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NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The trial of a British man charged with the premeditated murder of his sick wife got underway Thursday in Cyprus’ coastal resort town of Paphos, with defense lawyers arguing that David Hunter should instead be charged with assisting a suicide.

Justice Abroad, a group that defends Britons embroiled in legal difficulties in foreign countries, says the case against Hunter, 74, is likely the first euthanasia case to be tried on the east Mediterranean island nation. It comes as lawmakers debate whether to decriminalize euthanasia, amid strong opposition from conservative circles, including the influential Orthodox Church.

Hunter’s wife Janice, 74, died in December 2021 at the couple’s retirement home in Paphos where many of the up to 60,000 British expatriates live.

Justice Abroad spokesman Michael Polak said Janice was on heavy medication for a type of blood cancer. He said Cyprus’ Attorney General George Savvides rejected a defense request to reduce the charge to assisted suicide, which would likely keep Hunter out of jail, without providing any reasoning for his decision.

“No one believes Mr. Hunter should go to jail for this,” Polak told The Associated Press.

Speaking to the U.K. newspaper the Mirror, Hunter’s daughter Lesley said that her mother had “begged him for a long time (to assist her death) and was very clear about what she wanted.”

But prosecutors say there’s no tangible evidence — like a written note — to suggest that Hunter’s wife had ever asked him specifically to help her die.

Prosecutors also disputed that there was any medical diagnosis proving that Janice Hunter suffered from leukemia or “blood cancer.” They also said defense attorneys turned down a deal to have Hunter plead guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter that would have resulted in a prison sentence of only a few years.

Polak countered that the burden remains on prosecutors to demonstrate a motive as to why Hunter would want to murder his wife.

He said there was an “unofficial” offer to get Hunter to plead guilty to manslaughter, but there would be “no point” in putting a man of his age in prison, dismissing a suggestion by prosecutors that anything short of manslaughter charge would create a negative legal precedent.

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By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) – There was no evidence that the South Korean fisheries official shot and burned by North Korean troops in 2020 intended to defect, South Korea’s maritime and military authorities said on Thursday, reversing its earlier announcement.

The official, Lee Dae-jun, went missing at sea in September 2020 while working as a fishing inspector. North Korean authorities later shot him dead https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-southkorea-official-idUSKCN26E3NY and set his body on fire, an incident that shocked many South Koreans and increased cross-border tension.

South Korea’s coast guard and military said at the time that Lee appeared to have sought to defect to the North, citing intelligence sources and his gambling debt. But Lee’s family refuted https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-southkorea-shooting-idUSKBN26K0GD the claim, raising a lawsuit calling for the disclosure of government records.

The authorities reversed their earlier announcement on Thursday, saying a reinvestigation determined there was no such evidence.

“We could not find evidence that he had made efforts to cross the border into the North,” Park Sang-choon, a coast guard official, told a briefing.

Yoon Hyung-jin, an official at the defence ministry, apologised for “causing confusion” by making an assumption-based announcement.

“As a result of reinvestigation, we could not verify the missing official voluntarily went to the North, but I can clearly say that there was evidence that the North Korean troops shot him dead and burned his body,” Yoon said at the same briefing.

Ethan Hee-seok Shin, a legal analyst who works with Lee’s family, welcomed the reversal, but said the family sue again, seeking penalties for those who had initially investigated the case and accused Lee of defecting.

“It is a welcome development that the new government is finally moving … to correct the mean-spirited blame game against the late Lee Dae-jun,” Shin told Reuters.

South Korea’s new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, met Lee’s family before taking office in May and promised to help find the truth.

Yoon’s office said it has withdrawn the previous government’s appeal for a lower court ruling that allowed the disclosure of some documents owned by the presidential office and coast guard.

North Korea had defended Lee’s killing as a “self-defensive measure https://www.reuters.com/article/northkorea-southkorea-idINKBN27F0CH” to head off a coronavirus outbreak, with leader Kim Jong Un making a rare apology days after the incident.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

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MOSCOW (AP) — Opposition politician Alexei Navalny confirmed Wednesday that he was transferred to another prison and in quarantine.

