MEXICO CITY — Standing before a roaring crowd in Mexico City at the launch of his presidential campaign, candidate Ricardo Anaya seethed with anger.
“In the last weeks … there have been all kinds of lies,” he said. “From here on we tell the government and the authors of this dirty war that the more resistance we face, the more force we’ll take off with.”
Mexico’s election campaign opens this weekend, freeing the four candidates who have qualified for the July 1 vote to register with the government and start spending heavily on advertisements. But the race — and the drama — have been heating up for months.
Mr. Anaya, a former senator from the center-right National Action Party, had ascended quickly, thanks in part to his scathing criticism of Pena Nieto and his risky pledge to investigate allegations of graft by the president and his party.
In February, Mexico’s attorney general, a Pena Nieto appointee, announced he was investigating a property deal involving Mr. Anaya, saying the candidate was suspected of laundering money.
The investigation has stained Mr. Anaya’s image as an anti-corruption crusader and significantly reshaping the race. As support for Mr. Anaya has slipped from 30 percent to 24 percent, leftist populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has surged. He now has a double-digit lead over Mr. Anaya, with 42 percent support.
N. Korea ships blacklisted
SEOUL, South Korea — The United Nations Security Council has announced new measures against North Korea, blacklisting 27 ships, 21 shipping companies and one individual accused of helping the North evade previous sanctions.
The move increases pressure on the North ahead of planned summit meetings between its leader, Kim Jong Un, and the presidents of South Korea and the United States.
The oil tankers and cargo ships on the list, announced on Friday, were banned from ports worldwide or would have their assets frozen, and the shipping companies will face an asset freeze.
Facebook and hate speech
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — With Sri Lanka under a state of emergency after a spasm of anti-Muslim bloodshed, lawyer Jeevanee Kariyawasam went on Facebook to complain. The company hadn’t blocked users inciting violence, she wrote, and the government hadn’t arrested those sending out the offending posts.
Facebook’s response was swift: It suspended Ms. Kariyawasam’s account.
The company restored her account within 24 hours, but the incident this month highlighted how Facebook has become a powerful vehicle for hate speech worldwide, and how the Silicon Valley giant’s efforts to police incendiary rhetoric in distant countries have often fallen short.
Denmark statue unveiled
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The statue of the woman is nearly 23 feet tall. Her head is wrapped and she stares straight ahead while sitting barefoot, but regally, in a wide-backed chair, clutching a torch in one hand and a tool used to cut sugar cane in the other.
In Denmark, where most of the public statues represent white men, two artists on Saturday unveiled the striking statue that portrays a 19th-century rebel queen who led a fiery revolt against Danish colonial rule in the Caribbean.
It’s being billed as Denmark’s first public monument to a black woman.
First Published: April 1, 2018, 4:00 a.m.
