Latin America Daily Briefing

Five Mexican journalists were shot and wounded on Tuesday, in the single worst day of violence against the country’s press in more than 10 years, reports the Associated Press.

This week’s shootings come just days after three journalists were abducted and held for days. They were later released, and there was no information on the motive for their abduction.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous places on earth for journalists, including war zones. In the past five years alone, the Committee to Protect Journalists documented the killings of at least 54 journalists in Mexico.

(See also El País.)

More Mexico

• “Mexico has labeled hundreds of millions of dollars in spending on fossil fuel infrastructure at state energy company Pemex and state electricity utility CFE as expenditure to address climate change and promote energy transition over the past decade,” according to a Reuters analysis of documents.

Haiti

• Many Haitians do want international security support, but “to succeed and be credible among the Haitian population, the MSS mission must adopt specific and clear procedures to prevent human rights violations, particularly exploitation and sexual abuse, and ensure accountability for transgressions,” argues Gedeon Jean in Americas Quarterly.

Regional

• Former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger died yesterday, at age 100. His controversial diplomatic legacy was vast. “He was criticized for his policies in South East Asia and in Latin America, including his responsibility in bombing Vietnam and his support for Augusto Pinochet’s coup in Chile,” notes El País.
  
  
• “While many hailed Kissinger for his brilliance and broad experience, others branded him a war criminal for his support for anti-communist dictatorships, especially in Latin America. In his latter years, his travels were circumscribed by efforts by other nations to arrest or question him about past U.S. foreign policy,” notes Reuters.
  
  
• His death “brings new global attention to the long paper trail of secret documents recording his policy deliberations, conversations, and directives on many initiatives for which he became famous,” according to the National Security Archive, which compiled a select dossier of declassified records relating to Kissinger’s legacy. “This historical record also documents the darker side of Kissinger’s controversial tenure in power: his role in the overthrow of democracy and the rise of dictatorship in Chile; disdain for human rights and support for dirty, and even genocidal, wars abroad…”

Critter Corner

• Evolutionary biologists “detailed the courtship rituals of a new species of “sea firefly” — a tiny crustacean no larger than a grain of sand that stages a spectacular underwater display by sneezing up glowing mucus” off the coast of Panama, reports the New York Times.

Jordana Timerman / Latin America Daily Briefing
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