News Summaries in February 2024

“Can a New President Move Mexico Past Its Authoritarian Streak?”  Washington Post, Feb. 29, 2024

 

[Mexican journalist León Krauze explores in this op-ed piece whether what he calls the authoritarian tactics of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will continue when he is no longer in office.]  Last week, the president of Mexico sought to preempt the publication by the New York Times of an investigation of alleged drug money influence on his inner circle. Rebuffing a Times request for an on the record comment, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador used his daily news conference to divulge the private cellphone number of Times correspondent Natalie Kitroeff. Times and other journalists condemned the doxing, but he expressed indifference. In an exchange a few days later with another journalist who pointed out the possible illegality of releasing private information, he declared that “the political and moral authority of the president of Mexico is above the law.” Journalist Pablo Hiriart then wrote that such an assertion puts a president outside the law. Lopez Obrador doubled down. He targeted Univision journalist Jorge Ramos, “and then turned his attention to me [Krauze], revealing what he believed to be my salary at Univision, a company I no longer work for.” He later repeated the “absurd” figure. “It would all be comical if it weren’t part of a pattern of autocratic intimidation of the media, endangering lives in a country where being a journalist often carries the risk of paying the ultimate price.” In June, Mexicans will choose whether to elect Xochitl Gálvez as president or Claudia Sheinbaum, López Obrador’s “hand-picked successor.” Gálvez immediately criticized the doxing of Kitroeff, saying leaks of personal data should be punished under the law. Sheinbaum on the other hand “appears to echo the president’s many grievances. She followed his lead in sharply criticizing the massive marches in defense of democracy in several Mexican cities on Feb. 18.” Sheinbaum has an opportunity during the upcoming campaign to express her commitment to basic democratic values under attack by the current president. “Failure to do so will serve as a warning for voters. They hold the future of Mexico’s democracy in their hands.”

“The Geography of Abortion,” Washington Post, Feb. 28, 2024

 

Rather than risk medical complications including death from undergoing abortions where the procedure is forbidden, a growing number of women across Latin America have begun traveling to countries where it is now permitted. In the past, that almost certainly would have meant traveling out of Latin America, but that’s no longer the case. Argentina legalized abortion in 2021. Colombia decriminalized it in 2022. And last year Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that it is permitted in all the country’s federal health facilities. “But Brazil, which accounts for half of South America’s population and territory, has not budged on the issue,” wrote Post reporters Mariana Dias and Terrence McCoy. In fact, most Latin American women who travel to get an abortion keep it a secret because of laws and stigma against it. The Post reporters accompanied a 35-year-old Brazilian women named Christina on a secret trip to Argentina to abort her fetus. She knew she wanted an abortion as soon as she found out she was pregnant. “She said the desire went against everything she was raised to believe as a Catholic and heard at church. But she didn’t have a job. She wasn’t married. Both of her parents were deceased. If Cristina separated from her boyfriend, she didn’t believe she could care for a child on her own.” Argentina, which has seen an influx of foreign women since permitting the procedure, is the main destination for women such as Christina. A clinic in Rosario said half its abortions are performed on Brazilians.  Once in Argentina, the constant worry she had been experiencing began to ease. At the clinic, no one judged her. She was treated warmly. “She was surprised by how routine, relatively painless and quick” the procedure was. When she returned exhausted to her home in Brazil,  messages were waiting from her two sisters, her constant companions. But they were conservative, and she felt she could not risk their disapproval by telling them what she had experienced. “She answered only a few” of their messages. “Then she canceled plans to see them that weekend.” She “felt changed by this experience, but had no one with whom she could honestly share it.”

“2 Mayoral Candidates Are Slain in One Day,” Washington Post Digest, Feb. 28, 2024

 

Experts are warning that Mexico’s June 2 elections could be the most violent on record. In the last nationwide vote in 2021, 36 candidates were killed. Against a backdrop of the growing power of drug cartels, “two candidates for mayor in the Mexican city of Maravatío were gunned down within hours of each other Monday,” the Associated Press reported. Armando Pérez, the candidate for the conservative National Action Party, was found shot to death in his car in Maravatío before midnight. Hours before, Miguel Angel Zavala, the candidate of the ruling Morena Party, was found shot to death in his car. Michoacán, a western state in Mexico where the killings occurred, “has been particularly hard hit by gang turf wars, with the Jalisco New Generation cartel fighting a local gang, the Viagras, for control.” 

