Mexico and Guatemala presidents meet face-to-face for the first time to talk key regional projects
The two regional allies, who met in Guatemala's northern Peten region, agreed to strengthen coordination on migration, law enforcement and economic development. But top on the agenda for both was a proposal to extend the Mexican government's Maya Train from southern Mexico to Guatemala and Belize.
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Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The US plans to build a $750M fly factory in Texas to stop a flesh-eating cattle parasite
The U.S. plans to build a $750 million factory in southern Texas to breed billions of sterile flies, ramping up its efforts to keep flesh-eating maggots in Mexico from crossing the border and damaging the American cattle industry. Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture hopes to be producing and releasing sterile male New World screwworm flies into the wild within a year from the new factory on Moore Air Base outside Edinburg, Texas, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the border. She also said the USDA plans to deploy $100 million in technology, such as fly traps and lures, and step up border patrols by 'tick riders' mounted on horseback and train dogs to sniff out the parasite. In addition, Rollins said the U.S. border will remain closed to cattle, horse and bison imports from Mexico until the U.S. sees that the pest is being pushed back south toward Panama, where the fly had been contained through late last year through the breeding of sterile flies there. The U.S. has closed its border to those imports three times in the past eight months, the last in July, following a report of an infestation about 370 miles (595 kilometers) from the Texas border. American officials worry that if the fly reaches Texas, its flesh-eating maggots could cause billions of dollars in economic losses and cause already record retail beef prices to rise even more, fueling greater inflation. The parasite also can infest wildlife, household pets and, occasionally, humans. 'Farm security is national security,' Rollins said during a news conference at the Texas State Capitol in Austin with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. 'All Americans should be concerned. But it's certainly Texas and our border and livestock producing states that are on the front lines of this every day.' The pest was a problem for the American cattle industry for decades until the U.S. largely eradicated it in the 1970s by breeding and releasing sterile male flies to breed with wild females. It shut down fly factories on U.S. soil afterward. The Mexican cattle industry has been hit hard by infestations and the U.S. closing its border to imports. Mexico's Agriculture ministry said in a statement Friday that Mexico Agriculture and Rural Development Secretary Julio Berdegué Sacristán and Rollins signed a screwworm control action plan. It includes monitoring with fly-attracting traps and establishing that livestock can only be moved within Mexico through government-certified corrals, the statement said. And on the X social media platform, Berdegué said, 'We will continue with conversations that lead to actions that will permit the reopening of livestock exports." The new fly-breeding factory in Texas would be the first on U.S. soil in decades and represents a ramping up of the USDA's spending on breeding and releasing sterile New World screwworm flies. The sterile males are released in large enough numbers that wild females can't help but mate with them, producing sterile eggs that don't hatch. Eventually, the wild fly population shrinks away because females mate only once in their weekslong lives. In June, Rollins announced a plan to convert an existing factory for breeding fruit flies into one for breeding sterile New World Screwworm flies, as well as a plan to build a site, also on the air base near Edinburg, for gathering flies imported from Panama and releasing them from small aircraft. Those projects are expected to cost a total of $29.5 million. The Panama fly factory can breed up to 117 million flies a week, and the new Mexican fly factory is expected to produce up to 100 million more a week. Rollins said the new Texas factory would produce up to 300 million a week. She said President Donald Trump's administration wants to end the U.S. reliance on fly breeding in Mexico and Panama. 'It's a tactical move that ensures we are prepared and not just reactive, which is today what we have really been working through,' Rollins said. ___ Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. Associated Press writer Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed reporting. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bolivians head to polls in uncertain vote that could shift political landscape
