The North American Institute

The Push to Privatize PEMEX.

2008-05-12T18:55:00-06:00

In These Times, May 12, 2008 - “Halliburton is licking its chops at the prospect of Mexico’s state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos going private. Petróleos Mexicanos, or PEMEX, withstood a tsunami of privatizations of formerly state-owned companies in the late 1980s and ’90s. But now, with pro-business President Felipe Calderón in office, the effort is being revisited — and the Mexican left is coming out en masse to defend the 70-year-old company, a long-time source of national pride and a symbol of Mexican sovereignty.” Read more.

Mexico Starts Talks on Cross-Border Oil, Kessel Says.

2008-05-09T19:23:00-06:00

Bloomberg, May 8, 2008 [Update 1] - “Mexican Energy Minister Georgina Kessel said Mexico is making diplomatic contacts to ensure it retains its share of oil in cross-border Gulf of Mexico fields. Kessel told Mexican legislators today that the energy reform bill introduced in April by Mexican President Felipe Calderon calls for giving state-run oil company Petroleos Mexicanos the authority to comply with international accords reached by the government concerning cross-border production, exploration and development.” Read more.

México bajará exportación de crudo a Estados Unidos.

2008-05-08T18:05:00-06:00

El Universal, April 28, 2008 - “El Departamento de Energía de Estados Unidos recibió notificación de PMI Comercio Internacional en el sentido de que México recortará sus exportaciones de petróleo crudo hacia el mercado estadounidense en 184 mil barriles diarios en promedio a lo largo de 2008, situación que podría extenderse por dos años más. La filial de Pemex encargada de la comercialización de hidrocarburos en el exterior hizo saber al gobierno estadounidense y a sus clientes en ese país que debido a la caída en la producción de petróleo crudo fue necesario ajustar a la baja la plataforma de exportación comprometida durante el año y que de persistir el problema de la producción se podría mantener ajustado el volumen de ventas externas de petróleo crudo hasta 2010.” Read more.

The True Price of Gas.

2008-05-06T17:51:00-06:00

The New Republic, May 6, 2008 - “It could be said that Latin America will come of age politically the day that Pemex, Mexico’s oil behemoth, ceases to be a state monopoly. Until that happens, the psyche of many Latin Americans will be beholden to the mythical notion that government-owned natural resources are the custodians of national identity. That is why President Felipe Calderon’s efforts to open up the oil sector to private investment in Mexico have profound cultural implications.” Read more.

A Primer on Plan Mexico.

2008-05-05T17:46:00-06:00

Americas Program, May 5, 2008 - “On Oct. 22, 2007 President Bush announced the $1.4 billion dollar ‘Merida Initiative,’ security aid package to Mexico and Central America. The initiative has fatal flaws in its strategy; instead of leading to a stable binational relationship and peaceful border communities, its military approach will escalate drug-related violence and human rights abuses. Mexico and the United States face a joint challenge in decreasing transnational organized crime and they must cooperate to strengthen the rule of law and stop illegal drug and arms trafficking over the border. This misguided policy will result in an inability to achieve its own goals and will waste taxpayers’ money. It will also seriously undermine the U.S.-Mexico relationship and Mexican stability.” Read more.

Cómo manejar la relación con Estados Unidos

2008-05-01T14:39:00-06:00

EX Online, May 1, 2008 - “Para campear la descentralización del gobierno federal de Estados Unidos y la negligencia de Washington hacia asuntos mexicanos se han explorado tres caminos en las últimas décadas.” Read more.

The Not-So-Great Wall of Mexico.

2008-04-20T21:41:01-06:00

NY Times, April 20, 2008 - “Remember the fence, the one that Congress told Michael Chertoff, head of homeland security, to build on the Mexican border, with the admonition to let no power on earth stop him — no law or statute, no judge or jury? That fence? News reports out of New Mexico and Texas suggest that it may not be all the wall that it was cracked up to be, or hoped for by the hunker-downers in Congress and on talk radio who clamored for it as the first and most important step toward an illegal-alien-free America.” Read more.

State oil industry’s future sets off tussle in Mexico

2008-04-09T17:55:01-06:00

International Herald Tribune, April 8, 2008 - “A bitter debate over what to do about Mexico’s ailing state oil monopoly has dominated national politics here in recent weeks, tapping strong emotions on both sides and resurrecting the political fortunes of the leftist leader who narrowly lost the 2006 presidential election. Revamping the oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, is perhaps the greatest challenge facing the administration of President Felipe Calderón, a conservative economist who won the disputed 2006 election by a hairbreadth.” Read more.

When US economy hurts, Mexico feels it

2008-04-07T20:33:00-06:00

Miami Herald, April 7, 2008 - “While Mexico is the Latin American country most vulnerable to the U.S. slowdown, experts say political changes and globalization mean Mexico is more able to weather a downturn than in the past.” Read more.

Looming water wars foreshadow big problems.

