Monthly Archives: July 2012

Mexico City: A union dismantled, with gruesome results President Calderon’s seizure of a state-owned electric company has led to a surge of on-the-job deaths and injuries.

Mexico City: A union dismantled, with gruesome results President Calderon’s seizure of a state-owned electric company has led to a surge of on-the-job deaths and injuries.
  • July 20, 2012
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Daniel Vazquez will never forget his last night at Luz y Fuerza del Centro, the state-owned electricity company where he had worked for 22 years. “You and your people are screwed,” the police officer told him as he thrust an AK-47 assault rifle into his chest. “You’re not coming in.” Vazquez, 59, was attempting to report for work as head of a night shift of 80 workers at one of the customer call centers run by Luz y Fuerza del Centro (known as LyFC), which ran the electricity grid for Mexico City and…Read more …

Climate Pain: Latin America’s Climate Conundrum From the Rio Grande to Patagonia, climate change has begun to grip Latin America. Some of the damage, such as melting glaciers and rising sea level, can already be seen — but scientists warn there’s worse to come. The toll could be devastating for countries struggling to lift their populations out of poverty. In this series, GlobalPost’s Simeon Tegel reports from the climate frontlines.

Climate Pain: Latin America’s Climate Conundrum From the Rio Grande to Patagonia, climate change has begun to grip Latin America. Some of the damage, such as melting glaciers and rising sea level, can already be seen — but scientists warn there’s worse to come. The toll could be devastating for countries struggling to lift their populations out of poverty. In this series, GlobalPost’s Simeon Tegel reports from the climate frontlines.
  • July 17, 2012
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This is the first dispatch of Climate Pains, an in-depth series on apparent impacts of Latin America's changing climate. From Tierra del Fuego to Tijuana, Latin America is highly vulnerable to climate change, which is expected to trigger a series of natural disasters that could even reverse local victories in the fight against poverty. Droughts will grip regions from the southern cone to northern Mexico. Extreme storms are increasingly battering Central America. Rising seas will swallow up vast coastal areas. And many Andean glaciers will disappear forever. Meanwhile, the greatest threat to the…Read more …

Assange and Ecuador: mutually toxic Analysis: Why WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Ecuador are so bad for each other.

Assange and Ecuador: mutually toxic Analysis: Why WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Ecuador are so bad for each other.
  • July 14, 2012
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Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, appears to be leaning toward granting asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Due to be extradited from the UK to Sweden for questioning over alleged sexual offenses, last month Assange breached his bail conditions to seek refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy. Since then he has refused to leave and has requested asylum and even Ecuadorean citizenship from Correa’s left-wing administration, which, like Assange, has an antagonistic relationship with Washington. This week, Ecuadorean newspaper Hoy quoted Correa as saying: “If Assange’s life is at risk, these things would be a…Read more …

Chihuahua: Where the rain doesn’t fall any more A record drought in northern Mexico has prompted warnings that the region’s climate may have changed for good

Chihuahua: Where the rain doesn’t fall any more A record drought in northern Mexico has prompted warnings that the region’s climate may have changed for good
  • July 11, 2012
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Gorged to bursting point, the vulture watches impassively as the twister whips a column of dust past the sun-parched remains of cattle dotting the barren field. If there were such a thing as a textbook image of drought, then this could well be it. Wracked by a savage drug conflict that has claimed thousands of lives, the last thing northern Mexico needed was a "natural" disaster to compound its woes. But now the region's beef herds are being ravaged by the worst drought on record – one which scientists are linking to climate…Read more …