Navalny wrote on the Telegram messaging app that he was moved to the maximum security IK-6 prison in the Vladimir region village of Melekhovo, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Moscow.

Navalny, the most determined political foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, previously was held at the IK-2 penal colony in the Vladimir region. The facility in the town of Pokrov stands out among Russian penitentiaries for its especially strict inmate routines, which include standing at attention for hours. IK-6 is located about 150 kilometers to its east.

“My space travel continues,” Navalny wrote Wednesday. “I’ve moved from ship to ship.”

He said he was confined in a “strict regime” and in quarantine, but didn’t say why or what his conditions were.

Navalny was arrested in January 2021 upon returning from Germany, where he had been recuperating from nerve-agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. He received a 2½-year sentence for allegedly violating the conditions of his parole while outside Russia.

In March, Navalny was sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of fraud and contempt of court, allegations he rejected as a politically motivated attempt by Russian authoirties to keep him behind bars for as long as possible.

The new conviction was part of a Kremlin crackdown on Navalny’s supporters, other opposition activists and independent journalists that appeared aimed at stifling dissent.

Navalny’s close associates have faced criminal charges and many have left Russia. Russian authorities shut down his group’s political infrastructure — an anti-corruption foundation and a nationwide network of offices — by labeling it as an extremist organization.

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ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has taken another step to reign in new religious groups in the Catholic Church after their unregulated proliferation in recent decades led to abuses in governance that allowed spiritual and sexual misconduct to go unchecked.

Francis issued a new decree published Wednesday that requires prior Vatican approval for bishops to erect new associations of the faithful, often the first step in the creation of a new apostolic society or institute of consecrate life.

The decree follows a similar one issued in 2020 that required prior Vatican approval for d iocesan-level religious orders, suggesting the Vatican was now cracking down even further to better regulate the origins of these new forms of religious life and take the decisions about them out of the hands of local bishops.

Francis has taken a series of disciplinary and regulatory actions in recent years after some founders and leaders of religious orders and new lay institutes turned out to be religious frauds who sexually and spiritually abused their members.

Some groups have been suppressed, others have been taken over by the Vatican for periods of reform while all have become subject to greater Vatican oversight.

In 2021, the Vatican also imposed term limits on the leaders of lay movements, which proliferated following the second Vatican Council in the 1960s as a new way for rank-and-file Catholics to get involved in the church beyond typical parish life. The Vatican said the term limits were necessary to prevent personality cults from arising around charismatic leaders.

One lay group targeted by the new reform was Communion and Liberation, an influential group in Italy that has a consecrated branch with a few members who help run the household of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI.

The term limits last year forced out Communion and Liberation’s Spanish head, the Rev. Julian Carron, who had been in charge since 2005.

Just this week, the head of the Vatican’s laity office, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, wrote to Carron’s successor complaining that Carron and his followers were still exercising influence against the Vatican’s reforms. According to a copy of the letter, Farrell faulted what he said was the “false doctrine” Carron promoted, claiming the unique spirit of the group passed from the founder through leaders like himself.

Farrell said Communion and Liberation’s new leadership must accept the Vatican’s line and “recognize the problems and review the teachings, practices, methods of government and internal organization forms that were shown to be inadequate or even harmful.”

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By Mike Stone, Patricia Zengerle and Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced a fresh infusion of $1 billion in weapons for Ukraine that sources familiar with the package said included anti-ship rocket systems, artillery rockets, and rounds for howitzers.

In a phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Biden said he told the embattled leader about the new weaponry.

“I informed President Zelenskiy that the United States is providing another $1 billion in security assistance for Ukraine, including additional artillery and coastal defense weapons, as well as ammunition for the artillery and advanced rocket systems,” Biden said in a statement after the 41-minute call.

The president also announced an additional $225 million in humanitarian assistance to help people in Ukraine, including by supplying safe drinking water, critical medical supplies and healthcare, food, shelter, and cash for families to purchase essential items.

The aid packages, which come as U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is meeting with allies in Brussels, could be split into two categories: transfer of excess defense articles from U.S. stocks and other weapons being funded by the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), a separate congressionally authorized program.

