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The Week in Mexico

UNION-TRIBUNE
January 28, 2007

Tacos in Beijing: A popular Mexican taco chain opened its first restaurant in Beijing on Thursday, and announced plans to follow with 25 more eateries in the next four years, in Beijing and Shanghai. Sergio Rosas, operating manager for El Fogoncito, said the company was investing $1 million to have five restaurants in Beijing in time for the 2008 Olympics. But the first restaurant, which opened Thursday, is aimed at winning over the Chinese.

“I think it is the first traditional Mexican restaurant,” he said. “We found some taco places, but they had nothing to do with the traditional Mexican concept. They were American investors offering Tex-Mex,” or a mix of Mexican and American cuisine.

The restaurant sent five Mexicans to China to train Chinese staff in the art of taco-making.

Missing journalist: Police in Tabasco state said Friday they were searching for a local journalist who has been missing for six days after writing a report about drug gangs. Rodolfo Rincón, who wrote for the daily Tabasco Hoy, was last seen checking into work Jan. 20, said Tabasco state prosecutor Gustavo Rosario. Tabasco Hoy recently published a report by Rincón on drug gangs that revealed houses where criminals sold narcotics.

Lowe's in Mexico: Home-improvement retailer Lowe's Cos. Inc. said Wednesday it planned to open three to five stores in Monterrey in 2009.

Wind-power plant: Soriana, one of Mexico's top retailers, is building a $300 million wind-powered generating plant in Oaxaca state to reduce high electricity costs at its stores, the company said Monday. Soriana also said Friday it planned to enter the banking business.

Salary cuts sought: President Felipe Calderón sent lawmakers a proposal Tuesday to limit and in some cases cut the salaries of thousands of senior government officials. Calderón said he wanted to change the constitution to make caps on government employees' earnings permanent. In December, three days into his term, Calderón cut his own $200,000-plus salary and those of other top officials, and said he would spend the savings on education and anti-poverty programs.

Writer's fine reduced: A Mexico City court on Tuesday upheld a ruling that found an Argentine journalist guilty of damages for an article she wrote about former first lady Marta Sahagún, but drastically reduced the fine imposed on the writer. The court also exonerated the weekly magazine Proceso, where the article was published. Journalist Olga Wornat had her fine reduced from about $180,000 to about $45,000, according to her lawyer, Cristián Zinser. Wornat's 2005 report included church annulment documents in which Sahagún allegedly described intimate details of her failed first marriage to Manuel Bribiesca. She married Vicente Fox in 2001 during the first year of his 2000-06 presidency.

Truck-deaths sentence: A Texas man who helped recruit a truck driver to transport illegal immigrants in what became the United States' deadliest human smuggling attempt was sentenced Monday in Houston to 15 years in federal prison. Fredy Giovanni García-Tobar, 27, was convicted in December 2004 on 39 counts of conspiracy and transporting illegal immigrants for his role in the May 2003 smuggling attempt, in which 19 people died in a sealed trailer. The Guatemala native could have been sentenced to up to life in prison. Prosecutors said García-Tobar helped recruit Tyrone Williams, the truck driver who abandoned the trailer at a truck stop about 100 miles southwest of Houston after discovering the bodies inside. Williams was sentenced this month to life in prison.





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Compiled from news reports by Foreign Editor David Gaddis Smith: (619) 293-2211; david.smith@uniontrib.com









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