British ambassador to Mexico sacked after pointing gun at embassy employee

31 May 2024 at 14:35

Clip on social media showed Jon Benjamin aiming assault rifle at colleague in region rife with drug gangs

The British ambassador to Mexico was quietly removed from his post earlier this year after he pointed an assault rifle at a local embassy employee, it emerged when footage of the incident was posted on social media.

The Financial Times reported that Jon Benjamin was on an official trip to Durango and Sinaloa, two states with strong organised crime groups, when he looked down the gun’s sights at a colleague, who gestures uncomfortably in the five-second clip.

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She is poised to become Mexico’s first female president. Can she escape Amlo’s shadow?

The Guardian

Thomas Graham in Mexico City

31 May 2024 at 06:30

Claudia Sheinbaum has capitalized on the president’s popularity throughout her campaign, but will the climate scientist be able to pursue her own agenda once elected?

Amlo promised to transform Mexico, but he leaves it much the same

A month ago in Chiapas, a Mexican state caught in a bloody battle between criminal groups, a car carrying the frontrunner to be the country’s next president was stopped by a group of masked men.

The men filmed Claudia Sheinbaum through the window as they begged her to do something about the violence in the region. It was a tense, off-script moment in a carefully planned campaign: the men claimed to be locals, but could have been anyone. Yet Sheinbaum kept her cool.

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‘It’s become a battleground’: Mexico’s local candidates face deadly violence

The Guardian

Thomas Graham in Celaya

29 May 2024 at 06:30

A candidate for mayor in Guanajuato state has the army on his roof after the candidate he replaced was shot dead – one of 30 killed so far in this campaign

Breakfast with Juan Miguel Ramírez, candidate for mayor in Celaya, Mexico, is interrupted by the thud of army boots coming down the stairs.

Soldiers have been camped on the roof of the family home since Ramírez replaced his predecessor, Gisela Gaytán, who was shot dead on the first day of her electoral campaign in one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities.

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‘Without them, the city would be lost’: the art of preserving Mexico City’s ancient floating gardens

The Guardian

Photographs by Mat Hay in Mexico City

28 May 2024 at 02:00

The Mexican capital’s Unesco-listed wetlands are being brought back to life by the Indigenous chinamperos, who are striving to overcome the effects of urbanisation and the climate crisis

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Stage collapses at Mexico campaign rally leaving nine dead

The Guardian

Guardian staff and agencies

23 May 2024 at 05:33

Wind causes part of stage to fall at event for presidential candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez in San Pedro Garza García

Nine people were killed and at least 50 others injured when a stage structure collapsed at a campaign event for the Mexican presidential candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez, local officials have said.

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said a gust of wind caused the accident in the city of San Pedro Garza García in the northern state of Nuevo León.

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Monkeys ‘falling out of trees like apples’ in Mexico amid brutal heatwave

The Guardian

Associated Press in Mexico City

21 May 2024 at 14:18

High temperatures in Mexico have been linked to dozens and perhaps hundreds of deaths of howler monkeys

It’s so hot in Mexico that howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees.

At least 83 of the midsize primates, who are known for their roaring vocal calls, were found dead in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco. Others were rescued by residents, including five that were rushed to a local veterinarian who battled to save them.

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Latin America labels ultra-processed foods. Will the US follow?

The Guardian

Cecilia Nowell

21 May 2024 at 08:00

In 2010, Mexico led the way, followed by Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina and Colombia

What are those weird ingredients in our favorite packaged foods?

Candy lines every inch of the mercado de dulces in Mexico City’s historic center. Tantalizing strawberry-flavored chocolates and Tajín-covered mango gummies pack the narrow aisles of the meandering marketplace. But many of the colorful packages are somewhat dampened by black stop signs printed on their fronts. Alongside dreamy descriptions of creamy and chocolatey confections, the stop signs warn “Excess calories” or “Excess sugars”. For some customers, the warnings are enough for them to pause and reconsider their purchases.

Latin America is leading the world in a movement to print nutritional warning labels on the fronts of food packages. Currently, the labels warn when a food product exceeds a consumer’s daily recommended value of any “nutrient of concern” – namely, sugar, salt or saturated fat (some countries have added trans fats, artificial sweeteners and caffeine). But research led by scientists across the continent is increasingly pointing towards another factor consumers may want to consider: how processed a food is.

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The US food industry has long buried the truth about their products. Is that coming to an end?

The Guardian

Cecilia Nowell

20 May 2024 at 08:00

The FDA is developing front-of-package labels that corporations may have to start printing as early as 2027

Ultra-processed foods are ultra bad for you. Here’s what to know

Step into a grocery store in France and you’re liable to see a green, yellow or red score on the front of most packaged foods: a green “A” for the healthiest, a red “E” for the least nutritious. Zip across the globe to Chile, and that traffic light-like label becomes a stop sign, warning consumers when a food contains a high amount of sugar, salt, saturated fats or calories.

Today, more than a dozen countries require that companies print nutritional labels on the front of food packages – a move that’s come as the rate of diet-related diseases, like hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and obesity, increases worldwide.

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Emilia Perez review – Jacques Audiard’s gangster trans musical barrels along in style

The Guardian

Peter Bradshaw

18 May 2024 at 14:40

Cannes film festival
A thoroughly implausible yarn about a Mexican cartel leader who hires a lawyer to arrange his transition is carried along by its cheesy Broadway energy

Anglo-progressives and US liberals might worry about whether or not certain stories are “theirs to tell”. But that’s not a scruple that worries French auteur Jacques Audiard who, with amazing boldness and sweep, launches into this slightly bizarre yet watchable musical melodrama of crime and gender, set in Mexico. It plays like a thriller by Amat Escalante with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and a touch of Almodovar.

Argentinian trans actor Karla Sofia Gascon plays Juan “Manitas” Del Monte, a terrifyingly powerful and ruthless cartel leader in Mexico, married to Jessi (Selena Gomez), with two young children. Manitas is intrigued by a high-profile murder trial in which an obviously guilty defendant gets off due to his smart and industrious lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldana); she is nearing 40 and secretly wretched from devoting her life to protecting unrepentant slimeballs, who go on to get ever richer while she labours for pitiful fees. Manitas kidnaps Rita and makes her an offer she can’t refuse: a one-off job for an unimaginably vast amount of money on which she can retire.

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Fans queue round the block as tiny Mexican taco stand wins Michelin star

The Guardian

Thomas Graham in Mexico City

18 May 2024 at 03:00

There was more business than usual and some bemused regulars after El Califa de León was rewarded for its ‘exceptional’ offering

El Califa de León, an unassuming taco joint in Mexico City, measures just 3 metres by 3 metres and has space for only about six people to stand at a squeeze. Locals usually wait for 5 minutes between ordering and picking up their food.

All that changed on Wednesday, however, when it became the first Mexican taco stand ever to win a Michelin star, putting it in the exalted company of fine dining restaurants around the world, and drawing crowds like it has never seen.

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Mayoral candidate and five others killed in shooting at campaign rally in Mexico

The Guardian

Associated Press in Mexico City

17 May 2024 at 14:18

Young girl was among six people killed in gunfire in an area of Chiapas where shootings have become common and widespread

A mayoral candidate and five other people have been killed when gunmen opened fire at a campaign rally in the violence-racked southern Mexico state of Chiapas.

State prosecutors said a young girl was among the six people killed in the gunfire late on Thursday, along with the mayoral candidate Lucero López Maza. Two others were injured, they said.

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