Three sources familiar with the details, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that one package of about $350 billion was expected to include more rockets for Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) that had been sent to Ukraine and artillery rounds for M777 howitzers and spare parts.

A second package, anticipated to amount to more than $650 million and funded using USAI, could include ground-based Harpoon anti-ship missile launchers, secure radios, night vision and training.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia on Wednesday accused Western countries of “fighting a proxy war with Russia,” telling reporters: “I would like to say to the Western countries supplying weaponry to Ukraine – the blood of civilians is on your hands.”

Ukraine is pressing the United States and other Western nations for speedy deliveries of weapons in the face of increased pressure from Russian forces in the eastern Donbass region.

Oleksandra Ustinova a member of the Ukrainian Parliament told reporters at an event organized by the German Marshall Fund: “We need all these weapons to be concentrated in a moment to defeat the Russians, not just keep coming every two or three weeks.”

In May, the Biden administration announced a plan to give Ukraine M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems after receiving assurances from Kyiv that it would not use them to hit targets inside Russian territory. Biden imposed the condition to try to avoid escalating the Ukraine war.

The rocket artillery in this aid package would have the same range as previous U.S. rocket shipments and would be funded using Presidential Drawdown Authority, or PDA, in which the president can authorize the transfer of articles and services from U.S. stocks without congressional approval in response to an emergency, one of the source said.

For the first, the United States is considering sending the ground-based Harpoon launchers. In May, Reuters reported the U.S. was working on potential solutions that included pulling a launcher off of a U.S. ship to help provide Harpoon missile launch capability to Ukraine.

Harpoons made by Boeing Co cost about $1.5 million per missile, according to experts and industry executives.

(Reporting by Mike Stone, Patricia Zengerle, Humeyra Pamuk and Steve Holland in Washington, Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Nick Zieminski)

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By Natalia Zinets

KYIV (Reuters) – Russia told Ukrainian forces holed up in a chemical plant in the embattled city of Sievierodonetsk to lay down their arms by early Wednesday, pressing its advantage in the battle for control of eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine is calling for an increase in Western heavy weapons after Russia committed the bulk of its firepower to the eastern Donbas region, a topic expected to feature prominently at a meeting of NATO defence ministers on Wednesday in Brussels.

Ukraine says more than 500 civilians are trapped alongside soldiers inside the Azot chemical factory where its forces have resisted weeks of Russian bombardment and assaults that have reduced much of Sievierodonetsk to ruins.

Fighters should “stop their senseless resistance and lay down arms” from 8 a.m. Moscow time (0500 GMT),” ​Mikhail Mizintsev, head of Russia’s National Defence Management Centre told the Interfax news agency.

Civilians would be let out through a humanitarian corridor, Mizintsev said.

The Azot bombardment echoes the earlier siege of the Azovstal steelworks in the southern port of Mariupol, where hundreds of fighters and civilians took shelter from Russian shelling. Those inside surrendered in mid-May and were taken into Russian custody.

Shelling on Azot was so heavy that “people can no longer stand it in the shelters, their psychological state is on edge,” said regional governor Serhiy Gaidai of Luhansk, one of two eastern provinces Moscow claims on behalf of separatist proxies.

The Russian assault on Luhansk’s Sievierodonetsk – a city of barely more than 100,000 people before the war – is currently the focal point of what has been called the battle of the Donbas.

Kyiv has said 100-200 of its soldiers are killed each day, with hundreds more wounded.

Ukraine is still trying to evacuate civilians from Sievierodonetsk after Russian forces destroyed the last bridge across a river to the Ukrainian-held twin city of Lysychansk.

Russian forces have shelled Lysychansk, which lies on higher ground on the western bank of the Siverskyi Donets river.

Ground has changed hands several times over the past few weeks, and Ukrainian officials have given little indication they will back down.

But with all the bridges leading from Sievierodonetsk now destroyed, Ukrainian forces risk being encircled.

“We have to hold strong … The more losses the enemy suffers, (the) less strength it will have to pursue its aggression,” Zelenskiy said in an address late Tuesday.

