Mexico's Zapatista rebels—who have observed a long ceasefire but still have a zone of control in the back-country of Chiapas state—just concluded an international gathering in the highland city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Convened on the premesis of the Indigenous Center for Integral Training (Centro Indígena de Capacitación Integral—CIDECI), the gathering was entitled "Seedbed: The Storm Inside and Outside According to the Zapatista Communities & Peoples" (Semillero: La Tormenta dentro y fuera según las comunidades y pueblos zapatistas).

President Donald Trump's migration crackdown has been credited with reducing flows northward towards the United States, but it is leaving hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers trapped in limbo further south, unsure whether to take riskier journeys to try to reach the US and anxiously wrestling with what to do next.

Father Marcelo Pérez, an indigenous Tzotzil Maya priest with the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, in Mexico's conflicted southern state of Chiapas, was assassinated immediately after celebrating Mass Oct. 20. He was returning to his car from the church at the barrio of Cuxtitali in the highland city of San Cristóbal when he was shot by gunmen on a motorcycle. Hundreds of mourners attended his funeral the following day in the village of his birth, San Andrés Larráinzar, chanting "Long live Father Marcelo, priest of the poor." He had received threats for his outspoken opposition to the criminal organizations and paramilitary groups fueling violence in Chiapas. The murder was condemned in a statement by the Mexican Bishops' Conference, which said the act "not only deprives the community of a dedicated pastor but also silences a prophetic voice that tirelessly fought for peace with truth and justice in the region of Chiapas."

The results are in from Mexico's June 2 presidential election and Claudia Sheinbaum of the ruling left-populist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) has won by some 60%, handily defeating a rival backed by an alliance of the country's more traditional political parties. The former mayor of Mexico City as well as an environmental scientist with a PhD in energy engineering from UC Berkeley, Sheinbaum was a researcher with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) when it earned a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Despite this prestigious and somewhat technocratic background, her status as the chosen hier of incumbent populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador has caused her victory to be viewed with suspicion if not panic in elite quarters. Both the peso and Mexican stock exchange slided on the news.

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 Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) indigenous rebel group in southern Mexico has announced the dissolution of its "autonomous municipalities" in the mountains and jungle of Chiapas state. A statement signed by Zapatista leader Subcomandante Moisés said the decision was taken "after a long and profound critical and self-critical analysis." The Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Municipalities (MAREZ), overseen by rotating Good Government Juntas, have been maintained since the Zapatistas' initial uprising in 1994. Moisés said that future communiques "will describe the reasons and the processes involved in taking this decision," as well as "what the new structure of Zapatista autonomy will look like." The communique did, however, mention a new pressure in the growing power of "disorganized crime cartels" in Chiapas, a reference to the narco-gangs seeking to control "the entire border strip with Guatemala." (AP, Mexico New Daily)

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.

An international mobilization was held June 8, with small protests in cities across the world, in response to a call for support by the Zapatista rebel movement in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas. According to the statement, issued a week earlier, the Zapatista base community of Moisés Gandhi is coming under renewed attack by the local paramilitary group ORCAO. In a May 22 armed incursion at the community, Moisés Gandhi resident Jorge López Santíz was struck by a bullet and gravely injured. Several families were displaced as ORCAO gunmen briefly occupied parts of the community. The statement charges: "Chiapas is on the verge of civil war, with paramilitaries and hired killers from various cartels fighting for the plaza [zone of territorial control]...with the active or passive complicity of the governments of [Chiapas governor] Rutilio Escandón Cadenas and [Mexican president] Andrés Manuel López Obrador." (El País, Spain; National Indigenous Congress, Mexico)