Obama to meet Mexico’s Calderon on Monday

Reuters, 1/9/2009
Barack Obama will meet on Monday with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, marking the incoming U.S. president’s first meeting with a foreign leader since he was elected in November. An announcement by Obama’s transition team described the meeting as part of a nearly three-decade tradition of U.S. presidents meeting with the leader of the neighboring [...]

Mexico declares social security agency the king of red tape

Los Angeles Times, 1/9/2009
Mexico stages an unpopularity contest, and its Social Security Institute wins. The point was to search through the government’s benighted bureaucracies to find the most useless process.
The winning entry came from Cecilia Deyanira Velazquez, 34, who complained about the rigors of getting her son’s medication through the Social Security Institute. Velazquez, of [...]

U.S. Recession Stymies Mexico’s Growth for 2009

Wall Street Journal, 1/9/2009
Mexico’s economy, dragged down by the U.S. recession, isn’t expected to grow at all this year, Finance Minister Agustín Carstens said Thursday, dramatically lowering the government’s growth forecast from an estimate of 1.8%.
Mexico’s government, however, has more tools at its disposal to confront a recession than at any time in recent memory. [...]

Morgan Stanley Recommends Won, Yuan, Mexico’s Peso

Bloomberg, 1/9/2009
Morgan Stanley recommended buying the Chinese yuan, the South Korean won and the Mexican peso as an easing in the global shortage of dollars causes the U.S. currency to weaken.
The Mexican peso will end the year at 12.8 per dollar from 13.67 now because of its attractive interest rates, Morgan Stanley predicted. Economists surveyed [...]

Mexico’s Cemex closes U.S. plant, lays off workers

Reuters, 1/9/2009
Mexico’s Cemex, the world’s No. 3 cement maker, is shutting another U.S. plant and laying off workers as the U.S. recession deepens, the company said on Friday. The Davenport plant in California, which produces just under 1 million tonnes of cement a year, has been hurt by a sharp decline in new home construction [...]

DHS ready for surge if Mexico violence spills over

Associated Press, 1/9/2009
If Mexican drug violence spills across the U.S. border, Homeland Security officials say they have a contingency plan to help border areas fight it. “It’s a common sense extension of our continued work with our state, local, and tribal partners in securing the southwest border,” DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said Friday.
Homeland Security Secretary [...]