Group items tagged

Mexico City is banning stores from packaging goods in plastic non-biodegradable bags. They passed the law in March and signed it in August giving the remainder of retailers who haven't already responded to this new act a year to abide by it. Mexico city is striving for an ambitious recycling program in their fairly new act towards going green. Mexico city has joined other cities around the world by restricting what is said to be one of the most omnipresent types of ocean litter killing marine life. There is some talk by officials that the city may even elect a "bag fee" stating that people could still get the old plastic bag only is they pay for them. Mexico City is trying to make a huge effort to abide by this law of banning bags especially in restaurants, stores and dry cleaners.

Magnum photographer, Christopher Anderson's new book Capitolio explores a poignant visual insight into the degeneration of Caracas, which was once Latin America's most economically advanced cities and is now plagued with chaos and despair. Murders in Caracas have grown so dramatically that they have become accepted as ordinary, and thus looking at the homicide statistics has become mundane. His images of blood and trash serve to highlight their omnipresence in the daily lives of Venezuelans. He opens with action scenes, and then moves to rural areas where the seeds of the infrastructure where set, before submerging into the hysteria of President Chavez. The book's name derives from a metaphor of an old city-center government building that exports revolution while the city itself like the building deteriorates. Anderson traveled into the countries interior to depict the polluted Lake Maracaibo in order to exemplify the interdependence between the United States, the main consumer of Venezuela's oil, and President Chavez. Anderson photographs a sugar harvester in Barinas, the town where Chavez was born into poverty and now transformed into a laboratory for revolutionary projects. When asked about the future of Venezuela, Mr. Anderson said his book is not a source for answers, but an insight for strangers.

In 2007, Mexico City proposed legalizing prostitution. Many believe if prostitution were legal, it would cause even more women and children to be forced to be sex slaves and prostitutes. Prostitution is already a dangerous and too common practice in Mexico City. As discussed in the article, legalizing it would be no means remedy the situation, it would most likely worsen it.

Mexico City bus system promotes gender inequality,

Mexico has appointed a new attorney general, Felipe Calderon, with hope to protect the drug cartels. Unfortunately, Calderon's war on cartels has caused the death toll to reach 13,500. The population is very unhappy with the armed forces, who want more action against those who protect that cartels.

Mexico city is trying to toughen the drug business by making more arrest. The drug business has brought more problems to Mexico city itself and the surrounding areas where by innocent victims were killed. This is a bad picture of Mexico on the global map.

U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon offered humanitarian aid Tuesday to hundreds of people affected by torrential rains that flooded homes and killed at least two people in a Mexico City suburb. Ban, w | Comcast.net.

This article is from 2008, one year after Mexico City legalized abortions. It talks about the continuing difficulties for poor women to receive safe abortions, even though they had been legalized. Women complained about long lines at understaffed public clinics, hostile treatment from hospital workers who opposed abortion, and unfair bureaucratic hurdles which made it difficult or impossible for them to get the procedure done. At the time this article was written, the abortion law was being challenged in the Supreme Court by the conservative government.

The article discusses the rise in political power in people from Mexico City to Quito, Ecuador. They have begun using their political power to protest, in order to get what is wanted of the people. It is proving to be a very effective polital tool by the people of Latin America.

This article discusses the fact that Colombia has been considering offering equal rights to gay couples for a long time. In 2007 the bill passed "by 62-43 after a heated debate in the lower house". Gay couples receive the same rights to "social security benefits as heterosexual couples". Although a few regions have already passed similar bills in Latin America such as Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Rio Grande do Sul (a province of Brazil), rights like these have not been passed as a whole nation.

The author of this blog uses such examples as international fast-food franchises and the massive memorial to Michael Jackson in Mexico City to declare that Latin American culture is becoming one with American culture. In the author's view, Mexico is losing its "foreignness" to Americans.

This website talks about the different people living in Buenas Aires in terms of their sexual orientation (and their freedom to be open about it). It gives information about the history of building of what they call a "gay-friendly" enviornment in the city, and the movements that have been in place the past couple of years. There are also links to different websites for youth, women, and the industry of entertainment.

Here is a news video about new sex education books being distributed to schools in Mexico City. Students were glad to get the books that had real answers to their questions about sex and sexuality, as well as information about women's rights, domestic violence, and respect for different sexualities. Church groups and a parents association are strongly against the new book, and one member claimed that it "promotes death."

This website is an evangelical Christian fellowship that focuses in on outreach in Mexico. It tells of the opportunities available now that Mexico is no longer striving to be secular, as they were in earlier years before the revolution (because of how much control the Catholic Church had on the government). It is written for people who are looking to do missions in Mexico, but I think it is a good resource for looking at the evangelical outlook on how they see their mission in Mexico, and to compare it with the results that the Mexican people are getting out of it.

This site addresses how drug and alcohol abuse in Latin America is widespread among the urban poor, and how the two contribute to daily violence. In poor neighborhoods in the Colombian cities of Medellín and Bogotá, approximately half of the population uses drugs--mainly marijuana, followed by cocaine and amphetamines. It is believed that heavy drinking in Guatemala is associated with Mayans, indigenous people trapped in poverty by discrimination and armed conflict.

In Venezuela's capital, Caracas, there has been a dramatic increase in violent crime over the past decade. There have been examples of crimes on the street where a teenager was shot dead in his wheelchair and men being hung to death by the attackers for his motorbike. Many people of Caracas have resorted to self defense classes due to the poor security and increasing crime rate in the city. These forms of self defense range from Indian wrestling, kick-boxing, karate, and martial arts. Although the rate of self defense is increasing, there doesn't seem to be any noticeable improvement in the security as of now.

Mexico City is facing a problem; there are not enough priests to handle the 2.5 million Catholics. The strict restrictions on Catholic priests are making it difficult to attract a younger generation of priests. Catholicism is also losing it's monopoly on Latin America, as between ten to thirty percent of the population identify as evangelical. The article argues that the Catholic Church must acknowledge these issues in order to have a chance of lasting in Latin America.

Based in and around Guatemala City, La Fraternindad Christiana de Guatemala recently constructed a new church with a 7,000 person amphitheater, two stages, and 1,000 car parking lot. Over half of Guatemala's population define themselves as evangelical Christians, and La Fraternindad Christiana is one of the largest Evangelical organizations in Latin America.

Thousands of disappearances have occurred in Guatemala during the conflict. This article focuses on a woman who lost four family members in only a week, and has no idea where they are. This story is common among the Guatemalan peoples. An archive of documents has been found in an abandoned police building in Guatemala City. There are millions of documents, and once they are sorted through, might provide some sort of answers. Many people have not heard the whereabouts of their family members in over thirty years.