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."
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS