General News

He may have made Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of 2013, but President Enrique Peña Nieto’s authority in Mexico was undermined this week as his party was drawn into another political scandal.

Although the peso lost some ground midweek (it was trading at 12.40 to the dollar at Wednesday’s close), Mexico’s often-maligned currency has been on a roll recently, bringing with it both positive and negative fallout. 

The Chamber of Deputies, Mexico’s lower house, approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday that will permit foreigners to have direct title to their properties located within the “Restricted Zone” – 100 kilometers within the nation’s borders and 50 kilometers of its coastline.  The legislation passed by 356 votes to 119, with only left-of-center legislators voting against the reform.  It still requires approval by the Senate and at least half of Mexico’s 32 state legislatures, before it can be signed into law by the president – a process that could be lengthy.

In recognition of her work uncovering Wal-Mart’s corrupt practises in Mexico, Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab has become the first Mexican woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.

Mexican astronomers, both professional and amateur, have set a Guinness record after pointing 2,978 telescopes at the moon at the same time. 

From 2006 to 2011, Mexico dropped two places – from eighth to 10th – in World Tourism Organization rankings for the most visited countries.

Those readers who believe “it doesn’t happen here” or “it can’t happen to me” really need to pay attention this week.  There is an internet-based extortion scheme cropping up all over the world that has now made its appearance here in Mexico.

Cardinal Jose Francisco Robles Ortoga, the archbishop of Guadalajara, revealed this week that the Mexican Catholic Church has formally invited Pope Francis to visit Mexico at “the time that he deems appropriate.”