News Summary for April 25th, 2008

++ Senate governing board chairman Santiago Creel said that the agreement to hold a national debate on energy reform lasting 72 days was postponed. The Political Affairs board decided it needed more time to analyze the proposal.

++ The Senate PRD coordinator, Carlos Navarrete, denied statements by PRI Senator Francisco Labastida that the PRD has withdrawn its demand that there be no special session of Congress once the regular period ends.

++ The committee of the Center for Studies on Law and Parliamentary Investigations at the Chamber of Deputies said that President Felipe Calderón’s proposals to modernize Pemex do have the intention of privatizing the state-owned company.

++ PRD speaker of the Lower House, Ruth Zavaleta, said there was no further reason to keep Congress blockaded since the Broad Progressive Front had achieved its goal of opening debate on the future of Pemex.

++ UNAM rector José Narro Robles called the government of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe “interventionist.” The rector called on the Colombian president to take back accusations against Mexican students who were at a FARC camp in Ecuador when Colombia attacked.

++ Colombia’s ambassador to Mexico, Luis Camilo Osorio Isazal, said the Colombian government lacks hard evidence to state that Mexican citizen Lucía Morett and the other four students killed in Ecuador had carried out guerrilla actions.

++The Attorney General’s Office said that the Swiss government could release in the near future 80 million dollars that were confiscated from Raúl Salinas de Gortari when an investigation began into accusations of illegal enrichment.

++ Commander of the Second Military Region, General Sergio Aponte Polito, gave the names of policemen in Baja California involved in organized crime.