By RICARDO CASTILLO Gradual Business Reopenings Begin Ever so trepidly and not without fear that it might not be the right move to make, Mexico City and 16 Mexican states will begin gradual reopening for business as of Monday, June 16, after a harrowing 90-day lockdown that began on March 15. City and state authorities have warned that if there
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Government Downsizing The exact significance of politically oriented economic moves is inevitably in the eye of the beholder. This past week, there several events occurred in Mexico that have been interpreted according to different interests. Businessmen generally consider downsizing a natural move to make a company more profitable But in terms of government cuts, that same downsizing
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Police Brutality Accusations After a raucous weekend of protests and arbitrary arrests, the Jalisco State Human Rights Commission (CEDHJ) is demanding that all police commanders who participated in the detentions be removed from their posts. At the top of the list is the state attorney general, Gerardo Octavio Solís, who allegedly ordered the arrests of the protesters,
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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 Little Parties on the Skid The Mexican Senate, presided over by Mónica Fernández of the National Action Party (PAN), dissolved the partisan representation of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the Social Encounter Party (PES) for not meeting the minimum of five senators to be counted as a party. The PRD, led by former Mexico
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Trembling Back to the Workplace Fearing both the covid-19 contagion and not having money to make ends meet, limited numbers of Mexican auto and construction industries workers reported to work on Monday, June 1. The Mexican tourism industry is being more cautious and postponing opening until later in the month. Unions at the auto, construction and mining
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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 Banxico Foresees -8.8 Growth for 2020 The Central Bank of Mexico (Banxico) presented three separate scenarios for the country’s 2020 economic growth, marking a drastic difference between the “benevolent” and the “drastic” potential outcomes. Banxico’s benevolent forecast said that the Mexican gross domestic product (GDP) would slump by “only” -4.2 percent, while the drastic one put the
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By RICARDO CASTILLO As Mexico tries to get back as close as possible to doing business the way it did just three months ago, the division of opinions of how to go about it is growing exponentially on all fronts. The big question is: How soon is soon enough to open back up for business? On the first front. there
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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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