The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has announced the names of three firms that have “pre qualified” to bid for the contract to construct the new U.S. embassy in Mexico City.

Quebec-based circus arts company Cirque du Soleil will soon be performing its magic at a permanent theater/lounge on the Riviera Maya. According to Spanish-language daily Mural’s finance correspondent Barbara Anderson, the 20-million-dollar project will be underwritten by Cirque du Soleil and Grupo Vidanta, owners of the Mayan hotel chain.

Delivering his first state-of-the-union address (informe) Monday, President Enrique Peña Nieto urged Congress and the nation to back his series of structural reforms that he says will keep Mexico’s “grand transformation” on track.

The National Statistics and Geography Institute (INEGI) reports that 2.6 million of the country’s Economically Active Population (PEA) – around five percent – are unemployed as of the end of the second quarter of 2013. That is up 122,000 from the same quarter last year. In urban areas the unemployment rate reached six percent.

In an unusual step for a Mexican-based company, Starbucks is allocating jobs to people aged between 60 and 65 – not as dish washers or cleaners, but as baristas.

Almost 20 years since the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) led an armed uprising in the southern state of Chiapas on January 1, 1994, the indigenous Zapatista movement remains alive and well.