measles infections so as to detect any new cases promptly and curb the spread of the disease. While cases may have peaked in Mexico, they are still rising in Guatemala. Some 5,399 people have been infected, with at least four children killed. The outbreak began late last year at a religious gathering of more than 2,000 people which drew visitors from the United States, Mexico and Central America. More large religious events are planned. The health ministry is concerned. It is organising workshops to educate people about vaccines. The backsliding which is allowing measles to spread through the Americas once more has several causes. Covid-19 damaged health-care services across the region, pulling staff off vaccination programmes. Populist leaders in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil have all cut their budgets for vaccinating children in recent years. Rising vaccine hesitancy, driven in part by unfounded concerns spread on social media about the safety of jabs, plays a larger role in rich countries. In Canada the childhood vaccination rate has dropped from 86% to 79% over the past decade. “I am terribly worried,” says Dr Andrus. Against this weakening wall of immunity, the virus arrives constantly from places where measles is still rife, creating the risk of an outbreak. The lower the vaccination rate, the more likely the virus is to spread. When rates in the Americas were high, groups like Mennonites enjoyed the protection of the herd. As overall rates have fallen, groups with particularly low rates endanger themselves and others. What can be done? In the midst of an outbreak, contact tracing can prevent further spread, while vaccination drives often get a high uptake from worried parents. In the longer run, Daniel Salas of PAHO says modernising immunisation infrastructure is important. Today only 19 of the 35 countries PAHO covers have some form of electronic immunisation registry that can alert parents when their children are due for vaccines. Outreach using culturally sensitive and faith-based vaccination instructors may prove most effective. Political will is critical. The Americas’ role model is Uruguay, the first country in Latin America that had a vaccine register. “They have good
surveillance, and they have a political commitment that has never wavered from prioritising prevention of preventable diseases,” says Dr Andrus. Argentina, where vaccination rates have dropped precipitously under the austerity policies of Javier Milei, risks an explosive outbreak without a timely and determined effort. Measles, says Dr Andrus, does not allow countries to drop their guard. ■ Sign up to El Boletín, our subscriber-only newsletter on Latin America, to understand the forces shaping a fascinating and complex region. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//the-americas/2026/05/14/why-measles-is-returning-to-the- americas
Guatemala, once Latin America’s rule-of-law beacon, has new hope But a new attorney-general may not be enough to revive the fight against corruption May 14th 2026 A DECADE AGO, the Mariscal Zavala prison in Guatemala City was a symbol of Latin America’s fight against corruption. Dozens of politicians and businessmen, caught taking bribes or laundering cash, awaited trial in austere cells guarded by baby-faced soldiers. The most notorious inmate was Otto Pérez Molina, Guatemala’s president until 2015, when a UN-backed anti-corruption commission revealed his role as the mastermind of a massive kickback scheme. Protests forced him out of office and into the justice system, which for the first time was showing an independent streak.
Guatemalans idolised the commission, known as CICIG, along with the judges and prosecutors who dared to put powerful people behind bars. Guatemala became the poster-child for the rule of law in a region known for impunity. But progress was short-lived. Mr Molina’s successor, Jimmy Morales—who was also accused of corruption—kicked the UN commission out of the country in 2019. He appointed a new attorney-general, María Consuelo Porras (pictured), who proceeded to dismantle many of CICIG’s cases. Ms Porras has since continued to assail prosecutors, judges, civil society leaders and journalists who had led the fight against graft. Some were imprisoned, others forced into exile. Some saw Ms Porras as a necessary corrective to CICIG’s overreach. Even the commission’s fans admit that it made errors: filing more cases than it could process and flaunting them in the media; prosecuting a president, Mr Morales, whose support was needed for crucial judicial reforms. But others were horrified as legal instruments created to fight against corruption were turned against it: a budget that became larger than that of most ministries; an “anti-impunity” task force that began persecuting its former members; a law, passed in 2016 to protect Ms Porras’ predecessor, that made it practically impossible for the president to get rid of the attorney-general. In 2022 the United States put Ms Porras under sanctions for corruption. Her spokesperson calls accusations of political persecution “totally false”. Today Mariscal Zavala is half empty. Among its remaining inmates are Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán, indigenous Guatemalans who led protests in 2023 against Ms Porras’s extraordinary efforts to prevent Bernardo Arévalo, the winner of the presidential election, from taking office. Mr Arévalo, the leader of a center-left party, Semilla, ran on an anti-corruption platform. Ms Porras and her allies raided polling stations, accused him of fraudulent voter registration, and tried to pressure the electoral court into annulling his victory. Mr Arévalo took office, but Ms Porras, who remained in her powerful post, charged the protest leaders with sedition, unlawful association, and terrorism. Their case, which is sealed, is yet to appear before a judge. Now her term is over; her efforts to cling on failed. A new attorney-general, Gabriel García Luna, will take office on May 17th. He is more independent by all accounts. But relief at Ms Porras’s departure is mixed with trepidation.
