The violins are out in Montreal

MGR's view

Guadalajara -
The Milenio news network reported this evening that protesters marched today in front of the Mexican consulate in Montreal. They were denouncing the arrest of co-nationals (presumably) Mlles. Fallon Poisson Rouiller and Amelie Pelletier, both caught in the act of firebombing a government installation and a car dealership in Mexico City Sunday night.

Mexican politicians draw scrutiny with lavish publicity expenditures

129,434,606 pesos on image enhancement, in one of Mexico's poorest states

Guadalajara -
In a country where the official poverty rate is 45%, and things may be getting harder, not easier, for the man on the street, Mexico's upward bound politicians spare not a centavo in boosting personal images.

Canadian women* just won't behave in Mexico

Bizarre allegations in the Federal District

Mexico City -
Two Canadian women are under federal investigation here for allegedly participating in a weekend molotov cocktail attack against the Federal Department of Communication and Transportation and a local Nissan dealership.

Texas denies Mexican governor's appeal for death stay in Édgar Tamayo case

Texas Governor Rick Perry remains "inflexible" according to Mexican officials

Cuernavaca, Morelos -
The office of PRD governor Graco Ramírez Garrido Abreu in Cuernavaca confirmed this afternoon that Texas authorities have refused his request to stay the execution of Édgar Tamayo Arias, who will be put to death two weeks from tomorrow in Huntsville.

Tamayo Arias, 45, is scheduled to die for the January 1994 murder of Houston police officer Guy Gaddis, who was 24 when he was killed by multiple gunshots fired at the back of his head by Tamayo, while Gaddis was transporting him to jail after a street arrest. Tamayo was handcuffed at the time.

López Obrador accuses Peña Nieto of "treason," while radical teachers get kicked out of Mexico City - again

Federal District remains tense, as union rallies its members for a new offensive; meanwhile, AMLO lets it all hang out - but will the latest verbal barrage convert him into a relic of political history?

Guadalajara -
2013 may have been the year of Enrique Peña Nieto, but former two time presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador doesn't plan to join the parade.

López Obrador hit the political circuit bright and early this morning, looking a bit on the thin side but no worse the wear after a December cardiac event sidelined him at home for a month. While he was away from the partisan battlefield, Mexico's federal congress and an easy majority of its 32 states passed the historic PEMEX reforms, and in record time considering the multi-step legislative process required for constitutional amendments.

López Obrador, 60, founder and leader of the ultra-left National Regeneration Movement (Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional, commonly known by its acronym MORENA), was twice denied Mexico's presidency (2006, 2012). Most expect him to be a candidate again in 2018. Mexican politicians already looking ahead to next contest. Today he demanded that "all of the so-called institutional reforms" of the Peña Nieto administration be "abolished immediately."

The White City is 472

Mérida, Yucatán -
The Yuctecan capital claims Jan. 6, 1542 as its birthday. The city is synonymous with its magnificent San Ildefonso cathedral, the construction of which began in 1561. Stones for the project were pilfered from Mayan ruins throughout the state. Historians may argue over whether Ildefonso is the oldest or the second oldest Catholic house of worship in the Americas, but there can be no quarrel over the spell it casts on every visitor. Presenting unique façades in shifting light, Ildefonso has a changing yet constant face. It's impossible to get too much of this architectural masterpiece, or not to be awed by the five centuries of history which have passed its massive portalón. Meridians are lucky to have it.

U.K. report: life is getting harder, not easier for Mexicans

U.S. expert queries whether new Mexican taxes will be used to help the masses

Guadalajara -
In an article published yesterday by the respected British magazine The Economist, an unidentified reporter recounted his experience outside a sprawling Mexico City market on New Year's Eve day.

"People without enough money to shop were sifting through piles of discolored and discarded avocados and tomatoes, wrapping what was still edible in scraps of newspaper and furtively carrying them off for their own more meager supper. For many of these Mexicans, life is getting harder."

Dengue Fever still claims lives in Mérida, but far fewer

Stats for 2013 show much improvement over the previous reporting year

Downtown Mérida, where the concept of storm sewers is unknown - September 2010

Mérida, Yucatán -
It's raining cats and dogs these days in Merida (best translated as está lloviendo a cántaros - leave the gatos and perros out of it), and that's not good news for municipal dengue eradication efforts.

Naked Justice of the Peace, city cop: sex in parked car is "normal and common" in Yucatán

Of Mayan villages, strange practices and other regional miscellany

Mérida, Yucatán -
MGR has never had the pleasure of visiting Temax, Yucatán (marked at the top of the map). But it did once suffer through the agony of an afternoon trip to Ticul (bottom of the map) and will not soon repeat that experience. All Mayan named hamlets are now on the permanent DO NOT VISIT list.

