Condoleezza Rice's first visit to Mexico as US secretary of state comes during a fragile period for relations with the US' neighbor to the south.
Mexico already differed with the US over President George W. Bush's policy in Iraq and border issues. But politicians there now accuse the Bush administration of interfering with Mexico's internal affairs.
There's also frustration by Mexican leaders over Bush's stalled immigration proposals.
Rice was meeting yesterday in Mexico City with President Vicente Fox and Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez.
The one-day trip comes a week after Rice put off a visit to Canada after it opted out of a US-led anti-ballistic missile defense program.
Bush plans to meet with the leaders of Mexico and Canada on March 23 in Texas, in part to try to warm chilly relationships with both countries.
Politicians in Mexico have denounced US warnings about border violence, human rights abuses, drug trafficking and possible election-related instability.
Mexico and the US are also divided over the treatment of Mexicans convicted of capital crimes in the US.
The Bush administration has instructed state courts to give 51 Mexicans facing the death penalty new hearings on claims that they were not allowed to see their diplomats. The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled last year that the convictions violated the Vienna Convention -- ratified by the US in 1969 -- by not providing the Mexicans with consular access.
Just this week the Bush administration pulled out of the specific part of the Vienna Convention that death penalty opponents have used to fight the capital sentences for foreigners, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
Since taking office in 2000, Fox has made migration in the US a top foreign policy priority. Bush, too, has put immigration issues toward the top of his agenda, its centerpiece a guest worker program. But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks derailed those plans. Congress, wary of doing favors for those in the US illegally, focused instead on border security.
Last fall, it appeared the immigration proposals would move along when then-secretary of state Colin Powell traveled to Mexico to reiterate Bush's commitment to them. But little has been said about them since then.
On Wednesday, Rice told Univision, a Spanish-language television network, that she hoped Bush's package of proposals to overhaul immigration laws would move forward soon.
"But it's a very difficult issue," she said, "and we do need to make certain that it's done right."
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS