February 6th 2012 – In Ciudad Juarez, the violence is a constant, human suffering a given, and trying to understand why the city has so many problems depends on who you ask. The people who live there are justifiably weary of the violence and the near-blanket impunity enjoyed by those who perpetrate it. But then, [...]
November 30 2011 – Miss Bala, a Mexican movie that is a current Oscar hopeful and inspired by true events, follows beauty queen Laura Guerrero in her violent downward spiral into the hands of organized crime. Filmed, produced and edited for AFP by Deborah Bonello.
November 11 2011 – The grieving families of six men who disappeared from a Mexican night club speak to TIME. Their story is among 170 cases of killing, torture and disappearances documented in a new Human Rights Watch report. This report was produced for Time Magazine by Deborah Bonello. Watch the video on Time’s website [...]
November 2 2011 – Day of the Dead in Mexico is usually a time for celebrating and remembering lost loved ones. But in the context of a brutal drug war that has cost 40,000 lives, the commemoration of the dead has taken on a more sombre tone this year. Below, other video edits from the [...]
Anonymity in Mexico is the only form of defence in the increasingly violent conflict involving the country’s drug cartels, government, media and public.
October 25 2011 – A dispatch for Time from a recent trip to Veracruz: In touristy Veracruz, Mexico, drug-related violence has spiked. After a recent wave of 80 killings, the federal government sent troops to patrol the city. But many still don’t feel safe See the video here on Time.com
October 19 2011 – Latest dispatch for AFP from my recent trip to Veracruz. Journalism in Mexico is under fire. As drug-related violence grows, so does the danger for reporters trying to cover it, often forcing them to flee, bow to outside influences or face the consequences. In the city of Veracruz, journalists are feeling [...]
October 18 2011 – A short video documentary by me for Univision on peace activist and poet Javier Sicilia and his potential to create real change here in Mexico. Watch the video here on Univision’s Tumbler.
The Mexican government has launched a military crackdown in the state of Veracruz following more than 80 killings in the tourist port in the last few weeks.
Pastor Jose Galvan paints pictures depicting decapitated heads, blood and suffering — a disturbing canvas that he says expresses the suffering of his native Mexico in the throes of drug-fuelled violence. This video was made for AFP, and you can watch it here on their YouTube Channel.
Mexican poet turned peace activist Javier Sicilia meets President Felipe Calderon, who he has much criticized for the strong-arm military tactics against drug cartels that many blame for unleashing widespread violence. This video was produced for AFP. You can also see it here on AFP’s YouTube channel.
Daniel Dominguez, one of the hard-worked crime reporters on El Diario, the biggest newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, was kind enough to let me spend the day with him last week. Here’s the report I produced for AFP, which you can also see here on YouTube. The same video is also embedded below, in case of [...]
Mexico’s march for peace, led by Catholic poet Javier Sicilia, crossed over from Ciudad Juarez – the violent epicenter of the country’s drug war – into El Paso, Texas Saturday. They were joined by hundreds of Americans in their demands for a change in strategy from both the Mexican and US governments. This [...]
June 6th 2011 – Since Javier Sicilia’s son was killed by gunmen in March, the left-leaning Catholic poet has become the voice for those left dead or grieving by drug-related violence in Mexico. Some 37,000 people have died since President Felipe Calderon launched his assault against the country’s drug cartels and organized crime networks in [...]
Is Mexico’s new migrant law enough to help those in transit?
May 8th 2011 – Thousands of protesters marched to Mexico City’s Zocalo Sunday demanding an end to the violence generated by President Felipe Calderon’s ‘war’ against drug cartels. See the video for more.
A recent visit by the UN Working Group on involuntary or forced disappearances questioned the Mexican army’s current role in President Felipe Calderon’s “war” against organized crime and drug gangs.
No Mas Sangre (No More Blood), a social protest group that began life as a cartoon, took to the streets of Mexico City on a recent weekend. They were in protesting what they see as a failed policy – President Felipe Calderon’s campaign against the country’s drug cartels and organized crime. But how representative are they of the Mexican people?
