• After a violent midterm election campaign, Mexico’s populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s Morena party and its allies maintained their majority in the national Congress, but lost its supermajority status and its ability to amend the national constitution. This could derail Obrador’s goal of renationalizing the energy sector. The populist president has faced criticism for militarizing the war against drug cartels and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Nationwide, three dozen candidates were killed during the campaigns; almost all of the victims were running for local office.
(“Mexico’s Lopez Obrador Loses Some of His ‘Teflon’,” Washington Post, June 6, 2021; “Kamala Harris Faces Doubts Over Retooled U.S. Policy in Central America,” The Guardian, June 7, 2021; “Harris Offers Blunt Talk on Immigration,” New York Times, June 7, 2021)
• Almost three decades have passed since Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, and Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s prime minister at the time, shook hands on the White House lawn in 1993 after signing the Oslo Accords. That hopeful moment cemented a formal peace process that was designed to create a Palestinian state and end half a century of conflict. The goal then was to implement a peace plan within five years. In 1995, Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing extremist Israeli settler outraged at the prospect of exchanging land for peace.
(“A Process in Pieces,” The Economist, May 27, 2021)
• In the epidemic of police violence in the U.S., the harm suffered by Latinos is often overlooked. A new report by the group UnidosUS, formerly known as the National Council of La Raza, found that 2,600 Latinos were killed each year in confrontations with the police or died while in custody. The number of Latinos killed by police has risen 24 percent since 2014.
(“Latinos Disproportionately Killed by Police but Often Left Out of the Debate on Police Brutality,” Washington Post, June 2, 2021)
This week’s News Summary was narrated by Anna Manzo.
