Breves.

Caught kissing

Pope John Paul II's recent trip to Mexico was a blessing to President Vicente Fox as well as the thousands of spectators who lined the pontiff's travel routes.

During a visit to the Pope, Fox kissed his ring, the first Mexican president to publicly do so.

However, Mexican law says that presidents "will not take part officially in any public, religious activity."

Mexico, with it's largely Catholic population, has held a strict separation of church and state since 1859, when Benito Juarez's Reform Laws nationalized Church assets and separated Church from state. The nation's government and the Church had a cold relationship until the administration of former President Carlos Salinas.

But openly Catholic Fox, a member of the National Action Party, which is the political party most associated with the Church, went further than Salinas and kissed the Pope's ring upon meeting him.

Opposition politicians and newspapers decried the kiss, and said Fox was betraying the secular state.

Still, several polls carried out after the kiss found that Mexicans overwhelmingly approved it, as well as Fox's participation at the later mass where the Pope canonized Juan Diego, the first-ever indigenous saint.

The president's administration later released a press statement indicating that his visit with the Pope was a matter of state protocol.

Fox, who is divorced, was accompanied during his visit by first lady Martha Sahagun, also previously divorced.

All flights canceled

The federal government gave in to angry farm owners in San Salvador Atenco when it canceled a US$2.8 billion plan to build a new airport for Mexico City on top of their land.

Farmers opposed the plan to locate the airport in the region because it required the expropriation of their homes, for which the government offered about US$7,000 per hectare. After several months of machete-waving street marches, the crisis culminated when protesters barricaded the town, burned cars, threw Molotov cocktails and took several local police and local officials hostage.

Following the release of the hostages in return for the government's promise to negotiate, President Vicente Fox announced the cancellation of the airport plan, which was the culmination of years of debate and several months of competition between the governments of the State of Mexico and Hidalgo State, and said other alternatives would be considered.

Experts have projected that Mexico City's existing airport, which cannot be easily expanded, will reach traffic capacity by 2005. However, following the cancellation of the new airport, the Transportation and Communications Secretariat said that as a result of lower traffic due to September 11, the existing airport will not reach capacity until at least 2009.