The news at a glance...Americas

Mexico City

Protesting oil deal: Tens of thousands of Mexicans rallied last week against President Enrique Peña Nieto’s proposal to allow foreign oil companies to drill in Mexico. State oil company Pemex has been the sole operator since 1938, when Mexico nationalized its oil fields, but now it needs help to exploit the deepwater reserves in the Gulf as well as shale gas. Peña Nieto says the Mexican government simply can’t take on the risk of investing billions of dollars in exploration and development. But opposition leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador says allowing foreigners to profit from Mexican oil would be a national defeat and the “robbery of all ages.”

Mexico City

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Nuclear material stolen: A truck full of “extremely dangerous” radioactive materials that could be used in a dirty bomb has been stolen after stopping at a gas station near Mexico City. The truck was hauling radiation-therapy equipment contaminated with the radioactive isotope cobalt-60 from a hospital to a waste storage center. The International Atomic Energy Agency said thieves may have been after the truck alone, unaware that it contained radioactive material. It warned that the contaminated metal could be sold as scrap and end up anywhere. If it were used to make a dirty bomb, experts said, the result would more likely be mass panic than massive casualties.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

President threatened: Haitian lawmakers are apparently planning to oust President Michel Martelly. The head of the Haitian Senate, Simon Dieuseul Desras, wrote to the government of Chile last month, asking that the Chilean peacekeeping troops stationed in Haiti be committed to “defending the Haitian people, thirsty for democracy, against excesses of a totalitarian and arbitrary power,” a reference to Martelly. The letter became public this week when Chilean officials said their country would not get involved. Haitian lawmakers are angry about Martelly’s refusal to hold legally mandated parliamentary elections that should have taken place two years ago.