http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/25/america/25mexico.php

==========================

By ANDRES OPPENHEIMER

By DAN KEANE Associated Press

>Instead, the boy and his driver turned up dead, their bodies found in car trunks. Days later, prosecutors alleged that a police detective was a key participant in the kidnapping plot.

>The suspicions of police involvement in kidnap-killings have moved a nation where many had grown numb to kidnappings and the drug cartels' beheadings and midday shootouts. Mass street protests are planned in several cities, and some lawmakers are even changing their minds about opposition to capital punishment.

>"They should put their eyes out, so they can't commit any more crimes," said Ignacio Noriega, a 26-year-old university student who says he no longer feels safe anywhere. "Prison isn't a solution anymore. They just form their own gangs inside prison and come out stronger."

>On Thursday, police reported that 150 residents of a community just west of Mexico City savagely beat and threatened to kill two alleged thieves before handing them over to state police.....>
 
=================

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/newshome/4948755/satellites-track-mexico-kidnap-victims-chips

Satellites track Mexico kidnap victims with chips

>QUERETARO, Mexico (Reuters) - Affluent Mexicans, terrified of soaring kidnapping rates, are spending thousands of dollars to implant tiny transmitters under their skin so satellites can help find them tied up in a safe house or stuffed in the trunk of a car.

>Kidnapping jumped almost 40 percent between 2004 and 2007 in Mexico , according to official statistics. Mexico ranks with conflict zones like Iraq and Colombia as among the worst countries for abductions.

>The recent kidnapping and murder of Fernando Marti, 14, the son of a well-known businessman, sparked an outcry in a country already hardened to crime.

>More people, including a growing number of middle-class Mexicans, are seeking out the tiny chip designed by Xega, a Mexican security firm whose sales jumped 13 percent this year. The company said it had more than 2,000 clients.

>Detractors say the chip is little more than a gadget that serves no real security purpose.

>The company injects the crystal-encased chip, the size and shape of a grain of rice, into clients' bodies with a syringe. A transmitter in the chip then sends radio signals to a larger device carried by the client with a global positioning system in it, Xega says. A satellite can then pinpoint the location of a person in distress.....>
 
====================

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-mexico-red-cross-threatened,0,1694049.story

Red Cross gets deaths threats for treating gunshot victims in Mexican border city

By MARINA MONTEMAYOR, Associated Press Writer 

>CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) _ Red Cross workers stopped treating gunshot victims for several hours in a violent city across the border from Texas after receiving death threats over their radio frequencies, officials said Wednesday.

>Two voices were heard over Red Cross radios Tuesday night threatening to kill emergency workers who cared for gunshot victims in Ciudad Juarez, local Red Cross chief Jorge Diaz said.

>The Red Cross ordered its personnel to stop treating shooting victims while it decided on additional security measures, Diaz said. City government spokesman Jaime Torres said service resumed Wednesday afternoon, after police were sent to accompany ambulances.....>

==========================

August 17, 2008:

Border Governors Urge Homeland Security to Remove Obstacles to Mexican Travel to US

>SACRAMENTO, Calif., Aug 15, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ ----California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and fellow border governors from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and various Mexican states have signed an agreement that urges the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to remove obstacles to Mexican travel into the United States, and provides recommendations that will improve security and ease of travel.

>"Mexico is California's number one inbound market, generating approximately $1.58 billion in spending, so declines in that market would have a major impact on our economy, including loss of jobs," said Caroline Beteta, president & CEO of the California Travel & Tourism Commission and chair of the Travel Industry Association. "In my role as national chair for the Travel Industry Association, I'm also concerned about what impeding travel would mean to the U.S. travel industry and economy. Just a five percent decline in overnight visitation from Mexico would mean a loss of approximately 700,000 travelers and over $400 million in spending - with a disproportionate impact on America's border states."

>Mexican travel to the U.S. generates 26 percent of all overnight visitors to the U.S., making it the second largest inbound travel market (only slightly behind Canada). Travel from Mexico has grown by 35 percent since 2000 -- the most of any inbound market.
Furthermore, for the fourth consecutive year, Mexican visitors spent record levels on travel in the United States -- totaling $9.6 billion in 2007.

>"The increase in business and leisure travel from Mexico partially compensates for a
decline of 2 million overseas visitors to the U.S. between 2000 and 2007," Beteta said. "We must nurture and enhance this critical travel market through more efficient and secure travel systems and by combating a growing negative perception among Mexican travelers that the U.S. has removed its welcome mat. Also, our new requirements for U.S. citizens to provide passports in Mexico have added a burden on Mexican border states as well.">

==========================

[This is the latest in the LA Times' excellent series on the drug cartel wars in Mexico. This latest story documents some of the ways in which the costs of the war are being paid by the US. It also raises the question that those who have been injured in drug ar battles in Juarez and then shipped to a trauma hospital in El Paso for unreimbursed health care are possibly undercover agents for the US. They are generally dual citizens or were in the US legally.--CS]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hospital17-2008aug17,0,615297.story?page=1

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

By Miguel Bustillo, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

>....Thomason has treated 28 people wounded on the other side of the border this year, spending an estimated $1 million, hospital administrators said. Nineteen were U.S. citizens or had dual citizenship, and the rest had legal permission to enter the country.....

