The list of women teeming in Mexican politics these days is long. There was never a time in the country’s history when the word politics was so feminine. The use of the first name is more visible: Claudia, Lilly, Xóchitl, another Claudia, Beatriz, Luisa María, Alicia, Delfina, Alejandra… All of course have their surname and their own ideology, so you can assert yourself, without taking the risk that the future destiny of this vast, for others sexist, territory is in the hands not of one woman but of several. Another thing will be that they represent a feminist agenda and that they act on criteria different from those that have been known for centuries. The present moment is not the achievement of any government, it is the feminists who claim for their trenches the change it has wrought, sweet in the quantitative but still uncertain in the qualitative. “It’s time for women,” said former mayor and current presidential candidate of the Morenists, Claudia Sheinbaum, a few days ago. And he’s not wrong about that.

The struggle of women in recent years has caused a tsunami for feminism in Mexico, a movement stronger than ever and which, as always, has suffered from advances. In the legislative field, full institutional parity has been achieved, not to mention many other state-of-the-art laws already in place, at least on paper. And these changes have had to rely on the union and political will of many of them, who put the fight for equality above the intentions of their leaders. Notable has been the wave of criticism and censorship of the 2021 Morenista candidate for Guerrero governorship, Félix Salgado Macedonio, who faces rape charges and has an ugly macho record. They harassed and beat him from within and outside the ranks, which means they broke the will of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which, by the way, wasn’t easy. It was his daughter. Evelyn Salgado, who had to lead the cartel and is now President of this state. In the wake of all this, a law was enacted that, for example, removes from public power those who have a merit card like Salgado Macedonio’s or have separated parents with child support debts. The same applies to the equality marker.

A name has long been forcefully forced into women’s payrolls. Claudia Sheinbaum conquered the mayoralty of the Mexican capital for a woman for the first time in history and since then her name has not stopped ringing, to this day it is included in the preferences of millions of citizens in view of the new presidency The country in the year 2024. Another milestone was marked when Norma Piña took over the presidency of the Supreme Court, also in the hands of a woman for the first time. Feminism has plagued López Obrador like a nightmare throughout his tenure. The president’s mistakes in this area, and they were not few, were followed by a torrent of criticism, both in the institutions and on the street. But one thing is non-negotiable, and that is joint cabinets. You have to resort to the same expression: I’ve never seen anything like it. His last two appointments, Alicia Bárcena as foreign minister and Luisa María Alcalde as interior minister, have been celebrated even by those who disagree with the president. The parity achieved has meant that there have been a significant number of female governors in those years. In the country’s most populous state, the state of Mexico, two women recently fought and today Delfina Gómez is the governor. It has never been seen before.

Feminist Patricia Olamendi, always very critical of López Obrador’s power on this issue and angered by the “reversals in equality seen around the world, immersed in the vengeance of patriarchy,” retains her dose of hope before, without however , for the moment that Mexico is going through on this matter, it does not hesitate to attribute it to the stubborn struggle of feminism. “In 2019, we achieved equality in all areas, so political participation is already a right for women and a duty of the state, which may not want it, but it will have it,” says this advocate and UN Women representative .

“Equality applies to all,” Olamendi recalls, which of course means some of them won’t defend the feminist agenda, but she hopes “their presence will make a difference in some way.” Nobody expects Lilly Téllez, one of the opposition’s presidential candidates, to defend abortion, for example. That same Saturday, on the occasion of Gay Pride, he corrected the saying “Jeder” instead of “Jeder”, the generic masculine, and everyone knows that homophobia and machismo are two sides of the same coin. “We hope that those who arrive have at least some social commitment, no longer feminist but ethical. Feminism has made impressive strides in Mexico. And that makes the difference,” he says. However, not all members of the opposition are in such a right arc. Claudia Ruiz Massieu and Beatriz Paredes are also candidates for the PRI, PAN and PRD coalition, to name two much more moderate examples. And Xóchitl Gálvez also announces that he wants to introduce himself.

He is particularly pleased with the arrival of Luisa María Alcalde, 35, in the governor’s office, who has been hit on social networks by the most dense part of the population with mentions so macho that they are already an anachronism. “This misogyny, these stereotypes must come to an end,” Olamendi fights. “We may vote for them or not, but their right to participate in politics cannot be denied.” “If out of all who arrive just one applies equality criteria, that’s progress,” he adds.

