By RICARDO CASTILLO Alfaro’s Political Ambitions Squelched Up until last week, Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro had been looking a lot like a 2024 presidential hopeful. But then all hell broke loose on his would-be candidacy. It all started with the arrest and apparent murder of a 30-year-old construction worker named Giovanni López at the hands of municipal police in Ixltahuacán
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By RICARDO CASTILLO The New Normal Has Arrived The political debate carried out last week in Mexico over how to go about bringing a solution to the economic standstill caused by the covid-19 pandemic posed a medical, political and economic quagmire. On the one side, there was the voice of Mexican Public Health Undersecretary epidemiologist Hugo López-Gatell announcing on Friday,
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Jalisco Skids Deeper in Debt As pressure grows on Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) “to make use” of credits available from international funding organizations, the president becomes more adamant and intrinsic about pushing the nation into further debt. Much of that pressure is coming from opposition state governors, who convened last week in Parras, Coahuila,
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Thus far in Mexico’s Covid-19 pandemic, 13 state governors are criticizing the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). Whatever he does, he does wrong in the eyes of these 13 beholders. In return, AMLO and his supporters are claiming that at least 11 of the 13 governors, who should be running their states according to
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By RICARDO CASTILLO 69 New Barracks for National Guardsmen Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) spent the weekend inaugurating new barracks for the National Guard in the states of Jalisco, Michoacán and Guanajuato, the latter two known for a high presence of organized criminal gangs. Mexican Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said each barrack will house somewhere between 120 and
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Indigenous Design Rights International fashion design houses Louis Vuitton and Pineda Covalín are now in negotiations with the Mexican government to pay intellectual and creative rights to the country’s indigenous people after having copied some of their original designs without paying the corresponding copyrights. Legislative changes in Mexico, said Senator Susana Harp, include placing the indigenous communities
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS Tlalpujahua, a little mountain town on the northeast end of the Mexican state of Michoacán, just two and a half hours outside Mexico City, didn’t start off to be a Christmas village. In fact, when it was first founded by Spanish settlers back in 1560, it was primarily a mining town, home to the Dos Estrellas mine,
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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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XINHUA Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) denied Wednesday, Dec. 18, that business owners are in a state of “alarm” over the levels of violent crime, such as armed robbery of cargo trucks. “Of course there are crimes committed on highways and at companies, and there is a problem of insecurity and violence, but there is no situation of
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By RICARDO CASTILLO AMLO Throws Himself a Party Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) attracted over 70,000 cheering fans at Mexico City’s main square, El Zócalo, on Sunday, Dec. 1. They all came to hear him review his first year in office, as well as see how he has managed to comply with 89 of his 100 electoral campaign
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