Read this article about the city that Lviv is becoming. It also has some other info, which I will write in a short thread: economist.com/europe/2022/02…
Many countries moved their embassies to Lviv earlier this month as war loomed. But they don’t think it’s safe there anymore. Four of the most important embassies to Ukraine told me they’ve relocated (again) to Poland or Moldova.
Sep 26, 2020 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Hi Patricia. I’m not the author of the article you quote in your thread, but a recent academic paper made a big impression on me. It looks at the responses of the Argentine, Brazilian, Colombian and Mexican governments to the pandemic and the economic crisis it has created
It estimates that before the governments’ social-spending response is taken into account, in both Brazil and Mexico around 10m people were expected to fall below the World Bank’s $5.50-a-day poverty in 2020 (see the “new poor in millions” column)
Jul 2, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Hugo López-Gatell confirms to the Washington Post what those looking at the death certificates in Mexico City already knew: the Covid-19 death toll in Mexico’s capital is several times greater than what official figures suggest washingtonpost.com/world/the_amer…
New York had 25,000 more deaths than usual during the height of the pandemic. Mexico City (where death certificates are digitised and trackable online) had 17,000 so-called “Excess Deaths” by June 7th.
The pandemic has raged on since then; the toll may be close to 25,000 by now
Jun 5, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Mexicans are in the streets decrying police brutality. But not in the name of George Floyd: they’re marching for Giovanni López, who died after police stopped him on the evening of May 4th. Today, a month later, protesters in Guadalajara marched. And it got ugly
The cases of George Floyd and Giovanni López are not the same:
— No video of López’s death (only his arrest, which does not look deadly)
— The reason for López’s arrest remains unclear
— Mexican police reports accuse López of aggression
— The police involved are still working
Mar 29, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
As the rest of Latin America shuts its borders, the US-Mexico border “closure” is nothing of the sort. My dispatch from Tijuana in this week’s @TheEconomisteconomist.com/the-americas/2…
More thoughts:
A border closure has its logic. Tijuana and San Diego are neighbours—one bi-national city. Today, San Diego has 488 confirmed COVID cases. Tijuana has 10. It’s hard to tell 40m+ Californians not to shop or visit family if Mexicans can cross the border to do it
Mar 12, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This week’s edition of @TheEconomist is a de-facto special issue on the Coronavirus. Here’s our cover story on the politics of pandemics: economist.com/leaders/2020/0…
And our leader on how the current financial turmoil is different from what happened during the Global Financial Crisis: economist.com/leaders/2020/0…
Mar 9, 2020 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
A few thoughts on femicide and feminism in Mexico. 1/
Is the problem of women getting murdered getting worse? Yes, but don’t trust the data too much. Government figures show a more-than-doubling since 2015. Many killings that fit the state’s definition of femicide are not classified as such. 2/
Oct 24, 2019 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Theories galore on why so many LATAM countries are erupting simultaneously. This piece notes the places rocking now are the ones who boomed biggest in the 00s, where a new middle class demands more from the government, and those left out are seething apnews.com/957b27f2ca9441…
This Guardian piece dismisses the notion of a “Latin American spring”: governments are more likely to back down than topple, and many protest movements are not organised enough to take power theguardian.com/world/2019/oct…
Aug 15, 2019 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Some things I learned while in Guatemala:
Guatemalan women are the shortest women in the world. It’s because widespread malnutrition—worse than all but a few countries in Africa, and getting worse—causes stunting
Jul 13, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Boris Johnson is of course similar to Donald Trump but one of the most useful comparisons is with ex-Australian prime minister Tony Abbott
A toff who learned more at Oxford from the rugby pitch than the classroom, whose entitlement is laced with the insecurity of not having been born in the country he wants to rule
Mar 25, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Back in December I wrote this piece asking how Mexico, and AMLO, would commemorate 500 years since the arrival of Hernán Cortés in Mexico —> worldin2019.economist.com/cortesannivers…