“A woman’s body is useless in itself,” begins Leticia Bonifaz, more pessimistic than Olamendi. “And nobody should think that it was achieved on their own, it was the struggle of a whole group,” warns the UNAM law professor. In his opinion, the placement of a woman is no guarantee of a different way of governing, and he has no lack of reason and example anywhere in the world. With Claudia Sheinbaum [en el gobierno de la capital] There was no empathy for the feminist movement, which she does not come from. And Lilly Téllez, who is anti-abortion, scares me. About Delfina Gómez, we already know that she is not a feminist and governor of Baja California [María del Pilar Ávila] “He yelled at his opponent, ‘Come on, cry’, repeating those macho stereotypes that men can’t cry,” he says. “There is a lack of gender training,” says Bonifaz. But she also refers to other politicians for her feminist commitment, such as Martha Tagle or Patricia Mercado. Or Angela Merkel (Germany), Jacinta Ardern (New Zealand) or Katrín Jakobsdóttir (Iceland) at international level.

Boniface, a specialist in feminism, also warns of the danger of naming women who, under the all-powerful command of a boss, can only act as a vase, which Olga Sánchez Cordero, for example, who used to be a secretary, complained about at some point in private. of the Interior Ministry in the first cabinet of López Obrador. In short, Bonifaz is “not optimistic at all”: “With no gender awareness or perspective, why,” he says. But she, like so many, also has a glimmer of hope for what the feminist movement has accomplished, and she knows that where many arrive, you can always expect someone to have a firm grip on the equality agenda. In a country like Mexico, where an average of ten women are killed a day, this policy cannot wait.

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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu inspected Russian troops in state television footage this morning – his first public appearance since a failed mutiny by Wagner troops plunged the country into chaos.

Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin on Friday declared a “march of justice” to overthrow the defense minister. The mercenaries captured the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and then marched towards Moscow.

Shoigu’s appearance appeared to be a message from President Vladimir Putin to the head of the mercenary group, signaling that the embattled Russian despot would not step down his defense minister despite the threat to his regime.

This comes after the Wagner mercenaries pulled back from the brink and returned to their base on Sunday, when Putin agreed to allow Prigozhin to avoid a charge of treason and accept exile to neighboring Belarus in exchange for de-escalation.

But while he was hailed as a hero by some, members of the Russian convict army uttered a threat against the Wagner warlord, accusing him of treason after he abandoned his coup against the Kremlin.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (centre) inspects Russian troops in footage broadcast in the country this morning – his first public appearance since a failed mutiny by Wagner troops plunged the country into chaos

But Shoigu, 68, who was out of sight on Sunday, was seen in footage released by his ministry earlier this morning (pictured) dressed in military uniform as he met Russia’s western force and received a report from Colonel-General Yevgeny Nikiforov

Shoigu’s appearance appeared to be a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin (pictured Saturday) to the leader of the mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin, signaling that the embattled despot would not step down his defense minister

Members of the Russian convict army (pictured) threatened warlord Wagner and accused him of treason after he abandoned his coup against the Kremlin

In a video posted online, a group of prisoners-turned-fighters said Prigozhin’s decision to withdraw before reaching Moscow was “cowardice.”

They said his supporters are now facing retaliation from the Russian military and that he has “doubly betrayed” them by forging an amnesty deal with the Kremlin.

According to The Telegraph, the video came from one of the Russian Army’s Storm-Z Brigades, made up of convicts who were offered pardons in exchange for combat operations.

While Wagner also recruited convicts from prisons under the same conditions, Storm-Z units are separate from the mercenary group. Despite this distinction, many fighters in the units consider Prigozhin the unofficial commander-in-chief.

Prigozhin, who was once in prison himself, toured Russian prisons to recruit fighters – promising them release in exchange for six months’ service.

In the video, one of the Storm-Z fighters claimed the Wagner boss was “leaked” at the last minute — Russian prison slang meant to imply he’s lost his nerve, reports The Telegraph.

“You promised everything to our boys, and our assault unit and others were ready to fight resolutely for you,” says the fighter straight into the camera. “Then you turned the steering wheel the other way.”

