Monday Memo: Mexican Elections—G7 Climate Summit—EU-CELAC Summit—Argentine Debt—Honduras Protests
This week’s likely news stories: Mexico’s ruling party wins the congressional elections; Canada and Japan block a G7 statement on carbon emissions; Latin American officials to discuss Mercosur at EU-CELAC Summit; Argentina’s debt inflates after U.S. court ruling; protestors demand Honduran president’s resignation. Mexico’s Ruling Party to Maintain Majority in Lower House after Elections: Despite … Read more
Civil Society Groups Decry Education Reform Rollback in Mexico
A group of civil society organizations and ordinary citizens denounced on Monday the suspension of a key provision of the sweeping education reform package signed by President Enrique Peña Nieto in September 2013. The provision—which provided for the evaluation of Mexican teachers and linked raises and promotions to candidates’ performance on these evaluations—was suddenly and … Read more
Security Challenges Threaten Elections In Guerrero, Mexico
In late 2014 and early 2015, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party—PRI) faced violent protests and demands for his resignation after the disappearance of 43 student teachers in the town of Iguala in Mexico’s southwestern Guerrero state. The turbulence led some academics, such as John Ackerman, to hastily predict the … Read more
Rousseff Signs Investment Agreements with Peña Nieto
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff met Tuesday with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City to foster a closer relationship between the two largest markets in Latin America and the Caribbean. This event was Rousseff’s first official visit to Mexico since she first became president in 2011. Rousseff kicked off her official visit to Mexico … Read more
Mexico and Canada Threaten U.S. with Sanctions over Meat-Labeling Rule
Mexico and Canada won a final appeal from the World Trade Organization (WTO) yesterday, when the trade body upheld an early decision that found that U.S. country-of-origin labeling (COOL) requirements for meat products violated international trade law. Both countries have warned that they may pursue punitive measures against U.S. exports unless the requirement, which was … Read more
Mexican Officials Investigate Possible Vaccine-Related Deaths
After two infants died and 29 others fell ill after being vaccinated against hepatitis B in the southern state of Chiapas on Friday, the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (Mexican Social Security Institute—IMSS) announced yesterday that it has sent samples of the vaccines to Mexico City for analysis. The move follows the launch of an … Read more
Government Transparency: Exercising Digital Rights in the Information Age
In 2006, the Colectivo Ecologista Jalisco (Jalisco Ecological Collective) filed a freedom of information request for public expenditures on health, education and environmental services in and around the municipality of Juanacatlán, Mexico. The figures they found contradicted earlier information from local officials, who underreported by millions of pesos.1 Just a year later, residents of a … Read more
Politics Innovator: Aída Fabiola Valencia Ramírez
Aída Fabiola Valencia Ramírez learned the hard way what can happen when you fight for public accountability in rural Mexico. On March 10, 2013, the Mexican federal deputy attended a meeting in her hometown of San Agustín Loxicha in Oaxaca to question then-Municipal President Flavio Pérez about what she considered under-funded public works projects. An … Read more
Mexico and the United States: Crude Oil Swap?
On April 24, a bipartisan group of five U.S. congressmen, led by Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Michael McCaul (R-TX), submitted a letter to President Barack Obama urging the president to exempt Mexico from U.S. crude oil export restrictions. This House letter follows the February bipartisan letter from 21 U.S. senators to U.S. … Read more
AQ Slideshow: Central American Migrants Protest in Mexico
On April 18, as the sun rose high into the sky, a group of several dozen Central American migrants marched along with the Viacrucis Migrante (Migrant Stations of the Cross) towards the Basílica de Guadalupe in Mexico City. The group, led by migrant outreach activist Padre Alejandro Solalinde, sought to draw attention to the problems … Read more
Mexico Next to Last in Global Impunity Index
Mexico ranks second to last, after the Philippines, in an international study of impunity in 59 countries that was published yesterday. The study, carried out by researchers at the Universidad de las Américas Puebla (University of the Americas Puebla—UDLAP), looked at data pertaining to countries’ security, justice and human rights systems, as well as these … Read more
U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Three Members of MS-13 Gang
On Thursday, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on three leaders of Mara Salvatrucha (“MS-13”), a gang of 30,000 members spread throughout El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and the United States. The gang, whose leadership is concentrated in El Salvador, has been listed as a Transnational Criminal Organization since 2012 by the U.S. Department of Treasury … Read more
Innovators
Some of our hemisphere’s emerging leaders in politics, business, civil society, and the arts.
Public Hearings Begin for Mexico’s Water Law
The Comisión de Recursos Hidráulicos (Hydraulic Resources Commission) of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies initiated a period of public hearings today to inform a new draft of the Ley General de Aguas (General Water Law), which will regulate the management of country’s water resources. An earlier draft of the water bill, which appeared to have been … Read more
AQ Slideshow: Mexicans Protest On Ayotzinapa Anniversary
On March 26, several hundred protesters gathered around the Angel of Independence in Mexico City to mark the six-month anniversary of the disappearance and apparent massacre of 43 students in the town of Iguala in Guerrero state. Diego Martínez, a skinny 24-year-old medical student standing at the top of the stairs of the monument explained, … Read more
