MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday she filed a complaint against a man who groped her and tried to kiss her as she walked between meetings in the capital city, a day after a video of the incident went viral.

“If this happens to the president, where does that leave all the young women in our country,” said Ms. Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president. “No man has the right to abuse women’s personal space.”

Video of the incident quickly ricocheted across the internet before being taken down by some accounts, underscoring for many in Mexico the insecurity women face in a country steeped in machismo and gender-based violence.

It has also raised questions about Ms. Sheinbaum’s security detail. Like her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Ms. Sheinbaum travels with minimal security and makes herself widely available to the public, including wading into crowds of people.

She said on Wednesday that she did not plan to change that practice, saying “we have to be close to the people.”

The incident happened on Tuesday in the capital’s historic center as Ms. Sheinbaum was greeting members of the public while making the short walk from Mexico’s national palace to the Ministry of Education.

The video shows a middle-aged man putting his arm around Ms. Sheinbaum, touching her chest and attempting to kiss her. She moves his hands away before a member of her staff steps between them. The president’s security detail did not appear to be near her in the moment.

Ms. Sheinbaum said the man appeared to be drunk.

RE-VICTIMIZATION
She also blasted Mexican newspaper Reforma for publishing images of the man groping her, saying she considered it a “re-victimization” and that it crossed an ethical line.

“The use of the image is also a crime,” Sheinbaum said, pointing to legislation against digital violence. “I am waiting for an apology from the newspaper.”

The federal government’s Women’s Ministry, created under Ms. Sheinbaum, issued a statement on Tuesday encouraging women to report violence against them, but asking media outlets “not to reproduce content that violates the integrity of women.”

Still, feminist activists have sharply criticized Ms. Sheinbaum in the past for not doing enough to address violence against women. Among other things, they point to lackluster prosecutions and investigations of femicides – the killing of a woman because of her gender.

In 2024, Mexico recorded 821 femicides, according to government data. There have been 501 femicides recorded through September of this year, and many advocates say the numbers are likely far underestimated.

CRIMINALIZING HARASSMENT
Ana Yeli Perez of the National Citizen Observatory on Femicide said the groping of Ms. Sheinbaum puts the issue of violence against women on the national agenda again.

“It’s reprehensible, it must be denounced, it must be named, because it’s an act of violence, but it’s also a significant event and symbolic of what women experience every day,” she said.

Ms. Sheinbaum said sexual harassment should be a “criminal offense, punishable by law,” adding that she has asked Mexico’s Women’s Ministry to conduct a review of the legal codes in each state.

Sexual harassment is a crime in about half of Mexican states, as well as the capital Mexico City.

Local media identified the man who assaulted Ms. Sheinbaum as Uriel Rivera and a state security filing showed he was arrested at 9 p.m. on Tuesday night. — Reuters

BELEM, Brazil — After a year of talks, COP30 host Brazil on Wednesday laid out a plan to scale climate finance to $1.3 trillion a year and faced several early signs of the testing political backdrop as the Amazonian city of Belem prepares to welcome world leaders.

The near 100-page document, dubbed the Baku to Belem Roadmap, follows months of talks with stakeholders since the close of last year’s event in Azerbaijan.

Providing more finance is central to maintaining trust in multilateral climate efforts as emissions continue to rise, leaving some of the poorest countries at more risk of extreme weather events.

Yet the push to rein in emissions took a fresh knock overnight as the European Union agreed a final-hour deal to cut emissions by 90% by 2040 but only by baking in flexibility that weakens it.

“The EU has made a perilous choice today,” said Jeroen Gerlag, director of the European office at Climate Group. “It’s a disappointing signal of leadership as we go into COP30 next week.”

While the site of the talks remains under construction, the area set aside for the leaders’ speeches was almost ready, with construction crews making last-minute repairs and putting plants and furniture in place.

In another test for Brazil, Britain said it would not commit money at the event to a plan to protect the world’s rainforests, the Tropical Forests Forever Facility – seen as a flagship goal of the hosts that aims to raise $125 billion.

The decision disappointed Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, sources told Reuters, particularly given Britain had helped create it and Mr. Lula had personally written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer last Friday to request an investment.

Separately, Mr. Lula met with the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, President of Finland Alexander Stubb, and Ding Xuexiang, vice premier of the State Council of China, to ask for contributions, according to sources who asked to remain anonymous to be able to speak freely.

A GLOBAL BLUEPRINT FOR COOPERATION
As global development aid is slashed, the authors of the Roadmap called it a “blueprint for cooperation and tangible results”.

Mukhtar Babayev, the President of COP29, who helped oversee the Roadmap, cautioned at a press conference that it was important to acknowledge the scale of the challenge.

“We are trying to intervene in the normal functioning of the world economy, we are attempting to direct the forces of global finance. This is an immense task.”

“Success will require great political will. It will need sustained focus, and it will demand relentless action from all of us. Countries simply cannot cut emissions or adapt to rising temperatures if they cannot count on capital,” he added.

Ideas to scale finance include giving more in the form of grants and making it easier for developing countries to access private capital, the report said, while multilateral banks should help ease the debt burden of developing countries and take on more risk themselves.

“The resources exist, the science is clear, and the moral imperative is undeniable. What remains is the resolve to act – to turn the unimaginable into the inevitable, and to make this decade of accelerated implementation the one in which humanity’s response finally matches the scale of its responsibility,” the report said.

Rob Moore, associate director, Public Banks & Development at think tank E3G, said the document “lays down the gauntlet” and set out clearly what was needed.

“For it to have the impact it is capable of, we now need to see governments in wealthy countries and international financial institutions respond and be accountable for delivery. We need to leave COP30 with a plan for turning these words into reality.”— Reuters