Weekly Report - 23 August 2007 (ISSN 1741-7422)

President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa made his foreign priorities clear when he left the Nafta summit early in Montebello, Ontario on 21 August. He flew home to confront Hurricane Dean which was threatening the Yucatán. By the time Calderón got to Mexico, Hurricane Dean had been downgraded from a dangerous (category-five) storm, to a mere (category-two) squall. Few previous presidents of Mexico would have passed up the chance of time with a US president to supervise disaster relief. Calderón, however, wanted to emphasise that close relations with the US are not his government's priority.