‘UNABLE TO LEAVE’

Russia gives no regular figures of its own losses but Western countries say they have been massive as President Vladimir Putin seeks to force Kyiv to cede full control of two provinces, Luhansk and Donetsk, collectively known as the Donbas.

Momentum in Sievierodonetsk has shifted several times over the past few weeks – with Russia concentrating its overwhelming artillery firepower on urban districts to obliterate resistance, then sending in ground troops vulnerable to counter-attacks.

Elsewhere in the Donbas, Ukraine says Russia plans to assault Sloviansk from the north and along a front near Bakhmut to the south.

In Donetsk province, critical infrastructure including homes, schools, hospitals and markets have been attacked over the past week, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

“This has made life nearly unbearable for people who are also facing severe water shortages, and at times are unable to leave their homes for days on end due to the fighting,” Dujarric said.

To the south, Ukraine’s military said it had conducted three air strikes against troop concentrations, fuel depots and military equipment in the Kherson region.

WEAPONS

Ukrainian officials have renewed pleas for the United States and its allies to send more and better artillery as well as tanks, drones and other heavy weapons.

Western countries have promised NATO-standard weapons – including advanced U.S. rockets. But deploying them is taking time, and Ukraine will require consistent Western support to transition to new supplies and weapons systems as stocks dwindle of their Soviet-era weapons and munitions.

The meeting on Wednesday on the sidelines of a NATO defence ministerial is being led by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. It is the third time the group of nearly 50 countries are meeting to discuss and coordinate assistance to Ukraine.

Washington has committed about $4.6 billion in security assistance since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, including longer-range rocket systems, drones and advanced artillery.

But Zelenskiy said Ukraine does not have enough anti-missile systems to protect its cities, adding that “there can be no justification in delays in providing them.”

While Western sanctions have hit Russia’s economy hard, resulting global shortages of oil and grain have sent energy and commodity prices soaring. And a speech that Putin is set to deliver on Friday at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum will be closely watched.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Rami Ayyub and Stephen Coates; Editing by Grant McCool & Simon Cameron-Moore)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Tuesday backed Taiwan’s assertion that the strait separating the island from China is an international waterway, a further rebuff to Beijing’s claim to exercise sovereignty over the strategic passage.

The Taiwan Strait has been a frequent source of military tension since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the communists, who established the People’s Republic of China.

In recent years, U.S. warships, and on occasion those from allied nations such as Britain and Canada, have sailed through the strait, drawing Beijing’s anger.

On Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry said the country “has sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait” and called it “a false claim when certain countries call the Taiwan Strait ‘international waters’.”

Commenting on Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said in an email to Reuters: “The Taiwan Strait is an international waterway, meaning that the Taiwan Strait is an area where high seas freedoms, including freedom of navigation and overflight, are guaranteed under international law.”

  The world has “an abiding interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and we consider this central to the security and prosperity of the broader Indo-Pacific region,” Price added.

He reiterated U.S. concerns about China’s “aggressive rhetoric and coercive activity regarding Taiwan” and said the United States “would continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, and that includes transiting through the Taiwan Strait.”

  Earlier on Tuesday, Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou called China’s position a “fallacy.”

On Wednesday, Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang said the strait was by “no means China’s inland sea”.

“China’s ambition to swallow up Taiwan has never stopped or been concealed; the Taiwan Strait is a maritime area for free international navigation,” he told reporters.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said the government in Taipei was “cooperating with external forces to hype up the issue”.

This “harms the interests of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and betrays the interests of the Chinese nation – it is despicable,” office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang said in Beijing.

China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control and views the island as an inherent part of Chinese territory.

Taiwan says China has no right to speak for it or claim sovereignty, saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their own future and that the People’s Republic of China has never controlled any part of the island.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Humeyra Pamuk and Michael Martina; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei and Beijing newsroom; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

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By Byungwook Kim and Heekyong Yang

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s unionised truckers headed back on the roads on Wednesday after the union and the transport ministry reached a tentative late-night agreement, ending a nationwide strike that crippled ports and industrial hubs.

