Mexico's government added an article to its Amnesty Law in a decree June 14, allowing the head of the Executive Branch to commute sentences and halt criminal proceedings in cases deemed "relevant to the Mexican State," regardless of the severity of the crime. The new Article 9 states the country's president has exclusive authority to grant amnesty directly, without following procedures establlished esewere in the law, in specific cases meeting two conditions. The first is that amnesty is granted to individuals providing verifiable information useful for uncovering the truth in cases relevant to the national nterest; the second is that criminal prosecution has already been initiated against the individual. Amnesties granted under this article extinguish any pending criminal charges.

The continually delayed deployment of a Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission has raised concerns over how prepared the UN-approved and US-bankrolled force will be to face the security crisis in Haiti. An analysis from Insight Crime suggests the gangs have been using the extra time to "fortify what could be a fierce response." A first contingent of about 200 Kenyan police officers was expected to land in the capital, Port-au-Prince, in late May, but its arrival was postponed after an advance delegation from Kenya identified a shortage of equipment and infrastructure. In an interview with the BBC, Kenyan President William Ruto said the deployment of 2,500 troops, including 1,000 Kenyan police officers, will now start mid-June.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) on May 27 began its first day of public hearings in Manaus, Brazil, to address the obligations of states in light of the climate crisis, based on the principles of the American Convention on Human Rights. The hearings, marked by discussion on mitigating the impacts of social imbalances and the need to protect the most vulnerable, follow a January request by Chile and Colombia for an Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights. The first hearings took place in Barbados at the end of April. In their request, Chile and Colombia emphasized the devastating consequences of the climate emergency in their countries, citing examples such as droughts, floods, landslides and fires.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on May 22 ordered the opening of an embassy in Palestine, joining a handful of other nations around the world that have done so. The announcement comes after Petro's government withdrew its diplomats from Israel and broke relations with the country on May 2, describing Israel's actions in Gaza as a "genocide." The Colombian embassy is to be installed in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority's capital on the West Bank.

Records were once again broken last year for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, and retreat of glaciers, according to a new global report issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) March 19. The WMO State of the Global Climate 2023 report finds that on an average day that year, nearly one third of the ocean surface was gripped by a marine heatwave, harming vital ecosystems and food systems—far beyond the already inflated levels seen in recent years. Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest extent on record—at one million square kilometers below the previous record year of 2022, an area equivalent to the size of France and Germany combined. Observed concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—reached record levels in 2022 and continued to increase in 2023, preliminary data shows. (UN News)

The Colombian Ombudsman's Office (Defensoría del Pueblo de Colombia, DPC) reported Jan. 9 that 181 social leaders and human rights defenders were murdered in 2023. The DPC, in its "Annual report on the killings of social leaders and human rights defenders," counted 160 men and 21 women among the victims. The ombudsman, Carlos Camargo Assis, stated: "It is an unacceptable situation that every two days last year, on average, a social leader or human rights defender was murdered in Colombia. Every life lost is a tragedy for their families, for the communities, and for the defense of fundamental rights in the country."

In Episode 205 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg looks at the recent re-escalation and (hopefully) denouement of the dispute over Esequibo—an oil-rich territory controlled by Guyana and claimed by Venezuela. Ironically, this claim was first asserted by the conservative, anti-communist Venezuela of the 1960s to help destabilize the anti-imperialist Guyana of Cheddi Jagan. Today, the left-populist but increasingly nationalistic regime of Nicolás Maduro even entertains hubristic claims to sovereignty over Venezuela's other much larger neighbor, Colombia. But this revanchism appears to mask the fact that "revolutionary" Venezuela largely remains a petro-state with a rentier economy, vulnerable to drops in the global oil price, even if Chinese corporate exploiters have been replacing gringo ones. With the recent easing of sanctions, US giants like Chevron have even returned to Venezuela—while the extractivist model results in indigenous resistance. Contrary to the dogmas of left and right alike, the real root of the Venezuelan crisis is that the country is insufficiently socialist.

Mexico will step up efforts to deport asylum-seekers and migrants to their countries of origin in order to "depressurize" northern cities bordering the United States, the country's National Migration Institute announced Sept. 22 following a meeting with US officials. The number of people crossing the US-Mexico border has spiked again in recent weeks after a lull that followed the end of pandemic-era asylum restrictions and the introduction of new deterrence policies in May. It is unclear when the deportations will begin because Mexico will first have to negotiate with Venezuela, Brazil, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Cuba to make sure they accept their nationals. US cities, such as El Paso and Eagle Pass in Texas, have been scrambling to find shelter space as thousands of people have crossed the border on a daily basis in recent weeks, overwhelming reception capacity. Thousands are also still choosing to wait in northern Mexico while trying to make appointments using a government cell phone application to enter the United States and lodge asylum claims.