WorldcrunchStay updated with comprehensive news on Mexico from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Mexican politics, economic strategies, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Mexico City, Mexican history, and cultural events.
-OpEd- MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto recently told a gathering of CEOs at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit that his country sees no need to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States. Instead, it merely should be “modernized” or updated. That, he stated, would mean adding […]
TIJUANA — Martin Pina stands in the courtyard of the “Casa del Migrante,” which was founded 29 years ago by Catholic Scalabrinian missionaries to help migrants in this teeming Mexican border city. Sporting a tattoo of his mother Belinda on his left arm and Mexican singer Selena on his right, Pina says that he had […]
Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican novelist who died in 2012, wrote more than a decade ago of a U.S. president who, through punitive measures, would almost shut Mexico down and accidentally revive the art of letter-writing.
Donald Trump shows disdain for both Latinos in his own country, as well as some basic tenets of international relations.
Trump’s rough discourse has uncovered simmering resentment against Mexico among Americans, which began with NAFTA and the job losses that it entailed for parts of the U.S.
PUEBLA — Mexico’s recently opened International Museum of the Baroque, in this historic colonial city, is as much a work of art as the numerous 17th- and 18th-century pieces it contains. Designed for Puebla by Japanese architect Toyo Ito, the structure — with its 53 white walls, all a little different from each other, and […]
This week we shine the spotlight on Mexico: CHILD TRAFFICKING PROBE IN SONORA Mexican national daily Excelsior reports that the country’s Attorney General formally charged two officials from the northern state of Sonora with child trafficking. The case first emerged last month, when Vladimir Alfredo Arzate and José Hernández López, both officials at a government […]
The Mexican government’s recent actions suggest the ruling party yearns for the days when it governed unchallenged through cronyism. But order comes at a price.
A Mexican journalist’s corruption investigations led to death threats and persecution against her. She has been forced to flee her country, but many of her colleagues were murdered before they could do the same.
Mexico’s top drug kingpin manages to break out of jail again, likely with the complicity of junior officers. It’s hardly surprising when he is so unbelievably rich, and they are paid so little.
The government’s failure to address crime, corruption and declining living standards risks true social upheaval. But Enrique Pena Nieto just sits on the ball.
Once the world’s murder capital, the Mexican city that borders with El Paso, Texas, has seen crime plummet. But deeper problems still persist.
Unchecked urbanization is destroying what’s left of the Mexican capital’s pre-Aztec chinampas.
Mexico is struggling to move past almost a century of semi-dictatorship to become a liberal democracy. But it is plagued by a shared and absolute rejection of the ideas of others.
People are increasingly disgusted with crime and shoddy government in Mexico. Whatever happened to President Pena Nieto’s promises to take on the country’s vested interests?
The Mexican capital is revamping its international airport, with a new terminal designed by star architect Norman Foster that will double capacity, save energy and dazzle the eyes.
-OpEd- BOGOTA — Mexico bleeds as criminal gangs kill the innocent and not-so-innocent, before the gaze of an impotent — or is it indifferent? — state apparatus. The latest victims were 43 student activists who disappeared in late September and, many believe, were shot dead and cut up by gangsters and policemen collaborating in the […]
Sumptuous beaches and low-key vibes in Tulum, on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, have attracted those keen to avoid the crowds and bling of the most popular resorts. But will it last?
New revelations point to collusion between authorities and a drug cartel that may have led to the killing of 40 Mexican teenagers. Like Colombia a generation ago, a nation faces its deepest evils.
President Enrique Pena Nieto has pulled off the political feat of pushing through unprecedented reforms. But they are based on a promise that economic growth will inevitably follow.
The “black market” accounts for a quarter of Mexico’s GDP and employs more than half its workforce. The numbers illustrate a failure of public policy and raise a red flag for the future.
Current privatization proposals for the telecom and energy sectors suggest Mexico has learned little from the partial, and failed, liberalization processes of the past.
There was shock after the latest report from U.S. Border Patrol found an explosion of young people being sent northward from Central America. Why it isn’t just about the parents.
Mexico seems to be returning to more regulations, paperwork and taxes, which fuels the underground economy and encourages the government to overspend.
NAFTA has brought about practically everything that is positive about the Mexican economy. Unfortunately, good governance and stability remain elusive.
The world was surprised, and very likely pleased, by this past weekend’s capture of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, head of the Sinaloa drug cartel and one of the world’s richest and most powerful drug traffickers. Pleased for good reason, because “Shorty” Guzmán, who was on the run for 13 years after a prison escape, is believed […]
As the Castro reign lives its final phase, the future of Cuba is uncertain. This is not necessarily good news for Mexico.
What will remain of the socialist ideals of Mexico’s 1910 revolution, as the country’s rulers dance to the singular drum of global capitalism and North America’s elite?
Though physical money will still be around for a while, the spread of digital money is inevitable for four basic reasons: efficiency, hygiene, durability – and anonymity.
MEXICO CITY — Roberto Servitje, co-founder and former president of the Mexican bread and pastry giant Bimbo, is upright and elegant at 85 years old. He has plenty to stand tall about, having started a company with his brother 68 years ago that remains successful and in the family. At a time when Mexican producers […]
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) governed Mexico, at times with an iron fist, for 70 years until it lost the presidency in 2000. It returned with Enrique Peña Nieto’s victory in this year’s presidential elections. But have politics changed in Mexico? Will the PRI resort to its old ways, asks Luis Rubio,* or will it […]
SANTIAGO – Latin America has a long and checkered history of technological innovation spreading with the confusion and occasional lawlessness of the Wild West. This is particularly troubling now with the spread of drone technology, as more and more of the unmanned craft are hovering around the region with no regulations to speak of. In […]
-Op-Ed- MEXICO CITY — I am no energy specialist, but after reading and listening to experts in recent months, I have learned about the fundamental requirements that should drive any major energy-sector reform. Can smart energy policy become the most powerful platform for Mexico’s economic growth? Ramón Espinosa, an analyst at the Inter-American Development Bank […]
Thursday, November 6, 2014 AIRSTRIKES TARGET AL-NUSRA IN SYRIA The U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition launched airstrikes against the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and another jihadist group, Ahrar al-Sham, in what appears to be the beginning of a wider military operation in northern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. This came after the al-Nusra Front seized […]
ACAPULCO — Before coming to Acapulco, I had heard many disturbing things about the city. For example, that six Spanish girls were brutally raped on the top floor of a beautiful beachfront villa last February as their boyfriends, handcuffed, were made to watch. That Acapulco had suddenly become the most violent city in Mexico — […]
MEXICO CITY — Dr. Emmett Brown takes banana peels, leftover beer, and some other pieces of garbage from the trash to charge his car — a DeLorean equipped with the Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor. Although in this scene from the movie Back To The Future (1985), the technology was invented in 2015, energy generated […]
-Editorial- Ten months after taking over the presidency of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto has found himself at a critical moment. His ambitious project to reform practically all Mexican institutions is meeting opposition from the right and the left, at a time when his popularity is beginning to wane. The right opposes his proposal to increase […]
The arrest of a notorious Mexican mobster belonging to the Zetas cartel is a significant accomplishment for President Pena Nieto, but it won’t tame the bloodshed.
Inside the demographics and economics of an aging planet.