1. In a private meeting with incoming and outgoing governors of Southeast Mexico, President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador presented the preliminary project for the construction of a 930-mile long train, which will transport both passengers and cargo and will connect Palenque and Cancún. The overall investment, including both the private and public sectors, will be of approximately 8,000 million dollars. The project seeks to create 20,000 permanent jobs and reduce migration from southern Mexico into the US.
Read more: El Econimista, El Financiero, El Universal
2. President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador and incoming Secretary of Foreign Relations, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, held two private meetings with representatives of the Russian Federation and the Holy See. The meeting with Ambassador Koronelli addressed the Mexico-Russia trade relationship, sought to find ways to increase the amount of Russian tourists in the Mayan Riviera, as well as a visa agreement. The meeting with Nuncio Coppola addressed Pope Francis role in the pacification process proposed by AMLO.
Read more: El Economista, Excélsior, Reforma
3. Students from the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEM) marched from campus to the State Attorney General’s Office in Toluca. The students demanded improved public security and tougher sentences for perpetrators of feminicides, such as the recent case of the UAEM student Aurora Hernandez Jimenez, whose body was found earlier this month on the outskirts of the capital. Similar protests happened simultaneously in other cities of the country.
Read more: El Universal, La Jornada, Proceso
4. The INE, Mexico’s electoral authority, approved a resolution that ended PES’ status as a political party. The ultraconservative Partido Encuentro Social (PES) was a key electoral ally to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and played a central role in his victory last July. Nonetheless, the PES obtained only 2.78% of votes in the presidential election, 2.43% in the Senate election, and 2.51% of the House of Representatives election, missing the 3% required benchmark that a party needs to obtain in any federal election to keep its status as a political entity. The Nueva Alianza Party, a longtime ally of the PRI, also lost its status as a party.
Read more: El Economista, Forbes, El País México
5.The Trump Administration offered the Mexican government $20 million to accelerate the deportation of as many as 17,000 illegal immigrants in Mexico to their home countries in order to obstruct their entry to the U.S. Mexico’s Interior Department says that the offer is being evaluated and that no agreement has been reached yet.