>.... El Paso Mayor John Cook said. "If I, as the mayor, cross the border, it takes me a lot longer than it's taking some of these wounded folks. Clearly, some deals have been made at a higher level of government, and we didn't know about them."

>El Paso officials last month took their worries to Washington, where Homeland Security officials assured them that there was no diplomatic deal to bring the drug war's wounded to Texas. Still, some El Paso leaders note that such transfers do not seem to be happening elsewhere on the border. They want the federal government to reimburse their costs.....

>....The number of injured with U.S. ties has surprised some El Paso officials, who privately questioned whether some of the wounded were working with the U.S. government to stop drug trafficking.....

>...."Bordering on Juarez, the most violent city in Mexico and one of the most violent cities anywhere besides Iraq, you're always vigilant," Apodaca said. "But those people [hit men] down there know who they're after, and they know how to get them."

>Drug cartels have traditionally assassinated U.S. targets discreetly, if at all, avoiding the type of Wild West gunfight that has become commonplace in Mexican border towns such as Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.

>Still, some law enforcement officials have long worried that the close relationships between cities on the border, and the drug distribution networks on both sides, could bring open violence to Texas cities. An e-mail message circulating in Juarez in June warned of impending violence at three El Paso nightclubs deemed narco hangouts. Similarly, a list obtained by U.S. officials named about 20 people in Texas and New Mexico who were alleged to be targets of the drug cartels.....>

=========================

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5947100.html

August 15, 2008:

http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnN14424745.html

Portal to mythical Mayan underworld found in Mexico

By Miguel Angel Gutierrez

>MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican archaeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones, which ancient Mayans believed was a portal where dead souls entered the underworld.

>Clad in scuba gear and edging through narrow tunnels, researchers discovered the stone ruins of eleven sacred temples and what could be the remains of human sacrifices at the site in the Yucatan Peninsula.

>Archaeologists say Mayans believed the underground complex of water-filled caves leading into dry chambers -- including an underground road stretching some 330 feet -- was the path to a mythical underworld, known as Xibalba.

>According to an ancient Mayan scripture, the Popol Vuh, the route was filled with obstacles, including rivers filled with scorpions, blood and pus and houses shrouded in darkness or swarming with shrieking bats, Guillermo de Anda, one of the lead investigators at the site, said on Thursday. The souls of the dead followed a mythical dog who could see at night, de Anda said....>

=====================

http://www.nbc5i.com/news/17180249/detail.html

Experts Recommend Tennessee Facility For Widowed Elephant

>DALLAS -- In a news conference at Dallas City Hall early Wednesday morning, Mexican animal welfare officials said the Dallas Zoo's widowed elephant Jenny should not be sent to their country.

>Monica Pineda, president of Mexico-based People for the Defense of Animals, spoke out against Jenny being sent to Mexico's Africam Safari due to the poor quality of animal
welfare protection in the country.

>Instead, Pineda recommended Jenny be kept in the U.S. and sent to an animal sanctuary in Tennessee. "We recommend that you keep Jenny in the U.S. because Mexico is 80 years behind in animal welfare laws and standards compared to your country," Pineda said. "There are no animal control officers, there are serious legal loopholes on wildlife welfare laws and poor enforcement of regulations in Mexico, which is the responsibility of the Mexican government."

>Jenny, 32, is a senior elephant who has been a resident of the Dallas Zoo for 22 years.
Jenny's companion, Keke, died and now Jenny must be relocated. Additionally, Jenny suffers from psychological problems that many feel will be exacerbated by living at the facility in Mexico.....>

=====================

www.chinaview.cn

California's Schwarzenegger launches U.S.-Mexico border governors conference

>LOS ANGELES, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday launched the 26th annual Border Governors Conference (BGC) with the aim of  "building green economies" throughout the border region.

>Addressing the conference, Schwarzenegger renewed his pledge to cooperate on increasing environmental protection, fighting climate change and building commerce in the U.S.-Mexico border region.

>"Together we have accomplished a great deal over the past year and, today, we are building on our common desire to make the border region an economic powerhouse by building green economies that will improve the lives of all border residents," Schwarzenegger said at Universal Studios Hollywood.

>"Our common border makes us more than just neighbors, it makes us partners in working to create a more vibrant economy and healthier environment," he said.....>

=======================

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2008/08/11/daily26.html

Gates Foundation honors Mexican organization for bringing computers to villages

>SEATTLE (AP) - The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving its $1 million "access to learning award" to an organization in Mexico's Veracruz state.

>The Vasconcelos (vass-con-seh-lohs) Program brings computers to remote villages to train people how to use computers and connect to the Internet. Mobile computer labs are moved from village to village on all-terrain vehicles.

