Trump’s escalation against Venezuela is about more than oil, it is about regaining control over the ‘natural’ zone of influence of the United States at a moment where its hegemony is slipping, argues VIJAY PRASHAD
EVER heard of a country where electoral fraud favours the opposition? Try Mexico, with its corrupt and aberrant Electoral Commission (National Electoral Institute, INE by its Spanish initials).
Political polarisation has been growing in Mexico over several aspects of Amlo’s Fourth Transformation — national control of oil and electric power, reform of a notoriously corrupt judicial system, bringing delinquent old-regime politicians to justice, ending false subcontracting and ensuring gender parity and indigenous rights.
Now the entire direction of travel has reached a critical point not seen since Amlo’s election in 2018, with the mid-term elections coming up on June 6.
A November 15 protest in Mexico – driven by a right-wing social-media operation – has been miscast as a mass uprising against President Sheinbaum. In reality, the march was small, elite-backed and part of a wider attempt to sow unrest, argues DAVID RABY
DAVID RABY reports on the progressive administration in Mexico, which continues to overcome far-left wreckers on the edges of a teaching union, the murderous violence of the cartels, the ploys of the traditional right wing, and Trump’s provocations



