Free Republic

Ramzan Kadyrov, the ally of President Vladimir Putin who leads Chechnya, said on Sunday that he one day planned to set up his own private military company in the style of Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner Group of mercenaries. -snip- "We can say confidently that Wagner has shown its mettle in military terms and drawn a line under discussions about whether or not such private military companies are needed," said Kadyrov, who has led the Chechen Republic since 2007. "When my service to the state is completed, I seriously plan to compete with our dear brother Yevgeny Prigozhin and create a private...

Two Mexican opposition candidates on Sunday vowed to take a tougher line against U.S. President Donald Trump’s border wall, at events where they were selected by their parties to seek the presidency in a July 1 election. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 64, of the leftist Morena party holds a double-digit lead in recent polls although right-left coalition leader Ricardo Anaya has recently gained traction. Former finance minister Jose Antonio Meade, 48, nominated on Sunday by the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), trails behind Lopez Obrador by as much as 20 points. Lopez Obrador told several hundred Morena supporters gathered at...

OAXACA, Mexico — Gunmen shot dead a local leader of Mexico's largest leftist party in the southern state of Oaxaca where at least nine people were killed in political violence last year, police said today. Democratic Revolution Party official Fructuoso Pedro Garcia was shot with nine bullets in the main square of Santo Domingo Morelos, a seaside town about 150 miles south of Oaxaca's colonial state capital, said state police commander Alberto Guzman. The killing occurred last Wednesday, three days after Garcia announced he would run for mayor of Santo Domingo Morelos. Guzman said the killing appeared to be for...

Tomorrow a oossible overturn of 80 years of one party rule PRI, in the populous State of Mexico. Running neck and neck...the PRI.. has been in power for 8 decades.. MORENA, the leftist candidate Delfina, the Presidential Candidate, an outspoken critic of Donald Trump has always had good relations with Cuba and Venezuela. The other lady, Josefina, ran an unsuccessful candidacy for President of PAN. The party that came to power with Vicente Fox.

Javier Duarte, the former governor of Mexico's Veracruz state who is accused of running a corruption ring that allegedly pilfered from state coffers, was detained in Guatemala after six months as a fugitive and high-profile symbol of government graft in his country. A statement from Mexico's federal Attorney General's Office said Duarte was detained Saturday with the cooperation of Guatemalan police and the country's Interpol office in the municipality of Panajachel, a picturesque tourist town on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala's highlands. It said he is wanted on suspicion of money laundering and organized crime, and prosecutors directed the Foreign Relations...

Another election, another surprise. Actually, two elections, in two countries last weekend, with surprisingly pleasant surprises. And in two very large countries: Turkey (population 82 million) and Mexico (119 million), both very important to the United States. In the runup to the Turkish election, speculation in English-speaking publications centered on whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party would get a large enough majority in the parliament to amend the constitution without a popular referendum. The AKP, usually described as mildly Islamist, has been in power since 2002. In some respects it has compiled a record that compares favorably with those...

A maverick former mayor known as El Bronco is mounting a serious bid to become Mexico's first independent candidate to win a governorship, buoyed by voter mistrust of the country's traditional political parties. Waging a social media campaign on a shoestring -- paid for largely with the crumpled bills supporters press into his hands on the stump -- Jaime Rodríguez is shaking up politics in Nuevo León, the conservative northern border state that includes the industrial powerhouse of Monterrey, and jolting politicians nationwide. An opinion poll published Friday in El Norte, Monterrey's leading newspaper, puts Mr. Rodríguez ahead of his...

Accused a generation ago of engineering the "perfect dictatorship," Mexico's ruling party is now close to agreeing on a plan that could weaken the presidency and strengthen Congress in order to win votes for a major energy reform. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its opposition rivals are shortly expected to unveil the blueprint for a reform aimed at giving Congress greater oversight of government and allowing lawmakers to serve consecutive terms. Billed as a step forward for democracy, the electoral reform is a bargaining chip for President Enrique Pena Nieto's most ambitious plan - changing the constitution to allow...

A dramatic rupture in Mexico’s main opposition political party has aired the group’s dirty laundry and also could trip up President Enrique Peña Nieto’s ambitious agenda of reform. The political fireworks riveted Mexicans on Monday, dominating airwaves and social media as leaders of the National Action Party, or PAN, bickered openly. On one level, citizens were viewing another chapter in the agony of a party that ruled for the last 12 years but has been corroded by infighting and a bitter power struggle. Also at stake, potentially, was the ease with which Peña Nieto has been getting legislation through a...

On March 18th Mexico celebrates the day president Lazaro Cardenas expropriated Mexico’s oil industry. Now, president Enrique Peña Nieto is getting ready to break up the State oil monopoly. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Peña Niet’s political party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, (PRI) which controls 241 of 500 seats in the lower house voted during its national assembly to agree to, “end its opposition to constitutional changes that would ease state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos’s grip on the oil industry.” Breaking up PEMEX and opening refining, exploration and extraction of oil to foreign companies has been one of Peña Nieto’s political...