>Microsoft Corp. is providing a software donation, and the foundation is providing the $1
million award to the Vasconcelos Program. The program was created and managed by the
Veracruz secretary of public education. It targets communities where computers are available in schools and community centers but the equipment is underused because residents lack computer skills.....>

=====================

www.ClimateChangeCorp.com

Latin America: Mexico’s flimsy raft of climate change measures

>Pressure from the international community, together with the commercial opportunities in mitigation, is pushing climate change up Mexico's domestic political agenda. Oliver Balch reports

>No public commitment to the environment is complete these days without a tree-planting photo op. Felipe Calderón did not disappoint.

>At a high-profile ceremony back in May, the Mexican president announced a new national strategy on climate change by putting on his gardening gloves.

>And he's not alone. Over the next 10 years, Mexico has promised to plant 250 million
trees across the country. The 2007-2012 plan also incorporates moves to expand
sustainable forestry by 2.6million hectares a year, reduce fossil fuel use and increase clean energies.....

>FACTS: Mexico and climate change
• Mexico is a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
and its Kyoto Protocol as a non-Annex 1 Party.
• Its new national climate change strategy, announced in May, envisages a reduction or
capture of as much as 126million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year within seven
years.
• Mexico's emissions amount to four tonnes per person, five times less than in the United
States. >

=====================

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/14/america/LA-Mexico-Border-Slaying.php

Gunmen kill 8 at Mexican border city rehab center

The Associated Press
>CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico: Officials say gunmen killed eight people at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in this border city.

>Police say five others were wounded in the Wednesday night attack.

>Police spokesman Cesar Ramirez says the people were listening to a pastor's sermon when the gunmen barged in and opened fire. He says police found 61 casings inside the center.

>Ramirez says authorities are investigating and have made no arrests.

>So far this year, officials say 787 people have been killed in Ciudad Juarez. Most of the killings have been drug-related.>

============================

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/breakingnews/article_212164431.shtml

Mexican drug gang turns to kidnapping in U.S., of Mexican-Americans and dual citizens

by Lizbeth Diaz

>American businesswoman Veronica was stepping out of her car in California when two men forced her into the passenger seat at gunpoint, pushed her teenage daughter into the back and drove them into Mexico.

>Taking advantage of lax Mexican security at the San Diego border, and with U.S. authorities focused mainly on those entering the United States, the kidnappers took the two women to Tijuana in January and held them for a month before their family paid a $100,000 ransom.

>"We got an automatic green light to go through Mexican customs and then we were blindfolded and taken to a house in Tijuana. They held a pistol to my stomach all the time we were in the car," said Veronica, who declined to give her surname.

>An unintended consequence of Mexican efforts to weaken drug gangs, drug traffickers around Tijuana are turning to abducting U.S. citizens and residents in southern California and holding them in Mexico as a new way to get funds, U.S. and Mexican authorities say.

>Mexican intelligence officials say Veronica is one of around 30 Americans abducted in southern California and taken to Tijuana since last November. Many of the victims are of Hispanic origin and hold double nationality.....>

=====================

August 10, 2008:

August 8, 2008:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/08/pot.eradication/

Mexican cartels running pot farms in U.S. national forest

From Dan Simon, CNN

>SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, California (CNN) -- Beyond the towering trees that have stood here for thousands of years, an intense drug war is being waged.Authorities this week uncovered more than $1 billion worth of pot plants in Sequoia National Forest.

>Illegal immigrants connected to Mexico's drug cartels are growing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of marijuana in the heart of one of America's national treasures, authorities say. It's a booming business that, federal officials say, feeds Mexico's most violent drug traffickers.

>"These aren't Cheech and Chong plants," said John Walters, director of the National Drug Control Policy. "People who farm now are not doing this for laughs, despite the fact Hollywood still thinks that. They're doing it to make a lot of money."

>Walters spoke from a "marijuana garden" tucked deep into the Sequoia National Forest, about a two- to four-hour hike from the nearest road, far removed from the giant sequoias the region is best known for.

>Ten thousand marijuana plants, some 5 feet tall, dotted the mountainside's steep terrain amid thick brush, often located near streams. This garden's street value is worth an estimated $40 million, authorities said.

>Walters clutched three plants he said were worth $12,000 on the streets.

>"This is about serious criminal organizations," Walters said. "They're willing to kill anybody who gets in their way. They're taking money back to those who kill prosecutors, judges and law enforcement."

>Over the last eight days, a federal, state and county law enforcement initiative called Operation LOCCUST has eradicated 420,000 marijuana plants here worth more than $1 billion on the street. By comparison, authorities last year eradicated 330,000 plants over the six-month growing season, said Lt. Mike Boudreaux of the Tulare County Sheriff's Department.

>Authorities have arrested 38 people and have seized 29 automatic weapons, high-powered rifles and other guns, Boudreaux said.

>For years, Mexican drug cartels have used the remote forest to conduct and conceal their business. But the pot production has intensified because it has become harder and harder to smuggle marijuana across the U.S.-Mexico border, Walters said.

>....Once at the national forest, the growers carry with them everything they need -- tents, food, guns, fertilizer, irrigation hose and marijuana seeds. Armed men keep watch over the gardens day and night during planting season, officials say.

