Mexico’s four presidential candidates on Tuesday night squared off in their third and final debate before the elections on July 1.
The debate in the colonial city of Merida centered on economic growth, poverty, health, education and technology, based on questions culled from social media.
Front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has held a commanding lead of as much as 20 percent in some polls over his main rivals, Jose Antonio Meade of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and Ricardo Anaya, who represents a left-right coalition.
Lopez Obrador and Meade sparred over the issue of economic policy, with Meade arguing that the policies of leftist Lopez Obrador would lead to rising poverty and unemployment.
“We’ve seen this movie before,” Meade said.
Lopez Obrador said he would try to save the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is threatened by the possibility that US President Donald Trump might walk away from negotiations.
However, he added that he wanted to strengthen Mexico’s domestic market and turn away from the export-oriented policies of recent administrations.
“Mexico can produce what it consumes,” Lopez Obrador said.
Anaya aimed a salvo at Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, pledging that “there will be a commission to directly investigate the president” for alleged scandals, including a mansion that Pena Nieto’s wife, Angelica Rivera, bought from a government contractor and the unresolved disappearance and assumed slaying of 43 college students in 2014.
Independent candidate Jaime Rodriguez rounds out the field, and as usual, made the most extreme proposals, such as ending most government aid programs.
“We have to make people work,” Rodriguez said. “There are a lot of lazy people in this country who are receiving” government aid.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion