By RICARDO CASTILLO Back to the Salt Mines Both houses of the Mexican Congress kicked off activities Monday, Feb. 1, after the Christmas sabbatical with an array of very important issues under discussion for voting as soon as legislators feel the bills are ready. It came as no surprise that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) on Friday, Jan.
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Rumors Abound Ever since Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) announced in a tweet on Sunday, Jan. 24, that he had tested positive for coivd-19 and had gone into quarantine, countless rumors have been flying across the media and gossip mills as to the validity of his announcement. Some critics suggested that AMLO had not, in
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Russian Vaccínea The Mexican Public Health Secretariat on Monday, Jan. 25, published in the Official Gazette the ordinance outlining the purchase of covid-19 vaccines by private citizens, companies and state governments. No doubt, the announcement was rushed to the government’s newspaper spurred on by the announcement that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) was buying 24 million
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Political Lockup No sooner had Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) backed down Friday, Jan. 22, on permitting states government and private businesses to purchase anti-covid vaccines, then the 10 governors belonging to the opposition group Federalist Alliance (AF) fired back, complaining that AMLO’s change of mind had come “too late.” “The authorization to join this
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO AMLO Welcomes Biden Newly instated U.S. President Joe Biden’s inaugural speech on Wednesday, Jan. 20, was welcomed by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who said it was full of good news. Asked during his Thursday, Jan. 21, press conference whether he felt threatened by Biden, AMLO responded: “We have nothing to object to. On the
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Covid-19 Vaccines Politicized Ever since the Mexican government announcement on Friday, Jan. 15, that “the last batch” of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines — 219,375 vaccine units, to be exact, half the expected number of doses, would arrive in the country Tuesday, Jan. 19, the topic became a focus of a raging political debate. But at the root of that
Read more
By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS More than 9,000 Hondurans refugees headed to the U.S. border were blocked by Guatemalan soldiers on Saturday, Jan. 16, not far from where they entered the country illegally. The migrants crossed into Guatemala in a caravan that had — in the course of just 24 hours, swelled from 3,000 to triple that size — in the hopes
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Vaccination Rush There are reports of complaints from all over Mexico that throngs of “influential” persons want to use their jobs in government to be the first in line to get access to the much-desired anti-covid vaccines. In Nogales, Sonora, on the border with Arizona, the Social Security for Government Employees (ISSSTE) officials pointed a finger at
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO A Birds Story Birds of a feather flock together, says the old adage. This week began with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, Jan. 11, visiting part of his “wonderful wall” in Alamo, a township just east to McAllen, along the Mexico-Texas border. He took the occasion to praise Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) with
Read more