“The Economy Is Roaring, and Immigration Is a Key Reason,” Washington Post, Feb.28, 2024

 

New Gallup survey data show Americans view immigration as the country’s top problem, more so than inflation, the economy, and issues with government. “Republicans have increasingly campaigned on the idea that immigrants have hurt the economy and taken American’s jobs,” write Post reporters Rachel Siegel, Lauren Kaori Gurley, and Meryl Kornfield. “But the economic record largely shows the opposite.” The winner of the presidential election “will take the helm of an economy that immigrant workers are supporting tremendously – and likely will keep powering for years to come.” The Congressional Budget Office predicts the U.S. labor force will grow by 5.2 million by 2033, owing largely to increases in immigration. And CBO estimates the economy will grow by $7.2 trillion more over the next decade than it would have without the influx of new immigrants. Normally, immigrants can drag down wages if employers hire them rather than native-born workers. “But the past few years were extremely abnormal because companies were desperate to hire,” the Post reports. In the past year, about half the labor market’s growth came from foreign born workers. Immigration helped “cement the country’s economic rebound from the pandemic as the most robust in the world.” The employment surge “was ultimately key to solving unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country’s ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns,” according to economists and labor experts.  

“For Athletes, Mexican Softball League Is ‘Dream Come True,’” New York Times, Feb. 26, 2024

 

A professional women’s softball league has opened in Mexico -- believed to be the first in Latin America. The season began Jan. 25 with 120 women playing on six teams. Liga Mexicana de Béisbol, Mexico’s nearly 100-year-old men’s professional baseball league, is sponsoring the effort. The response so far has been remarkable. Times reporter James Wagner said “13,408 pe0ple filled the Monterey stadium on opening night, a record for a softball game in the Americas, and the half-dozen teams drew a total of 109,000 fans through the first four weeks, according to the league.” The popularity of softball is growing. With baseball stadiums going unused during the off-season, a softball league can generate more revenue. Lolis de la Fuente, a catcher for the León team, called the league “a dream come true. I never thought they could do something like this in Mexico because there wasn’t much support.”  Club owners have expressed concern about protecting players from sexual harassment. That’s been a major issue in women’s sports such as soccer and gymnastics. League officials have created protocols to prevent sexual harassment, including a mandatory online course for executives and coaches. 

“Cuba Struggles to Stay Afloat in Economic Quicksand,” El País

 

There aren’t any signs things will get better for Cuba’s rural population after belt-tightening measures announced in December raising fuel prices 500 percent and electricity rates by 25 percent. Sixty-two-year-old Lucia Carida Torres wants to rebuild her tobacco-drying barn after a hurricane destroyed it in 2022. But she hasn’t been able to plant or harvest any crops since then and there is no government assistance to help her get access to building materials and fertilizer and fuel. “We need fuel to plant our crops,” she told El País. “We raise pigs and produce our own food, you know?” Torres said “no one really understands what us folks who live off the land have to deal with.” Cuban economist Omar Everleny Pérez Villaneuva says the government’s focus should be on increasing production but instead is on currency circulation. Meanwhile, Cuban households are suffering from a scarcity of milk, bread, and coffee because the government can no longer subsidize them. Pork production has dropped almost 90 percent along with falling production of rice and beans. The sugar harvest covers less than half of domestic demand. Many Cubans are going hungry. “We must acknowledge that the private sector offers great hope for this country,” said Everleny, but the government won’t surrender monopolies in critical industries and markets. Almost 500,000 people have emigrated from Cuba in the past two years. [This story was published Jan. 24. I’m catching up on some older stories so am posting it here out of chronological order.]

“Texas Governor Takes Credit as Illegal Border Crossings Plummet Across State,” Washngton Post, Feb. 24, 2024

 

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) is taking credit for a 50 percent drop since the month of December in the number of illegal border crossings along the southern border of the U.S. The drop is even greater along the Texas border, with migrants shifting westward to Arizona or California to cross. In the Del Rio, Texas, sector of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, illegal entries fell 76 percent in January. Abbott credits his Operation Lonestar program, which is deploying National Guard troops and police to deter migrants and involves stringing barbed wire along the banks of the Rio Grande. Increased crossings into Arizona could add to the political challenge President Biden faces holding on to that swing state in this fall’s presidential election. Brandon Judd, the head of the union of Border Patrol agents, said the shift to the west in crossings is “strictly based on what Governor Abbott has done.” But federal officials, who say some Abbott tactics are dangerous and will lead to unjustified arrests of  U.S. citizens who are Hispanic, attribute the drop to other factors. According to Post reporter Nick Miroff, officials say “the trends they’re seeing are more the result of seasonal changes and tighter enforcement by the Mexican government, not Texas.” For example, Mexico has cracked down on migrants riding freight trains into the U.S., leading to a sharp drop in crossings around Eagle Pass, Texas. 