Today AMLO has said he wants 2021, the quincentenary of the fall of Tenochitlan, to be the year “of great reconciliation” with Spain. But before that can happen, he wants a formal apology from Spain. And Spain is not impressed elpais.com/internacional/…
Feb 4, 2019 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
A few thoughts on Nayib Bukele and his win in El Salvador last night:
Yes, it’s a historic moment, and another domino in the populist takeover of Latin America. But don’t bet on huge changes. Many of his nice-sounding policies are standard for all-promising Salvadoran politicians. Until 2021 (at least) Bukele will rely on other parties to pass laws
Jan 31, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Great issue of @TheEconomist this week. Our cover looks at Venezuela and concludes that the question for the world is not whether it should help Juan Guaidó, but how. It runs through the good ideas and the bad ones economist.com/leaders/2019/0…
Our briefing: Barack Obama said his biggest mistake as president was “failing to plan for the day after” the fall of Gaddafi in Libya. Experts have already drawn up a “morning-after” plan that would revive Venezuela after Maduro. This is what it looks like economist.com/briefing/2019/…
Jan 25, 2019 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
The good folk at @InSightCrime have put together a round-up for homicide statistics across all of Latin America. Some takeaways: insightcrime.org/news/analysis/…1. Venezuela is still the most violent country in the world. Its murder rate of 81/100k is slightly down but the % of killings done by security forces went up. The rate is probably 10% higher because the population stats, from 2011, don’t factor in the mass exodus of refugees
Jan 21, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
New statistics out: 33,341 people were killed in Mexico last year, comfortably a new record.
Guanajuato: 3,290 murders
Baja California: 3,139
Estado de Mexico: 2,652
Guerrero: 2,472
Jalisco: 2,420
Chihuahua: 2,190
secretariadoejecutivo.gob.mx/docs/pdfs/nuev…
Back in 2011, 16 states had more homicides than Guanajuato did. In 2018, none did. A chilling example of how fuel theft can turn a reasonably peaceful place into a violent one (see my piece on murders in Guanajuato last year) economist.com/the-americas/2…
Jan 9, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Guatemala’s Constitutional Court has blocked the president’s attempt to shut down CICIG overnight. A foreseeable outcome, so why did Morales bother? His real goal may be to turn public opinion against the court, so that congress can move to impeach its judges
Every Wednesday Guatemala’s Supreme Court convenes for a plenary. Today is different: it is considering an application to recommend to congress that it strips the Constitutional Court judges of their immunity
To ready yourself for it, and to distract yourself from grimmer news in Brazil, read this state-of-play on why this vote is so important, and what it tells us about Mexico’s leftist president-elect economist.com/the-americas/2…
Oct 21, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Locking migrants in detention centres is standard practice in southern Mexico. Strangely, migrants are detained if they make an asylum claim on the border, but are allowed to live freely while their claim is processed if they make the claim at government offices in Tapachula
When you make a claim and enter these detention centres, you mingle with violent criminals and others awaiting deportation. It takes 3-4 weeks. If you make a claim in Tapachula, you have to wait 30-100 days and you cannot leave Chiapas, or else you lose your claim
Sep 20, 2018 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The constant twerking for social media by people in the Trudeau government gives its open, liberal worldview a whiff of immaturity. A shame
This article on the backlash to AirBnB in European cities is really really good. Key quote: “the thirst for the authentic can come at the expense of the locals who are supposed to provide” economist.com/europe/2018/07…
Great stuff @tom_nuttall. One other firm that many blame for “ruining” Euro hipster culture is not a tech giant but EasyJet, which from the mid-00s allowed millions of people to enjoy cheap, frequent weekends abroad for the first time
Jul 14, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The craziest thing: how Kevin de Bruyne’s winning goal against Brazil last week in the World Cup quarter-final helped bring down the government in Haiti [thread]
First: for complicated reasons, Haitians support the Brazilian football team like its own. They love it. Here are scenes in Haiti with people celebrating Brazil’s victories earlier in the world cup: instagram.com/p/BkflkIsld4e/
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