Prigozhin’s deal ended an extraordinary crisis after his private army attempted to storm Moscow — what presented Putin’s greatest challenge in more than 20 years of his rule, which risked overthrowing the Kremlin regime.

Shoigu is the first of three powerful Russian leaders whose divergent interests led to the Wagner group occupying Rostov-on-Don and seen since the end of the uprising.

He rejects coup plotter Prigozhin’s demand that he – along with army chief General Valery Gerasimov – roll his head over Russia’s faltering, 16-month invasion of Ukraine that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

Prigozhin has repeatedly blamed Shoigu and Chief of Staff Gerasimov for the deaths of his fighters and has expressed contempt for visiting the front lines in Ukraine while the two stayed in Russia.

Putin and Prigozhin have not made any public statements since Wagner’s withdrawal.

Still, Shoigu, 68, who was out of sight on Sunday, could be seen in footage released earlier this morning by his ministry. He was wearing military uniforms as he met Russia’s western force and received a report from Colonel-General Yevgeny Nikiforov.

A defiant Shoigu, fighting for his job, reportedly listened to “a report by the western group’s commander, Colonel-General Nikiforov, on the current situation at the front” and the “nature of enemy actions.”

Footage shows the Secretary of Defense studying maps and taking a helicopter ride to inspect Russian positions.

The footage shows Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (right) listening to a report on the military situation in the region, studying maps and taking a helicopter flight (pictured) to inspect Russian positions

Shoigu (centre) faced coup plotter Prigozhin’s demand to roll his head along with army chief General Valery Gerasimov

It was not immediately clear when the visit took place.

One picture shows the time on Shoigu’s watch just before one o’clock.

However, it remains unclear if his visit to the wartime command post took place today or yesterday – or if older footage showing him as the one responsible has suddenly been released.

Rumors are circulating in Moscow that 70-year-old Putin has nominated Tula governor and former deputy defense minister Alexei Dyumin, 50, as the next defense minister to replace Shoigu.

He is a trusted former bodyguard of Putin who once saved the Kremlin leader from an attack by a vicious brown bear.

He is rumored to have been involved in the pact that halted the coup march in Moscow on Saturday. And it is suspected that he is involved in secret funding channels of the Kremlin elite.

During the war, Putin didn’t fire a single one of his top teams – many of whom are now in their late 60s or early 70s.

The 67-year-old Gerazmov remains in office so far, although Prigozhin has called for his dismissal and even criminal prosecution.

Meanwhile, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Monday morning that he would end an anti-terrorist regime put in place during the Wagner mutiny in the Russian capital.

Sobyanin announced this in a statement published in the Telegram news application on Monday.

Russian media quoted local offices of the Federal Security Service (FSB) as saying similar regimes had been lifted in the Voronezh and Moscow regions.

Separately, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said the situation in the country was “stable”.

The anti-terrorist regimes were rolled out across the three regions on Saturday as a column of insurgent Wagner mercenaries headed toward Moscow, firing at each other with security forces and shooting down Russian military planes.

Prigozhin was last seen in an SUV late Saturday, amid cheers from some locals, leaving Rostov-on-Don, where his fighters had seized a military headquarters.

Yevgeny Prigozhin (right), the owner of military company Wagner Group, sits in a military vehicle and poses for a selfie with a local civilian after retreating to the group’s base in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on Saturday

Members of the Wagner Group are preparing to withdraw from the Southern Military District headquarters and return to their base in Rostov-on-Don late Saturday

This came after he agreed to a deal to repel his coup forces marching on Moscow.

Some shook his hand through the car window. Trucks with armored vehicles and fighters on them followed his car.

Just hours after Prigozhin announced that his forces would be returning to the base to avoid “the shedding of Russian blood,” the Kremlin announced it was leaving for Belarus.

In return, Russia will drop the charges of “armed rebellion” against Prigozhin and not prosecute the Wagner troops, it said.

The Belarus deal removes Prigozhin’s control of Wagner, but it’s unclear if any of his fighters would follow him to Belarus, either out of loyalty or dismay at being inducted into the Russian military as contract soldiers.

“These personnel could potentially individually sign MoD contracts, demobilize in Russia — (or) travel to Belarus in some capacity,” think tank Institute for the Study of War said in its report on the failed insurgency.