2008-03-11T22:08:01-06:00

EarthNews, March 10, 2008 - “Adaptation, or the matter of adjusting to climate change, is sometimes called a cheaper, easier way to deal with some of the consequences of a warming world. But consider the battle between the United States, Mexico and Canada that was triggered here amid the vegetable farms near the California border. For more than 60 years the family of Geronimo Hernandez has raised watermelons, peppers and other crops in the rich, irrigated soil of Mexicali Valley, but within the next five years it could begin to dry up.” Read more.

The Border and the Ballot Box.

2008-03-02T19:01:00-06:00

The New York Times, Week in Review, March 2, 2008 - “Immigration has a fantastically complicated political history in the United States. It has produced enough populist anger to elect Know Nothing mayors of Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and San Francisco, all in the 1850s and, more recently, to help Lou Dobbs reinvent his television career and become a best-selling author. But when national politicians have tried to seize on such anger, they have usually failed — and failed quickly.” Read more.

Human Shadows on the Seas.

2008-02-26T18:54:00-06:00

The New York Times, February 26, 2008 - “A paper in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Science is the first effort to map 17 kinds of human ocean impacts like organic pollution, including agricultural runoff and sewage; damage from bottom-scraping trawls; and intensive traditional fishing along coral reefs. About 40 percent of ocean areas are strongly affected, and just 4 percent pristine, according to the review.” Read more.

Business leaders tackle emissions.

2008-02-15T19:35:01-06:00

Washington Times, February 15, 2008 - “Tim Wirth, president of the U.N. Foundation and former Democratic senator from Colorado, said the next 50 years would bring a unique chance to adopt energy sources that emit less carbon dioxide and other global-warming gases. He said that shift would prove to be ‘as important as the computer revolution in generating new wealth and jobs.’” Read more.

All world’s seas show damage.

2008-02-15T19:32:00-06:00

The Star [Canada], February 14, 2008 - “Researchers studying 17 different activities ranging from fishing to pollution compiled a new map showing how and where people have impacted the seas. The map was released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston and published in today’s edition of the journal Science. {snip] ‘Our results show that when these and other individual impacts are summed up, the big picture looks much worse than I imagine most people expected. It was certainly a surprise to me,’ said lead author Ben Halpern, an assistant research scientist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara.” Read more.

U.N. Gathering to address climate change.

2008-02-11T18:33:01-06:00

Associated Press, February 11, 2008 - “The U.N. General Assembly is bringing together business leaders, activists and government officials for a debate on climate change starting Monday — an effort to keep up the momentum for a new treaty by 2009 to fight global warming. The two-day session is a follow-up to the international climate conference in December on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, where delegates from nearly 190 nations agreed to adopt a blueprint to control global warming gases before the end of next year.” Read more.

Fourteen Years of NAFTA and the Tortilla Crisis

2008-01-17T20:23:00-06:00

IRC Americas Program, January 17, 2008 - “In January 2008, agricultural trade between Mexico, the United States, and Canada will become completely free, with the end of the implementation period of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). [snip] NAFTA is the first treaty to treat two developed countries and an underdeveloped one as equals. But compared to U.S. and Canadian agricultural sectors, Mexico’s presents huge asymmetries in terms of economics, technology, production factors, and agricultural policies and supports.” Read more, here.

NAFTA Free Trade Myths Lead to Farm Failure in Mexico.

2007-12-05T21:23:00-06:00

Americas Program, Dec. 5, 2007 - “The tariff removal ostensibly gives full rein to an open-market trade and investment regime between the United States and Mexico. The idea is that all products now enter into a competitive market that will self-regulate to enhance production, efficiency, investment, and, indirectly, the lives of Mexican producers and consumers. That’s the idea. But what has happened in the Mexican countryside over the past 14 years of NAFTA shows that free trade has been a disaster for small farmers in Mexico.” Read more.

Bali climate summit: a test of the world’s resolve

2007-11-29T18:58:01-06:00

Christian Science Monitor, November 29, 2007 - “Next week is seen as crunch time in the fight against global warming. Representatives from some 130 nations will gather in Bali, Indonesia, beginning a two-year effort to agree on a new pact to cut greenhouse-gas emissions – one that goes well beyond the goals of the current Kyoto Protocol.” Read more.

Analysis: Prepping for post-Kyoto talks

2007-11-20T19:10:00-06:00

UPI, November 20, 2007 - “The success of post-Kyoto Protocol talks this December hinge on determining which countries must commit to limit greenhouse gas emissions and what the nature of those commitments should be, experts say. The Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that aims at climate-change mitigation, expires in 2012, 13 years after its adoption at a U.N. conference in 1997 and seven years after it officially came into force. On Dec. 3, delegations from around the world will converge on Bali, Indonesia, to develop a framework for upcoming talks on the treaty’s replacement.” Read more.

UN: climate change will have ‘abrupt and irreversible’ consequences.

2007-11-16T19:06:00-06:00

Times Online, Britain, November 16, 2007 - “A panel of the United Nations’ leading scientists is to warn that climate change could have “abrupt and irreversible” consequences, in a landmark document designed to force action from member states on the issue. [snip] In three previous reports, IPCC experts have agreed that the rise in Earth’s temperature observed in the past few decades is principally the result of human activity, not natural causes, as sceptics have argued.” Read more.