by the El Reportero’s wire services
Felipe CalderónAs poverty increases, some 203,000 investors share 40 percent of Mexico’’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the newspaper La Jornada, which quoted the latest report from the National Banking and Assets Commission (CNBV).
The newspaper noted that 0.18 percent of the population has assets worth 80.1 million dollars (6.3 billion Mexican pesos), whose capital grew six times more than the economy as a whole, with a sustained increase of 13.8 percent.
La Jornada added that 12.2 percent of Mexicans have become poor over the past six years, while few investors in the local stock market increased their assets to the equivalent of 40 percent of Mexico’s GDP.
That percentage accounts for the value of all goods and services produced in the country in one year at a market price.
The newspaper reported in mid 2012 that the socalled patrimonial poverty had increased from 45.5 million to 57.7 million during the six-year term of then President Felipe Calderon.
FARC-EP:Peace talks going well
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’’s Army (FARC-EP) reiterated on Sunday that the peace talks with the government are going well, and urged to support the process.
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Shortly before resuming a new round of talks, which will end the current cycle of negociations, guerrilla member Ricardo Tellez stated that the parties will continue discussing the first item on the agenda, which refers to rural development.
For both the FARC-EP and the government of President Juan Manuel Santos, the land issue is a essential to find a solution to a decades-long armed conflict.
Rural development is the first point on a six-item agenda created as a basis for the talks, which include other topics such as guarantees for citizens’ participation, the end to the armed conflict and the solution to the problem of illegal drugs.
From Havana’s Conference Center, the permanent venue for the talks, the in surgency representative also called to “isolate the warmongers, to the open and hidden snipers of peace.”
The matter of the talks, the possibility to end the conflict, is on the table, and here the FARC are putting muscle, nerve, and people, he said.
According to Tellez, the guerrillas are still waiting for Simon Trinidad, who is a member the delegation to the talks, although he is doing a 60-year prison sentence in the United States, to where he was extradited in 2004. Trinidad “is needed at the table” and “we are waiting for the government’s response to the serious prison situation our comrades are facing,” he added.
Regarding the soldiers captured by the FARC-EP in Colombia on January 25, Tellez said the release of the prisoners is going well.
From Latin News: Oviedo’s death shakes up Paraguay’s electoral race
One of the most influential figures in Paraguayan politics over the last two decades died in a helicopter accident on 2 February. Retired General Lino César Oviedo Silva was on the campaign trail ahead of presidential elections on 21 April. His death could have a decisive impact on the outcome of these closely contested elections, which are being billed in the wider region as essential to put Paraguay back on a democratic footing after the contentious impeachment of President Fernando Lugo last June.
