By RICARDO CASTILLO U.S. Senate Approves USMCA While all the hoopla right now in the U.S. Senate is about President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, in Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) is celebrating the approval of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). “This brings to an end an important stage because (the treaty) has been now approved by the
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Dos Bocas Bubble Bursts The news was sensational. Chinese Ambassador to Mexico Zhi Qingqiao told reporters during the celebration of a China Day event organized by Mexico’s Economy Secretariat on Monday, Jan.13, that Chinese banks were investing $600 million in the Dos Bocas Refinery, currently under construction in the southeastern state of Tabasco. Immediately after
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Child Gunman Shocks Nation Eleven-year old elementary school student José Ángel Ramos requested permission to go to the bathroom on Friday, Jan. 10, but when he did not return, English teacher María Assaf Medina went looking for him in the washroom and found him. José Ángel had changed out of his uniform and dressed himself
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Bolivia’s pro tempore president, Janine Añez, has very little governance experience, so she’s decided that to make her stay at the presidency she must pick a fight with other nations. Right after coming to power on Nov. 15, her first move was to break diplomatic relations with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Maduro was most happy with that
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By RICARDO CASTILLO The conflicting crescendo of undiplomatic affairs between Mexico and Bolivia took unexpected proportions on Monday, Dec. 30, as interim Bolivian President Jeanine Añez Chávez expelled Mexican Ambassador María Teresa Mercado as a “persona non grata.” Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard immediately appointed the current head of the embassy Ana Luisa Vallejo as Mercado’s ad interim substitute.
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Mexico at Odds with Bolivia Diplomatic relations between Bolivia and Mexico are heading toward higher tensions as La Paz demands that Mexico deliver four out of nine people who have sought and been granted asylum in the Mexican Embassy in Bolivia. Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard announces in early morning of Thursday, Dec. 26, that he would
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By RICARDO CASTILLO There is no custom in Mexico of having one publication declare a worthwhile personality “the man” (now “person”) of the year like there is in the United States, where Time magazine has been doing for nearly 100 years. But recently, several Mexican journalists have speculated that if there were such a notion in Mexico, who would be
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By RICARDO CASTILLO USMCA Is a Done Deal Happiness is a good trade deal. And a great Christmas gift for Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) since it affords the country a potentially secure economic future once all of the minor hurdles have been cleared. The passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA, or T-MEC, in Spanish), which was finally
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By RICARDO CASTILLO New Supreme Court Judge The Mexican Senate elected Ana Margarita Ríos-Farjat as a new member of the country’s Supreme Court (SCJN). Up until now, lawyer Ríos-Farjat had been working as head of the nation’s Tributary Administrative System (SAT), the Treasury Secretariat unit that oversees the nation’s tax collection. Ríos-Farjat received 94 votes from the senators (a minimum
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XINHUA “High-level” authorities from Mexico and the United States will hold a meeting to strengthen cooperation in the fight against organized crime, Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary (SRE) Marcelo Ebrard announced on Friday, Nov. 29. “We both have to work together: better cooperation, better results,” Ebrard said. This week, Mexico will welcome a U.S. delegation headed by Attorney General William Barr.
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