“Headquarters for the Gangs? Penitentiaries,” New York Times, Feb. 22, 2024

 

Criminal groups exercise unchallenged control over inmates in prisons across Latin America, ordering them to pay money for protection and to buy food. “The prisons also act as a safe haven of sorts for incarcerated criminal leaders to remotely run their criminal enterprises on the outside, ordering killings, orchestrating the smuggling of drugs to the United States and Europe, and directing kidnappings and extortion of local businesses,” the Times reports. As countries pass tougher anti-crime measures like pretrial detention and longer sentences, the Latin American prison population has exploded. At the same time, countries invest little in prisons, leaving them understaffed and guards weak in relation to gang authority. “Those sent to prison are often left with one choice: Join a gang or face their wrath,” the Times says. Latin America’s prison population increased an estimated 76 percent between 2010 and 2020. The Brazilian government only spends $14 per prisoner per day, while Mexico spends about $20 and the United States $117. When governments go after criminal leaders on the inside, they order members to attack on the outside. They kidnapped police officers, burned cars, and set off explosions when that happened in Ecuador. Now countries like Ecuador and El Salvador have resorted to mass arrests of gang members – imprisoning the innocent in the process – in turn increasing prison populations. “The gangs have such sway in Brazil’s prisons, where the authorities themselves often divide prisons by gang affilation, that officials force new prisoners to pick a side, to limit violence.” A Brazilian official said “jail functions as a space for labor recruitment. And for building loyalty among your criminal work force.”  

“Something’s Fishy About the ‘Migrant Crisis,’” The Atlantic,  Feb. 19, 2024

 

Why is it that cities like Los Angeles, Houston, and Miami that are top destinations for asylum-seeking migrants absorb them without an uproar in the press unlike others such as New York, Chicago, and Denver? “The federal government’s dysfunction leaves immigrant-friendly cities feeling overwhelmed,” writes Jerusalem Demsas of The Atlantic. “Sometimes the best way to understand why something is going wrong is to look at what’s going right,” says Demsas. While there’s an uproar about the arrival of Latin American migrants in Chicago and New York, not so that of Ukrainian refugees. For example, some 30,000 Ukrainian refugees have settled in Chicago and no one has noticed. About 30,000 Ukrainian settled in New York and few ended up in public shelters. Two major federal policy differences explain the difference. “First, the Biden administration admitted the Ukrainians under terms that allowed them to work right away. Second, the feds had a plan for where to place these newcomers” that included coordinating with local governments, individual sponsors and civil society groups. “When immigrants make their way to a city in an organic fashion, they usually are drawn to a place where they have family ties, job leads, or other connections and resources available.” The American Immigration Council has recommended the creation of a federal Center for Migrant Coordination. It could in an orderly way “connect migrants with communities, organizations, and host families that can help them settle as they wait for their [asylum] cases to be adjudicated.” Work authorizations would allow mayors of cities to get together and decide how many migrants they could absorb, says Denver Mayor Mike Johnston (see next story). But much of the disruption and uproar in the press comes from unplanned busing by Texas Governor Gregg Abbott where thousands of migrants end up in places like New York, Chicago, and Denver with no coordinated planning and no legal structure allowing them to work right away. Federal underfunding of the immigrant court system also prevents their asylum cases from being adjudicated more efficiently. 

“Spain’s Conservatives Retain Absolute Majority in Galicia Elections,” The Guardian, Feb. 19, 2024

 

Despite predictions it would lose its long-time control of the region, the conservative People’s Party has retained its absolute majority in Galicia in northwestern Spain. The result of the regional election strengthens Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who unexpectedly broke ranks with his party a week before by letting it slip that he would not be opposed to pardoning Catalan politicians who led a failed separatist push in 2017. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez cobbled together a coalition last year for a new term by agreeing to pursue amnesty for those politicians, infuriating the Popular Party and igniting nationwide demonstrations. “However, it appears voters were more willing to forgive Feijóo than they were Sánchez, whose pact with the Catalans was being blamed for his party’s poor showing in the first significant election since he secured another term as prime minister,” said Guardian reporter Stephen Burgen. Sánchez’s socialists lost five seats, which were picked up by the Galician Nationalist Bloc. There’s a growing trend among such nationalist parties to focus as much on such issues as housing, unemployment, and the emigration of young people as on the issue of sovereignty. 