Bolivians are heading to the polls in a pivotal election that could bring the country's first right-wing government in over 20 years and end the dominance of the fractured MAS party. With the economy in crisis and voter uncertainty high, the outcome could lead to a major political shift both domestically and internationally. Bolivians headed to the polls on Sunday to vote in presidential and congressional elections that could spell the end of the Andean nation's long-dominant leftist party and see a right-wing government elected for the first time in over two decades. The election on Sunday is one of the most consequential for Bolivia in recent times — and one of the most unpredictable. Even at this late stage, a remarkable 30 percent or so of voters remain undecided. Polls show the two leading right-wing candidates, multimillionaire business owner Samuel Doria Medina and former President Jorge Fernando 'Tuto' Quiroga, locked in a virtual dead heat. But a right-wing victory isn't assured. Many longtime voters for the governing Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party, now shattered by infighting, live in rural areas and tend to be undercounted in polling. With the nation's worst economic crisis in four decades leaving Bolivians waiting for hours in fuel lines, struggling to find subsidized bread and squeezed by double-digit inflation, the opposition candidates are billing the race as a chance to alter the country's destiny. 'I have rarely, if ever, seen a situational tinderbox with as many sparks ready to ignite,' Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez, founding partner of Aurora Macro Strategies, a New York-based advisory firm, writes in a memo. Breaking the MAS party's monopoly on political power, he adds, pushes 'the country into uncharted political waters amid rising polarization, severe economic fragility and a widening rural–urban divide.' The outcome will determine whether Bolivia — a nation of about 12 million people with the largest lithium reserves on Earth and crucial deposits of rare earth minerals — follows a growing trend in Latin America, where right-wing leaders like Argentina's libertarian Javier Milei, Ecuador's strongman Daniel Noboa and El Salvador's conservative populist Nayib Bukele have surged in popularity. A right-wing government in Bolivia could trigger a major geopolitical realignment for a country now allied with Venezuela's socialist-inspired government and world powers such as China, Russia and Iran. Doria Medina and Quiroga have praised the Trump administration and vowed to restore ties with the United States — ruptured in 2008 when charismatic, long-serving former President Evo Morales expelled the American ambassador. The right-wing front-runners also have expressed interest in doing business with Israel, which has no diplomatic relations with Bolivia, and called for foreign private companies to invest in the country and develop its rich natural resources. After storming to office in 2006 at the start of the commodities boom, Morales, Bolivia's first Indigenous president, nationalized the nation's oil and gas industry, using the lush profits to reduce poverty, expand infrastructure and improve the lives of the rural poor. After three consecutive presidential terms, as well as a contentious bid for an unprecedented fourth in 2019 that set off popular unrest and led to his ouster, Morales has been barred from this race by Bolivia's constitutional court. His ally-turned-rival, President Luis Arce, withdrew his candidacy for the MAS on account of his plummeting popularity and nominated his senior minister, Eduardo del Castillo. As the party splintered, Andrónico Rodríguez, the 36-year-old president of the senate who hails from the same union of coca farmers as Morales, launched his bid. Rather than back the candidate widely considered his heir, Morales, holed up in his tropical stronghold and evading an arrest warrant on charges related to his relationship with a 15-year-old girl, has urged his supporters to deface their ballots or leave them blank. Voting is mandatory in Bolivia, where some 7.9 million Bolivians are eligible to vote. Doria Medina and Quiroga, familiar faces in Bolivian politics who both served in past neoliberal governments and have run for president three times before, have struggled to stir up interest as voter angst runs high. 'There's enthusiasm for change but no enthusiasm for the candidates,' said Eddy Abasto, 44, a Tupperware vendor in Bolivia's capital of La Paz torn between voting for Doria Medina and Quiroga. 'It's always the same, those in power live happily spending the country's money, and we suffer.' Read moreBolivians march four days to protest against economic hardship Doria Medina and Quiroga have warned of the need for a painful fiscal adjustment, including the elimination of Bolivia's generous food and fuel subsidies, to save the nation from insolvency. Some analysts caution this risks sparking social unrest. 'A victory for either right-wing candidate could have grave repercussions for Bolivia's Indigenous and impoverished communities,' said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a Bolivian research group. 'Both candidates could bolster security forces and right-wing para-state groups, paving the way for violent crackdowns on protests expected to erupt over the foreign exploitation of lithium and drastic austerity measures.' All 130 seats in Bolivia's Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament, are up for grabs, along with 36 in the Senate, the upper house. If, as is widely expected, no one receives more than 50 percent of the vote, or 40 percent of the vote with a lead of 10 percentage points, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff on Oct. 19 for the first time since Bolivia's 1982 return to democracy. (FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Drought, dams and diplomacy: Afghanistan's water crisis goes regional
