‘Shameful’: Mexican president decries alleged NSO spying

07/20/2021

Source: Al Jazeera

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday called “shameful” the alleged government-ordered spying several years ago that may have targeted him and his close allies and added that his government did not spy on anyone.

British newspaper The Guardian reported on Monday that at least 50 people close to Lopez Obrador, among many others, were potentially targeted by the previous administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto after it purchased Pegasus spying software from Israel-based NSO Group.

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Fifty people linked to Mexico’s president among potential targets of NSO clients

07/20/2021

Source: The Guardian

At least 50 people linked to Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador – including his wife, children, aides and doctor – were included in a leaked list of numbers selected by government clients of the Israeli spyware company NSO Group before his election.

Politicians from every party, as well as journalists, lawyers, activists, prosecutors, diplomats, teachers, judges, doctors and academics, were also among more than 15,000 individuals selected as possible targets for surveillance between 2016 and 2017, according to an investigation by a collaboration of international media outlets including the Guardian.

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Security efforts will concentrate crime-fighting in 50 worst municipalities

07/16/2021

Source: Mexico News Daily

The federal government will concentrate its anti-crime efforts on the 50 municipalities with the highest rates of insecurity.

That’s the message President López Obrador conveyed to ruling Morena party governors and governors-elect at a meeting on Wednesday at the National Palace in Mexico City.

The government has already made improving the security situation in 15 highly violent municipalities a priority, and has achieved some success.

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Mexico Hands Control of Large Oilfield to Pemex in Dispute With U.S.’s Talos

07/06/2021

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Mexico’s government designated state oil company Petróleos Mexicanos as the operator of a large offshore oil reservoir it shares with a consortium led by Houston-based Talos Energy Inc., which has already invested heavily in the reservoir.

The designation gives Pemex management control of the joint development and comes as nationalist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador steps up efforts to revert key parts of an overhaul in 2014 that opened oil exploration and production to foreign investment.

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Mexico’s President Says Carlos Slim Might Help Rebuild Collapsed Metro Line

06/23/2021

MEXICO CITY — The business tycoon Carlos Slim is willing to repair part of Mexico City’s subway system, the country’s president said Wednesday, after investigations found that shoddy work by Mr. Slim’s engineering firm had caused part of a metro line to collapse last month, killing 26 people.

But it was not clear whether that meant Mr. Slim would absorb any of the cost of fixing the line, which failed less than nine years after it opened.

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Mexico to talk to Walmart about allowing older workers back to stores

06/24/2021

Source: Yahoo! News

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The Mexican government will speak to Walmart about its apparent decision not to allow older people to return as grocery packers, after they were removed to protect them from the coronavirus, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Thursday.

Some 35,000 Mexicans, most between 60 and 74 years old, packed groceries at Walmart’s stores and other chains in Mexico through a government-backed volunteer program, earning just tips, before the pandemic.

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Mid-term elections have weakened Mexico’s president

06/10/2021

Source: The Economist

The president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was not on the ballot, but Mexico’s mid-term elections, held on June 6th, were largely a referendum on his polarising performance. Voters selected representatives to the lower house of the national legislature and 30 of the 32 state congresses, as well as governors of 15 states and thousands of local posts. Although Mr López Obrador’s party, Morena, and the parties in its coalition won a majority in the national legislature’s lower house, it lost its two-thirds supermajority. The results are a blow to the president’s ambitions to transform Mexico.

Parties in power tend to lose seats in mid-terms, so the result is not entirely surprising. Morena dropped from 256 of 500 seats in the lower house to around 198. Even with the help of its allies, it falls well below the 334 seats needed for a supermajority. More gallingly for Mr López Obrador, the coalition of established parties did well: the National Action Party ( pan), which held the presidency from 2000 to 2012, will be the second-biggest political force, followed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party ( pri), which ruled the country for seven decades until 2000.

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Mexico’s President loses grip on power in midterm elections marred by violence

07/06/2021

Source: CNN

Mexico City (CNN)Mexico’s ruling political coalition is projected to lose its qualified majority in the lower house of Congress after a poor showing in midterm elections Sunday, according to initial figures released by the government.

The defeat will prevent President Andrés Manuel López Obrador from passing major legislative and constitutional reforms without the help of opposition parties. However, his ruling coalition is still expected to maintain a simple majority.

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Mexico President’s Grip on Congress Slips, Showing Limits of His Mandate

06/07/2021

Source: The New York Times

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s leftist ruling coalition was on track to lose its absolute majority in Congress following midterm elections on Sunday, putting brakes on President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s ambitious plans to overhaul the country’s economy and society.

The ruling Morena party was expected to hold between 190 and 202 seats in Mexico’s lower house of Congress, a decline of up to 60 lawmakers, according to preliminary results released Monday by the country’s electoral board.

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AMLO Says Mexico Not Canceling Contracts Amid Fight With Goldman

05/21/2021

Source: Bloomberg

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his country isn’t in the business of canceling contracts with private companies even as he shied away from directly addressing a battle between Mexico’s state-owned power company and Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

“We’re recognizing the contracts in all cases. I don’t have details about this operation. I’ll get information and I’ll provide it here, but they’re not canceling the contracts,” Lopez Obrador said, discussing the issue publicly for the first time. He spoke about the dispute between the utility he’s championed and the U.S. bank during a press conference Friday.

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