Mxico and U.S.

DALLAS (AP) -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon made an investment pitch Tuesday to business officials, saying his country has "solid economic fundamentals" and is dealing with transportation needs and crime.

And while Calderon has criticized U.S. immigration policy, he said U.S. investment in his country could ease the pressure for Mexicans to move -- legally or otherwise -- to the United States.

"The goal is not to see every year Mexican people trying to cross the border to the United States," Calderon said. "Our goal is to create opportunities for our people in Mexico. That is absolutely possible."

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Importance: If Calderon can make his words come true no only will Mexico's economy grow but, the U.S. government will have a maller immiration problem.

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Changing Immigration Attitude

Mexico loses more than just workers when its people cross the U.S. border illegally in search of jobs. It loses fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, sisters and brothers. It loses social structure.

The remittances expatriates send home can never compensate for the loss of people whose energy, talents and integrity are essential to Mexico's future.

Remittances - nearly $24 billion in 2007, according to the Mexico's Central Bank - help individual families but have a corrosive effect on Mexico. Without them, political pressure would build at home to create jobs.Without the relief valve illegal migration offers for Mexico's unemployed, there would be enormous demand to deal with the corruption and lack of opportunity in Mexico.

Mexico is showing a welcome recognition of the downside of illegal immigration.

Earlier this year, Mexican President Felipe Calderón called it his "duty" to create opportunities at home. "I'm not a president who likes to see Mexicans leave the country, because every immigrant who leaves Mexico represents a loss," he said in February.

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Importance: Stimulating job growth at home and discouraging illegal immigration will help build and strengthen the Mexican economy. Before the government was actually encouraging illegal immigration by handing out booklets that gave safety tips; now that they realize the detrimental effects immigration is having on the economy they are beginning to change their mind, now printing booklets depicting the hardships and danger of attempting illegal immigration.

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Venezuela to Nationalize the Cement Industry

MEXICO CITY -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is planning a government takeover of his country's cement industry, his latest effort to impose state control over key sectors of an economy battered by shortages and inflation.

Chavez made the declaration during a televised cabinet meeting late Thursday. He has long accused foreign cement companies of keeping prices high and supplies tight by exporting their products to other countries while Venezuela is suffering a housing shortage.

"We're going to nationalize the cement industry. Enough already!" Chavez said.

The action is a blow to Monterrey, Mexico-based Cemex, the largest producer in Venezuela. Industry companies LaFarge of France and Switzerland's Holcim Ltd. would also be affected.

Chavez's government said it soon would begin compensation talks with the firms. But Mexico's Finance Minister Agustin Carstens on Friday condemned Venezuela's move against one of Mexico's largest and most successful multinational companies.

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Importance: Well the decision is Chavez's but a lot of the action this development is causing will be played out by Mexico's Calderon thanks to our friend globalization, inherently and heavily aided by multinational corporations (couchCEMEXcough). Thanks to our wonderful Globalization Briefing Paper, I believe we can all see the importance of the ramifications of Mr. Chavez's actions for Mexico. Although, I do feel the need to point out the irony in Mexico's taking offense at another nation's lack of faith in market operations, albeit their problem has mostly been with foreign investment as opposed to Venezuela's communistic approach of blaming business owners for the effects of governmental tinkering in the economy ...

Paveing New Roads

Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced Tuesday a 4.5 billion peso ($420.6 million) highway project connecting the southern city of Oaxaca to the coastal resort towns of Huatulco and Puerto Escondido.

The project aims to create a 283-kilometer highway that would reduce the drive from Oaxaca to Huatulco - currently an eight-hour endeavor through rugged mountains - to three hours. It would include the construction of new highway infrastructure such as bridges, tunnels and bypasses, as well the modernization and expansion of existing roads, according to a press release from the Communications and Transport Ministry, or SCT.

The government will finance the project with a combination of public and private investment from the new National Infrastructure Fund.

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Importance: Farmers moving into cities will be able to sell their land now which is cool. Tourism will probably increase which is cool.

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Obrador Back!

ONLY a few weeks ago Andrés Manuel López Obrador was sliding towards political oblivion. Narrowly but clearly beaten by Felipe Calderón in a presidential election in July 2006, Mr López Obrador, a left-wing populist who was once the mayor of Mexico City, organised months of protests against what he alleged was electoral fraud. His contempt for Mexico's democratic institutions scared off many of his erstwhile supporters and split his Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

Now he is on his way back—and that is a problem for the president. First Mr López Obrador seized on a timid government proposal to open up parts of Mexico's declining oil industry to private investment. He has raised the bogie of “privatisation”, striking a nationalist chord with many Mexicans.

More significantly, he appears to have reasserted his grip on the PRD. Alejandro Encinas, a close ally who stood in as mayor when Mr López Obrador resigned to run for president, won a slim but seemingly decisive victory in a ballot for the party leadership held on March 16th. His opponent, Jesús Ortega, is a senator who led a moderate “new left” faction. He dismissed Mr Encinas as representing “a marginal and self-excluding left”. In a droll reversal of the presidential election, Mr Ortega cried fraud (as did his opponent).

