ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
The Line Becomes a River
by Francisco Cantu
(Bodley Head, £14.99)
LAST year, an Amnesty International report revealed that an already dangerous journey for tens of thousands of refugees attempting to cross the Mexico-US border has become deadlier still as a result of Donald Trump’s executive order on border control and immigration.
According to Amnesty, the US is building a “cruel watertight system” to prevent people in need from receiving international protection and Mexico is all too willing to play the role of the US gatekeeper. That strategy ignores the fact that these are people with no other choice but to flee their homes if they want to survive, the report stressed.
DAVID RABY explains the background of the recent upheavals in Mexico
A society that grows accustomed to ‘undesirable’ people also grows accustomed to undesirable deaths. Minneapolis serves as a wake-up call, including for our own refugee policies, writes MARC VANDEPITTE
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
FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ says the US’s bullying conduct in what it considers its backyard is a bid to reassert imperial primacy over a rising China — but it faces huge resistance