If they were in Belarus, there would be concerns about gaining access to Russian nuclear weapons on the battlefield. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, was concerned they could gain control of Russian arms as the insurgency raged on Saturday.

“The world will come to the brink of destruction,” Medvedev warned, if the Wagnerians got nuclear weapons.

In their lightning-fast advance, Prigozhin’s forces took control of two military bases in southern Russia on Saturday and got within 120 miles of Moscow before retreating.

The mutiny was the culmination of Prigozhin’s longstanding feud with Russian military leaders over the conduct of Russia’s operation in Ukraine.

People in Rostov-on-Don cheered Wagner troops as they departed late Saturday, a scene that reinforced Putin’s fears of a popular uprising. Some ran to shake hands with Prigozhin as he drove away in an SUV.

But the uprising quickly failed, partly because Prigozhin did not receive the support he apparently expected from the Russian security services. The Federal Security Service immediately demanded his arrest.

Putin had described the revolt on Saturday as treason and promised to punish the perpetrators. He accused them of pushing Russia to the brink of civil war.

Later that day, however, he had accepted a Belarus-brokered deal to avert Moscow’s worst security crisis in decades.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said he negotiated the ceasefire with Prigozhin. Moscow thanked him, but observers noted that intervention by Lukashenko, usually seen as Putin’s junior partner, was an embarrassment in itself.

Ukraine relished the chaos and ramped up its own counteroffensive against Russian forces, while analysts also said the deal had exposed weaknesses in the Russian president’s grip on power.

Zelenskyi’s senior adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted: “Prigozhin humiliated Putin/the state and showed that there is no longer a monopoly on the use of force.”

Russia stressed that the insurgency had had no impact on its flagging Ukraine mission and said on Sunday it had repelled fresh offensive attacks by Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainian soldiers who left the front lines on Sunday said the uprising had not noticeably affected the fighting around Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

“Most people, most of the military understand very well that the circus from Russia is still here,” said Nazar, a 26-year-old bearded soldier who is parked at a gas station on a road leading out of the Bakhmut area leads out.

However, Kiev said the unrest presents an “opportunity” for its long-awaited counteroffensive.

Wagner’s fighters, consisting of volunteers and former security officers, but also thousands of convicts, were often thrown to the front lines of the Russian advance in Ukraine.

The force also conducts several operations in the Middle East and Africa, largely with Moscow’s blessing.

A man sits on an armored vehicle in southern Russia as local residents speak to military personnel on the street on Saturday, awaiting news of Wagner’s march to the capital

Residents of the southern Russian city of Rostov take photos of an armored vehicle on the street Saturday, June 24, while chatting with military personnel

The US had information that Prigozhin had been building up its armed forces near the border with Russia for some time.

This contradicts Prigozhin’s claim that his uprising was in response to a Russian military attack on his bases in Ukraine on Friday, which he said killed a large number of his men.

The Ministry of Defense denied an attack on the camps.

US Rep. Mike Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Prigozhin’s march on Moscow appears to have been planned in advance.

BANGKOK (AP) – A US aircraft carrier and two guided missile cruisers visited Vietnam on Monday, a rare port call as the United States and China increasingly compete for influence in Southeast Asia.

The USS Ronald Reagan, along with the guided missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Robert Smalls, arrived in Da Nang on Sunday for the visit.

Neighboring China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner, but Beijing’s far-reaching maritime claims in the South China Sea have led to rising tensions with Vietnam, as well as with Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The US, meanwhile, has made diplomatic moves to strengthen economic and military ties in the Indo-Pacific region.

The aircraft carrier’s port call — only the third such visit since ties resumed following the end of the Vietnam War — follows visits by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and USAID Administrator Samantha Power to Vietnam earlier this year .

“Although visits from aircraft carriers often attract media attention because they are highly visible, the broader question is how this will affect the development of relations, including Washington’s drive to improve relations,” said Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow of the Wilson Center’s Asia program, wrote in a research note.

“Too narrow a focus on aircraft carrier visits may distract from the broader trend of more comprehensive development of US-Vietnam defense ties and relations in general,” Parameswaran added.

Officers of the Ronald Reagan disembarked Sunday and were greeted by Vietnamese officers after berthing in Da Nang, a port modernized and expanded by the United States for domestic use during the war.