>They dam mountain creeks to create pools, then siphon the water into miles of gravity-fed hoses that lead to smaller tubing to irrigate the plants. Nearly all of the marijuana plants have individual drip lines.....>

==================================================

[This general has since been transferred.--CS]

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/08/08/ap5303230.html

By ELLIOT SPAGAT

>TIJUANA, Mexico - If you witness a murder or a drug deal in the crime-stricken border city of Tijuana, don't bother calling the police - call the Mexican army.

>In a slap at the police, Gen. Sergio Aponte Polito, the army's top officer in northwest Mexico, has publicized a phone number for pleas for help and on Sunday gave the news media his latest 5,700-word bombshell letter complaining of police corruption.

>Such public provocations are extremely out of character for military leaders in Mexico, and the general may have gone so far that he might be forced out: A state official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed Mexican newspaper reports that the general will be relieved of his command as early as Friday.

>A Defense Secretary spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

>The general's fate reflects larger questions in Mexico about how to control drug-fueled violence, which has soared in the years since President Felipe Calderon moved to openly confront the cartels that move cocaine into the United States.

>Some Mexicans see the police as corrupt and the army as the only hope, but others fear soldiers are overstepping their authority and abusing their power by raiding the homes of suspected criminals.

>Aponte leads many of the 20,000 troops Calderon dispatched to retake wide swathes of Mexico that were taken over by drug trafficking. And he has pushed limits by asserting a dominant crime-fighting role for soldiers in a city where police are considered too ineffective or corrupt to call. He named his phone-in campaign "Nosotros, si vamos," or "Yes, we respond."

>"What he's doing is completely unprecedented," said Roderic Camp, an expert on the Mexican military at Claremont McKenna College. "Instructing citizens to call the army is really unique."....>

=========================

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=234453&version=1&template_id=43&parent_id=19

Mexican Troops hold US border agent in Arizona

>PHOENIX: Mexican soldiers briefly held a US Border Patrol agent at gunpoint in a remote stretch of the Arizona desert after they mistakenly strayed north across the border, authorities said on Wednesday.

>Tucson sector Border Patrol spokesman Mike Scioli said four Mexican soldiers wearing desert camouflage and carrying weapons confronted the agent on Sunday morning as he patrolled a border road in the Tohono O’Odham nation southwest of Tucson.

>Scioli said the agent repeatedly identified himself in English and Spanish. After four minutes the soldiers lowered their weapons and crossed back in to Mexico on foot.

>The stretch of desert is frequently crossed by human and drug smugglers from Mexico, and the border line in the area is not always clearly marked, Scioli said.

>A spokesman for the US State Department said the incursion had been brought to the attention of the Mexican government, and appeared to be accidental.....>

=========================

[Calderon is being criticized by those who want the death penalty for kidnappers, not life without parole.--CS]

http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/08/07/america/OUKWD-UK-MEXICO-CRIME.php

Mexico's Calderon seeks life in jail for kidnappers

>MEXICO CITY, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon, dogged by a rising wave of violence, urged Congress on Thursday to pass a bill that would sentence kidnappers to life imprisonment without parole.

>Calderon's appeal came days after the body of the 14-year-old son of a sports retail tycoon was found in the trunk of a car in Mexico City. The teenager was kidnapped more than a month ago and killed despite his family paying a ransom.

>Several policemen have been arrested for the kidnapping.....>

========================

Mexico Lauded at International AIDS Conference for Anti-Homophobia Efforts 

by Kilian Melloy
EDGE Contributor
Thursday Aug 7, 2008

>The 17th International AIDS Conference is meeting in Mexico City, and thanks to a government educational campaign--and a law granting civil unions to gay and lesbian families--acceptance of GLBT people has grown in Mexico, despite the country's traditional homophobic Latino culture.

>New Kerala.com reported on the story in an Aug. 7 article, saying that where a few years ago a public display of affection between men would have been almost unthinkable, now gay couples are a little more comfortable holding hands in public.

>The article quoted a man identified only by the name Charlie, an HIV positive 42-year-old who spoke of a time, several decades ago, when few Mexicans dared to be openly gay.

>AIDS has forced gay men into the open, and forced the government to confront the existence of homosexuality in Mexican society.

>Said the leader of CENSIDA, Mexico's HIV/AIDS program, Jorge Saavedra, "Ignore the men-who-have-sex-with-men populations and you lose the fight against AIDS."

>The article cited studies that show that the MSM ("Men who have Sex with Men") population of poorer counties are much more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to contract HIV.

>Part of the reason is a lack of focus when it comes to prevention. Said Saavedra, "MSMs are excluded from [government-sponsored HIV prevention and AIDS care] services [in many poorer countries]."

>Added Saavedra, "We have not tried enough."

>But that is changing: "Mexico, Australia and Brazil have shown that effective response among MSMs is possible."

>Under Saavedra's leadership, everyone in Mexico has now been granted access to life-saving medication that can help keep HIV in check for those living with the virus--an estimated 47,000 people in that country.

>But Saavedra also began to address social attitudes that, if left uncorrected, could have also contributed to the spread of the virus. The result of anti-homophobia campaigns is greater acceptance and more widespread understanding of HIV and how to prevent its transmission.

