Parts of north-east China are in the grip of a historic heatwave, with hundreds of weather stations reporting record highs for the month of June. On 22 June the capital Beijing observed a temperature of 41.1C (106F), a record high for the month, and the first time a temperature higher than 40C had been observed since 2014. On the same date, the city of Tianjin reported 41.4C, a new all-time record for any month. Additionally, Dagang had its hottest day on record, with a temperature of 41.8C. The national weather…
Tag: Mexico
The China-Mexico fentanyl pipeline: increasingly sophisticated and deadly
For a few days in April, news sites across Latin America were running Instagram photos of a glamorous blond woman enjoying trips around the world. There were pictures of Ana Gabriela Rubio Zea, 32, posing in a blue dress and Yves Saint Laurent handbag outside San Miguel de Allende, ice skating in a miniskirt in Central Park and laughing in the Forbidden City. The social media images were then followed by more recent photos: Rubio, in a sweatshirt and jeans, flanked by officers from the national civil police of Guatemala,…
Blocked, censored, jailed or laid off: why it’s never been harder to be a journalist
Taisia Bekbulatova, Russia In December 2021, I was declared a “foreign agent” by Russia’s justice ministry. I now have to declare this status on every post, even on Instagram selfies. I refuse to comply. As a result, I could face criminal charges in Russia at any moment. After the Ukraine war began, I had to evacuate the editorial team of my news website, Holod, from Russia because even writing the word “war” became illegal, and sharing unapproved information risked up to 15 years in prison. It’s difficult for me to…
Why ‘Made in China’ Is Becoming ‘Made in Mexico’
Peter S. Goodman contributed reporting. The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina…
Why Chinese Companies Are Investing Billions in Mexico
Bill Chan had never set foot anywhere in Mexico, let alone the lonely stretch of desert in the north of the country where he abruptly decided to build a $300 million factory. But that seemed a trifling detail amid the pressure to adapt to a swiftly changing global economy. It was January 2022, and Mr. Chan’s company, Man Wah Furniture Manufacturing, was confronting grave challenges in moving sofas from its factories in China to customers in the United States. Shipping prices were skyrocketing. Washington and Beijing were locked in a…
How a Texas Border City Is Shaping the Future of Global Trade
The teeming warehouses carved into the desert surrounding Laredo, Texas, attest to an explosion of trade between the United States and Mexico. On a recent morning, 55-gallon drums full of chemicals concocted in Ohio awaited trucks that would haul them across the Rio Grande, for use as raw materials at a paint factory in Mexico’s industrial city of Monterrey. Destined northbound, brake pads manufactured in Mexico were headed to trucking firms as far away as South Dakota. The more trade expands, the greater the opportunities for Laredo, a sprawling city…
‘OK, Mexico, Save Me’: After China, This Is Where Globalization May Lead
As American companies recalibrate the risks of relying on Chinese factories to make their goods, some are shifting business to a country far closer to home: Mexico. The unfolding trend known as “near-shoring” has drawn the attention of no less than Walmart, the global retail empire with headquarters in Arkansas. Early last year, when Walmart needed $1 million of company uniforms — more than 50,000 in one order — it bought them not from its usual suppliers in China but from Preslow, a family-run apparel business in Mexico. It was…
Dark week for journalism as four reporters killed around the world
Ten days before she was assassinated outside a Mexican convenience store, Yesenia Mollinedo noticed two mysterious stalkers following her on a motorbike. “We know where you live, bitch,” one of them warned the journalist, the director of an online news outlet called El Veraz (The Truthful One) whose motto is “Journalism with Humanity”. For more than a year, Mollinedo, 45, had been trying to shrug off what she hoped were empty threats designed to silence the stories she published about crime in the coastal town of Cosoleacaque. She repeatedly changed…
Hospitals under fire and hard-won abortion rights: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
Rama, a 16-year-old Syrian refugee, holds a smiley face as she sits in the office of an organisation that cares for girls who have been forced into early marriage in Saadnayel, Lebanon. Rama was married at 14, divorced a year later and is a mother to an 18-month-old baby. Photograph: Marwan Naamani/DPA The Guardian
‘A necessary war’: reporting on the Ukraine ‘disagreement’ outside the west
Many an insult has been hurled at Vladimir Putin since he invaded Ukraine a fortnight ago, causing chaos, heartbreak and death. A bloodstained aggressor. A 21st-century Stalin. A total fucking dickhead. Beelzebub. “Look at the face of Putin. You will see the devil,” one US commentator opined on Wednesday as a maternity hospital was bombed in the city of Mariupol. But for the Venezuelan pundit Alberto Aranguibel, Putin’s 24 February invasion was “la guerra necesaria” – the necessary war. The Chinese academic Wang Shuo saw it as “a US-created crisis”.…