Hundreds of Hondurans set off toward United States in new caravan

1/15/2019 – Reuters

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (Reuters) – Hundreds of Honduran migrants began the long trek north on Monday, part of new U.S.-bound caravan that hopes to succeed even as a previous wave of Central Americans were unable to quickly enter the United States.

Central American migrant caravans have become a flashpoint in the debate over U.S. immigration policy, as President Donald Trump has remained adamant that the migrants will be barred from crossing the border.

Television footage on Monday showed several hundred people in the violent city of San Pedro Sula huddled together and waving Honduran flags as they began a journey that will likely take weeks or even months to reach the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Fuel thieves hit critical Mexican pipeline again

1/15/2019 – The Washington Post

 (Marco Ugarte/Associated Press)

By the Associated Press

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says fuel thieves have again damaged a critical pipeline that supplies the capital with fuel piped in from the Gulf coast.

Lopez Obrador says that the thieves’ intent was to hit back at his government’s campaign against theft of fuel.

One day earlier, Lopez Obrador announced that there had not been any new illegal taps in that pipeline since Friday. But on Tuesday he said the state petroleum company Pemex has had to repair the pipeline again.

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Headlines from Mexico

1. Federal authorities started to investigate the alleged diversion of more than $17,000 million pesos from the funds Mexico City’s Airport Group (Grupo Aeroportuario de la Ciudad de México) had allocated for the construction of Mexico’s New International Airport in Texcoco, which the federal government officially canceled earlier this month.

   Read more: El Universal, Forbes, El Imparcial

2. The federal government deployed Army and Navy forces to oil refineries in Salamanca, Guanajuato; Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas; Salina Cruz, Oaxaca; Minatitlan, Veracruz; and Cadereyta, Nuevo León, as well as to Pemex terminals and storage facilities in the State of Mexico and Queretaro in order to battle fuel theft.

   Read more: Milenio, Excelsior, Reforma,

3. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador noted that he would not enter into a verbal confrontation with President Trump regarding the proposed border wall and said that Trump’s insistence is motivated by internal politics and a clear desire to win reelection in the upcoming 2020 president election. This declaration came after President Donald Trump addressed the American public on Tuesday and asked Congress to approve a budget of $5.7 million dollars to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

   Read more: El Economista, El Universal, Milenio 

4. Consumers in the states of Hidalgo, Mexico, Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato, and Querétaro experienced fuel scarcity after the federal government closed Pemex pipelines plagued with illegal fuel taps as part of its strategy against fuel theft. Fuel scarcity hit Mexico City earlier this week and panic buying of gasoline further exhausted service stations in several municipalities of Mexico’s capital.

   Read more: El Economista, Milenio, El Universal

5. Representatives of Pemex and the Secretariat of Finance met investors, analysts, and credit rating agencies in New York City to explain and defend the federal government’s plan to tackle fuel theft and to strengthen the finances and the profitability of the state-owned oil firm.

   Read more: Milenio, El Economista, El Universal 

Investor group rejects new Mexico airport bond buyback plan

12/13/2018 – Reuters

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A group of investors holding bonds issued for a new Mexico City airport that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has canceled said on Wednesday that it cannot support an amended bond buyback because problems still remain despite improvements to the plan.

The Mexico City Airport Trust, which is overseeing the buyback, on Tuesday said it would offer investors a better deal to repurchase bonds issued to finance the project, which Lopez Obrador scrapped to pursue a cheaper alternative.

The bondholder group, which says it represents more than half the $6 billion principal amount issue, also said it still wants to discuss its concerns with the airport trust.

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Mexican Inflation Rises More Than Expected on Food, Electricity Costs

12/07/2018 – The Wall Street Journal

By  Anthony Harrup

MEXICO CITY—Mexican consumer prices rose more than expected in November, led by seasonal increases in electricity costs and higher food prices.

The consumer-price index rose 0.85% last month, the National Statistics Institute said Friday. The increase was smaller than the 1.03% rise in November 2017, and pushed the annual inflation rate down to 4.72% from 4.9% in October.

Core CPI, which excludes agricultural goods and energy, rose 0.25%, with the annual rate slowing to 3.63% from 3.73%.

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AMLO’s Road Toward Energy Independence Is Full of Potholes

12/06/2018 – Bloomberg

The Port of Dos Bocas Photographer: Alejandro Cegarra/Bloomberg

By Amy Stillman

In the tropical heat of southeastern Mexico, bulldozers prep the site of a massive new crude refinery on the outskirts of Paraiso, an impoverished oil town that’s never quite lived up to its name — “Paradise.”

The Dos Bocas refinery is the new government’s flagship energy project, a 160 billion-peso ($7.8 billion) promise to create jobs, lower gasoline prices and jumpstart the country’s slumping refining industry.

It’s only the beginning, according to freshly inaugurated president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador — nicknamed AMLO. He has vowed to rehabilitate Mexico’s energy sector, in part by abandoning the free-market reforms of his predecessor in favor of protectionist policies that harken back to the 1980s.

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Mexico’s First Leftist President in Over 70 Years Is Sworn Into Office

12/01/2018 – Time Magazine

By Christopher Sherman & Maria Verza / AP

(MEXICO CITY) — Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took the oath of office Saturday as Mexico’s first leftist president in over 70 years, marking a turning point in one of the world’s most radical experiments in opening markets and privatization.

Lopez Obrador pledged “a peaceful and orderly transition, but one that is deep and radical.”

 

Mexico long had a closed, state-dominated economy, but since entering the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs in 1986, it has signed more free trade agreements than almost any other country, and privatized almost every corner of the economy except oil and electricity.

Now, though, Lopez Obrador talks a talk not heard in Mexico since the 1960s: He wants to build more state-owned oil refineries and encourages Mexicans to “not to buy abroad, but to produce in Mexico what we consume.”

 

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