For the first time in 55 years, this week a hurricane and a tropical storm arrived almost simultaneously on Mexico’s Pacific and Gulf coasts, killing at least 80 people (with a further 58 missing) and leaving tens of thousands homeless. If that was a double dose of bad news on a three-day holiday weekend, Acapulco, the south-western resort where Hollywood divas once flirted with cliff-divers, was thrice-cursed

Vice President Biden is heading to Mexico later Thursday to kick off the first-ever high level economic dialogue between the two nations. On his third trip to Mexico, Biden will sit down with President Enrique Peña Nieto as part of the launch of the U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue in Mexico City to improve the economic relationship between the two neighbors.

Latin America’s stock markets have provided a nail-biting roller-coaster for investors. Prices roared higher before the global financial crisis in 2007, and then collapsed. They have failed to regain those highs, despite values almost doubling in 2009. This year has been particularly poor. While Western markets have been in buoyant mood in 2013, Latin America shares have fallen by nearly 20pc.

Mexico saw the highest number of reported kidnappings in the first half of 2013 since at least 1997, according to a national civil society organization, a figure that reflects the increasing diversification of criminal activities in the country. According to a report from the National Citizen Observatory (ONC), there were 757 reports of kidnappings recorded between January and June this year, the highest number for any semester in the time period 1997 to 2013.

When contemplating the logistics of a possible war with Iran, it is helpful to consult maps indicating the multitude of US military bases that already encircle a country under crippling economic sanctions. No similar visual aids are available for Iranian bases in the vicinity of the US, for obvious reasons.However, there are various ways to compensate for the lack of an apparent Iranian threat in the western hemisphere. One is to blame it on "invisibleness".

The Mexican ambassador to Canada says his country is “really mad” at the Harper government for the continued imposition of a visa on its travellers here. Ambassador Francisco Suarez told The Canadian Press in an exclusive interview that Mexico is so upset that if the issue isn’t resolved by next year, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto might have to postpone a planned visit to Canada.

Ahead of the G20 meeting, president Xi Jinping has met his Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. It’s the third meeting between the two leaders this year. Both sides vowed to boost their comprehensive cooperative relationship. Xi says China-Mexico relations have entered a new phase, and that the two countries should continue to boost bilateral investment and economic cooperation.

Why do they hate America? What can we do to make them like us? There has been much talk about the promise and limits of U.S. public diplomacy in the Islamic world ever since the 9/11 terrorist attacks and an assumption that our efforts need to be adapted from the Cold War. But many of these discussions ignore that the robust, global system of public diplomacy funded by the State Department from the 1920s until the 1990s pre-dates the Cold War.