Category Archives: Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Mexico was once a climate leader – now it’s betting big on coal

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As the climate crisis worsens, Andrés Manuel López Obrador plans to buy nearly 2m tons of thermal coal from small producers

The men on the midnight shift smoked cigarettes and cracked jokes in the glow of their helmet lights as they prepared to go underground. They were loading safety equipment and coils of pipe onto wheelbarrows, in readiness for a second shift due to start working later that week.

“We’re reactivating the industry,” said Arturo Rivera Wong, who had just taken on 40 more workers at the mine he owns in the scrublands of the border state of Coahuila.

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Mexico president rebuked for careless response to Covid after testing positive

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Andrés Manuel López Obrador tests positive day after saying crisis nearing the end and ‘little lights’ at end of tunnel could be seen

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, declared at the weekend that his country was nearing the end of the coronavirus crisis, telling supporters that “little lights” at the end of the tunnel could already be seen.

The next day he tested positive for Covid-19, throwing the country into tumult – and prompting fresh criticisms of his cavalier response to a disease that has killed nearly 150,000 citizens.

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Mexico: witness to disappearance of 43 students alleges soldiers involved in attack

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Witness testified soldiers detained group of students, interrogated them and then handed them to a drug gang

A witness to the disappearance of 43 Mexican student teachers has alleged that soldiers were involved in the 2014 attack , the country’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has confirmed.

The disappearance of the trainees from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College on 26 September 2014 rocked Mexico, sparking widespread protests and calls for justice, but the investigation into the case has been widely criticized.

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End of Trump era deals heavy blow to rightwing populist leaders worldwide

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As Biden’s victory sinks in across Brazil, Hungary and elsewhere, dreams of a rightwing global crusade appear to be fading

As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, many world leaders are breathing a sigh of relief. But Trump’s ideological kindred spirits – rightwing populists in office in Brazil, Hungary, Slovenia and elsewhere – are instead taking a sharp breath.

The end of the Trump presidency may not mean the beginning of their demise, but it certainly strips them of a powerful motivational factor, and also alters the global political atmosphere, which in recent years had seemed to be slowly tilting in their favour, at least until the onset of coronavirus. The momentous US election result is further evidence that the much-talked-about “populist wave” of recent years may be subsiding.

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Mexico’s president won’t congratulate Biden on election win until legal challenges over

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Andrés Manuel López Obrador will wait for courts to rule on Trump lawsuits in bid to avoid friction

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said on Saturday he would not congratulate a winner of the US presidential election until legal challenges are concluded, in an apparent bid to avoid friction with Washington during the transition.

Democrat Joe Biden won the election on Saturday after a victory in the battleground state of Pennsylvania put him over the threshold of 270 electoral college votes.

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Mexico asks Pope Francis for apology for church’s role in Spanish conquest

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Mexico’s president says the Vatican should apologise for ‘reprehensible atrocities’ in colonisation 500 years ago

Mexico’s president has written to Pope Francis to ask for an apology for the Catholic church’s role in the oppression of indigenous people in the Spanish conquest 500 years ago.

The request was made in a two-page letter that also asked the Vatican to temporarily return several ancient indigenous manuscripts held in its library, ahead of next year’s 500-year anniversary of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

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Mexico’s scientists, activists and artists oppose president’s funding overhaul

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A vote is expected on Tuesday on a proposal to abolish 109 public trusts and divert about $3bn to other priorities such as the pandemic

Scientists, human rights defenders and artists in Mexico have warned that a plan to overhaul government funding structures threatens the future of activities as diverse as medical research, disaster response, film production and journalist protections in the country.

Mexico’s lower house of congress is expected to vote on Tuesday on a proposal to abolish 109 public trusts, diverting approximately $3bn to other priorities such as the Covid-19 pandemic response.

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Mexico rocked by claims of corruption against three former presidents

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Leaked deposition by recently extradited former head of state oil company Pemex alleges staggering scale of high-level corruption

Mexico’s political establishment has been shaken by claims that three former Mexican presidents and an all-star cast of lawmakers and aides may have been involved in alleged acts of corruption.

The accusations were leveled by Emilio Lozoya, the former head of Mexico’s state oil company Pemex, and will boost efforts by the country’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to portray himself as an anti-corruption crusader.

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Mexican president Amlo says he will wear mask ‘when there is no corruption’

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Andrés Manuel López Obrador has consistently avoided wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus

Mexico’s president has said he will only wear a mask when the country eradicates corruption – a pledge made the day after Mexico surpassed the United Kingdom in total Covid-19 deaths.

Speaking to reporters on Friday morning, Andrés Manuel López Obrador said: “You know when I’m going to put on a mask? When there is no corruption. Then I’ll put on a mask and I’ll stop talking.”

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Trump claims US would be ‘inundated’ with Covid-19 were it not for border wall

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President made remark hours after his Mexican counterpart thanked him for not bringing subject up in public

Donald Trump has claimed that the US would be “inundated” with coronavirus, were it not for new sections of the border wall – mere hours after his Mexican counterpart thanked him for avoiding the thorny subject during a summit meeting this week.

