By RICARDO CASTILLO Voting for a Rigmarole The 11-member Mexican Supreme Court vote to allow a referendum to be held to decide whether to bring to trial past presidents for crimes allegedly committed while in they were in power past last week in two stages. The first stage was to decide if the public referendum is constitutional. The referendum’s constitutionality
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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 EARL ANTHONY WAYNE, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico
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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 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 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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XINHUA Nonessential travel restrictions between Mexico, the United States and Canada have been extended for another month due to covid-19, U.S. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said on Friday, Sept. 18. “We continue to work with our Canadian and Mexican partners to slow the spread of covid-19,” Wolf announced via ahis Twitter account. “Accordingly, we have agreed to extend
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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 Chihuahua Governor Seeks Martyrdom In the past two weeks, National Action Party (PAN) Chihuahua Governor Javier Corral has staged two major publicity stunts: First he led a group of 10 state governors to splinter from the National Governors’ Conference (Conago), and then, Immediately afterwards, he permitted a group of farmers to take the federally managed and National
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