“How Russia Recruits Soldiers From Cuba to Fight in Ukraine,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 16, 2024

 

A wave of Cubans has enlisted in the Russian army, lured by salaries of $2,000 that dwarf the average monthly wage of $20 they can earn at home. Ukrainian officials estimate that as few as 400 and as many as 3,000 Cubans have enlisted in the Russian army to fight Ukraine. They’re seeking to escape a crumbling economy that has led more than 500,000 Cubans, about 5 percent of its entire population, to leave the country in the past two years, according to U.S. government estimates. Raibel Palacio, who lived with his wife in a shack that flooded when it rained, was among a group of excited young Cuban men who boarded a flight for Russia last November. A few weeks later, he was killed by a drone as he tried to tie a tourniquet to stop the bleeding while serving on the front lines of Ukraine, his mother said. “Cubans are cannon fodder and they will kill them all,” she told Journal reporter José de Córdoba. 

“Sacking of Cuba’s Economy Minister Exposes the Country’s State of Collapse,” El País, Feb. 12, 2024

 

Alejandro Gil has been sacked as Cuba’s economy minister after a six-year tenure in office in which every recovery plan he announced crashed. Among them was the so-called Tarea ordenamiento of 2021, writes El País reporter Carla Gloria Colomé. That plan “promised Cubans a better standard of living by bringing the dual currency to an end and revising prices. Instead, the plan resulted in soaring inflation and a deepening crisis that led to the largest migratory exodus in the island’s history.” The dismissal by President Miguel Diaz-Canel of Gil along with the deputy prime minister “exposes a state of general collapse in the country,” she says. The collapse includes a food emergency, the dismantling of sugar production, a fiscal deficit 18.5 percent higher than that of the previous decade, and tensions within the government, analysts say. Gil became economy minister at the same time Diaz-Canel succeeded Raoul Castro as president. It marked the first time the leaders of Cuba’s 1959 revolution no longer held the most powerful jobs in government.  Cuba’s economy was in better shape when Gil first became economy minister. Raoul Castro’s presidency had offered some respite from Cuba’s economic problems, “with the introduction of an incipient private sector, the rise of self-employment, and a certain opening up of foreign investment,” according to Colomé. But Gil came on board at a time when those reforms had stalled, said Pavel Vidal, an economist who worked at the Central Bank of Cuba. Cuba’s emphasis on tourism was undermined by the Covid pandemic. When Donald Trump was president he ended the expansion of trade that accompanied his predecessor Barack Obama’s restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba. The country’s outlook seemed promising then but “it is not clear what might have happened if Donald Trump had not ditched Cuba’s economic policy,” Colomé writes. Some believe Cuba would be in better economic shape while others aren’t convinced, she adds. Although it did not prevent the current economic crisis Gil has been credited with opening up the private sector with the creation of “MSMEs” – small and medium sized enterprises that became legal in 2021 after decades of being illegal. 

 

“Big Burden of Migrant Influx Strains Denver,” New York Times, Feb. 12, 2024

 

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston was able to get more than 1,200 migrants off the streets and into housing in his first six months in office last summer. But after Congress rejected a deal to slow the flow of migrants into the U.S., the city’s support system is starting to buckle, says Times reporter Miriam Jordan. Denver prides itself on its compassion. But by last month, the city of 750,000 had received nearly 40,000 migrants, making it the city with the most migrants per capita of any in the nation. So far it has spent more than $42 million on the migrants. If its spending on them continues at its current rate of $3.5 million per week in 2024, the influx could cost $180 million -- 10 percent or more of its annual budget. So the city has begun cutting its budget for services unrelated to migrant care, such as for parks and motor vehicle services. In addition, “the city has begun discharging dozens of families from hotels that it rented to house them temporarily, creating fresh hardship for those being displaced,” writes Jordan. Johnston, a fluent Spanish speaker who taught immigrant high school students, said “we want to continue to be a city that does not have women and children out on the street in 20-degree weather. And we also want to provide all our constituents with the services they deserve and the services that they expect.” Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been busing more and more migrants to Denver and local residents have formed groups to pitch in to assist them, but the efforts are falling well short of migrant needs for shelter and employment. Johnston blames Republicans in Congress for killing a proposal negotiated by a GOP senator and backed by President Biden. It would have curbed the flow of migrants at the border and provided funding for cities like Denver. “If that measure had succeeded there would not be a crisis,” said Johnston. 

