International News

     Who is López Obrador?  He's the leading candidate, polling 20 points ahead of all rivals, for Presidency of the Republic of Mexico.  A parcel of land used for a palace for the Mayor an access road to a hospital was seized using eminent domain, while Obrador was Mayor of Mexico City, and the proceedings are being disputed.  Based on the existence of this unresolved dispute, the Congress of Mexico has voted to remove his immunity "to face charges that he flouted a judicial order during a 2001 planning dispute over the building of an access road to a hospital."

     Look for the mainstream media to ignore this, and for the Bush administration to praise Fox. 

     Thanks to NarcoNews.  I read NarcoNews irregularly, and found this article via James Wolcott today.

---

UPDATE: I seem to have guessed half wrong.  The NY Times does a fair job of calling this move fraudulent, even as it attempts to tar Obrador by linking him to programs and policies without ever discussing their effectiveness.  The WaPo, however, puts his efforts to help aging sex-workers in the headlines, not something that will endear himself to Americans (although the article does spend some effort interviewing old prostitues, and describing their lives). The interests of the business elite critics are given anonymous opportunities to attack Obrador.  Chicago Tribune spends very little ink on the story, gives President Fox a chance to say it is all legal, and descibes the hospital access road affair as a case where "the city failed to obey a court order to vacate contested land."