Harris to visit Mexico, Guatemala ‘soon’ amid GOP criticism

04/14/2021

Source: Politico

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Biden administration’s point person on stemming the flow of Central American migrants coming to the U.S., said Wednesday she will travel to Mexico and Guatemala “soon” amid mounting GOP criticism.

“Our focus is to deal with the root causes, and I’m looking forward to traveling, hopefully, as my first trip, to the Northern Triangle — stopping in Mexico and then going to Guatemala sometime soon,” Harris said Wednesday at a virtual roundtable of experts on the Northern Triangle nations of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The vice president said she would go to Guatemala “as soon as possible.”

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Mexico charges 30 marines over forced disappearances in border city

04/15/2021

Source: Reuters

Mexican authorities have charged 30 marines for allegedly participating in a string of forced disappearances in the violent northern border city of Nuevo Laredo in 2018, the Attorney General’s Office said on Thursday.

The charges mark the first high-profile move against military personnel by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office in late 2018 vowing to curb violence and end impunity. His government has made unprecedented use of the military for a range of projects from policing to construction.

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Growers fret as Mexico moves to legalize marijuana

04/15/2021

Source: Yahoo! News

BADIRAGUATO, Mexico (AP) — For the first time that María can remember, half of her marijuana harvest is still in storage on her ranch in Mexico’s Sinaloa state months after it should have been sold.

Sitting in her wooden house tucked into the same mountains that produced some of the world’s most notorious drug traffickers, including Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the 44-year-old mother of four thinks she knows why: expectations Mexico will soon legalize marijuana.

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Mexico Moves Closer to Fuel Controls With AMLO’s Bill Approval

04/14/2021

Source: Bloomberg

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s controversial proposal to tighten control over the country’s fuel market has cleared the lower house of congress, another step in his long-sought goal of resuming the state’s energy monopoly.

With 292 lawmakers in favor, 153 opposed, and 11 abstaining, the chamber approved in general terms the president’s proposal to give national oil company Petroleos Mexicanos greater control over the recently liberalized fuel market that lured investments from Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc, Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. After debate on certain articles, the bill will be taken up by the senate, where the ruling Morena party and its allies have a majority.

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Mexico’s high Covid death toll blamed on populist government

04/14/2021

Mexico’s unwillingness to spend money, do more testing, change course or react to new scientific evidence contributed to the country being one of the worst-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, a report has concluded.

Mexico would have had a significantly lower death toll if it had reacted as satisfactorily as the average government, according to the Institute for Global Health Sciences, at the University of California, San Francisco, which also released a report sharply critical of the US response to Covid-19.

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Mexico moves to require biometric data from cellphone users

04/14/2021

Source: AP News

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Activists and opposition figures cried foul Wednesday after Mexico’s Senate passed legislation to require cellphone companies to gather customers’ identification and biometric data, like fingerprints or eye scans.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party supported the bill, saying it is needed to fight crimes like extortion and kidnapping that frequently involve the use of cellphones.

The legislation, which was already passed by the Chamber of Deputies, would give cell companies two years to collect the data and make it available to the government.

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Harris plans to travel to Mexico, Guatemala to address migration

04/14/2021

Source: NBC News

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday that she is planning to visit Mexico and Guatemala as part of her role leading the White House’s efforts to address the root causes of migration to the United States.

“Our focus is to deal with the root causes, and I am looking forward to traveling, hopefully as my first trip, to the Northern Triangle, stopping in Mexico and then going to Guatemala,” Harris said, ahead of a meeting with experts on the Northern Triangle region.

“We have plans in the work to go to Guatemala as soon as possible,” she added.

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Mexican-made COVID-19 vaccine could be ready this year

04/13/2021

Source: Reuters

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico aims to have developed a vaccine against COVID-19 that could be granted approval for emergency use this year, a senior official said on Tuesday, an outcome that could wean it off unreliable foreign supplies for its slow vaccination program.

The head of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt), Maria Elena Alvarez-Buylla, told a news conference that the vaccine under development could be granted approval in November or December of this year.

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Mexico’s vow to tighten border fails to deter US-bound migrants

04/14/2021

Source: The Guardian

Groups of men, women and children stepped off small boats and on to Mexican soil without showing their documents to anyone.

Drivers quickly bundled them into taxis which sped past an immigration office to a nearby crossroad, where the travelers climbed into a vans for the next leg of their journey toward the US border.

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Biden admin secures agreements with Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to secure borders, official says

04/12/2021

Source: CNN

(CNN)The Biden administration has secured agreements for Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to tighten their borders and stem the flow of migration, Special Assistant to the President for Immigration for the Domestic Policy Council Tyler Moran told MSNBC on Monday.

“We’ve secured agreements for them to put more troops on their own border. Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala have all agreed to do this. That not only is going to prevent the traffickers, and the smugglers, and cartels that take advantage of the kids on their way here, but also to protect those children,” Moran said.

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