 

“Ecuador Follows El Salvador in Arresting Gangs and Retaking Prisons,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 11, 2024

 

Homicides in Ecuador fell 70 percent in the month after President Daniel Noboa sent in the military to arrest suspected gang members and wrest control of the country’s prisons from gang leaders. The popularity of the new president has soared as a result, climbing to 80 percent last month. “We’re on the right path; I hope they don’t let up,” said a 43-year-old truck driver in Guayaquil, a port city at the center of the violence. “The mafia advanced so much that they terrorized the entire country.”  Colombian traffickers have found it easier to send cocaine to Europe through Ecuador rather than directly. The resulting booming drug trade in Ecuador fueled a huge increase in killings in recent years as cartels battled for turf. Imprisoned gang leaders were directing street killings from prison, but the military seizure of the prisons has cut off that communication, leading to fewer homicides, officials say. That control takes away “the capacity of the criminal groups to react and operate,” said the Ecuadoran army’s former director of intelligence. “Today, soldiers patrol Guayaquil in armored vehicles, entering poor barrios that had been no-go zones,” wrote Journal reporter Ryan Dubé. “Some 6,600 people have been detained in the past month, according to officials,” he said. Ecuador is following the example of El Salvador, whose president Nayib Bukele ordered the imprisonment of thousands of gang members, causing murder rates to plummet. Noboa says his government will contract with the same company that built a new prison in El Salvador that holds 40,000 people. But analysts say the crackdown is leading to unwarranted beatings of young men who use drugs but aren’t in gangs. Also, Ecuador faces greater difficulty controlling violence than El Salvador, where gangs are local. Ecuador by contrast is going up against powerful Mexican, Colombian and Albanian traffickers. They’ve used profits to buy high-powered weapons and pay off government officials. Officials are bracing for retaliation by the gangs.  The militarized response  doesn’t address the social conditions that cause young men to join gangs. “I’m very skeptical this is going to solve the problem,” John Polga-Hecimovich, a Latin American expert at the U.S. Naval Academy, told the Journal. 

“Brazil Has a Dengue Emergency, Portending a Health Crisis for the Americas,” New York Times, Feb. 10, 2024

 

Brazil’s health ministry predicts more than 4.2 million cases of dengue fever in the country this year, more than the 4.1 million cases that occurred last year  in all 42 nations combined of the Pan American Health Organization. Record heat and above average rainfall linked to climate change and the climate phenomenon El Niño are increasing the number of mosquito breeding sites, experts say. “Dengue cases have already soared in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay in the last few months, during the Southern Hemisphere summer, and the virus will move up the continents with the seasons,” writes Times reporter Stephanie Nolen. “When we see waves in one country, we will generally see waves in other countries, that’s how interconnected we are,” said Yale University public health professor Dr. Albert Ko. Prevalent use of air conditioning and window screens limit the number of cases in the U.S. but it’s becoming more common in warmer, wetter parts of the country. Florida had the highest number of local cases last year at 168. Dengue is an excruciating, extremely debilitating fever that can last for months and is fatal in two to five percent of extreme cases. About five percent of all cases become extreme. Joint pain can be so intense it’s sometimes known as “breakbone fever.” Brazil is buying up doses of an anti-dengue vaccine called Qdenga. But the supply can cover less than 10 percent of the Brazilian population over two years. Doctors can do little to slow down the current outbreak. And widespread insecticide resistance limits what can be done to control the mosquito population. This year is “going to be very, very bad,” an expert said.