>Saavedra also appointed a transgendered woman to a government office in 2006, the article said--a first in Mexico at the time.

>But the most wide-ranging reform Saavedra has spearheaded may be the country's civil unions law, which proponents say gives couples important rights in areas of health insurance and inheritance, although not in other family areas such as marriage and adoption.

>An openly gay man himself, Saavedra has established 51 clinics to care for individuals living with HIV, and he said in the article that he would like to see those clinics be declared providers of "homophobia-free services."

>Saavedra's efforts were acknowledged at the 17th International AIDS Conference, with Peter Piot, the executive director of UNAIDS, addressing those in attendance at the opening meeting with the words, "I salute Mexico's anti-homophobia campaign--one of the boldest and most creative in the world."....>

===========================

Mexico Says Pepper Farm Tests Negative for Salmonella

By Andres R. Martinez and Hugh Collins

>Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Mexico's government said its tests of produce from two farms identified by the U.S. as infected with salmonella showed no signs of the bacteria.

>Samples taken from the jalapeno and Serrano pepper farms in the eastern state of Tamaulipas showed no indications of the Saintpaul strain of salmonella, which has sickened more than 1,300 people in the U.S. since April, Enrique Sanchez Cruz, head of Mexico's agriculture and food safety agency.

>Similar tests by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at the farm in Tamaulipas last month detected salmonella in water used for irrigation and in the peppers, said Michael Herndon, an FDA spokesman. ``We stand by our tests,'' he said.....>

==========================

Concerns about travel to Mexico renewed

By Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times

>EL PASO -- The recent shooting death of an 11-year-old El Paso boy during a vacation trip in Mexico has renewed questions about whether it's safe to travel south of the border.

>El Pasoan Rico Armando Bañuelas, a student at St. Pius X Catholic School, was killed July 28 in the state of Durango when a band of highway robbers attacked the vehicle in which he and his family were traveling.

>Ruben Lopez Gallegos, spokesman for the Durango state attorney general's office, said, "There are three people in custody in connection with the attack, and one of them confessed to shooting at the family's vehicle. The rest of the suspects were identified, and police are looking for them. They are part of a gang that operates in the mountains between Durango and Sinaloa states."

>Lopez said the boy was killed by an AK-47 rifle, and he confirmed that elite Mexican soldiers assisted in the capture of the suspects in custody.

>Mexican GAFES (Special Forces Airmobile Group) soldiers, similar to U.S. Special Forces, seized the AK-47 and other weapons from the suspects, items stolen during the July 28 armed robbery of several people on the highway to Mazatlan that day, in addition to marijuana and marijuana seeds.

>Rey Del Valle, driver of the car in which Bañuelas was riding, tried to speed past the bandits' roadblock, but the bandits fired at the car, killing Rico and wounding Del Valle and the boy's mother, Norma Patricia Chairez.

>"Rico's mother is still in the hospital in Mazatlan recovering from her wound," said Monsignor Arturo J. Bañuelas, the boy's uncle and pastor of St. Pius X Catholic Community in El Paso. The priest and other relatives traveled last week to Durango soon after receiving the news of the attack.

>"What happened is not a reflection on the people of Mexico," Arturo Bañuelas said. "We are grateful to the authorities of Durango, the U.S. Embassy staff and others in Mexico who helped along the way without knowing us. They solved the case and assisted with the necessary steps to transport the body back to El Paso."

>The assault occurred in Durango near the border of Sinaloa state. The family was headed to Mazatlan, a popular beach city in Sinaloa.

>"The motive is not known, but it appears to (have been) a random assault," said Marcia S. Anglarill, spokeswoman for the U.S. consulate in Monterrey, which is fielding news media inquiries in the case.

>Doris Thompson, president of Professional Travel in El Paso, which has helped people plan trips to Mexico for decades, said customers have expressed concerns about safety.

>"They're afraid to go to Juárez and to the Copper Canyon in Chihuahua, which has always been a popular destination," she said. "On the other hand, I just had a couple of guys from UTEP return from Cancun, and they had a great time and felt safe there. At this time, I believe air travel is the safest way to go to Mexico."

>Charles Barta, a former doctor in Las Cruces who's joined other U.S. retirees in Mazatlan, said Rico Bañuelas' death was widely reported by the Mexican press there. He strongly advises travelers not to resist any armed robbers they may encounter.

>"Robbers are there solely to get your money," Barta said. "They have no intention of harming you unless you try to resist or run. Then, you will be shot."

>While the U.S. Embassy in Mexico is not discouraging Americans from traveling there, it is recommending that U.S. citizens use common sense to ensure a safe trip. In a travel alert issued earlier this year, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza said, "The vast majority of the thousands of U.S. citizens who cross the border by car or fly into
Mexico's airports each day do so safely, exercising common-sense precautions during their visits.