Captain Daryle Cardone, the commanding officer of the Ronald Reagan, said some of the ship’s more than 5,000 Sailors will volunteer at several community relations events, participate in sports with local athletes, and participate in other cultural and professional activities during the visit through June 30 will participate in exchange programs.

The story goes on

“Some Reagan sailors call Vietnam home, but for most it will be their first visit,” Cardone said in a U.S. Navy press release.

Washington regards Hanoi as an important part of its strategy for the region and has sought to use Vietnam’s traditional rivalry with its much larger neighbor China to expand US influence in the region.

Japan, a strong US ally, also made a port call in Vietnam last week with its largest destroyer, Izumo, after completing drills in the South China Sea with the Reagan and other American ships.

China is also trying to repair fences and a month ago sent a naval training ship to call at its own port in Da Nang as part of a so-called goodwill tour that also takes the country to Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the Reagan’s port call as part of “normal friendly exchanges for the benefit of peace, stability, cooperation and development both in the region and in the world”.

Vietnam needs to balance its sensitive ties with Beijing with US outreach and domestic political opinion, Parameswaran said, noting that polls indicate Vietnamese people are among the countries with the highest pro-US sentiment in Southeast Asia .

Based in Yokosuka, Japan, the USS Ronald Reagan is the only American forward-facing aircraft carrier. In this role, it is scheduled to be replaced next year by the USS George Washington, also a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

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SCIENCE – Without wanting to, man managed to significantly change the course of the earth. In 20 years, human activity has shifted our planet’s axis of rotation by almost a meter. This is according to a study published in the June 2023 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters by researchers at Seoul University. as you can see in the video at the top of the article.

How did mankind change the angle of rotation of the earth? By pumping a large amount of water into the ground, the scientists answer. They estimate that humans pumped 2,150 gigatons of groundwater between 1993 and 2010.

This water was used to irrigate crops, make clothes, drain construction sites, etc. For example, groundwater abstracted in mainland France accounts for more than 60% of drinking water consumption and more than 30% of global consumption. Agriculture according to data from the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM). It is also frequently used in the industrial sector.

“The earth rotates a little differently”

Problem: The fact that this water is taken from the ground and then transported to the surface of the earth causes a significant change in the distribution of the water mass on the planet … to the point of shifting the water off axis.

“If you add a little bit of weight to a spinning top, the earth rotates a little differently when the water is moved,” the study authors explain. According to their analysis, humans diverted such a mass of water that the earth tilted 80 centimeters east of the Greenwich meridian within twenty years.

Seo et al. (2023), Geophysical Research Letters In red, the observed axis. The axis without redistribution of the water is calculated in dashed lines. In full blue, the axis calculated with the redistribution of the water.

Seo et al. (2023), Geophysical Research Letters

Water’s ability to alter the Earth’s rotation was discovered in 2016. However, until now, the contribution of groundwater to these rotational changes has been unexplored. “We already knew that Earth’s gravity evolved wherever overpumping was accelerated, but the phenomenon is so large that it accounts for the hitherto unexplained deflection of Earth’s rotational poles and some of the ocean uplift.” , says hydrologist Emma Haziza on Twitter.

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“I am very happy to have found the unexplained cause of the rotational pole drift,” writes Ki-Weon Seo, a geophysicist at Seoul University who led the study. “On the other hand, as an earthling and father, I am concerned and surprised that groundwater pumping is another cause of sea level rise.”

By removing water from the ground, sea levels are rising

In fact, this study is the first to confirm with such certainty that the extraction of water from the ground is a significant contributor to sea rise. According to these new calculations, underground water extraction has raised sea levels by an average of 6 millimeters in twenty years.

The rise in sea level is today explained by two factors linked to climate change: the decrease in the density of water due to the heat that expands it and the increase in the amount of water mainly related to the melting of land glaciers … But also to the pumping of Groundwater, which has now been identified as the second cause of the phenomenon.

“Efforts by countries to slow the rate of groundwater depletion, particularly in these sensitive regions, could theoretically alter drift change, but only if these conservation approaches are sustained over decades,” said Ki-Weon Seo, geophysicist and author of the study.

See also on The HuffPost:

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