Over four decades of war, Afghanistan wielded limited control over five major river basins that flow across its borders into downstream neighbouring nations. But as Taliban authorities swept to power and tightened their grip on the country, they have pushed for Afghanistan's water sovereignty, launching infrastructure projects to harness precious resources in the arid territory. Dams and canals have sparked tensions with neighbouring states, testing the Taliban authorities' efforts to build strong regional ties, as they remain largely isolated on the global stage since their 2021 takeover. At the same time, the region is facing the shared impacts of climate change intensifying water scarcity, as temperatures rise and precipitation patterns shift, threatening glaciers and snowpack that feed the country's rivers. Here are key points about Afghanistan's transboundary water challenges: - Central Asian states to the north - Afghanistan is emerging as a new player in often fraught negotiations on the use of the Amu Darya, one of two key rivers crucial for crops in water-stressed Central Asia, where water sharing relies on fragile accords since Soviet times. Central Asian states have expressed concern over the Qosh Tepa mega canal project that could divert up to 21 percent of the Amu Darya's total flow to irrigate 560,000 hectares of land across Afghanistan's arid north, and further deplete the Aral Sea. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are likely to face the biggest impact, both joined by Kazakhstan in voicing alarm, even as they deepen diplomatic ties with the Taliban authorities -- officially recognised so far by only Russia. "No matter how friendly the tone is now," water governance expert Mohd Faizee warned, "at some point there will be consequences for Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan when the canal starts operating". Taliban officials have denied that the project will have a major impact on the Amu Darya's water levels and pledged it will improve food security in a country heavily dependent on climate-vulnerable agriculture and facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. "There is an abundance of water, especially when the Amu Darya floods and glacial meltwater flows into it" in the warmer months, said project manager Sayed Zabihullah Miri, during a visit to the canal works in Faryab province, where diggers carved into a drought-ridden plain dotted with camels and locusts. - Iran to the west - Iran is the only country with which Afghanistan has a formal water sharing treaty, agreed in 1973 over the Helmand river, which traverses Taliban heartland territory, but the accord was never fully implemented. Longstanding tensions over the river's resources have spiked over dams in southern Afghanistan, particularly in periods of drought, which are likely to increase as climate shocks hit the region's water cycle. Iran, facing pressure in its parched southeastern region, has repeatedly demanded that Afghanistan respect its rights, charging that upstream dams restrict the Helmand's flow into a border lake. The Taliban authorities insist there is not enough water to release more to Iran, blaming the impact of climate pressures on the whole region. They also argue long-term poor water management has meant Afghanistan has not gotten its full share, according to an Afghanistan Analysts Network report by water resources management expert Assem Mayar. Iran and Afghanistan have no formal agreement over their other shared river basin, the Harirud, which also flows into Turkmenistan and is often combined into a single basin with the Morghab river. While infrastructure exists on the Afghan portions of the basin, some has not been fully utilised, Faizee said. But that could change, he added, as the end of conflict in Afghanistan means infrastructure works don't incur vast security costs on top of construction budgets, lifting a barrier to development of projects such as the Pashdan dam inaugurated in August on the Harirud. - Pakistan to the east - Water resources have not topped the agenda in consistently fraught relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghanistan's Kabul river basin, which encompasses tributaries to the greater Indus basin and feeds the capital and largest city, is shared with Pakistan. The countries, however, have no formal cooperation mechanism. With the Afghan capital wracked by a severe water crisis, the Taliban authorities have sought to revitalise old projects and start new ones to tackle the problem, risking fresh tensions with Pakistan. But the lack of funds and technical capacity means the Taliban authorities' large water infrastructure projects across the country could take many years to come to fruition -- time that could be good for diplomacy, but bad for ordinary Afghans. sw/ecl/rsc/cwl