 

“Trump’s ‘Knock on the Door,’” The Atlantic, Feb. 8, 2024

 

Donald Trump’s plan for a mass deportation of immigrants is causing fear that his return to the White House would make America a police state. The plan devised for Trump by  his immigration adviser Stephen Miller would “requisition National Guard troops from sympathetic Republican-controlled states and then deploy them into Democratic-run states whose governors refuse to cooperate with their deportation drive,” writes Atlantic senior editor Ronald Brownstein. The operation would be “politically explosive” because it would “naturally focus on the largely minority areas of big Democratic-leaning cities where many undocumented immigrants have settled, such as Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, New York, and Phoenix.” It would “spark intense public protest and possibly even conflict with law enforcement agencies under local control.” Trump would use that to justify sending in even more federal forces. Miller has said Trump would try to remove as many as 10 million “foreign invaders.” They’d be rounded up in large-scale raids and detained near the border, likely in Texas, in huge internment camps. From there the administration would schedule nearly constant flights, probably using military aircraft, returning the migrants to their home countries. A former Biden administration customs official says the effort described could involve taking National Guard members from Texas out of their jobs and moving them to Philadelphia. "Literally as Philadelphians are leaving for work, or their kids are going to school, they are going to see mass-deportation centers with children and mothers who were just in the community working and thriving." Miller has likened the complexity of the operation to building the Panama Canal. Analysts say Trump would have to obtain deportation orders for each individual returned. Personnel would have to be reassigned from other law enforcement agencies. Local police and sheriffs would have to be deputized. Removing up to one million immigrants per year would require deputizing up to 150,000 enforcement officers. Staffing internment centers and flights would require another 50,000 people. Trump would be forced into converting local warehouses and abandoned malls into temporary relocation centers. The largest previous deportation effort, named for a slur against Mexican-Americans, occurred in the Eisenhower era and was called “Operation Wetback.” It involved huge sweeps through workplaces and Latino communities in cities such as Los Angeles that removed only about 250,000 people. Trump “would need an operation of much greater scale and expense.” He could invoke the Insurrection Act to exercise the needed legal authority. He could also use that to round up and intern homeless people in blue cities “or just to fight crime,” Brownstein says. Deana El-Mallawany of Project Democracy says “this is his retribution agenda. He is looking at ways to aggrandize and consolidate power within the presidency to do these extreme things, and going after marginalized groups first, like migrants and the homeless, is the way to expand that power, normalize it, and then wield it more broadly against everybody in our democracy.”  

“I Can’t Face How Much She Suffered’: Argentina Femicides at Record High as Milei Dilutes Protections,” The Guardian

 

Argentina reported 322 femicides in 2023, a term that refers to the misogynist killing of women, or, to quote feminist Diana Russell, “the killing of females by males because they are female.” That’s a record high, and a 33 percent increase over 2022, writes Guardian reporter Harriet Barber. A new report by Argentina’s National Ombudsman’s Office says 61 of the 322 victims had complained about gender violence, while 22 were allegedly raped before being murdered. “The deaths left almost 200 children without a mother, and some witnessed the attacks.” In three out of four cases, the victim had a relationship with the alleged perpetrator. Almost 60 percent of the victims were killed at home or at work.  Argentina recognized femicide as a specific offense in 2012, requiring a life sentence in such cases. They’ve nevertheless been increasing. The ombudsman said entrenched patriarchal culture, the failure to punish perpetrators, and continuing gender stereotypes contribute to the high number of femicides. Rates are high in Latin America. The highest femicide rates per population of 100,000 women are in Honduras (6), and Trinidad and Tobago (5.5). Argentina ranks 16^th out of 32, at one per 100,000 women. In terms of the highest absolute numbers, Brazil is first at 1,437, followed by Mexico at 976 and Honduras at 309. Argentina’s new right-wing president, Javier Milei, has closed down the ministry of women and gender. Current Argentine law requires all levels of government to train officials about violence against women but Milei aims to restrict training only to questions of “family violence.” Amnesty International Argentina says Milei wants to “move away from addressing gender-based violence as a structural problem.” [This story was published Jan. 30, 2024. It's here out of chronological order to call attention to it.]

