The Mexican Left’s Road to the Presidency
By RICARDO CASTILLO … The leftist parties in Mexico have followed a complicated and convoluted path to political power,..
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The Dog Fight over Santa Lucía Airport
By RICARDO CASTILLO One day yes and the next day no. Again we’re getting bombarded with news of judges ordering the cancellation of the still-to-be-built Santa Lucía Airport located just northwest of the Teotihuacán pyramida, to the north of Mexico City. As of last week, 80 suits had been filed on environmental grounds stating that the damage the airport would
Read moreGermán Larrea in the Spotlight, Again
By RICARDO CASTILLO Every now and then, more often than not, the name of Mexico’s fourth-wealthiest man, Germán Larrea Mota-Velasco, dominates the media with controversial reports. In fact, at the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat), there are a myriad of files open charging Larrea with crimes of pollution. And if we gauge the amount of media space devoted
Read morePeña Nieto’s Divorce Lawyer Arrested for Swindle
By RICARDO CASTILLO A case that is currently making ripples in the turbulent waters of Mexican politics today began when the well-known lawyer Juan Collado Mocelo was arrested on Tuesday, July 9, at high-end Mexico City eatery Morton’s Steak House in Lomas de Chapultepec. At the moment of his arrest, Collado Mocelo was eating with one of his clients, Pemex
Read moreAMLO and Slim Mend Fences
By RICARDO CASTILLO Just when everyone in Mexico thought President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and tycoon entrepreneur Carlos Slim had frozen their relationship, last Friday, June 28, they reappeared together in the state of Oaxaca to relaunch the completion of the 150-kilometer-long, two-expanded-lane Milta-Tehuantepec super highway, with an 8-billion-peso investment. Was this event the beginning of the thawing of
Read moreMexican Steel Tycoon’s Arrest Foreshadows Political Storm
By RICARDO CASTILLO The financial-political scandal in Mexico that is threatening to become a perfect storm is nothing new. It’s been in the making for 28 years now, but in the bat of an eye this week, two arrest warrants were issued by the Fiscal Attorney General of the Republic. That’s what this story is about. On Tuesday,
Read moreA Dubious Future for Mexico’s PRI and PRD Political Parties
By RICARDO CASTILLO Is there anything left for Mexico’s Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to celebrate now that they have been diagnosed as last-stage, end-of-life patients? Maybe not, other than the fact that in their deathbeds they are still desperately clinging to life. The stories of the two parties is extremely different, although their
Read moreA Tale of Two Airports: NAIM and Santa Lucía
By RICARDO CASTILLO In tandem with the announcement on Monday, April 29, of the additional construction of the Santa Lucía military airport — now renamed the Felipe Ángeles Airport — just northwest of the Teotihuacán Pyramids, Communications and Transportation Secretary Javier Jiménez Espriú surreptitiously released to the handpicked newspaper El Universal as well as to journalist Jorge Zepeda, copies of
Read moreA Brief Review of Mexico’s Neoliberal Era
By RICARDO CASTILLO Now that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) declared on Sunday, March 17, “the end of the neoliberal era,” a brief review of what it was seems to be in order. AMLO says that it lasted 36 years through six different presidents; his gauge is correct. He also said in his calling neoliberalism defunct that his
Read moreAll the (Former) Presidents’ Men (and an Ex-President to Boot)
By RICARDO CASTILLO What was the political gossip this week in Mexico? Definitely, the “denunciations” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) made of nine past officials for stealing money from the near-bankrupt, still-government-run electricity monopoly, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). As we covered in Pulse News Mexico, on Monday, Feb. 11, the president, during his daily press conference at the National Palace in downtown Mexico City,
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