Mexico will never pay for Trump wall: Mexican economy minister

MEXICO CITY - Mexico has made clear it will never pay for President Donald Trump's planned southern border wall, the country's economy minister said on Thursday, after the U.S. leader again insisted he would make Mexico pay for the barrier.

"The President of Mexico (Enrique Pena Nieto) has been very clear: Mexico will never pay for this wall," Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo wrote on Twitter after a day of meetings in Washington.

Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Thursday that Mexico could pay for the wall, which he hopes will stem illegal immigration, "indirectly" through changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Trump has said he will withdraw from NAFTA if the accord cannot be renegotiated in favor of the United States.

Guajardo was in Washington for talks this week with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer over the modernization of NAFTA, according to a statement by Mexico's Economy Ministry.

Guajardo wrote on Twitter that the border wall had not been discussed at any time during his meetings with US officials, nor in the negotiations over how to rework NAFTA.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Mexican President tweets DiCaprio in reply to rare porpoise plea

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto wrote to Leonardo DiCaprio on Twitter on Thursday in a bid to reassure the Hollywood actor his government was taking steps to protect a rare porpoise in Mexican waters teetering on the brink of extinction.

Populations of the vaquita, a tiny snub-nosed porpoise that lives in the Gulf of California, have dropped sharply in recent years due to gillnet fishing for shrimp and totoaba, a popular delicacy in Asia, sparking increased international concern.

On Wednesday, DiCaprio urged his 17.5 million Twitter followers to get behind a World Wildlife Fund effort to raise awareness and help save the vaquita before it was too late.

On Thursday evening, Pena Nieto took to Twitter in English to defend his government's efforts on behalf of the diminutive sea mammal, addressing the actor directly with his first tweet.

I welcome @LeoDiCaprio and @World_Wildlife 's concern regarding the Vaquita Marina. 

— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) May 12, 2017

 "I welcome @LeoDiCaprio and @World_Wildlife's concern regarding the Vaquita Marina," Pena Nieto wrote. "@Mexico has focused all its efforts to prevent the extinction of this species," he said before sending out five more tweets, all in English, to draw attention to what Mexico is doing.

Mexico imposed a two-year ban on gillnet fishing in the vaquita's habitat in 2015, extending it earlier this year. Still, critics have complained the ban needs better enforcement.

Viva Vaquita, a group dedicated to saving the porpoise, says on its website that the vaquita population was estimated to be below 50 in January 2017, based on earlier study findings.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Mexican lawmakers OK marijuana for medicinal purposes

MEXICO CITY - Mexican lawmakers gave final and overwhelming approval Friday to a bill legalizing medical marijuana after a national debate on narcotics policy in a country mired in brutal drug violence.

The legislation also allows use of marijuana for scientific research, as well as production and distribution of pot for those two stated purposes.

The vote in the Chamber of Deputies was 371 in favor and seven against with 11 abstentions.

The bill will now go to President Enrique Pena Nieto for his signature and then publication in the official government gazette, the lower house said in a statement.

The Senate approved the bill by a wide margin in December.

With Friday's vote, Mexico will join several US states and other nations in Latin America that allow cannabis for medical uses.

Pena Nieto proposed legalizing medical marijuana in a major policy shift in April after his government organized forums to discuss changes to the laws.

The bill fell short of demands from some lawmakers and civil groups that argue that a wider legalization of marijuana use could help the country reduce drug-related violence.

But proponents said it was a major step that will address Mexicans' need of an alternative medical treatment.

The bill authorizes the Health Ministry to design regulations for the use, import and production of pharmaceutical products made from cannabis or marijuana, including tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant's main psychoactive ingredient. Products with one percent concentration of THC will be allowed.

Growing marijuana for medical and scientific purposes will not be punishable.

A family in northern Mexico became a symbol of the push to legalize medical marijuana last year when the parents of a young epileptic girl won a court battle to import a cannabis-based treatment to stop her daily seizures.

The girl's father, Raul Elizalde, told AFP then that the legislation represented "great progress," but that it should make it easier for patients to acquire THC by letting them buy it without a prescription.

In a separate major case in November 2015, the Supreme Court authorized four people to grow and smoke pot for recreational purposes.

Although Pena Nieto is opposed to a broader legalization of marijuana, he has proposed increasing the amount of the drug that can legally be possessed for personal consumption to 28 grams (one ounce) from five grams.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Mexico posts probe into 43 missing students online

MEXICO CITY, Mexico - Mexico's attorney general published online on Sunday the 54,000 pages of documents from the much-criticized investigation into last year's disappearance of 43 students.

The massive file, divided into 85 tomes and 13 annexes, was posted on Attorney General Arely Gomez's office's website, fulfilling her promise to open up a case that has bedevilled President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration.

Several names and paragraphs in the documents are redacted. Journalists have in recent weeks been allowed to view the files at the attorney general's office or obtain paid copies.

Gomez's predecessor, Jesus Murillo Karam, concluded that police in the southern city of Iguala attacked the students on September 26, 2014, after they had seized buses for a protest in Mexico City.

Murillo Karam said the officers took 43 students and handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos drug gang, which confused them with rivals, killed them and incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump.

But parents of the students have never accepted the official version, and international human rights groups said Murillo Karam had rushed to declare the 43 young men dead.

Last month, independent experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights tore apart the official investigation, saying there was no scientific evidence that the 43 students were burned to ashes at the landfill.

The commission urged the government to open a new line of investigation into the possibility that the students were attacked because they inadvertently hijacked a bus loaded with heroin.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com