“The Dark Side of El Salvador’s War on Gangs,” Agence France-Presse

 

The regime of President Nayeb Bukele has rounded up more than 75,000 suspected gangsters, a move credited with slashing homicide rates in El Salvador. It’s praised for “restoring security and dignity to citizens of what was once one of the world’s most dangerous countries,” writes Agence France-Presse reporter María Isabel Sánchez. But at the same time, innocent people and their families are paying a terrible price under the crackdown, says Sánchez. Sandra Hernandez said her husband, a day laborer, was taken by the police and never returned. She said her husband was falsely accused of gang membership. She was informed by authorities he had died of kidney failure. “But at the funeral home I was told that the body had bruises,” she told Agence France-Presse. Maricela Mendez said she was awakened by police in the middle of the night and taken to prison, and her children, aged 7 and 11, sent to stay with their grandmother. She said she was falsely accused of being a criminal because police had an arrest quota they had to meet. In prison, “we were punished, we were beaten, we were not given water” and were made to sleep on the floor. When her children see a patrol car, “they cry, they are afraid they will take me away again.” Irma Garcia told AFP her 17-year-old son was not a gang member but he was taken away 20 months ago and she has not been able to speak with him. She said she brings food and water to the prison but does not know if he receives it. “I don’t know if he’s okay, if he’s alive.” She said her family has been ostracized by the community and forced to move.  Of the 75,000 detained, “about 7,000 have since been freed for a lack of evidence, but activists say many innocents – including minors – remain behind bars,” Sánchez noted. [Note: this is a Jan. 31, 2024 story posted out of chronological order to call attention to it.]

“Venezuela Building Up Troops on Guyana Border, Satellite Images Show,” The Guardian, Feb. 9, 2024

 

The Venezuelan government has been sending tanks and missile-equipped patrol boats and otherwise expanding its military bases on its border with Guyana, satellite images show. It recently backed off it threats to annex the oil-rich Essequibo region of Guyana, but while presenting a public face of negotiating with that country, it has been preparing to use force, says Guardian reporter Luke Taylor.  Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “is pursuing a duplicitous policy,” said Christopher Hernandez-Roy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  The buildup “creates opportunities for miscalculation and loss of control over events on the ground,” the group said. Analysts suggest that the display of muscle may be an attempt to force Guyana into sharing revenue from the discovery of massive oil deposits in the Essequibo. The international court of justice in The Hague is weighing a solution to the dispute but Venezuela does not recognize its authority. Brazil has sent more troops to the region and the United States has said it will strengthen Guyana’s defenses with aircraft, helicopters, drones and radar. 

‘Deeply Alarming’: Sevenfold Increase in Sexual Attacks in Daríen Gap,” The Guardian, Feb. 5, 2024

 

Rapists and kidnappers are increasingly targeting the record number of migrants traveling through the jungle pathway known as the Daríen Gap to get from South America to Central America on their way to the United States. The non-governmental organization Doctors Without Borders said there were 214 cases of sexual violence in the Daríen Gap in December 2023. That’s seven times the monthly average between January and September of 2023. “It’s an enormous, unexpected increase,” said Carmenza Galvez of the doctors group. She said her team was “already overrun” with 30 t0 35 cases per month. It means doctors can’t identify and treat all survivors to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. “The most egregious instances of sexual violence include the rape of men and women in front of their families as a form of punishment for not paying their traffickers,” wrote Guardian reporter Luke Taylor. Instances of mass sexual violence, sometimes involving more than 100 victims at a time, are on the rise. The situation “is deeply alarming not just for the victims but for the mental health of our team,” Galvez said. On the Columbian side of the Darién Gap sexual abuse is less common because the Gulf Clan cartel has ordered for rapists to be killed in order to protect its profitable business of trafficking people through the treacherous region. But on the Panamanian side the government focuses on border control and not the protection of migrants, Bram Ebus of the International Crisis Group told the Guardian. The doctors group is urging regional governments to do more to prevent targeting of migrants with violence.

 “State-of-the-art Telescope in Chile to Offer Best View Yet of Universe,” The Guardian, Feb. 5, 2024

Given the altitude of the Andes and the absence of light pollution in its deserts Chile is an ideal spot to peer into the heavens.  With the completion a year from now of a state-of-the-art telescope connected to the world’s largest camera, the 1.9-billion-dollar Vera C. Rubin Observatory will transform Chile into “the leading destination of astronomical observation, generating about 70 percent of data seen from Earth by 2025,” writes Guardian reporter Charis McGowan.  The aim is to capture an unprecedented amount of astronomical data as part of a project called the “Legacy Survey of Space and Time.” Instead of looking at small areas of space, “this is like a lighthouse,” said Jacques Sebag, a leader of the project. “It [illuminates] different parts of the sky. It is the fastest-moving telescope ever built.” Every night it will collect events ranging from the movement of asteroids to the explosion of supernovas. Steve Heathcote, who heads a neighboring observatory, said “it could challenge Einstein’s theory of relativity. It could challenge fundamental things in physics.” Aprajita Verma of Oxford University says the project will be “the greatest movie of the sky that mankind has ever made.”

“Nayib Bukele Re-elected as El Salvador President in Landslide Win,” The Guardian, Feb. 5, 2024

 

Although its constitution forbids a second term, El Salvador has re-elected Nayib Bukele as president out of gratitude for a crackdown on gangs that has returned a sense of safety to the country. Provisional results Feb. 5 showed Bukele winning 83 percent of the vote, with 70 percent of the ballots counted. “His New Ideas party is expected to win almost all of the 60 seats in the legislative body, tightening its grip on the country,” said the Reuters dispatch carried in The Guardian. That means Bukele will be able to overhaul the constitution, “which his opponents fear will result in scrapping of term limits” and allow him to rule as president for life, as does Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. A 55-year-old shopkeeper told Reuters “we are celebrating, thanking him, thanking God, for getting us out of this gang problem. We don’t want to go back to that horrible past” in which she said she was paying $300 to gangs in extortion every two weeks. The economy is his biggest challenge. “Extreme poverty has doubled and private investment has tumbled under Bukele. There has not been much momentum on his highly publicized plans for Bitcoin City, a tax-free crypto haven powered by geothermal energy from a volcano.” His championing of bitcoin as legal tender has drawn fire from the International Monetary Fund.  Some analysts say his mass imprisonment of one percent of the population as part of his gang crackdown is not sustainable. Critics say those imprisoned include innocent people detained without due process. They say many Salvadorans verge on starvation and the imprisonment of breadwinners makes it harder for families to pay for food (see “Nearly One Million Salvadorans Verge on Starvation” in January story summaries).

“A Border Security Bill Worth Passing,” Wall Street Journal Editorial, Feb. 5, 2024

 

By any honest reckoning, says the Wall Street Journal editorial page, new language agreed to by a group of Senate Democrats and Republicans “is the most restrictive migrant legislation in decades.” Previous bills traded tougher border restrictions for legalizing more immigration. But there is nothing in this bill “for nearly all of the Dreamers who were brought here illegally as children, no general pathway to citizenship or green cards for most illegal immigrants already in the U.S.” Democrats “have made concessions that are infuriating the open-borders left.” If Republicans reject them, “they will hand Democrats an argument that the GOP wants border chaos that they can exploit as a campaign issue. The chaos will continue for at least another year.” If Trump wins in November Republicans may think they can get a better law but don’t count on it. “Democrats will again demand much more in return. If Republicans pass up this rare chance at border reform, they may not get a better one.” The bill says migrants can’t be released into the U.S. pending an asylum hearing if they only have a “credible fear” of persecution in their home country, as is the case now. There would have to be a “reasonable possibility” of persecution. Migrants would have to show that they couldn’t have moved elsewhere in their own country to escape persecution. “Stay or deport” decisions on asylum requests would have to be issued in 90 to 180 days. Money would be added for 50,000 detention beds while migrants await review. If more migrants arrive than can be detained, they’d have to wear ankle bracelets or be subject to reporting curfews. “No more catch and release without consequences.”

“We’re Broken’: Wildfires on Chile’s Coast Kill 64 and Leave Hundreds Missing,” New York Times, Feb. 4, 2024

 

Wildfires that have swept through the Pacific coast of Chile have claimed the lives of at least 64 people with the total expected to rise sharply higher. Hundreds of people are missing. “Thousands of homes were destroyed in the fires, which swept through the coastal hills toward the resort of Viña del Mar starting Friday, propelled by the high winds,” said reporters Annie Correal and John Bartlett. “The fires came as many were vacationing in Viña del Mar and roared through hillside settlements where many older residents were not able to escape.” A resident in the settlement of El Olivar told the Times that “it was more like a nuclear bomb than a fire. There’s nothing left.” Officials said temperatures are higher than normal this time of the year. The region is experiencing drought and turbulent weather from the El Niño climate phenomenon. Fires also have been burning in Columbia (see story below), Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina. Poorly executed evacuation plans appear to have played a part in the deaths in Chile. A retired dockworker there said he’d lost all his possessions and part of his pension, which he had withdrawn and kept in cash.  “I haven’t cried, I haven’t come to terms with it. I’m just focused on cleaning my house and my neighbor’s. We’re broken.”