'A megaproject of death': fury as Maya train nears completion in Mexico

Hailed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as a beacon of prosperity, the environmental cost of the railway has bitterly divided communities along its routeDiggers trundle across the chalky bare earth just outside the town of Xpujil, in Campeche state, southern Mexico. The land is being cleared to make way for the Maya train line, a controversial megaproject that will cross the Yucatán peninsula, whisking tourists from the beach resorts of Cancún and Tulum to Maya archeological sites in the heart of the jungle.A sizeable area has already been gouged out of tropical rainforest, the second largest in the Americas after the Amazon, for the 1,525km (948 mile) route that will cut through land largely inhabited by Indigenous groups. Continue reading...