>"However, it is also important for people to be aware of the risks they may face so they can plan accordingly and remain attentive to their surroundings."....>

=======================

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5931177.html

Boy's slaying blamed on police raises uproar in Mexico

President Calderon and others renew calls for an end to justice system corruption

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

>MEXICO CITY — Official accusations that Mexico City policemen were behind the kidnap-slaying of a 14-year-old boy fed renewed calls Tuesday for reforming the country's corruption-plagued justice system.

>The decomposed body of Fernando Martí, who was kidnapped two months ago, was discovered in a car trunk on Friday.

>Three men, including a local police commander and one of his agents, have been arrested in connection with the killing of Fernando Martí, who was kidnapped two months ago at a phony police checkpoint.

>Mexico City authorities said that as many as 14 other policemen — all from a detectives unit operating at the Mexico City airport — were under investigation.

>News of the arrests dominated the capital's airwaves Tuesday and filled the news and opinion pages of newspapers.

>"The crime wave unpardonably advances because of corruption, the fragility of what we call the rule of law, the inefficiency of police," El Universal, one of the Mexican capital's leading newspapers, said in an editorial.

>President Felipe Calderon called Tuesday for greater cooperation between federal, state and local police — something his administration has been pushing since coming into office in December 2006.

>If we were more united," Calderon said, "surely by now we would have advanced much more along the road to improving the police."

>"This situation has to mobilize the entire society," he said.

>Calderon, who has made fighting organized crime an anchor of his administration, has proposed greater cooperation, equipment and training for Mexico's more than 400,000 local, state and federal police. He'll partly pay for that program with some of the $400 million in U.S. aid provided under the Merida Initiative approved by Congress earlier this year.

>Martí was kidnapped as he was being driven to school in southern Mexico City in early June. His chauffeur and bodyguard were found the next day, stuffed into a car trunk. The chauffeur was dead and the bodyguard, who had been strangled, died a few days later.

The Martí family — who in January sold controlling interest of its chains of sporting-good stores and gyms — reportedly paid a ransom of $5 million. But Fernando Martí was never seen alive again.

>The boy was taken by the so-called Flower Gang, which left a single flower as a calling card at the site of Martí's kidnapping and at least three others in the past two years, police said.

>"It's a well-organized group," Miguel Angel Mancera, Mexico City's attorney general, said. "They operate with checkpoints, capturing the victims. In all the other cases, the victims have been returned."

>Prosecutors said Jose Luis Romero, commander of a large detective unit operating at the capital's airport, was arrested. The commander was linked to the crime by calls made from his cell phone, Romero said, but he declined to discuss other details of the case.

>The second officer under arrest is a member of Romero's group, which was tasked with stopping hijackings of cargo trucks near the airport.

>"An investigation and review of the police is expected," Mancera said.

>The Mexican capital's security forces are being shaken up, yet again. But that process started before Martí's body was found, when Mexico City's police chief and a number of commanders were fired after a botched crackdown on a bar serving teens. Nine young people and three policemen were killed in a stampede.

>But Mexico City is hardly alone in dealing with problem officers.

>Officials in Jalisco state, whose capital is Guadalajara, accuse an agent with the state police's anti-kidnapping unit of masterminding the killing of six members of a family last week.

>Prosecutors said the officer decided to organize the break-in of the family's home after helping negotiate a $100,000 ransom for a family member kidnapped last spring. The gang that invaded the home demanded another $100,000. When things went awry, the prosecutors said, the police killed all the family members, including two girls ages 7 and
8.

>Some experts argue that the extent of police corruption and the eroding public security situation have passed the point for a simple reorganization to fix.

>"We need a complete purge," said Arturo Arango, a public security specialist at a Mexico City think tank. 

>"We have heard so many times that they are going to straighten out and clean up the police. It's never happened."....>

==============================

August 5, 2008:

http://www.macroworldinvestor.com/m/m.w?lp=GetStory&id=316591911

Texas executes Mexican-born killer

MICHAEL GRACZYKAssociated Press Writer
Released : Tuesday, August 05, 2008 11:13 PM

>HUNTSVILLE, Texas-Texas has executed Mexican-born condemned prisoner Jose Medellin for the rape and murder of two teenage girls 15 years ago.

>The state carried out the execution late Tuesday night after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his request for a reprieve in a split vote.

>The 33-year-old Medellin had claimed he was denied treaty-guaranteed help from the Mexican consulate when he was arrested.....>

========================

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gs5QRz11g4HVxqkg71TeB5MGGxjwD92BNE200

HIV-positive migrants accuse US of neglect

By JULIE WATSON – Monday
>MEXICO CITY (AP) — Olga Arellano sobs as she recalls how her HIV-positive daughter spent two months succumbing to infections in a U.S. migrant detention center, complaining that she didn't see a doctor or get the right medicine. Fellow inmates also begged for help after Victoria Arellano started vomiting blood in their holding cell, where her lawyer said 105 detainees were crammed onto bunks and mattresses in a space designed for 40.

>She died three days later, chained to a hospital bed.

