Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Stocks in companies making green technologies are going gangbusters, with double the growth of the S&P 500 index.

But that naturally raises a question. Is it a bubble?

And recent space missions have overwhelmingly focused on Mars.

It's just a less forbidding place than Venus.

Now, though, two new missions aiming for our nearer neighbor

will investigate tantalizing hints of a gas that might just be linked to life.

But first... Mexicans went to the polls yesterday in a set of elections in which 93 million people were eligible to vote on more than 20,000 positions.

And yet, the person who has figured most prominently in campaigning

wasn't on any of the ballots.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who was applauded as he cast his vote yesterday,

is halfway through a six-year term as president.

When he came to power, he promised to transform the country.

He vowed to stand up for the poor, to fight corruption, to address the drug-related violence

that has long plagued the country.

His critics say he's failed in all those ambitions, and that he's used undemocratic methods to push through

his policies. Across the country, election campaigns have been marred by violence. More than 30

candidates have been murdered. The votes are still being counted, but early results suggest the

president's party has lost some of the legislative stranglehold it had been enjoying.

These are Mexico's biggest ever elections in terms of the number of posts up for grabs.

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