OPINION By SILVIO CANTO, JR. The results from the presidential election in Brazil on Sunday, Oct. 30, show a deeply divided nation. The map of voter breakdowns was reminiscent of that Bush-Kerry map from 2004, when one region voted one way and the other the other way. As NPR pointed out, “In just three years, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Read more
OPINION By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) is a great defender of the concept of nonintervention in the affairs of other countries … except, when he’s not. Should the country in question be a pseudo-democracy such as Venezuela or Cuba, then he is more than willing to toss his unflinching values of nonintervention out the window
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Day in and day out, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) mentions the country’s ongoing ideological war between liberals and conservatives. Of course, he makes it a point of reminding people that he is a liberal who, he says, is now containing the conservative tide from returning to presidential power. On Wednesday, July 29, during his daily
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Now and then, you have a woman in Mexican politics hit the headlines. But what was most unusual on Monday. Aug. 12, and early Tuesday, Aug. 13, was to have three ladies in politics in less than 24 hours grab media coverage. Whoever had doubts that women are advancing in strides in politically impossible macho-land had better
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO In mid-July, former Mexican Treasury Secretary Carlos Urzúa, upon presenting his resignation to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), launched a frontal attack against AMLO’s Chief of Staff Alfonso Romo Garza in an interview. “It’s most difficult to understand the type of relationship, ideologically speaking, Romo has with the president,” Urzúa said. “He’s an extreme right-winger.” Urzúa
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Once upon a time, back on Dec. 2, 2012, when former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto appointed Rosario Robles Berlanga as the Social Development (Sedesol) Secretary, this columnist published an article in The News – then the only English-language daily in Mexico – claiming that Rosario was “a woman for all seasons” and “a survivor.” That may
Read more