Many Mexicans heavily in debt, with no way to pay

The bill collector cometh

Guadalajara -
Credit card bills or notices of loan payments due are not unusual in many countries this time of year. Nor are default notices. Mexico is no exception.

Two Mexican federal agencies, the National Bank Commission and the National Commission for Protection Against Usurious Finance Charges, have reported that the number of consumer loans in arrears tripled in 2013, with one of every nine individual debtors (11%) now in some degree of default.

Playa del Carmen police accused of killing U.S. citizen

Victim was an ex-U.S. serviceman

*Updated content*
Cancún, Quintana Roo -
Six municipal police officers of Playa del Carmen are under arrest after a city resident died in a patrol vehicle transporting him to the local precinct house. All have been charged with homicide.

The victim has been identified as 28 year old Yeudi Estrada Carrero, originally from New York but a Playa resident for the past several years. Estrada, a U.S. national, was a mixed martial arts specialist, and had reportedly served in the U.S. military, perhaps as a Marine.

Mexico will report on marijuana eradication

Guadalajara -
Mexico has fairly powerful freedom of information procedures, which are less administratively burdensome and time consuming than many FOIA applications in the United States. The administration announced today that in response to an inquiry by a private citizen, the attorney general's office will compile and publicly release a state by state report on the marijuana and opium acreage destroyed from Jan. 1, 2012 through October 2013.

Destruction of cannabis and opium poppy plants is typically carried out by federal troops. Mexican armed forces arrest 4,760 drug traffickers in first eight months of PRI admin.

Havana celebrates 55th anniversary of Cuban revolution

"El marxismo me enseñó cómo era la sociedad. Era como un hombre con los ojos vendados en un bosque, que ni siquiera sabe dónde está el norte o hacia el sur es. Si usted no tiene el tiempo llega a comprender realmente la historia de la lucha de clases, o por lo menos tener una idea clara de que la sociedad está dividida entre los ricos y los pobres, y que algunas personas subyugar y explotar a los demás, estás perdido en un bosque, sin saber nada -

"Marxism taught me what society was. I was like a blindfolded man in a forest, who doesn't even know where north or south is. If you don't eventually come to truly understand the history of the class struggle, or at least have a clear idea that society is divided between the rich and the poor, and that some people subjugate and exploit other people, you're lost in a forest, not knowing anything." - Fidel Castro, quoted in My Life: A Spoken Autobiography, by Ignacio Ramonet (2009).

Guadalajara -
From an MGR post on Oct. 26, 2011:

"On the evening of December 31, 1958 the president of Cuba was a swaggering dictator named Fulgencio Batista. An old friend of Washington and the American mafia alike, Batista knew the end was near. Cuban rebels, long his nemesis, were on the outskirts of Havana, and occasional gunfire could be heard in the distance. U.S. political support was quickly evaporating. Officials of the Dwight Eisenhower administration told Batista that it was time to pack his bags. At a New Year's Eve party, over a champagne toast, he told his cabinet ministers that he was leaving the country in a few hours. At 3:00 a.m. on January 1, 1959, Batista boarded a plane with supporters and flew to the Dominican Republic, under the careful watch of U.S. officials. With him, crammed into the cargo hold, went cash and art work estimated at $300-$700 million USD, all of it property of the Cuban state.

Mexico's finance minister gets prestigious awards

Yet more praises from abroad for the PRI team in Mexico City

*Updated Jan 3*
Guadalajara -
The British magazine The Banker has named Luis Videgaray Caso, secretary of Mexico's Hacienda y Crédito Público (SHCP), finance minister of the year for 2014 in two categories: Latin American region and worldwide.

The SHCP is the rough equivalent of the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service and the Office of Management and Budget rolled into one. It is one of the most powerful departments in Mexico's federal executive branch.

This is the first such award for the Hacienda or its secretary in the nation's history.

Dollar ends 2013 stronger against peso than it did in 2012

Guadalajara - One year ago MGR published a New Year's Eve post entitled Dollar falls unexpectedly against Mexican peso, as U.S. goes over fiscal cliff. At the close of business on Dec. 31, 2012, the dollar sold for an average 13 pesos, and bought as little as 12.25 pesos.

Today the news was much better - for dollar holders, that is. In Mexico City banks the U.S. currency sold for up to 13.4 pesos, and fetched at least 12.87 of the moneda nacional. Dollar holders in Mexico have been able to get 13 pesos, or very close to that, for many weeks now.