The result showed the depth of the PRD's divisions. Assuming it hangs together, its legislators, who form the second-largest block in Congress, are likely to adopt a more combative stance towards Mr Calderón. But that might not help the party in a mid-term election due in July next year.

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Importance: President Calderon is in for some tough times with the legislative body. Before he struggled with legitimacy from the population, now he faces gridlock with Mexican congress. With Mexico in need of political reform, these new cleavages are only going to cause potential policy actions to be stuck in legislation.

Bargaining for Lead Paint.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said his government is in talks with China to reach a settlement over tariffs on Chinese textiles and other products currently as high as 1,000 percent.

The negotiations were disclosed by Calderon today at a gathering of textile industry executives in Mexico City.

In December, Mexico announced a plan to keep duties on Chinese textiles, toys and shoes while it reviews the imports for possible unfair trade practices. The tariffs, in place since 1993, don't meet World Trade Organization rules. Mexico said last year that it is allowed to keep the import duties while it completes the review.

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Importance: Calderon is trying to save the Mexican citizens money which is good, and he's optimistic about the talks. Now the only problem is he's bargaining for Chinese products that recently have not been on th good side of the news.

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Mexico Cuts Taxes

President Felipe Calderón announced a 60-billion-peso ($5.6 billion) package of tax breaks, utility-rates discounts and spending programs Monday to help Mexico's economy weather the slowdown in the U.S. economy.

Companies will get a 3 percent income tax break for the next five months and 10- to 20-percent electricity rate reductions, as well as credit from development banks and an increase in infrastructure spending to help them overcome the effects of what Calderón called “an adverse international environment.”

“Since last year, the economic performance of our principal trading partner (the United States) has show signs of deceleration,” Calderón said at a ceremony to announce the package. “The problems in its financial sector and housing market make its prospects for growth in 2008 not very encouraging.”

Importance: Mexico is basing itself off the U.S. which probably is not a good call, but no one can argue tax cuts. The Mexican citizens do need this.

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Oil Stays with the Government

Mexican President Felipe Calderon's plan to overhaul energy laws and allow private investment in the state oil monopoly lacks political support, a prominent opposition senator said.

Senator Francisco Labastida of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, an opposition group, said ``there's no chance'' that ``comprehensive reform'' will pass. He spoke in an interview today at the senate building in Mexico City.

Failure to open the oil industry may mark the biggest political defeat yet for Calderon, who managed to win support for cutting pensions and raising taxes since taking office in December 2006. Mexico, the third-largest oil supplier to the U.S., needs the help of foreign and private companies to halt a decline in crude output and reserves, Calderon has said.

Importance: Calderon has been getting a lot of what he wants recently, so it is nice to see him stopped in certain areas even if stopping him is keeping the socialist mark upon Mexico.

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New Drug Laws

Mexico's lower house of congress approved a softened version of President Felipe Calderon's anti- drug bill.

The 462-to-6 vote today came after lawmakers eliminated a clause that would allow police to search homes without a warrant in life-threatening situations. The modification lets ``citizens have a reform that helps them, not one that assaults them,'' said Ruth Zavaleta, speaker of Mexico's lower house and a member of the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution.

The package is part of Calderon's efforts to combat organized crime and quell violence. It would allow lawyers to make oral arguments to speed up trials and would give police the right to record conversations to be used as evidence.

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Importance: Mexico is still fighting the war on drugs, but it is good to see that the house of congress is thinking about the peoples rights while working on their problems.

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Mexican Human Rights

MEXICO CITY — A leading international organization charged Wednesday that the Mexican government's human rights commission has proved largely impotent in preventing abuses of its citizens.

Human Rights Watch, the New York-based organization, said in a report that Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, a semi-autonomous body, has proved adept at criticizing violations of citizens' rights but has failed to halt or prevent the practices.

"The commission could have a much greater impact on human rights in Mexico, but it doesn't," Jose Miguel Vivanco, the group's director for the Americas, said. "While it does a decent job documenting abuses and identifying problems, it doesn't take crucial steps needed to bring about change."

"The (commission) should be a catalyst for human rights progress, not merely a chronicler of the status quo," Vivanco said.

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Importance: Once again corruption in the Mexican government is detracting from the country's over all level of democracy and freedom. Currently, Calderon is touring the U.S. to promote better treatment of Mexican immigrants to the U.S., but apparently his efforts are needed just as much in Mexico itself.

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Mexico's Calderon to reduce army role in drug war

MEXICO CITY, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon said on Wednesday he wants to phase out the army's role in fighting drug traffickers as the country works to reform its notoriously corrupt police forces.

"We must clean up and strengthen the police forces across the country so that the participation of the army in the fight against crime will become less and less necessary," Calderon said at an event with Louise Arbour, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human rights.

