By RICARDO CASTILLO Even if the daily assault by the Mexican press and opinion columnists on President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) is no less than brutal, the problem they all face is that while he has a long-range program he strictly complies with, most of his critics live on a day-to-day basis. At the end of the road tally,
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By RICARDO CASTILLO AMLO and Corral Trade Verbal Punches On Friday, Sept. 18, Mexican Security Undersecretary Ricardo Mejía Berdeja named eight well-to-do Chihuahua farming families that he accused of “hoarding” 35 million cubic meters of Rio Conchos water, representing a full 12.5 percent of the water that is owed to the United States. One person alone, Mejía Berdeja said, is
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Debt Restructuring Plan The Mexican Treasury and the National Banking and Stocks Commission (CNBV) launched a national debt relief package to help borrowers and banks alike during the covid-19 pandemic-provoked economic crisis. The plan includes a downsizing of the agreed-upon interest rate and reduces the monthly amount borrowers are currently paying. All news arrangement will have to
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Now that the National Front to Stop AMLO (FRENA) is on its fifth day of protest with an invasion of Mexico City’s main downtown thoroughfare Juárez Avenue, suddenly the question of “what and who is FRENA?” struck me like a lighting rod. I am no arithmetician, but I know numbers well enough to come up with the
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Economic Skid Two of the basic economic indicators, demand and supply, plunged down by 19.4 percent in comparison to the same period last year, according to a quarterly report from the Mexican government official pollster, the National Institute of Geography and Statistic (Inegi). The figures reflect statistics both for home and industry, which had been stable since
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By RICARDO CASTILLO As hundreds of Texas farmers along the Rio Grande border are feeling jittery about the water owed to them by Mexico, the brawl at the very source of the tensions, La Boquilla reservoir in Chihuahua, continues to grow. The expected flow of what the Texans consider to be their water is being stalled on the Mexican side
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Covid-19 Vaccine Funds Assured The Mexican government wields, for starters, 20 billion pesos “we have saved because there is no more corruption nor luxuries” to vaccinate every Mexican, said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) while on tour in Puebla over the weekend. At the same time, he called upon every Mexican to not be overconfident before
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Hunting the Big Five The Mexican Senate gave fast-track approval to a request from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to hold a popular consultation on whether to bring to trial five former presidents. The Senate rushed the bill through over the Independence Day holidays (Tuesday, Sept. 15, and Wednesday, Sept. 16). The proposal, which contains only
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Former Presidents to Lose Legal Protection Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) sent a petition to the Senate on Monday, Sept. 14, asking lawmakers to carry out a citizens’ consultation over whether to bring the five past presidents to trial, if charged. With this final request, there have now been three different attempts to bring one
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Over the past week, the ultra-conservative daily Mexican newspaper Reforma has been stabbing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) with a wooden knife. In Mexican journalism, it is deemed that wooden knives do not penetrate deep enough to kill you, but for sure getting “stabbed” with one is a nagging nuisance. Persons who criticize politicians use the
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