Frontline discussion: Narco wars Mexico

Broadcast live on Ustream, June 24th 2009 Moderator: Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor for Channel 4 News Panel:Ed Vulliamy, Guardian and Observer journalist and writer Alex Tweddle

BorderReporter: God’s Gonna Cut You Down

What happened here last week was a sheer massacre.

First Stop in the New World: Street Children in Mexico City

Her face is oval and nut-colored, with the enormous eyes of a gazelle. Montse’s expression is serious, cautious, pensative.

Training Day

May 30 2009 – My breath is tearing out of my lungs and my leg muscles are screaming for a reprieve. I just scaled a 60-degree hill coated in thorny brambles and poisonous plants whilst being pounded by rain. In the dark. I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but it did. Later that night, my fellow journalists and I were kidnapped by masked guerillas who jumped onto our bus.

Mexican journalists put through their survival paces

May 29 2009 – A couple of non-profits got together and ran a course just outside Mexico City this month for 18 journalists living and working here.

Military’s drug museum shows narco tactics

The installation was designed as an educational tool for military personnel who have been tasked with fighting Mexico’s narco-trafficantes and organized crime networks.

Obama starts a new era in Mexico drive-by

I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it into work this morning. Not because of Mexico’s overloaded public transport system, but because U.S President Barack Obama was expected to arrive on his first visit to Mexico here in the country’s capital.

Talking violence in Texas

Last week, I was invited to speak at the University of Texas Pan America about MexicoReporter.com, violence against journalists, the drug war coverage and how new technologies are contributing to the journalism beast. So I went.

Peter Gabriel asks for end impunity over Ciudad Juarez’s dead women

Peter Gabriel implored President Calderon to show “real political will, muscle and budget” in investigating the hundreds of unsolved murders of young women in Ciudad Juarez.

Video: Narcocorridos inspire Mexico City mural

After writing a song for los Tigres Del Norte about the controversial 670-mile fence project along the U.S.-Mexico border, Cristina Rubalcava got to listening to some of the band’s narcocorridos and created a mural that illustrates phrases from them.

Photojournalism show explains 2008 in Mexico

Mexico City’s Museo de la Ciudad is playing host to a photojournalism exhibition — Expofotoperiodismo — that features nearly 50 photos from 2008.

Mexico’s media under scrutiny in documentary

Violence against journalists in Mexico is nothing new but “Voces Silenciadas” broadens the debate around the persecution of journalists to encompass the bigger issues of media ownership and the relationship between the media and Mexico’s political powers.

Mexico’s special prosecutor for crimes against journalists ineffective, reports nonprofit

Freedom of expression advocates in Mexico have issued yet another missive in support of the country’s long-suffering journalistic community.

Carmen Aristegui talks about the reality for journalists in Mexico

February 6 2009 – Carmen Aristegui, one of Mexico’s most prominent journalists, disappeared from the Mexican radio airwaves last year in a cloud of controversy.

As Reed Johnson reported in January 2008, “Aristegui’s departure from W Radio set off a flurry of op-ed commentary in Mexico City newspapers. Several commentators have denounced the incident as an act of censorship and harassment by media and governmental interests.”

Now Aristegui’s back with a new radio news show –- this time on a different network. The journalist, who continued to host her nightly television news show on CNN Español during her radio hiatus, returns to the Mexican airwaves from 6 – 10 every weekday morning on MVS Radio.

Carmen Aristegui habla sobre la realidad en México para los periodistas

Febrero 6 2009 – Para ver la entrevista completa (40 minutos), haz click aquí.

Media advertising campaign targets violence against journalists

A television, radio and print advertising campaign is to launch here in Mexico in an attempt by press freedom groups to raise public awareness about violence against journalists.

45 journalists killed in Mexico since 2000; rights body appeals for end to impunity

Mexico’s National Commission of Human Rights appealed to authorities over the weekend to investigate thoroughly the recent killings of a number of journalists here, and to put an end to the impunity for those who murder members of the profession.

Media non-profit appeals for asylum for journalists escaping Mexico

Reporters Without Borders issued an appeal to the international community today to provide asylum for journalists fleeing Mexican cities such a Ciudad Juarez.

Journalist flees Ciudad Juarez to the U.S

Jorge Luis Aguirre, director of the news website “La Polaka,” has fled Mexico with his family to the United States after receiving death threats in his home city of Ciudad Juárez, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua.

Newspaper offices in Northern Mexico attacked with grenades

Reports are surfacing this morning that the offices of the Culiacán newspaper El Debate were attacked with two grenades early Monday.

Crime reporter shot to death in Ciudad Juarez

Veteran Mexican crime reporter Armando Rodríguez was shot to death yesterday morning while in his car in the border city of Ciudad Juárez.

More than half of Mexicans surveyed suspect foul play in plane crash

November 6 2008 – Mexicans don’t have much faith in the word of their government. The natural reaction of many here in Mexico following a plane crash last week that killed Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mouriño has been suspicion.