>The death of the 23-year-old transgender Mexican immigrant is at the forefront of discussions at this week's international AIDS conference in Mexico City. Rights activists say it shows the failure of immigration officials to deal humanely with HIV-positive inmates among the 30,000 migrants held in detention centers across the United States.New York-based Human Rights Watch says it found 14 cases, including Arellano's, in which HIV-infected immigrants were not given proper care while in custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

>ICE officials deny this, saying detainee safety is a top priority, but have declined to comment specifically on the cases since Arellano is suing the agency.

>Activists say many HIV-infected migrants in U.S. detention centers are not given their medicine regularly, which is crucial to their survival. People with HIV can live otherwise healthy lives if they take a strict regimen of specific medications each day and closely monitor their blood cells to be sure their immune systems are working. That's difficult to do for people being deported, particularly in overcrowded detention centers. When the regimen is interrupted, the virus rebounds and the immune system crashes.

>The family's lawyer, Steven Archer, says Arellano never got proper medical attention after she was stopped for drunk driving and handed over to immigration officials in June 2007. "They filled her prescription with the wrong strength, and they never diagnosed the meningitis, even though she had been complaining about headaches, sweats and
generalized pain for weeks. That is what killed her in the end," Archer said. "It was so advanced that it involved her brain, her liver, her lungs, her heart, and a couple of other organs. She died in terrible pain."....>

===================

http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/07/31/america/OUKWD-UK-MEXICO-GARDENS.php

Edible Cities

>Mexico City's government is backing the current growth of community vegetable gardens in its neighborhoods – home to more than 20 million residents - as a way of ensuring poorer families have access to fresh fruit and vegetables.

>Soaring global food costs have pushed vegetable prices up by 17 per cent in Mexico over the past year, according to Central Bank data, and inhabitants of the nation's capital are being encouraged to grow their own tomatoes, squash, cabbages and beans in order to get by.

>This urban garden program began by setting up vegetable patches in the city's most vulnerable communities - where income levels are very low and many people do not have steady jobs - and has since expanded to all city quarters.

>With the support of Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, the government currently supplies all the seeds for planting and agronomists are available to provide technical support and to teach communities how to maintain the gardens and to make compost and organic fertilizers.

>Since last year, 20 community food gardens have been established, often in areas previously used as rubbish dumps, and the government plans to establish at least another twenty - with some also growing medicinal plants.....>

==========================

August 3, 2008:

[The Mexican Constitution forbids foreigners from taking part in Mexican politics, including demonstrations against Mexican government policies, but this one is against the US government. The US has ignored a ruling from the World Court to halt this execution and 50 others of Mexicans on death row who were not allowed to meet with their embassies or consulates before their trials.--CS]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20080803-9999-1n3mexweek.html

US warns of Mexico protests on day of execution

>MEXICO CITY (AP) - The U.S. Embassy in Mexico is warning Americans of possible protests next week when a Mexican man is scheduled to be executed in Texas.

>In a public statement, the Embassy says it has received information that protests may occur next Tuesday, when Jose Medellin is scheduled to die. It urged Americans to avoid the protests.

>The Embassy says activists in Mexico could use the demonstrations "to incite anti-U.S.
sentiment in general."

>The Friday statement noted that even peaceful demonstrations "can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence."....>

=======================

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/us/03deport.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

Immigrants Deported, by U.S. Hospitals

By DEBORAH SONTAG

>JOLOMCÚ, Guatemala — High in the hills of Guatemala, shut inside the one-room house where he spends day and night on a twin bed beneath a seriously outdated calendar, Luis Alberto Jiménez has no idea of the legal battle that swirls around him in the lowlands of Florida.

>Luis Alberto Jiménez, an illegal immigrant injured in a car accident in Florida, was treated at a community hospital, which eventually sent him back to Guatemala. He spends most of his days inside a one-room house; only the presence of visitors, who can help him into his wheelchair, gives him the rare chance to get out of bed.

>Shooing away flies and beaming at the tiny, toothless elderly mother who is his sole caregiver, Mr. Jiménez, a knit cap pulled tightly on his head, remains cheerily oblivious that he has come to represent the collision of two deeply flawed American systems, immigration and health care.

>Eight years ago, Mr. Jiménez, 35, an illegal immigrant working as a gardener in Stuart, Fla., suffered devastating injuries in a car crash with a drunken Floridian. A community hospital saved his life, twice, and, after failing to find a rehabilitation center willing to accept an uninsured patient, kept him as a ward for years at a cost of $1.5 million.

>What happened next set the stage for a continuing legal battle with nationwide repercussions: Mr. Jiménez was deported — not by the federal government but by the hospital, Martin Memorial. After winning a state court order that would later be declared invalid, Martin Memorial leased an air ambulance for $30,000 and "forcibly returned him to his home country," as one hospital administrator described it.

>Since being hoisted in his wheelchair up a steep slope to his remote home, Mr. Jiménez, who sustained a severe traumatic brain injury, has received no medical care or medication .....>

==================

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=arXltEvK0zec&refer=news

Mexico's Peso Reaches Six-Year High on Rate-Increase Prospects

By Drew Benson

>Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- The Mexican peso reached an almost six-year high on speculation the central bank will boost the country's benchmark lending rate from 8 percent at its Aug. 15 meeting.

