mexicos-cartels.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2022-02-01/drones-the-latest-weapon-of-mexicos-cartels.htmlTue, 01 Feb 2022 13:29:42 +0000Cartel members may belong to a criminal organization, but most of them are still teenagers and youngsters without a lot to do. They’re big kids living in rural areas such as the Mexican state of Michoacán, where each day is more or less the same. The monotony is broken by sudden moments of violence and adrenaline. These members will likely be dead within five years, killed either in a shootout with police or by a rival gang. But apart from this sporadic violence, life is fairly routine and dull – nothing like the narcocorridos, which sing of excitement and glory, or Netflix’s Narcos series, where it is all about glamor. These youngsters get bored – just like any young person in a small town anywhere in the world, says Romain Le Cour, a doctor in Political Science at the University of Paris, who is carrying out an in-depth investigation into violence in Michoacán. The difference is, unlike other youngsters, they have access to weapons. And to kill their boredom, uphold their status and make clear who is in control, they use them. Their latest toy is the drone.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Cuartoscuro<![CDATA[Drones, explosives, impunity: A Mexican drug cartel flexes its muscle in Michoacán]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2022-01-17/drones-explosives-impunity-a-mexican-drug-cartel-flexes-its-muscle-in-michoacan.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2022-01-17/drones-explosives-impunity-a-mexican-drug-cartel-flexes-its-muscle-in-michoacan.htmlMon, 17 Jan 2022 15:33:12 +0000First there is an explosion, then fire and smoke. Dozens of people are seen running out of what look like huts hidden among the trees. Bombs fall on the village, and the camera zooms in to show the flames engulfing a yellowish forest. The video, which lasts two minutes and 20 seconds, was recorded on a drone controlled by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG in its Spanish acronym), which led a bombing campaign last week on shantytowns in the Mexican municipality of Tepalcatepec, in Michoacán state.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Cuartoscuro<![CDATA[Spain starts deporting migrant minors from Ceuta despite fierce opposition]]>https://english.elpais.com/spain/2021-08-16/spain-starts-deporting-migrant-minors-from-ceuta-despite-fierce-opposition.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/spain/2021-08-16/spain-starts-deporting-migrant-minors-from-ceuta-despite-fierce-opposition.htmlMon, 16 Aug 2021 08:58:12 +0000Spain has begun to deport migrant minors who crossed irregularly into the Spanish exclave city of Ceuta in North Africa in May, when lax border controls in Morocco saw more than 10,000 people breach the territory.

Seguir leyendo

]]>