International roundup

By Agencies
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Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador failed to find enough votes late Sunday to pass a constitutional reform limiting private and foreign firms in the electrical power industry, marking the first major legislative setback for the president.

The defeat may set the tone for an angrier, more hard-line and polarizing president in the last 2 1/2 years of his administration.

However, on a simple majority the lower house later passed López Obrador’s proposal to nationalize the mining of lithium, a mineral used in electric car batteries and other devices.

No longer able to ride on a legislative super-majority as he did in the first half of his term, López Obrador was stung by the failure of the electrical-power bill, and may now resort to harsher attacks on opponents and regulatory bodies like the courts and electoral authorities.

The reforms that failed to pass Sunday would have undone much of the market opening in power generation carried out by his predecessor in 2013, but also raised concerns among U.S. officials and companies, who worried they would violate trade pacts and guarantees for foreign investors.

On Monday, López Obrador called the opposition members of congress who voted against the reform traitors, claiming foreign firms “bought the legislators.”

The lower house of Congress voted 275 to 223 in favor of the measure, which would have given more power to the state-owned electrical utility, but that was well short of the 332 votes needed for constitutional changes.

Ana Vanessa Cárdenas Zanatta, a political science professor at the Monterrey Technological and Anahuac universities, said the vote marked the first legislative setback López Obrador has suffered since taking office in late 2018.

“Today he couldn’t hide the fact that he was very angry,” said Cárdenas Zanatta, noting he had continued pushing the project despite warnings from the U.S. government.

“Yesterday a group of legislators committed an act of treason. Instead of defending the interests of the nation, of the people, they openly defended foreign firms that rob and prey,” López Obrador said Monday. 

MEXICO

A judge in Mexico has ordered the temporary suspension of works on a stretch of the Maya train project, citing a lack of environmental permits.

The project to build a railroad in the Yucatán Peninsula is President Andrés López Obrador’s flagship infrastructure program.

But cavers warn that it threatens caverns dating back millions of years.

The judge ordered works to be halted until studies could be carried out about the works’ environmental impact.

Cavers had joined forces with environmentalists to bring the case to court last month.

They argued that a change in the route of the train line linking the tourist hotspots of Cancún and Tulum, known as Section 5, would harm the jungle it will now run through and the network of caves which lies beneath it.

Judge Adrián Novelo said building work on this 120km (75 mile)-stretch should be suspended because «a continuation of the works (…) implies the cutting down of trees, the destruction of flora and native species, and the perforation of the ground».

Environmentalists and speleologists had warned that construction work would damage the cave system which has been created over millions of years.

Aleira Lara, director of campaigns for Greenpeace Mexico, told to a news outlet that she welcomed the judge’s decision and hoped it would result in a permanent suspension of construction work.

Lara also praised the efforts of the cavers and their lawyers in getting their case heard in court.

She said that following the rerouting of Section 5, the obligatory environmental impact studies had not been carried out, meaning that the new route was in breach of environmental laws.

CUBA

Cuban authorities said Tuesday that migration talks with the United States will take place this week, the first in four years since the hardening of relations between both countries and amid a sustained increase in arrivals of Cuban citizens at the southern border of the U.S.

Cuba’s Foreign Ministry said on Twitter that the meeting will be held in Washington on Thursday and that its delegation will be headed by Deputy Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossio.

The last of these meetings, which according to agreements between both countries must be held twice a year, took place in July 2018, under the administration of then President Donald Trump.

Trump ended the policy of rapprochement between both nations that his predecessor Barack Obama had begun.

Trump increased sanctions against the Caribbean island, from the cancellation of permits to send remittances or cruise ships, to penalties for companies from third countries that operate in Cuba, to limitation of flights and punishment of oil tankers bound for Cuba.

Also, Trump withdrew embassy staff in 2018, and thousands of people were left without completing family reunification processes or were prevented from traveling unless they carried out visa procedures through Guyana.

The pandemic further complicated things and new U.S. President Joe Biden did not relax the tough measures, despite his campaign promises.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in the last six months Cubans were stopped 79,800 times at the southern U.S. border, a little more than double the entire 2021 fiscal year and five times more than 2020.

PUERTO RICO

Authorities in Puerto Rico said yesterday that an electronic toll collection system was the target of a cyberattack over the weekend, the latest such incident in recent years.

The system, known as AutoExpreso, is run by a private operator called Professional Account Management.

It wasn’t immediately clear when the system would be back online and whether any confidential information was stolen, but officials said they would soon provide more details.

The incident reported Saturday comes three months after an attack crippled the internet provider, phone system and official online page of Puerto Rico’s Senate. 

Previously, in 2021, a cyberattack hit the website of a private company that took over the transmission and distribution of electricity in the U.S. territory.

Meanwhile, in 2020, an online scam tried to steal more than $4 million from Puerto Rican government agencies, forcing authorities to freeze nearly $3 million. 

That same year, hackers targeted the database of Puerto Rico’s fire department and demanded $600,000 in an alleged extortion act.

COLOMBIA

Colombian presidential front-runner Gustavo Petro pledged on Monday that he will not expropriate private property if he wins the nation’s presidency this year as critics in the South American country accuse the leftist candidate of wanting to make radical changes to the country’s economy.

Petro made the electoral promise in a public notary in Bogota, where he signed a document that said that “nothing or nobody will be expropriated” if he becomes president. In the document, Petro said he was obliged to make the unusual pledge, because his campaign has been tarnished by “lies and fear mongering.”

“The campaign for profound and true change in Colombia is being attacked constantly with rumors and misinformation,” the document read. 

“With clarity, I affirm that my proposal to transform this country is not based on, or includes any kind of expropriation.”

As the presidential race in Colombia enters its final month, Petro’s opponents have accused him of wanting to implement economic policies similar to those of Hugo Chavez. 

The former Venezuelan president nationalized dozens of industries, eroded the independence of his country’s central bank and imposed exchange controls as he vastly increased the government’s role in the economy.

In recent years, almost two million Venezuelans have fled to Colombia to escape their country’s economic troubles, including hyperinflation and the lowest wages in South America, which makes comparisons to Venezuela relevant among many voters in Colombia.

In presidential debates, Petro, who formerly described Chavez as a “great Latin American leader,” has distanced himself from the Venezuelan economic model, affirming that it relied too heavily on oil income. 

He’s added that if he becomes president he would like to promote alternative sources of energy and agricultural growth.

Petro is currently leading presidential polls in Colombia as the country reels from high unemployment rates, growing rates of poverty and a sluggish recovery from the pandemic that led to massive protests last year.

The senator obtained an 11 point lead over his closest rival in a survey conducted during the first week of April by the Centro Nacional de Consultoria polling firm, but is still short of the 50 percent required to win the May 29 election without a run off.