MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The parents of a Frenchwoman imprisoned in Mexico for kidnapping said on Tuesday they are optimistic the Supreme Court will free her after reviewing the case that has caused a diplomatic rift between France and Mexico.

Florence Cassez, 37, has maintained she is innocent since her arrest in 2005, but the Mexican government has defended the conviction that sentenced her to 60 years in prison.

France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy backed Cassez’s fight to be freed and her parents said the Socialist party of his newly elected successor, Francois Hollande, has assured them he will work for her release.

In March, Mexico’s Supreme Court rejected a bid to release Cassez but opened the door to reviewing the evidence in her trial, which has given hope to her parents.

“We have great confidence in the Supreme Court,” Charlotte Cassez told Reuters in Mexico City, where she and her husband Bernard were visiting Florence and meeting her lawyers.

“The judges said they are in favor of a review of the case because her constitutional rights were violated.”

Florence Cassez was arrested in December 2005 at a ranch near Mexico City with her ex-boyfriend, Israel Vallarta, who was accused of heading a kidnapping gang called the Zodiacs.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – When Telefonica arrived in Mexico about a decade ago, the Spanish phone company framed the expansion as a social crusade as much as a business: It would bring wireless service to the country’s poor while taking on Carlos Slim, the tycoon who has dominated Mexico’s telephone industry for a generation.

Telefonica says it has achieved part of its goal. Cellphone use has quadrupled since the company arrived, it says, and it has helped put handsets into the hands of rural peasants and street vendors while shrinking the cost of service.

But from a business perspective, Telefonica has spent a fortune in Mexico while remaining a low-end brand. And in struggling to reach solid ground, it has run into regulatory trouble.

The company’s $13 billion investment in Movistar, the Mexico unit, has won it 22 percent of mobile phone lines in the country, yet it gets only 12 percent of what Mexicans spend on such service. High-end rival Nextel has the same share of mobile spending with only 4 percent of phone lines.

Telefonica does not disclose its net profit for Mexico, and a spokeswoman declined to provide figures. What is clear, analysts say, is that the company performs poorly, given what it spends in Latin America’s second-biggest economy.

In 2010, the year Telefonica invested in its 3G network, the Mexico unit reported operating income of about a third of the roughly $2.1 billion invested.

Last year was not much better. Operating income sank 8 percent, and the company curtailed investment.

MEXICO CITY, April 25 (Reuters) – When Telefonica arrived in Mexico about a decade ago, the Spanish phone company framed the expansion as a social crusade as much as a business: It would bring wireless service to the country’s poor while taking on Carlos Slim, the tycoon who has dominated Mexico’s telephone industry for a generation.

Telefonica says it has achieved part of its goal. Cellphone use has quadrupled since the company arrived, it says, and it has helped put handsets into the hands of rural peasants and street vendors while shrinking the cost of service.

But from a business perspective, Telefonica has spent a fortune in Mexico while remaining a low-end brand. And in struggling to reach solid ground, it has run into regulatory trouble.

The company’s $13 billion investment in Movistar, the Mexico unit, has won it 22 percent of mobile phone lines in the country, yet it gets only 12 percent of what Mexicans spend on such service. High-end rival Nextel has the same share of mobile spending with only 4 percent of phone lines.

Telefonica does not disclose its net profit for Mexico, and a spokeswoman declined to provide figures. What is clear, analysts say, is that the company performs poorly, given what it spends in Latin America’s second-biggest economy.

In 2010, the year Telefonica invested in its 3G network, the Mexico unit reported operating income of about a third of the roughly $2.1 billion invested.

Last year was not much better. Operating income sank 8 percent, and the company curtailed investment.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico said on Wednesday it would open an investigation into allegations that the Mexican unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc bribed officials to expand its business there, piling pressure onto the embattled retail giant.

The Mexican federal comptroller’s office said it had begun checking the federal paperwork and permits that Wal-Mart de Mexico, known as Walmex, obtained to open and operate its stores in Mexico.

The comptroller’s office added that it would ask U.S. authorities for information on the case, in order to carry out its investigation and that the federal government would take action if wrongdoing by public officials was detected.

Wal-Mart already faces a criminal probe by the U.S. Department of Justice over potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), a U.S. law that forbids bribing foreign officials. A spokesman for Walmex said the company had not been informed of any investigation in Mexico.

Mexican politicians had been calling for a probe into Wal-Mart, even though the economy ministry had initially said the allegations were not a federal matter.

Guillermo Tamborrel, a senator for President Felipe Calderon’s conservative National Action Party (PAN), said the scandal had tarnished Mexico’s reputation.

“We cannot let an international company come and corrupt our authorities,” Tamborrel told Reuters.