Ever since Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated foreign oil companies in 1938, the state oil monopoly has been seen by many politicians, especially from the formerly ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party PRII) and its offshoots, as the untouchable bone marrow of Mexican sovereignty.
Some cited Mr. Fox's 1996 proposal to privatize Pemex, the state-owned oil company, an icon of Mexican nationalism since President Cardenas expropriated the oil fields from Standard Oil in 1938.
The venture with Chevron is YPF's first big deal since it was expropriated by the Argentine government last year.Bernie Ecclestone, the chief executive of the Formula One Group, was charged by a German court in a case over an alleged $44m bribe to a banker who was involved in the sale of the car-racing championship to CVC Capital in 2005.
The expropriators are expropriated".
It now seems that the identities of perhaps as many as 100 children have been cruelly expropriated, but since no official is prepared to confirm or deny anxious inquiries from bereaved parents, the tally remains unconfirmed.
However, the largest and most controversial reform has opened up the energy sector to private and foreign investment, taboo since 1938, when President Lazaro Cardenas expropriated and nationalized all oil reserves and foreign oil companies in Mexico.
Farmland and forests owned jointly by a village or a clan were likewise expropriated by the Japanese since no single individual could claim them.
Since Cristina Fernández, Argentina's president, expropriated the country's flagship airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas, in 2008, it has haemorrhaged over $3.5 billion of taxpayers' money.
It is true that oil talk has been the mother of political debates in Mexico ever since 1938, when President Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated all oil and gas companies and nationalized them to form Pemex — today a 150,000-employee monster that has an absolute monopoly on every aspect of oil exploration, processing and distribution in Mexico and generates 34 percent of the government's revenues.
Since coming into office in early 2006, Mr. Morales has expropriated the local assets of other foreign investors, including those of GDF Suez, a French utility.
