By Katie Bacharach

Edgar Tamayo, a Mexican citizen, has been executed in Texas despite a recent statement by Mexico’s foreign ministry that going ahead with the execution would be a "clear violation" of the United States’ international obligations, according to the LA Times and Reuters. 

Tamayo was convicted of fatally shooting a Houston police officer in 1994. However, Tamayo was never informed of his right to diplomatic assistance, enshrined in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention for the case of 51 Mexicans, including Tamayo, who had been sentenced to the death penalty without being informed of their rights to consular assistance. The court ordered the United States to reconsider the convictions. 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had also urged Texas to reconsider the execution because it could impact the way American citizens are treated abroad.

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January 23, 2014

By Phillip Yu

A $5.2 billion-dollar expansion of the Panama Canal is geared for completion in 2015. Already, studies have shown that this expansion can potentially provide a tremendous boost for natural gas producers in the Barnett Shale, a geological formation that acts as a large onshore natural gas field in Texas. The expansion of the Panama Canal will enable much larger ships to transport natural gas to China, Japan and other parts of Asia, where demand for natural gas is high but local supply is scarce. A 2011 study projected that the canal expansion will allow Texas to export an additional 15 million tons of cargo to the Pacific.

Read more at the Texas Tribune. 

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October 07, 2013