Al Gore stirs controversy, this time In Mexico

Press Barred from US Politician’s Speech for Mexico State Governor Enrique Peña Nieto

Fernando León and Erin Rosa
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
8/6/2010

Former US VP Al Gore with Governor Enrique Peña Nieto on August 4 in Toluca, Mexico. (Photo from Governor’s office.)

TOLUCA, MEXICO; AUGUST 4, 2010: If Al Gore thought a trip South of the Border would alleviate his recent divorce and masseuse tabloid scandals up north, he found only more controversy in Mexico. On Wednesday, the former US vice president visited Toluca, capital of the state of Mexico, as invited guest of Governor Enrique Peña Nieto, a 2012 presidential candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (the PRI) who is seeking to restore his party to power and is considered a heavy favorite in that contest.

The press was barred from Gore’s speech, reportedly about climate change, and state officials refused to say how much the former US presidential candidate was paid (Gore typically receives $170,000 dollars per speech). The mystery was further fueled by vague admissions that private sector donors had financed Gore’s visit, but state officials claimed they did not know who paid the speaker’s fees and costs.

Sponsored by the state’s “Commitment to Mexico” initiative as part of a two-day conference on climate change and sustainable development, the website for the forum states that “all of the forums will be transmitted live” on Mexican state television, radio, and over the Internet. All other parts of the forums were in fact broadcast live, but not Gore’s speech.

This, only two months after Gore lambasted similar behavior from the oil company BP for barring reporters from parts of the Gulf of Mexico damaged by its massive oil rig leak. Gore told the Christian Science Monitor that BP’s actions were “completely unacceptable,” and that “this de facto form of censorship needs to stop.”

Barred from attending Gore’s speech, reporters were sequestered in a press room, allowed to see just five minutes of the event on closed circuit TV stream. Photo D.R. 2010 Erin Rosa

Read the rest of the article, A speech behind closed doors.

H/T Not Evil Just Wrong Facebook page.

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