Calderon has mobilized some 25,000 Mexican troops since taking office in December 2006 to try to crush powerful drug cartels that are warring over lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.

Arbour, who is in Mexico on a visit to review Mexico's human rights record, on Tuesday criticized Calderon's military campaign against drug traffickers as dangerous and warned that military forces should not be taking on civilian roles.

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Importance: In what seems completely unexpected and without reason, Calderon makes a bold move in order to progress in the war on drugs. His main reason for this is to decrease the corruption in the police force and the military. This will ultimately decrease the intervention of military into certain crimes.

Mexico anti-drug official says target of hit men

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's deputy attorney general said on Thursday that three men arrested in Mexico City last week with shoulder-fired rockets, rifles and a submachine gun were planning to kill him.

Jose Luis Santiago, the point man in the country's war on drug gangs and the official in charge of extraditing drug bosses to the United States, said the suspected hit men may belong to the Sinaloa Cartel, which dominates Mexico's Pacific Coast cocaine smuggling routes.

In northern Mexico, drug gangs frequently murder local police, judges and politicians in the middle of the conflict. But attacks on senior federal authorities are rare.

Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, head of the Sinaloa Cartel, escaped from prison in 2001 and remains at large. One of his top lieutenants was arrested this week.

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Importance: This article shows that the war on drugs is continuing to be a major problem all over Mexico. The last paragraph above states that the man in charge of the largest cocaine smuggling gang is still at large and has been since 2001. This shows that major improvements need tobe made in order to cut down on the smuggling.

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Military Replace Police

Local police were relieved of duty Tuesday in the border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros and Reynosa as army troops disarmed the officers and searched for evidence that might link them to drug traffickers.

In Nuevo Laredo, soldiers surrounded police headquarters at 8 a.m. and ordered officers to remain inside. Federal troops conducted a similar operation in Tijuana last January, at the beginning of an offensive against Mexico's drug cartels and their allies in the police.

During the first 14 months of his rule, President Felipe Calderon has sent federal troops to at least half a dozen states, including Michoacan in the south and Veracruz on the Gulf. Calderon has vowed to break the power of the traffickers, who wield wide influence over local authorities and intimidate local news media.

At least two drug-trafficking organizations are fighting for control of Nuevo Laredo and its border crossings, a lucrative source of income for smugglers. President Vicente Fox, Calderon's predecessor, sent army troops there in 2005.

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Importance: The article reveals Calderon's efforts at breaking down the drug trade in Mexico as well as unraveling the layers of police corruption. However, similar efforts have been made in the past, and things have not changed. Whether the president's attempts will be effective remains to be seen.

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Mexico's Calderon places ally in key reform post

...Mexican President Felipe Calderon fired his interior minister and replaced him with a close ally on Wednesday in a cabinet shake up to help his government push economic reforms through Congress.

Calderon said he had removed Francisco Ramirez, criticized for failing to build alliances with the opposition, and put his chief of staff, Juan Camilo Mourino, into the post...

...In Mexico, the interior minister has a key role in negotiating with the opposition. Calderon's conservative National Action Party is the biggest party in Congress but lacks an absolute majority and needs to negotiate laws with opposition leaders.

Mourino, 36, said Calderon had told him to work closely with Congress to speed up planned reforms, the biggest of which is an overhaul of the energy sector to halt declining oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico...

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Importance: This event is more important than meets the eye. It shows how Calderon is slowly gaining more approval. It also shows how he plans to get various tasks accomplished as the president of Mexico.

Attempt at Oil Reform

CANTARELL, in the Gulf of Mexico, was once the world's biggest offshore oilfield, holding over 35 billion barrels of the black stuff. Now, after nearly three decades, it is running out. At its peak in 2004 it produced 2.1m barrels of oil per day (b/d), making up 60% of Mexico's total output. That figure has already fallen by more than 500,000 b/d and could fall by another 200,000 b/d by the spring.

This is a worry for both Mexico and the world. Although Mexico contains less than 1% of the world's proven oil reserves, it is the sixth-largest producer. Its output of 3.1m b/d is well above that of Venezuela or Kuwait. And although oil no longer dominates the Mexican economy—even at recent high prices it provided 16% of exports in 2006, down from 68% in 1982—it lubricates the public finances, contributing nearly 40% of federal revenues.

The obvious solution is to privatise the industry, but that is politically impossible. The state oil monopoly is both popular and constitutionally mandated. So Mr Calderón and other politicians have been searching for ways to loosen the monopoly while respecting the constitution.

The Senate's energy committee is holding a “private, technical debate” on how to do this, according to Rubén Camarillo, a senator from Mr Calderón's centre-right National Action Party. The purpose is to try to reach an all-party consensus by February. So far there is “agreement about what needs to be done, but not how to do it,” says Mr Camarillo.

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Importance: Reforming its oil production would be helpful to Mexico's economy as would increased privatization. Politically, President Calderon could risk his precarious legitimacy by implementing these reforms that could test the Mexican constitution as well as bring into conflict political parties.