On the streets of central Mexico City – 5 months since the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa teaching students.
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INTERVIEW WITH URUGUAYAN PRESIDENT JOSE ¨PEPE¨ MUJICA (TRANSLATION)
¨President Pepe¨. Said like that, it sounds like an election slogan. But as José Mujica is about to end – on March 1 – his term as president he is more ¨Pepe¨than ever. ¨I´ve been in the profession for half a century and I´ve had the opportunity to meet and/or mix with a broad range […]
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THE BITE THAT FEEDS THE HAND: POLICE BRIBES IN MEXICO CITY
The wide avenues and boulevards of Mexico City are deep oceanic trenches. An enormous, sleek marlin swims down Paseo de la Reforma effortlessly passing all the other, inferior fish using its seemingly effortless speed to cut through the water. Avenida Insurgentes is Angel Falls, gushing in a precipitous drop from north to south. The […]
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HAVANA NIGHTS AND MORNINGS
Dieciocho-trienta, dieciocho-trienta……. The numbers drifted across my consciousness, muddling with rapid eye movement sleep. Dieciocho-trienta, dieciocho-trienta. There it was again. Was I dreaming? My eyes opened. A baby-faced cop -still adolescent- hovered above, speaking into his radio. The voice was real. Dieciocho-treinta, dieciocho-treinta (18-30, 18-30), ciudadano extranjero dormido en parque publico (foreign citizen asleep in public park). Saturday […]
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WORLDWIDE DISREPUTE AND THE COUNTER OFFENSIVE FROM LOS PINOS (TRANSLATION)
This article is translated from the Spanish original written by J. Jesus Esquivel, Marco Appel and Yetlaneci Alcaraz. It appeared in the weekly investigative journalism magazine Proceso in October 2014. The first part of the article can be found online here. This week president Peña Nieto stated that Mexico needs to move on from the […]
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LA LUCHA SIGUE, SIGUE …. (THE STRUGGLE GOES ON…AND ON)
Here in Mexico City there was another mega-march yesterday in solidarity with the families of the 43 disappeared Mexican students. The march marked 4 months since their disappearance on September 26 2014 in the city of Iguala in the state of Guerrero. The families of the missing along with many thousands, if not millions, of […]
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HOW TO PROBABLY NOT BUY A MOBILE TELEPHONE IN MEXICO CITY
It was a Saturday and the day dawned clear, which was good because I had some errands to run. One of them was to buy a new mobile telephone. After completing a few of the errands and without a particular intention to be there, in the early afternoon I found myself on a part of […]
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HOME TO ROOST: BACK ON BOARD THE CHICKEN BUSES OF CENTRAL AMERICA
I spent late December and early January in Guatemala and Belize so of course that meant there was a fair bit of time spent on the legendary chicken buses. As always, it was one of the highlights of the trip and the buses are, in my opinion, one of the best things about travel in central […]
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TRES MÚSICOS GUATEMALTECOS
Three Guatemalan musicians and their instruments in the streets of Antigua, Guatemala just after dusk on December 23 2014.
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CORNERS OF THE CITY # 3: BUG ZAPPER CORNER
A faint click…, click…., tick…. comes from somewhere in the distance, mixing with other sounds of the street; clangs, whistles, horns, calls…pasele, cuántos te damos? Advancing on calle lopez in the centro histórico the sound grows louder. I reach the corner with victoria, a block back from metro San Juan de Letran on Eje Central. I pause at a point where so often I stride […]
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LATIN AMERICA FOCUS 