Related: Amlo unscathed after Trump meeting but snags cameo role in US election

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Mexican president says he ordered release of El Chapo’s son

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Ovidio Guzmán was briefly captured in October only to be let go hours later as security was overwhelmed by cartel forces

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on Friday said he personally ordered the release of one of the sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, after his brief detention during a military operation.

Scenes of mayhem during the operation caused López Obrador’s government considerable embarrassment in October as security forces briefly captured Ovidio Guzmán only to let him go hours later as the security forces were overwhelmed by cartel forces.

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Cemeteries braced for surge in Covid-19 dead as Mexico readies to reopen

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The president says the pandemic has been tamed but experts, and those who must bury the dead, fear an alarming rise in cases

Four generations of Enrique Ruvalcaba’s family have worked at the Mezquitán cemetery in the Mexican city of Guadalajara. None of them ever saw anything like this. 

Before the coronavirus, the burial ground was open to the public, and the deceased were honoured by flower-carrying mourners and mariachis. Now the dead arrive in silence and alone.

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Covid-19 cases in Brazil surpass Italy as virus surges in Latin America

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Mexico and Peru struggle to contain outbreaks while deaths in Spain fall to two-month low

Confirmed Covid-19 cases in Brazil have surpassed the total in Italy and are surging in Mexico and Peru as Latin America struggles to contain its fast-growing coronavirus outbreak.

Spain announced that 87 people had died there in the 24 hours to Sunday morning, the first time the figure has been below 100 in more than two months and a sign the virus is being contained in western Europe as it continues to spread aggressively in Russia, India and parts of Africa.

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López Obrador accused of militarizing Mexico with new security decree

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Human rights groups concerned over expanding the role of the armed forces as the country’s homicide rate reaches new high

Human rights groups in Mexico have expressed disquiet over a presidential decree expanding the role of the armed forces in public security – a reflection of the country’s worsening violence and the failure to properly prepare and equip a police force able to take on powerful criminal organisations.

The decree, published on Monday by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, demonstrates an ongoing dependency on the army and navy for public security work – even though soldiers and marines have been frequently accused of human rights violations.

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Fate of US brewery in drought-hit Mexico goes to Amlo poll

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President continues direct democracy drive that critics say is skewed towards his desired outcome

The fate of a giant US brewery under construction in Mexico’s parched borderlands will be put to a vote this weekend in the latest attempt at direct democracy by the country’s populist president.

The brewery in Mexicali has provoked controversy in a region where the climate crisis has already caused droughts, and where farmers and residents have taken exception to a US company, Constellation Brands, extracting water to produce beer for export.

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Bolsonaro and Amlo slammed for snubbing coronavirus warnings

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The populist leaders of Brazil and Mexico have come under fire after publicly thumbing their noses at growing fears over the spread of the coronavirus.

Related: Trump 'offers large sums' for exclusive access to coronavirus vaccine

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Mexico president’s response to historic femicide protests: more of the same

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A day after thousands protested against the murder of women and girls, López Obrador said he would ‘reinforce the same strategy’

A day after Mexico’s women collectively shut down the country in an eruption of fury over gender violence, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has insisted that he will not try a new strategy to stop femicides.

Thousands of women went on strike on Monday, in a historic protest against the murder of women and girls – and the failure of successive governments’ efforts to stop a crisis in which around 10 women are murdered every day.

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Mexico: Amlo sought to sell presidential jet, but nobody wanted it

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Luxurious plane will be returned to Mexico after a year on sale in the US where it piled up $1.5m in maintenance costs

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has made selling off the luxurious presidential jet a centerpiece of his austerity program, but there’s just one problem: nobody wants to buy the white elephant.

López Obrador said on Tuesday the Boeing Dreamliner will be returned to Mexico after a year on sale in the United States, where it piled up about $1.5m in maintenance costs.

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More than 60,000 people are missing amid Mexico’s drug war, officials say

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Mexican authorities admit the number is far higher than previously estimated as murders continue to rise

The devastating human toll of Mexico’s security crisis was laid bare on Monday as authorities admitted nearly 62,000 people had vanished since the start of its catastrophic war on drugs in 2006.

The figure – far higher than a previous estimate of about 40,000 – spoke to the scale of the challenge facing Mexico’s leftist leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took power in December 2018 vowing to pacify his country.

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Mexico’s Amlo says El Chapo ‘had the same power’ as past presidents

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López Obrador took a blow at his predecessors while claiming Mexico’s era of corruption is ‘gone to the garbage dump of history’

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, closed out 2019 with a parting shot at his predecessors, saying the imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera had once wielded the same power as the country’s president.

In a video message from the southern city of Palenque on Wednesday, López Obrador recounted his administration’s successes in its first year and highlighted its challenges foremost surging violence.

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