>``There continue to be expectations that the central bank will increase rates, and that the Fed won't, so that fortifies the peso,'' said Enrique Trejo, a currency trader with Ixe Banco in Mexico City.

>The peso rose 0.48 percent to 9.9721 per dollar at 11:31 a.m. in New York, and reached 9.9667, a six-year high, from 10.0367 yesterday. It is the currency's strongest since Oct. 28, 2002, when it touched 9.946 per dollar.

>Bets that the Federal Reserve will hold off on rate increases were bolstered by a report today that the U.S. unemployment rate during July rose to its highest level in more than four years.....>

===========================

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2008/08/the-mexican-pes.html

Going to Mexico? Better pack more dollars

>The Mexican peso’s value surged against the dollar today and crossed a milestone: At the official exchange rate (i.e., the rate for big-money transactions) one dollar now buys fewer than 10 pesos.

>The last time the peso was this strong -- and the dollar so weak -- was in 2002.

>At the official rate, one dollar bought 9.94 pesos today, down from 10.04 on Thursday and 10.89 at the end of last year, according to Bloomberg data.

>The rate American tourists get already had fallen below 10 pesos in recent weeks, however, because the exchange rate for small-money transactions almost always is less favorable than the official rate.....>

====================

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hAPbr4D635BfjQaSYZjx5yZKo47A

Activists march against HIV 'stigma' before Mexico AIDS summit

>MEXICO CITY (AFP) — Thousands of brightly-dressed activists marched through Mexico City on Saturday protesting discrimination against those with the HIV virus ahead of the first world AIDS conference in Latin America.

>A gay Mexican wrestler in a mask and tights, women dressed up as skeletons, African campaigners in tribal costumes and children joined several thousand others in the march towards the capital's massive Zocalo square in what organisers called the first International March against Stigma, Discrimination and Homophobia.

>The demonstration took place a day before the start of the six-day International AIDS conference, which thousands of activists, scientists and policymakers were expected to attend.

>A handful of Latin American and Caribbean first ladies met Saturday ahead of the meeting and warned of the threat of AIDS to women."The lack of HIV visibility in women means that we see ourselves as low risk and as a result have less access to tests for early diagnosis," said Margarita Zavala, Mexico's first lady.....>

=================================

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20080801-9999-1b1mextrucks.html

Panel OKs bill to end Mexican truck travel

By Paul M. Krawzak
U-T WASHINGTON BUREAU

>WASHINGTON – Opponents of a pilot project that allows Mexican trucks to travel
throughout the United States took another step toward ending the program yesterday,
when a House committee approved a bill to bar its continuation next year.

>The bill could get a vote by the full House when lawmakers return from their summer
break in September."We believe it's time to end the program," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the chief sponsor of the bill.

>DeFazio blasted the Bush administration for ignoring a law passed by Congress last year to end the pilot program. He said lax safety standards in Mexico make truck drivers from
that nation a danger to the American public – an allegation that U.S. transportation
officials dispute.....>

====================

http://www.laprensa-sandiego.org/current/NAFTA.080108.htm

U.S.–Mexico NAFTA Transportation Agreement Imperiled

By Chris Sweeney

>The governing idea behind NAFTA is to remove trade restrictions so as to encourage the free-flow of goods and services across the North American continent. Along the U.S. – Mexican border, however, the reality is that the ground transportation of such goods remains highly congested and drawn out. Long-haul trucks from Mexico are restricted
from operating in the U.S. except within designated commercial zones located in border-cities such as San Diego, El Paso and Brownsville. At these sites, the contents of a truck must be unloaded and transferred onto a domestic carrier in order to continue to their final destination. Authorities estimate that this obvious kink in the supply chain costs U.S. consumers $400 million a year.

>In September 2007, the Department of Transportation (DOT) began a year-long pilot program to address this theoretically preventable inefficiency. It allowed certified Mexican freight companies to operate certain vehicles on U.S. highways under the same terms andrestrictions as U.S. trucks. The implementation of the experimental program came about as a belated response to a 2001 ruling by a NAFTA dispute resolution panel, which stated that a blanket ban on Mexican trucks coming into the U.S. caused Washington to be in violation of its treaty obligations to not impede trade. Despite that ruling, the ban has remained in effect since then due to protracted litigation and political roadblocks. Driving the opposition are the Teamsters and the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association, which fear losing more blue-collar domestic jobs to foreign workers. Such parties make the case that Mexican truckers pose a threat to U.S. motorists, claiming that they are not subject to the same safety, licensing, and insurance standards as domestic carriers.

>This argument appears unfounded. In fact, every Mexican truck involved in the program must meet the rigorous safety and insurance requirements established by Congress in order to be allowed equal access to U.S. roads. Although the drafting of these regulations may originally have been an attempt by lawmakers to delay the implementation of the pilot program, such measures seem to have worked to ensure adequate safety standards
thus far: transportation authorities estimate that, as of June 2008, 18,000 Mexican trucks have traveled on U.S. roads as part of the program, without serious incident. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters has gone so far as to claim that the safety records of Mexican trucks in fact are better than their American counterparts.....>