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07 Feb

Blocking highways in Mexico a successful tactic for protestors

news coverage monitoring

Local citizens protesting the disappearance of a women in the south of Mexico City blocked entrances to two major highways Friday, Feb. 5 causing a nine-hour traffic pileup on the start of a major holiday weekend. The heavily used roadways link the city with the resort towns of Cuernavaca and Acapulco.

Policy and local authorities were forced to negotiate and reach an agreement with the protestors in order to re-open the highways.

The protestors’ success at getting their demands met means motorists can expect more of the same in the future.

Police conducted a search for the missing women after the highways were blocked, according to reporting by the leftist newspaper La Jornada in Mexico City.

Reporting by the website La Silla Rota warned motorists returning to Mexico from the holiday weekend to first check the status of more potential protests. The return highway from Cuernavaca was expected to be shut down by protestors in the afternoon.

The success of the protestors takes highway shutdowns to another level in Mexico, proving the government will not change its hands-off policy, leaving motorists trapped in traffic to fend for themselves for hours at a time.

Instead of forcing the protestors to open the roadways which they closed for more than eight hours, Marti Batres, a high-level city official, met with the protestors and assured them he would open an investigation into the woman’s disappearance, according to a report appearing in the newspaper Publimetro.

Since the tactic worked so well for the protestors, motorists should prepare for more massive highway shutdowns in Mexico in the future.

The tradition of blocking roadways is well established in Mexico. Protestors have taken over toll booths on the major highway to Acapulco, collecting tolls and remaining in control of the toll booths for months at a time.

30 Jan

News monitor: Germany, Chile reach lithium-mining pact

Chile and Germany reach agreement on lithium mining. The agreement will fuel Germany’s growing EV manufacturing sector and push for green energy. It was reported by local news organizations in Latin America.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasized in an announcement Germany wants to assist Chile to reach “a more sustainable mining sector.” Reporting by the Chilean media outlet El Extremo Sur de la Patagonia, says the effort by Germany is aimed at making a better offer to Chile on lithium than China.

Citing reporting by Bloomberg, the report notes: “Part of Germany’s strategy to get Chile on board is to have more of the production process based locally and to help make extraction and processing less harmful to the environment,” sources close to the negotiations said. According to the report, just two companies currently mine lithium in Chile. Both send the majority of the mineral to China.

Coverage of the agreement appeared in the leftist Mexico newspaper La Jornada. It notes sixty percent of the world’s lithium is located in Latin America. “The Latin American countries with the largest lithium reserves are Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, where the so-called Lithium Triangle is located; however, in recent years Mexico, Peru and Brazil have joined the list of countries that have discovered important lithium deposits in their territories.”

Bolivia, according to La Jornada, has the largest lithium reserves in Latin America and recently signed an agreement with the China mining company Contemporary Amperex Technology, the “largest manufacturer and recycler of lithium batteries.

20 Jan

How to find the best news media monitoring

Finding the right news media monitoring services in Latin America is a huge challenge. Large international media monitoring services compete with local, regionally based firms making it a competitive environment for buyers to navigate.

There are lots of factors to consider, not the least of which is the media landscape in Latin America is extensive. The most-established media monitoring services provider in the region monitors in Mexico alone more than 25 newspapers, 13 television outlets, 16 radio stations, and more than 1,000 online news sites.

You can easily see how complicated the job of media tracking in Latin America can be—and that’s in just one country!

New media monitoring: What to consider

So how do you decide which media monitoring service in Latin America to trust? Does it have to be located in the region, or can a large international provider outside the region give you the media monitoring you need?

Before beginning your search for a media monitoring services provider in Latin America, here are some questions to consider:

  • For print monitoring, do you want to monitor publications that are online or will you also need to monitor publications only available in print?
  • For television or radio, which programs and which channels do you want to follow and are they available for free on-air or only on paid subscription services like cable?
  • When deciding the scope of your monitoring, is it as simple as a specific brand name or is your media monitoring challenge more complex, such as following an ongoing issue that doesn’t lend itself to a handful of keywords?
  • How do you want your media monitoring results delivered? Is a daily email with your results sufficient or do you need access to an online platform so your team can check your results at any time and from any location?

These are some of the basic questions you need to answer before you start your search for a media monitoring services in Latin America.