February 25th 2011 – Mexico’s migrant monarch butterflies in the state of Michoacan see less visitors as tourists are put off by press reports of narco violence. After being fired for asking Mexico President Felipe Calderon to respond to rumors that he has an alcohol problem, outspoken broadcaster and journalist Carmen Aristegui returned to the airwaves. And drug-related violence for the first time claimed the life of a US security agent – we ask what it means for US/Mexico relations.
Arturo Perez, a freelance cameraman based in Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez, was recognised for his work last night at the Rory Peck Awards on London’s South Bank.
National oil company Pemex struggles as oil production drops. Carola Hoyos reports from Mexico for the Financial Times. Filmed, produced and edited by Deborah Bonello.
Most Mexicans think their lives would be better in the United States, and one in three said they’d move to the U.S. if they could, according to the latest findings on Mexican attitudes from the Pew Global Attitudes Project.
It was disconcerting to see the age of the soldiers executing Calderon’s stop and search policy.
The money that Mexicans living abroad send home to their families here in Mexico fell again in May, in what the Associated Press calls the biggest monthly decline on record. “Money sent home by Mexicans working abroad fell by 19.9 percent in May, the biggest monthly decline on record as the U.S. recession slashed jobs. [...]
It’s not often you see something in the press that makes you think, Yes! I KNOW! But sometimes it happens, and there were two pieces in the media this morning that gave me that sense. The first was this column in the Guardian by George Monbiot, who came back to an issue we touched on [...]
Broadcast live on Ustream, June 24th 2009 Moderator: Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor for Channel 4 News Panel:Ed Vulliamy, Guardian and Observer journalist and writer Alex Tweddle
Over the course of the last three days I have been to five hospitals. I was expecting to find lines of people, all of them coughing into their government-issued face masks, winding around the block. Not so.
I at least expected to see fashionable versions of the blue face masks being combined with the latest clothes labels, but it wasn’t so.
I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it into work this morning. Not because of Mexico’s overloaded public transport system, but because U.S President Barack Obama was expected to arrive on his first visit to Mexico here in the country’s capital.
Last week, I was invited to speak at the University of Texas Pan America about MexicoReporter.com, violence against journalists, the drug war coverage and how new technologies are contributing to the journalism beast. So I went.
It turned out to be an unusual book launch. Scheduled to begin at 5pm yesterday afternoon in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, the authors were to present their profile of Mexico’s most prominent Catholic fundamentalist and anti-abortion campaigner.
Veteran Mexican crime reporter Armando Rodríguez was shot to death yesterday morning while in his car in the border city of Ciudad Juárez.
November 6 2008 – Mexicans don’t have much faith in the word of their government. The natural reaction of many here in Mexico following a plane crash last week that killed Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mouriño has been suspicion.
November 6 2008 – The Mexico Government maintains that there is no sign of foul play surrounding the plane crash on Tuesday night here in Mexico City that killed interior minister Juan Camilo Mouriño.
Thousands of Mexicans took to the streets yesterday to demand justice for the victims of a mass-killing by Government troops on the night of October 2nd forty years ago. But the protests in Mexico City had a bitter end.
The most important thing that occurred to me as I’ve perused other media’s coverage, my own, and the scene itself, is how frighteningly informal the attitude of the authorities is to the crime scene itself.
Rafael Bucio was waiting for his mother on the corner of the streets Madero and Quintana Roo in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico Monday night. Behind him, his wife Gloria Alvarez stood in the street with their three-month old child in her arms. They didn’t know that their lives were about to change forever.
“Lots of ambulances and patrol cars started to pass by going to the center – to the cathedral,” explained Bucio Wednesday afternoon from a hospital bed, broken bones in his arm and leg held together by pins. Blood seeped through the bandages onto the white cotton sheet covering the bed.
He was moving closer to his wife, away from the street corner, when he heard a thump.
Two explosions during Mexican Independence Day celebrations in the western state of Michoacan killed eight people Monday night and injured dozens more, we reported yesterday.
The number of kidnappings in Mexico grew by 9.1 percent in the first five months of the year, according to figures published this week.
Univision: Young angels in Juarez battle the city’s demons
AFP: Mexico City struggles with waste disposal
AFP: Activists under fire in Mexico
AFP: Ambulance attacked in Ciudad Juarez
Time: Evidence of Killings and Disappearances by Mexico’s Security Forces
AFP: Mexicans honor drug war victims on Day of the Dead
