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From Changing Rooms to Hemispheres: Single-Sex Push and a Trumpian Monroe Doctrine Put Latin America in U.S.–China Crosshairs
Police data link sexual offences to mixed-sex changing areas, campaigners push for single-sex facilities
Police figures obtained by the Women’s Rights Network show at least 16 rapes, 80 sexual assaults, and 65 voyeurism incidents recorded at 257 leisure facilities in England and Wales in 2023, roughly three offences a week. Where locations were specified, most crimes occurred in mixed-sex changing villages. The WRN urges councils to make single-sex changing and showers standard and notes about a third of centers lack women-only provision. Police data indicate nearly five percent of recorded offences involved male staff. After officers flagged voyeurism risks in a proposed Stevenage pool, the WRN accused councils, sports bodies, operators, and architects of designing in harm. Two men were convicted last year of covertly filming more than 5,000 people at pools across London and the South East. The accounts from victims point to severe and lasting trauma, and many women reportedly avoid pools rather than report incidents.
Monroe Doctrine, now with a Trump twist, puts Latin America at the center of a China contest
A new security blueprint openly revives the Monroe Doctrine with a Trump corollary that elevates the Western Hemisphere above all else, blending narco-terrorism talk with great-power competition against China. It ties US security and prosperity to blocking Beijing from ports, minerals, bases, and networks across Latin America, neatly recasting a larger US military footprint and diplomatic pressure as law and order housekeeping. Critics say it retrofits recent behavior, from deadly maritime actions marketed as anti-cartel operations despite legal objections, to a selective morality that rewards pliant partners who police migration routes and host US troops. Venezuela is the centerpiece, thanks to oil, a strategic Caribbean coastline, and years of deals with China, Iran, and Russia, which make Nicolás Maduro a convenient narco-dictator in the narrative. Reports claim Maduro has floated giving the US dominant stakes in oil and gold, while opposition figure María Corina Machado touts a post-Maduro privatization bonanza to investors. Regional organizations have urged calm without condemning US strikes, leaving capitals to bargain one by one over whether they are friends or narco-states. Two centuries on, Washington still treats the neighborhood like its backyard, now with better branding and a louder bullhorn.
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