Mexico’s ruling party has substantially increased the president’s power and cleared the way for an ambitious agenda of economic reforms. Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI) members convened for their national assembly agreed on Sunday to open the possibility of creating a bigger role for private investment in the protected energy sector, as well as changing the party’s position on extending value added tax to certain foods and medicine. The changes, which brush away internal rules that have barred PRI members of congress from backing such measures, are a necessary first step in Enrique Peña Nieto’s plans to pass energy and tax...

By the time Mexico's president-elect, Enrique Pena Nieto, takes office in December, he will almost certainly have a labor reform law on the books and one less battle to fight with skeptics inside his party. But plenty more skirmishes await as the youthful Pena Nieto, 46, faces a showdown with traditionalists in his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), commonly dubbed “dinosaurs.” On Saturday, the lower house of Congress gave its approval to the biggest overhaul of Mexico's job market in over 40 years, a bill designed to re strict labor lawsuits, regulate outsourcing and make it easier for employers to hire...

Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent a new proposal to liberalize the country's antiquated labor laws to lawmakers on Saturday as he seeks to fast-track the legislation before leaving office at the end of November. Calderon's draft bill, submitted at the start of the new Congress by Interior Minister Alejandro Poire, is aimed at helping spur stronger growth in Latin America's second biggest economy. Agreeing on labor reform has long proved difficult in Mexico, and the proposal could be a litmus test of how the PRI and Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, cooperate in the new Congress, which lasts...

MEXICO CITY — The party that ruled Mexico for decades with an autocratic grip appears to have vaulted back into power after 12 years in opposition, as voters troubled by a bloody drug war and economic malaise gave its presidential candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, a comfortable victory on Sunday, according to preliminary returns and exit polls. The victory was a stunning reversal of fortune for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, which was thought to be crippled after its defeat in the 2000 presidential election ushered in an era of real multiparty democracy here. Buoyed by a...

With Mexico's presidential election one month away, the leftist candidate is making modest gains while the incumbent party's contender has slipped, polls show. The polls thus far, however, do not alter the front-runner status of Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, which is attempting to return to presidential power after a loss in 2000 ended its seven-decade rule. Opinion surveys released this week showed Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, heading a coalition of leftist parties, inching into second place, dislodging Josefina Vazquez Mota of the National Action Party, or PAN, of President Felipe Calderon. The margin between...

Mexico's leftist presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pushed into second place behind opposition frontrunner Enrique Pena Nieto with just seven weeks to go before the vote, a poll showed on Tuesday. Lopez Obrador, who narrowly lost the 2006 race to President Felipe Calderon, had 20.5 percent support in the poll by Consulta Mitofsky, up 1.4 percent from last week, overtaking the No. 2 spot for the first time in the survey. But the silver-haired former mayor of Mexico City is still trailing Pena Nieto from the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) by more than 17 points. Lopez Obrador is...

“There is only one country in the world for which we project the median fertility to not fall below 2.1 children in the projection period between 2010 and 2100,” said the UN Population Division in the 2010 Population Estimates and Projections Revision. In their informative video series, Overpopulation Is a Myth, The Population Research Institute explains, ”by the end of this century, we’ll be losing 1 billion people every twenty years.”

Enables of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, CPB are coming out of the woodwork to defend the taxpayer largess that they have been feeding from. Most of this centers on NPR and the arguments seem to be that: first they aren’t biased and second defunding CPB will only hurt the rural stations. Seriously. Lost in the noise is that CPB also funds via your tax dollars, other public broadcasting entities such as PRI and Pacifica. Pacifica is the most amusing as they are staunch, avowed communists and hate capitalism and Republicans. They are also very urban. Berkeley, LA, NY, Houston,...

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico – After a Super Sunday of elections across Mexico that was widely seen as a test for the 2012 presidential race and the nation's future, the winner turns out to be — well, not really anyone. President Felipe Calderon's party is weak, the left is in collapse and the Institutional Revolutionary Party that is on a tentative path to recapture the presidency it held for 71 years was shown to be vulnerable. Drug cartel intimidation dissuaded many from voting at all. The mixed outcome in elections across 15 states showed no party has won the faith of...

Reporting from Mexico City — In elections marred by violence, intimidation and the growing influence of drug traffickers, Mexicans chose governors or other local officials in 14 states Sunday. Preliminary results Monday showed the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) winning most governorships but failing to alter its overall hold on power. President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, in alliance with leftist parties, stunned the PRI by winning in two of its historic bastions, Oaxaca and Puebla, according to preliminary results. The PRI, which dominated Mexico for 70 years until 2000, had hoped a strong showing would bolster its campaign to...