Mexico; North America

Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently made two announcements that could finally close the bloodiest chapter in the history of the United States’ global war on drugs. He called for ending the Merida Initiative—the 3 billion-dollar US counternarcotics aid package that has fueled Mexico’s drug war—and announced a pivot from prohibition.

There’s nothing “uncontrollable” about people applying for asylum. All the U.S. has to do is meet its obligations under international law.

In this Special Report, the Americas Program analyzed existing Safe Third Country Agreements to determine what such an agreement would mean for Mexico, for the United States and for the migrants from Central America who pass through Mexico to seek safety in the United States.

A democratic crisis is deepening in Guatemala, with human rights and rule of law increasingly under assault. Forty-four Nobel laureates, alarmed by the growing and dangerous disregard for justice, issued an open statement urging Guatemalan authorities to safeguard peace and democracy in Guatemala.

I have trouble responding to the Trump Wall Hoax. First because it’s almost incomprehensible that we’re even talking about a “border crisis” that has no relationship to reality (there is no “surge” or “invasion”, no increase in crime, no correlation between violence and migrants, no terrorists over the southern border, no threat to national security). Fact-checking these speeches has become a macabre shadow dance, actions that respond to illusions until the real and the projected become indistinguishable to viewers.

In spite of having overcome the barrier of silence, the coverage of gender violence repeats many vices of the past. With the exception of feminist media, reporters, directors, and editors continue to gravitate towards the more morbid, leaving out the context of the crime- gender violence and the pardon in which it is expressed.What are the ethical obligations of journalism that covers gender violence and how is it held responsible?

2018 in our America was a year of contradictions that make any single reading or even search for trends impossible. But the issue of borders was a recurring theme.