The transport ministry and truckers union agreed on late Tuesday to extend the truckers’ minimum freight rates and continue discussing expanding a guarantee of minimum pay for carrying cargo to cover additional products. The transport ministry will also review expanding fuel subsidies.

Shares in some affected industries rose in early trade, after the eight-day strike had delayed cargo shipments from autos to cement and alcohol, costing South Korea more than $1.2 billion in lost output and unfilled deliveries.

“So the strike has been called off until our demands are passed in parliament,” said Park Jung-hoon, an official at the union’s Busan chapter, referring to the process the transport ministry must undertake to implement the agreement.

“In the next two to three days, 100% of unionised truckers at Busan port are expected to return to work after they get some rest. There might be some shippers who seek retributions, and in such cases, we will respond strongly.”

The strike had been an early test of the new government of President Yoon Suk-yeol and had further stretched global supply chains already disrupted by China’s COVID-19 curbs and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Woo Sang-ho, the interim leader of the opposition liberal Democratic Party which has a majority in parliament, welcomed the agreement but said the issue of guaranteeing freight rates required legislation and called for “fundamental improvement” to address conditions faced by the truckers.

There was confusion about whether the government and Yoon’s ruling conservatives agreed to make the minimum pay system a permanent feature or merely extend a temporary measure for another fixed period, union official Kim Jae-gwang said.

SHARES GAIN, PRODUCTION RESUMES

Investors responded positively, with shares in Hyundai Motor gaining as much as 4% while shares in Hanil Cement rose as much as 7%.

“Production has been normalised at our Ulsan Plant and we will continue to minimise customer inconvenience from the production disruption,” Hyundai Motor said in a statement to Reuters on Wednesday.

Yoo Ji-woong, an analyst at Daol Securities estimated the strike had impacted about 5,000 vehicles each for both Hyundai and Kia but said there were sufficient opportunities to make up for lost production during June through overtime.

Steelmaker POSCO, a unit of POSCO Holdings, halted work at some plants on Monday due to a lack of space to store unshipped products, but plans to achieve originally planned production output by adjusting its maintenance, a spokesperson said.

“We plan to resume our overland transport of steel products out of Pohang and Gwangyang steel plants starting 1 p.m. (0400 GMT) on Wednesday,” the spokesperson added.

Korea Zinc said its shipments of sulphuric acid, a key raw material of semiconductors, are back on track after strikers retreated from its production base in Ulsan.

An official at SK Plasma, which manufactures medicines with plasma, said its shipments of plasma supplies, which had been trapped in Busan port, partially resumed on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Byungwook Kim and Heekyong Yang; Additional reporting by Choonsik Yoo and Jihoon Lee; Writing by Joyce Lee; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

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TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albanian attorneys on Tuesday boycotted all the court procedures to protest a new reorganization plan that cuts the number of courts almost by half.

The High Judicial Council, the country’s top institution on courts, decided to cut the number of the first instance courts from 22 to 13, the appeals courts from six to one and the administrative courts from six to two. That means lawyers and their clients must sometimes go to other cities for trials, or to the capital for the appeals court.

Its decision last week said the moves aimed at “increasing the efficiency of the judicial system for citizens” and also a better distribution of the judges’ workload.

But attorneys said it was doing the opposite, violating citizens’ access to the courts and delaying the court processes. It also accused the council of not taking their opinion into consideration.

The attorneys have boycotted 500 court cases this week, threatening to continue the strike unless reorganization plan is cancelled.

Judicial corruption has plagued post-communist Albania, a NATO member since 2009, hampering its democratic processes and slowing its path into the European Union.

In 2016, Albania passed a judicial reform seeking to root out bribery and ensure that judges and prosecutors are independent from politics. Hundreds of judges and prosecutors have been fired following a still ongoing vetting process.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — The corn has begun to sprout on the hillsides south of Mexico’s capital, though it’s unclear whether these shoots will have enough water to grow or whether the farmer will be able to afford the increasingly expensive fertilizer.

What is known is that the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wants Mexicans to produce more of their own food in order to move toward self-sufficiency in key products and to control prices for basic foodstuffs.

