International
López Obrador challenges Mexican Supreme Court ruling on infrastructure megaprojects

May 19 |
Hours after Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a government agreement declaring large infrastructure projects as “national security” works is unconstitutional, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador published a similar order in the Official Journal of the Federation in clear defiance of the high court’s ruling.
The Court made clear that the federal government cannot simply decree that tourist trains or other public works projects are matters of “national security” because that violates the public’s right to information about such infrastructure.
However, on Thursday afternoon, a similar agreement went into effect giving that label to several projects, among them the Mayan Train, a controversial mega-project in the Mexican southeast that the president wants to finish before the end of his term in 2024.
López Obrador has tried to speed it up by exempting it from normal permits and public reporting on the grounds that it is vital for the country’s security.
The ruling is the latest in a series of setbacks for the president, who has sought to expand the discretionary powers of the executive.
At the moment it is unclear whether Thursday’s court ruling only affects the public’s right to access information on spending, costs and other data on such projects, or whether it also repeals the fast-track permitting procedure. The court is scheduled to discuss and vote Monday on the overreach and implications of the ruling.
Unlike the 2021 ruling, which did not mention specific projects by name but referred to infrastructure in general, Thursday’s ruling decreed that the Mayan Train and the economic corridor that will cross the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the narrowest part of the country, as well as three airports in that area of the southeast, were of national security.
López Obrador is upset with the highest court for dismissing some of his electoral reform initiatives, and has called for a change to make the Supreme Court an elected body. Currently, the president suggests the shortlists of potential justices, but the Senate chooses them.
In July, the government invoked national security powers to advance the Mayan Train construction project, a tourist railroad along Mexico’s Caribbean coast that threatens an area of caves where some of the oldest human remains in North America have been discovered.
The government had paused the project in 2022 after activists won an injunction against the route because it opened a strip of jungle for the tracks without first submitting an environmental impact statement.
But the government invoked national security powers to resume construction. The measure also makes it easier for the government to withhold information on such projects.
International
Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.
“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.
“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.
Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.
International
Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links

A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.
Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.
However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.
International
Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.
“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.
The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.
His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”
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