The ever-changing face of campaign politics in Mexico
Once more the unimaginable seems unavoidable in Mexican politics.
Barely two weeks following the start of what looked to be a ho-hum event, Mexican presidential campaigning took another turn in which the 2006 election outcome may again become unpredictable.
The split in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ranks has turned into a mutiny that not only threatens party unity and its 2006 election results, but eventually the party itself. Earlier Roberto Madrazo, the PRI boss and leading presidential hopeful, had fought back a showdown with a group of PRI governors, and he scuttled the hopes of Elba Esther Gordillo, the party’s secretary general, to succeed him as PRI president.
More: mexidata.info
Mexicos Calderon next target of election attacks
Mexican presidential candidate Felipe Calderon expects rivals to make him the focus of sniping and negative campaign ads now that he has taken the lead in a closely watched poll, his campaign chief said.
Calderon, a conservative, knocked leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador out of first place in the poll on Tuesday and gained more ground with a winning performance in a televised debate that Lopez Obrador opted out of.
The shift could make Calderon the new target of mudslinging that has previously seen the two main challengers call Lopez Obrador a dangerous populist
Thousands pack Mexico City plaza as ex-mayor accepts leftist coalition's presidential nomination
Tens of thousands filled the Mexican capital's massive main plaza Saturday as a fiery former mayor considered the 2006 presidential race's front-runner formally accepted the nomination of a coalition of leftist parties.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who stepped down as Mexico City mayor to run for president with the Democratic Revolution Party, faced a sea of supporters chanting "Obrador! Obrador!" and wearing hats and waving flags featuring his party's yellow-and-black colors.
But perhaps the best-known face of the Mexican left -- Democratic Revolution founder and perennial presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc
Sex mall highlights changing attitudes in Mexico
In the heart of Mexico City's historic district, a Colonial-style building houses a sexual revolution of sorts.
It's a new mall dedicated to sex and adult entertainment. There are 100 shops in all, specializing in lingerie, alluring scents, erotic jewelry and publications.
"It's very new," said sex mall developer Alberto Kibrit. "We don't have a lot of competition."
Sex is a growth industry in Mexico as more people are open to explore the topic in this predominantly Catholic country.
The mall is brightly painted and well-lit. The developer wanted to create an open atmosphere,
Fewer Gray Whales Migrating to Warmth of Mexico
The number of gray whales making a yearly migration from the icy North Pacific to breed in Mexico's warm lagoons has dropped this year, possibly because of changing weather patterns, scientists say.
Whale food shortages near Canada and Alaska mean that some of the thousands of whales that make the 5,000-mile journey have departed late or even stayed behind this year, researcher William M. Megill said.
Other researchers said Thursday that varying temperatures in the Bering Sea could be changing migration patterns.
Megill, a lecturer at the University of Bath in Britain, said
Mexico school vandal photocopies face for cops
Vandals who broke into and wrecked a northern Mexican primary school over the Christmas holidays were thoughtful enough to leave the photocopied mug shot of one of their gang at the scene of the crime.
Mexican television showed a black-and-white print on Tuesday of the squashed, chubby face and hands of a young boy. The photocopy was made at the school in the northern city of Monterrey and left among smashed chairs and torn books.
Headmistress Maria del Rosario Gomez told Televisa news it was the third time the school had been vandalized, and said
Mexico-style campaign hits hurdle in Los Angeles area
Manuel Espino looked at a sea of empty chairs in the South Gate High School auditorium Saturday and contemplated the magnitude of the challenge facing Mexico's political parties.
Espino, the leader of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, was here to court Mexicans who in June won the historic right to vote by abBut nothing was going as planned.
A powerful politician whose appearances in Mexico command big crowds and thundering applause, Espino expected supporters to fly in from all over the United States to talk about the immigration plank in his party's campaign platform.
Politics Could Undercut Mexicos Gains
As President Vicente Fox prepares to leave office amid political uncertainty here, he is handing his successor one of the healthiest economies in the last six years.
Inflation is tame. Industrial production is sizzling. Tax coffers are bulging with oil revenue. Formal employment is rebounding. Mexicos economy expanded by 4.7% in the second quarter, fueled by strong consumer spending at home and robust demand for its goods abroad.
I dont think anyone expected it to be this strong, said Christian Stracke, emerging-markets analyst with New York-based CreditSights.
The big question: How long can the party last?
More
Brazil Bovespa Falls on Politics; Mexico Falls: Latin Stocks
Brazil's main equity index fell for the first time this week, led by state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, on concern further revelations from a probe into alleged vote-buying may weaken the government.
The Bovespa index of the most-traded stocks on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange fell 555.25, or 2.1 percent, to 25,364.70 at 1:22 p.m. New York time. The Bovespa gained 3.9 percent for the week, boosted by a poll Tuesday that showed President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's approval rating rose in June, easing concern he would lose support over
More videos suggest bribery in Mexico
The ``video scandal'' returned to Mexico on Friday after local media broadcast new footage of politicians from the party of presidential front-runner Andrés Manuel López Obrador either requesting or giving money to a now-jailed businessman.
In one video, a former official from the Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, hands over a suitcase containing what reports say is $1 million to the businessman, Carlos Ahumada. In a second video, a former gubernatorial candidate is seen asking Ahumada for a campaign contribution.
PRD officials said the videos were part of a campaign to embarrass the party before the
Zapatista rebel leader plans six-month, solo tour of Mexico
Mexico's Zapatista rebels on Saturday struggled amid shouts and catcalls to hammer out the details of the new movement that they pledged would "shake this country up," starting with a six-month nationwide tour by rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos.
Marcos said he will embark without the rest of the rebel leadership on a roughly six-month tour starting on Jan. 1 and timed to grab attention away from the country's July 2006 presidential election.
The state-by-state tour aims to inspire what the rebels call "another way of doing politics." But no one on Saturday
