MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico on Monday expanded the list of U.S. products subject to retaliatory tariffs as it steps up pressure on Washington to settle a long-running dispute that has kept Mexican long-haul trucks off U.S. roads.

The government of President Felipe Calderon was infuriated last year when U.S. lawmakers voted to cancel funding for a pilot begun under U.S. President George W. Bush allowing long-haul Mexican trucks to circulate in the United States.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico announced revisions on Monday to a list of U.S. products subject to retaliatory tariffs as it steps up pressure on Washington to settle a long-running dispute keeping Mexican trucks off U.S. roads.

The government of President Felipe Calderon was infuriated last year when U.S. lawmakers voted to cancel funding for a pilot begun under U.S. President George W. Bush allowing long-haul Mexican trucks to circulate in the United States.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Powerful drug cartels are increasingly using gruesome videos of executions and interrogations to intimidate their rivals, police and an already terrified public in Mexico’s vicious drug war.

The drug gangs, battling for control of lucrative smuggling routes into the United States, have long attached handwritten notes to victims they dump in public as a way to scare rival gangs and pesky state officials.

MEXICO CITY, July 29 (Reuters) – Mining and transportation
giant Grupo Mexico said on Thursday a proposed merger of two of
its railroad units could come by the first quarter of next year
depending on a green light from Mexico’s competition
commission.

Grupo Mexico (GMEXICOB.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) controls Ferromex, the largest
railroad company in Mexico. In 2005, Grupo Mexico bought
another Mexican railroad, Ferrosur, through a subsidiary but
antitrust regulators objected.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – He is Mexico’s second-richest man and his mining company has had a run of bad publicity with a deadly coal mine blast and a long strike, yet German Larrea has managed to stay out of the news, cementing his

reputation as the country’s most secretive billionaire.

Precious little is known about Larrea, whose company Grupo Mexico is aiming to regain its ranking among the world’s top three copper producers. Most Mexicans have never heard of him, and even photographs of him are rare.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Seven straight decades of one-party and often corrupt rule earned politicians in Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, an unflattering nickname: dinosaurs.

Now a new generation of fresh-faced candidates, who have come of age during the PRI’s 10 years in opposition, are trying to change the party’s image and retake the presidency in what promises to be a heated election battle in 2012.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Surprise gains by Mexico’s ruling conservatives in gubernatorial elections in key states at the weekend signal that the 2012 presidential race could be tighter than expected.

President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party, or PAN, joined forces with left-wing parties in some states to wrest control of three governor seats from the Institutional Revolutionary Party in elections across nearly half the country, which the PRI had been expected to sweep.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s ruling and main opposition parties wrested ground from each other in elections for governors in a dozen states on Sunday, setting the stage for a tough battle for the presidency in 2012.

Initial results showed President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party, known as PAN, with surprise gubernatorial wins in three states controlled by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had been pegged to sweep the vote.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexicans voted for new governors and mayors across a third of the country on Sunday in an election soured by drug gang murders and intimidation and expected to hand the main opposition party sweeping gains.

With the ruling conservatives dogged by a feeble economy and raging drug violence, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is pegged to win most of the 12 gubernatorial polls, keeping many of the nine states it controls and pushing out rivals in some of the other three.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexicans will elect mayors and governors in a dozen states on Sunday amid drug gang intimidation and murders of several candidates, which highlight the government’s struggle to curb the escalating drug war.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is expected to sweep the elections in part because the ruling conservatives of the National Action Party, or PAN, have been criticized for their handling of the economic downturn and raging drug violence. The PRI hopes its gains in Sunday’s election will lay the groundwork for a victory in the 2012 presidential election.