Her allies remain entrenched in the justice system, while her eight-year reign laid bare the depth of the rot in Guatemala. Mr García Luna’s appointment is Mr Arévalo’s long-awaited chance to move the country on. It follows tense battles earlier this year for control of Guatemala’s top courts, which ended up split between respected jurists and figures denounced for their ties to organised crime and corruption. One reform-minded member of the Constitutional Court had to be sworn in before dawn because prosecutors were threatening her with an arrest order. The president has avoided confrontation with Ms Porras, insisting instead on obeying the law that empowered her–and every other law. This drew criticism from his allies. “Diplomacy is for developed countries,” says Mr Chaclán, the indigenous leader. “You have to use the instruments of power, and he decided not to,” says Samuel Pérez, a congressman who left the president’s party in 2025. The new attorney-general has had a mostly quiet career as a judge and law- school professor. In his testimony to the nominating commission, he spoke about restoring public confidence in the attorney-general’s office and “avoiding arbitrary decisions and groundless persecutions”. Some want him to go after the powerful actors Ms Porras protected; it seems more likely he will start with less divisive tasks, like strengthening prosecutors’ response to organised crime, extortion, and violence against women. The quip going around Guatemala is that he is Mr Arévalo in the form of an attorney- general. Many doubt he will have the backbone for high-profile corruption cases or controversial reforms, such as a new system for choosing high-court judges. Anti-corruption work is getting harder, in part because its advocates can no longer count on support from the United States. Previous administrations in Washington viewed democracy and the rule of law as key to combatting drug-trafficking and illegal migration in Latin America. Donald Trump takes a more brute-force approach, and cares little for such high-minded diagnoses. Anti-corruption advocates now hope that an ally of Mr Arévalo’s will win the next presidential election in 2027. That could create a stronger mandate
for reforms. But they worry that Guatemalans will follow the lead of their Central American neighbors and vote in a populist authoritarian. To forestall this, José Carlos Sanabria, a lawmaker from the president’s party, says Mr Arévalo should make everyday needs his priority: healthcare, security, roads, education. “It’s not enough that he’s not corrupt,” Mr Sanabria says. “We have to give the population concrete reasons to say that it was worth it.” ■ Sign up to El Boletín, our subscriber-only newsletter on Latin America, to understand the forces shaping a fascinating and complex region. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//the-americas/2026/05/08/guatemala-once-latin-americas- rule-of-law-beacon-has-new-hope
The Gulf war will change Asia for good Meet Anno Takahiro, founder of Japan’s hottest political party India’s legendary hill towns are sinking India’s pricey private universities want to take on the Ivy League Drama in the Philippines after the vice-president is impeached
The Gulf war will change Asia for good Energy-shocked countries are determined never to be hostage again May 14th 2026 What Narendra Modi asks of Indians, he usually gets. During the pandemic India’s prime minister exhorted them to stay inside and to bang pots and pans in support of health workers. The country obliged. On May 10th he asked Indians to replicate some of that covid-era discipline. He urged them to work from home where possible, and to cut back on foreign travel. Mr Modi’s plea comes amid a worsening energy shock caused by the war in Iran. For weeks the Indian government has kept fuel prices constant, forcing state-owned oil firms to absorb a surge in the cost of imported crude. And India is just the latest of many Asian countries asking people to tighten their belts. But even those that moved early to control energy use, such as Thailand and the Philippines, are now entering dangerous territory. The
effects of the war are threatening to upend the region’s economies—and its politics. In places without fuel-price caps, such as Pakistan and the Philippines, prices have soared (see chart). But the rising concern, especially in developing Asia, is that supplies could simply run out. Indonesia is reported to have a buffer of three weeks’ fuel; Vietnam has less than a month. People in Pakistan and Bangladesh, reliant on natural gas from the Gulf, have endured long blackouts. Petrol pumps in rural areas are running dry. “We wake up at 2am and often wait 24 hours just to get two litres of diesel,” says Mizanur Rahman, a farmer in Bangladesh. Mr Rahman’s plight points to the pain being suffered by agriculture, in particular. As well as diesel, farmers are running short of fertilisers. The price of urea, much of which is made in the Gulf, is up 50% since the start of the war. Millions of rice farmers in Asia have begun planting paddy but are now scaling back plans because of the cost. “Right now rice is a profitability problem,” says Dr Alisher Mirzabaev of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. “But if the war continues, it becomes a food- security one.”