By RICARDO CASTILLO A year ago at this time, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) declared a full-fledged frontal war on fuel thieves, nicknamed “huachicoleros.” In just a few months, the hordes of fuel duct-spiking gangs were deprived of gasoline as the lines were dried out, and by March, AMLO announced the huachicol had been stopped by as much
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO March for Truth, Justice and Peace The several thousand participants in the so-called March for Truth, Justice and Peace on Sunday, Jan. 26, were demanding that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) government come up with a strategy to put an end to the apparently endless and seemingly eternal rising number of murders that Mexico is
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Zero Coronavirus Cases Regardless of the initial alarm in Mexico about potential coronavirus cases, on Thursday, Jan. 23, Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer Varela emphatically denied “any confirmed cases” of the disease. There were, however, two confirmed reports of persons “under observation,” who were finally declared to be ill with “common colds.” One was a doctor in Reynosa,
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO The Real Border Wall at Guatemala While Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard has consistently rejected the idea that there is a crisis at Mexico’s Guatemalan border, new caravans of various sizes continue to arrive there, looking to cross through Mexico to the United States. Their crossing, however, is being impeded by the armed Mexican National Guardsmen,
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO First of all, let me clarify the difference between the word “occurrence” in English and “ocurrencia” in Spanish: In theory, they could be interpreted as being the same, but as you will see, there are significant differences in meaning between the two words. The reason for this clarification is that, last week, I mistranslated the word “maestro”
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Migrants Try to Barge into Mexico Throngs of Central American migrants Sunday, Jan. 19, continued to gather along the Guatemalan border on Sunday, Jan. 19, with the intent of moving through Mexico to the United States. On Saturday. Jan. 18, approximately 1,500 of the mostly Honduran migrants attempted to stage their first show of force
Read more
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
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Expectations in Mexico grew high on Tuesday, Jan. 14, after U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the vote on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) could come as early as “this week.” But at the same time in Mexico, everyone is keeping mum, hoping that the USMCA – a commercial and nonpolitical treaty – is shoved out
Read more
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
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO This is yet another article about the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, but to make sense of the matter, let me start somewhere else. Once the U.S. star spangled banner was flying over the National Palace in Mexico City — back on Sept 13, 1847, to be exact – then-U.S. President James Polk was asked, with the new conquest
Read more