Mexico - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

By ALEXANDRA VALENCIA and BRENDAN O'BOYLE

Mexico suspends relations with Ecuador after arrest of ex-VP

ECUADOREAN authorities arrested former Vice President Jorge Glas, seizing him from the Mexican embassy and prompting Mexico to suspend bilateral relations. Glas, convicted twice for corruption, had been holed up in the embassy in Quito since seeking political asylum in December, a request Mexico granted earlier on Friday. Police forcefully entered Mexico's embassy in Quito before making the arrest, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador posted on X. The Ecuadorean president's office said in a statement it had arrested Glas, who was vice president under the leftist government of Rafael Correa between 2013 and 2017. There was a heavy military…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Builder Mota-Engil gets $1 bln in new Angola, Mexico deals, shares rise

BUSINESS

PORTUGAL'S largest builder Mota-Engil has signed four contracts worth a total 975 million euros ($1.06 billion) in Angola and Mexico, strengthening the order book in Africa and Latin America - its main markets - and causing its shares to rise. The company said its new contracts with the Angolan government included the Corimba waterfront construction and social housing in the capital Luanda, as well as a border post on Angola's frontier with the Democratic Republic of Congo. The three Angolan contracts are worth around 875 million euros. In Mexico, the builder will participate in the construction of a road on…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

How an election-packed 2024 could swing world markets

NEWS

COUNTRIES making up over 60% of the world's economic output and more than half of its population hold elections this year. Markets face a "ballot box bombshell", financial services group Morningstar says, adding: "Prior experience of this kind of event risk shows big changes can cause sell-offs". Here's a look at the elections that matter for markets, in roughly chronological order for the coming year. 1/ TAIWAN Date: Jan 13 Back story: Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is competing mainly with the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) for the presidency and legislature. A DPP win would be the third consecutive victory for a…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Tractor trailer crash in Mexico kills 26

WORLD

A tractor trailer and a van crashed on a highway in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, killing 26 people, local authorities said. The two vehicles crashed about half an hour outside of the state capital Ciudad Victoria and then caught on fire, the Tamaulipas' public security ministry said. Once authorities arrived at the site of the crash, they found the truck carrying the trailer was no longer at the scene. A source at the Tamaulipas prosecutors' office said investigators were unsure whether the driver of the truck had fled or if he was also killed in the crash. The…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

U.S. border city calm as Title 42 lifts and asylum restrictions take effect

WORLD

DAINA BETH SOLOMON and JULIO-CESAR CHAVEZ THE United States ended a COVID-19 border restriction that had blocked many migrants at the border with Mexico, immediately replacing the order known as Title 42 with a sweeping new asylum regulation meant to deter illegal crossings. Several last-minute court actions added confusion to how President Joe Biden's reworked border policies will play out, with advocates filing a legal challenge to the new asylum restrictions as they took effect. In El Paso, Texas, hundreds of migrants slept outside on American soil in front of the border fence as the sun rose on Friday morning.…

Jan

2023

By The African Mirror

In Mexico, a reporter published a story. The next day he was shot dead

WORLD

SARAH KINOSIAN JUST after sunset on Thursday, February 10th, two men in a white Dodge Ram pickup pulled up in front of Heber Lopez Vasquez's small radio studio in southern Mexico. One man got out, walked inside and shot the 42-year-old journalist dead. Lopez's 12-year-old son Oscar, the only person with him, hid, Lopez's brother told Reuters. Lopez was one of 13 Mexican journalists killed in 2022, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based rights group. It was the deadliest year on record for journalists in Mexico, now the most dangerous country for reporters in the…

Jan

2021

By The African Mirror

Biden’s immigration changes too late for grandfather deported on Inauguration Day

WORLD

MICA ROSENBERG, KRISTINA COOKE and JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ AS U.S. President Joe Biden took the oath of office last Wednesday, Felipe Ortega sat in a van handcuffed and chained at the waist and feet, headed toward Mexico and the end of his 30-year life in the United States. A day earlier, the 58-year-old grandfather of eight U.S. citizens was on his way to work when immigration agents surrounded his car in Midland, Texas, just blocks from his home. They told Ortega he had an outstanding deportation order from 15 years ago. After one sleepless night in jail and a long…

Nov

2020

By The African Mirror

Mexico demands answers over use of indigenous designs

BEAUTY AND FASHION

MEXICO’S culture ministry has questioned French fashion designer Isabel Marant's use of patterns from indigenous Mexican communities, marking the government's latest complaint over high-fashion brands appropriating local styles. Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto. Photo: Tania Victoria According to the ministry, Marant's latest collection, including a long cape with stripes and starburst designs in gray and brown hues, includes elements from the Purepecha people of Mexico's Michoacan state. "I ask you, Ms Isabel Marant, to publicly explain on what grounds you privatize a collective property ... and how its use benefits the creator communities," Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto said in a letter…

Aug

2020

By The African Mirror

Family, Mexican lawmakers call for trafficking probe of megachurch

RELIGION

CHRISTINE MURRAY THE Mexican government came under criticism from opposition lawmakers and a victim's family who said officials have not responded to their complaints of human trafficking against the Light of the World megachurch. The leader of the church is being held in U.S. custody on rape, human trafficking and child pornography charges, but a report filed with Mexican authorities in July 2019 has not progressed, they said. Sochil Martin, who complained to Mexican prosecutors and earlier this year filed a U.S. civil suit, has claimed she was abused for 22 years as she grew up in the church. She…