By RICARDO CASTILLO Do you remember Jose Antonio Meade Kuribreña? In case you don’t, let me tell you that he was the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) presidential candidate handpicked by former President Enrique Peña Nieto to run during the 2018 electoral campaign. Meade finished third in that race. Since then, Meade has seldom been heard from or about. But on
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Now and then, you have a woman in Mexican politics hit the headlines. But what was most unusual on Monday. Aug. 12, and early Tuesday, Aug. 13, was to have three ladies in politics in less than 24 hours grab media coverage. Whoever had doubts that women are advancing in strides in politically impossible macho-land had better
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Mexicans are divided between two opinions: One, those who have faith in the “profound economic model transformation” slowly but surely being promoted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), and two, those AMLO calls “conservative hypocrites,” who are presently even denouncing the Mexican democratic system as nothing less than a scourge for having elected this populist dude
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Fear does not ride on a burro; it flies at the speed of sound! And spreading fear of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) economic policies seems to be the leading reason that Mexico’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has slumped markedly, to the point of reaching a minimal growth of 0.1 percent for the second quarter of
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By RICARDO CASTILLO There are two facts of life about Mexican democracy: One, it is run and operated by an autonomous organization, the National Electoral Institute (INE), and two, it is one of the most expensive government-subsidized democracies in the world. At this time of year, it is relevant to take the above-mentioned facts into consideration because at the
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By RICARDO CASTILLO The Lomas de Chapultepec mansion that once belonged to Chinese-born imprisoned Mexican citizen Zhenli Ye Gon will be auctioned on Sunday, Aug.11, as programmed, said Ricardo Rodríguez Vargas, president of the Institute to Return to the People What Was Stolen From Them, officially known as Administration and Properties Alienation (SAE). Rodriguez Vargas made the announcement early Wednesday, Aug. 7, during Mexican
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By RICARDO CASTILLO This article is about Mexico’s new (literally from the Spanish) Law of Dominium Extinction or Expired Ownership Domain, approved last July 24 by the Mexican Senate and similar in some ways to the one known as Eminent Domain in the United States. The law is being questioned by a number of deputies such as Tatiana Clouthier (Morena)
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By RICARDO CASTILLO In mid-July, former Mexican Treasury Secretary Carlos Urzúa, upon presenting his resignation to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), launched a frontal attack against AMLO’s Chief of Staff Alfonso Romo Garza in an interview. “It’s most difficult to understand the type of relationship, ideologically speaking, Romo has with the president,” Urzúa said. “He’s an extreme right-winger.” Urzúa
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Once upon a time, back on Dec. 2, 2012, when former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto appointed Rosario Robles Berlanga as the Social Development (Sedesol) Secretary, this columnist published an article in The News – then the only English-language daily in Mexico – claiming that Rosario was “a woman for all seasons” and “a survivor.” That may
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