Mexico killings expose cartel power, political vulnerability
The World
PRX
4.6 • 943 Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2025
⏱️ 51 minutes
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Summary
A wave of bold political assassinations in Mexico is putting new pressure on the country’s fight against drug cartels. The back-to-back killings show how dangerous it remains to oppose organized crime. Also, the US State Department shuts down a website that made it possible for the public to report potential human rights abuses committed by foreign entities using American-made weapons. And, the UK proposes a new bill that would make paid leave for IVF and other fertility treatments a legal right. Plus, a new play, “Kyoto,” looking at the 1997 UN agreement on greenhouse gas emissions, debuts in New York City.
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| 0:00.0 | In Mexico, whether a business owner or a farmer standing up to powerful drug cartels can lead to violent reprisals. |
| 0:12.0 | They can be kidnapped, their farms burn down, they can be killed. All the land can just be simply taken. |
| 0:18.0 | I'm Marco Wurman, how organized crime in Mexico is terrorizing anyone |
| 0:21.7 | who dares to oppose it. Also today, the U.S. exports more guns than any other country. A bipartisan |
| 0:27.6 | effort in Washington to document when those guns are part of human rights violations is taken offline. |
| 0:33.8 | Cut off without any information or any alternative is really frustrating. And international |
| 0:41.0 | travelers caught up in the shutdown chaos at U.S. airports. How am I going to get back if this is |
| 0:46.8 | going to go on? Next spring, maybe. At least she's not too stressed out. All that and more |
| 0:53.5 | today, here on the world. |
| 0:58.6 | This is the world. I'm Marco Wurman. It is good to be with you this Friday. In Mexico, part of what makes organized crime so hard to stop is that simply trying to stand up against it can turn into a death sentence. In recent weeks, two high-profile |
| 1:12.2 | figures in the state of Michua Khan were assassinated. One was a farmer, the other a politician. They both had |
| 1:18.4 | spoken out against the drug cartels. The world's T.B. I Isaiah starts us off today with this report |
| 1:23.3 | on what looks like a new reign of terror being carried out by organized crime gangs. |
| 1:30.2 | Last week in the city of Urampan in Michoacan, |
| 1:34.1 | families filled a plaza for a day of the dead celebration |
| 1:37.5 | with lots of music, flowers, and dancing. |
| 1:41.3 | The mayor, Carlos Manso, walked onto the stage holding his toddler in his arms. |
| 1:51.0 | A video posted on social media shows him with his trademark cowboy hat, saying how happy he was to be there. |
| 2:00.0 | Minutes later, he handed off his son, and he was shot to death |
| 2:06.1 | in the middle of the plaza. Manso was one of the most outspoken anti-cartel politicians in Mexico, |
| 2:14.3 | demanding that authorities kill armed cartel members. That defiance made him popular, |
| 2:21.4 | but it also forced him to wear a bulletproof vest and travel with armed guards. His assassination |
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