Plane crash “an accident”, says Mexico government

November 6 2008 – The Mexico Government maintains that there is no sign of foul play surrounding the plane crash on Tuesday night here in Mexico City that killed interior minister Juan Camilo Mouriño.

Recovering drug addict tells his tale

Rodrigo Sonck realized that he had to do something about his coke habit when he took a beating from drug thugs. We caught up with him at an addiction recovery center in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, where he’d been for a month.

Arrests made in Mexico grenade attack raise questions

The arrests pose as many questions as they provide answers.

Gael Garcia Bernal mocked for essay on Mexico attacks

Gael Garcia Bernal, the Mexican actor and heart throb, has responded to the bombings in the Mexican state of Michoacan last week with a column for the newspaper El Universal.

Morelia: informality characterizes bombing investigation

The most important thing that occurred to me as I’ve perused other media’s coverage, my own, and the scene itself, is how frighteningly informal the attitude of the authorities is to the crime scene itself.

Mexico Bomb Victim Tells His Story

Rafael Bucio, a 30 year old car-parking attendant, was out with his wife and two small children in Morelia, Mexico on Monday night enjoying the Independence celebrations when two grenades went off.

Morelia bomb victim speaks, blood still on the streets

Rafael Bucio was waiting for his mother on the corner of the streets Madero and Quintana Roo in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico Monday night. Behind him, his wife Gloria Alvarez stood in the street with their three-month old child in her arms. They didn’t know that their lives were about to change forever.

“Lots of ambulances and patrol cars started to pass by going to the center – to the cathedral,” explained Bucio Wednesday afternoon from a hospital bed, broken bones in his arm and leg held together by pins. Blood seeped through the bandages onto the white cotton sheet covering the bed.

He was moving closer to his wife, away from the street corner, when he heard a thump.

Morelia: the aftermath.

Yesterday, the public paid their respects at a shrine to the side of the city’s main plaza in Morelia, remembering the seven people killed in Monday night’s bomb attack.

Mexico’s Military Marches as Citizens React to Bombings

Two explosions during Mexican Independence Day celebrations in the western state of Michoacan killed eight people Monday night and injured dozens more, we reported yesterday.

Mexico’s police reform – what do the public think?

What do Mexicans think of their police force?

Mexico’s drug violence is bad for business

The drug violence that continues to sweep across Mexico isn’t only damaging citizen confidence in the country’s government and public security. It also is taking a toll on Mexico’s economy, according to Treasury Secretary Agustin Carstens.

NYT: How the drug war impacts civilians

The New York Times has a great piece online today about how just regular citizens are reacting to the drug war.

Mexicans march for peace

Tens of thousands of people of all social classes and ages marched across Mexico Saturday (August 30th 2008) in protest against high crime levels and rising kidnappings.

Tijuana: Reflections on the Border

“TJ? Really?” was the response from most people last week when they learned I was heading down south of San Diego for a research trip.

They were right to be cautious. I live in Mexico City — one of the biggest, baddest towns around — but still gave Tijuana a second thought. The world’s most famous border city has been getting some bad press of late due to the drug-related violence playing out on its streets.

But what struck me more during my brief trip was the border itself and how it is littered with evidence of its own casualties and conflicts, past and present. The wall is at the center of the current national debate on immigration, and I wanted to see it for myself.

Mexican police in “torture” class?

A story emerged here in Mexico today surrounding the emergence of a couple of videos which apparently depict the Mexican police, in the city of Leon, being instructed in the art of “torture” by an unidentified, English-speaking foreigner.

The videos are posted below – some viewers might find them offensive.

Mexico welcomes Merida, without human rights restrictions

President Calderon on Friday welcomed the U.S. Congress’ approval of the Merida Initiative a day earlier, an aid injection from the United States which is aimed at helping Mexico in its fight against powerful drug cartels.

The bill has dropped a controversial requirement that Mexico meet certain human rights standards in order to receive the aid. Mexicans had objected to the human rights provision, saying that it amounted to outside meddling by the United States in Mexican affairs. But dropping the human rights requirements seems certain to anger numerous opposition groups to the aid package – see this La Plaza post on the issue.

Calderon should accept Merida’s human right conditions?

In anticipation of the scheduled debate around the controversial Merida Initiative aid package in the US Senate this week, the Financial Times newspaper from the UK urges President Felipe Calderon to accept the human rights conditions attached to the US$400 billion injection aimed at helping Mexico fights its drugs barons. But should he?

Latin America promotes but doesn’t respect human rights

Latin American countries such as Brazil and Mexico have been strong on promoting human rights internationally and in supporting the UN human rights machinery during 2007.

But unless the gap between their policies internationally and their performance at home is closed their credibility as human rights champions will be challenged, according to this week’s report from Amnesty International on human rights around the world.

You can access the report here and click on the links at the top for specific country reports.