The president’s idea, which involves giving rural families cash payments to grow crops and technical advice, isn’t new, but the ravages of the pandemic, climate change and market turmoil created by the war in Ukraine have given it new urgency. The government wants to head off food insecurity in a country where 44% of the population lives in poverty and where 27.5 million tons of corn are produced, but more than 40 million tons are consumed, according to government data.

Some farmers hope for additional state financial help and subsidized fertilizer. Others are suspicious of government plans. But all hope that this year’s harvest produces enough to feed their families and with luck a bit more to sell in their communities.

While G-7 countries look for global solutions and the United States and development banks prepare a multibillion-dollar plan to ease food insecurity, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has welcomed Mexico’s efforts toward self-sufficiency in basic foods, but does not expect quick results.

“We do not see food prices going down, at least this year,” said Lina Pohl, the organization’s representative in Mexico.

The government hasn’t given any estimate of how much additional food it is aiming for, saying only that it wants to boost production on 60% of the 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) in the program.

Brothers Arturo, Benjamín and Víctor Corella, three teachers who in their retirement are farming family plots in Milpa Alta in southermost Mexico City, know everyone is having a rough time, but they are optimistic because after only one year in “Sowing Life,” or “Sembrando Vida” — one of López Obrador’s signature programs — they harvested 1½ tons of corn where they had previously only gotten one.

“The most important reason for planting is that (the whole family) has self-sufficiency in corn, not having to go buy tortillas, but rather try to do it ourselves,” said Benjamín. Now, he said, a government technician coaches them through their planting strategies, improving their yield.

“Sowing Life” was publicized as an ambitious reforestation program that aimed to plant a million hectares of trees producing fruit and lumber. It was also hoped that giving rural families a sustainable source of revenue and a monthly cash payment would keep more of them on their land rather than migrating north.

But the program also included a lesser-known option that López Obrador now hopes to amplify. Some enrollees could choose to receive monthly payments to grow what in Mexico is known as the “milpa,” corn, beans and squash grown together as has been done for centuries.

The “Sowing Life” program counts with an investment of nearly $4 billion and some 450,000 participating growers, each of whom receives a monthly $225 payment from the government. The real number of people involved is far larger though, because to qualify each grower needs to farm 2.5 hectares — more land than many farmers have — and often entire families or even communities pool their land like the Corellas.

Despite the government’s use of the program to counter its less-than-stellar environmental record and doubts about its scientific underpinnings, few have questioned its social impact.

Housed in Mexico’s social welfare — not agriculture — ministry it generates work and food by supporting farmers with technical advice and monitoring.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization sees it as a “fundamental program” helping small farmers to improve their quality of life and produce in healthier ways.

Ariadna Montiel, secretary of the welfare ministry, said the goal is to expand the program and offer new support to those already enrolled so they can farm more land, add new crops or start to produce and use organic fertilizers.

That’s precisely what the Corella brothers have in mind.

Montiel said the effort’s results will be seen in four or five months when corn is harvested, but only the growers’ communities are likely to see the prices of those basic foods drop. “If we think about these families, which are the poorest, having this (food self-sufficiency) guaranteed, we remove a concern,” she said.

If they have more than they can eat themselves, they can sell it locally or to the government for a fair price to supply its food programs for the most marginalized.

Strong economies including the United States, Japan and European nations have opted for self-sufficiency as well subsidizing certain products, even though buying from its producers is more expensive than importing.

In the late 1990s, with the North American Free Trade Agreement, many Mexicans began buying cheaper U.S. corn and stopped farming their land.

While the FAO defends self-sufficiency efforts in food production, it emphasizes that international trade is crucial for all economies.

Some Mexicans have returned to the land without the government’s assistance for reasons either personal or ideological.

“Planting is an act of resistance,” in the face of Mexico City’s growing urban sprawl, said Ana Martínez, an accounting assistant and single mother, who during the pandemic decided to begin farming her grandfather’s land in Milpa Alta.

“It’s about generating consciousness in the community and not abandoning” the land, she said. Martínez belongs to a land defense collective and spends part of her weekends weeding in preparation for her first harvest. She said the government’s program might help some people, but she viewed it as charity. “With land we can survive.”

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