All Entries in the "Felipe Calderon" Category
Majority of Mexicans think life would be better in the U.S., survey finds
Most Mexicans think their lives would be better in the United States, and one in three said they’d move to the U.S. if they could, according to the latest findings on Mexican attitudes from the Pew Global Attitudes Project.
On the road with Mexico’s young military
It was disconcerting to see the age of the soldiers executing Calderon’s stop and search policy.
Money from Mexican migrants to Mexico continues to fall
The money that Mexicans living abroad send home to their families here in Mexico fell again in May, in what the Associated Press calls the biggest monthly decline on record.
“Money sent home by Mexicans working abroad fell by 19.9 percent in May, the biggest monthly decline on record as the U.S. recession slashed jobs.
“Remittances [...]
Foreign ramifications of local drug wars
It’s not often you see something in the press that makes you think, Yes! I KNOW! But sometimes it happens, and there were two pieces in the media this morning that gave me that sense.
The first was this column in the Guardian by George Monbiot, who came back to an issue we touched on here [...]
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
Hospitals are my new Mexico City hangout
Over the course of the last three days I have been to five hospitals. I was expecting to find lines of people, all of them coughing into their government-issued face masks, winding around the block. Not so.
Swine flu doesn’t deter art fans in Mexico City
I at least expected to see fashionable versions of the blue face masks being combined with the latest clothes labels, but it wasn’t so.
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.
Journalists profile conservative activist
It turned out to be an unusual book launch. Scheduled to begin at 5pm yesterday afternoon in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, the authors were to present their profile of Mexico’s most prominent Catholic fundamentalist and anti-abortion campaigner.
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
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
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.
Mexico memory march turns violent
Thousands of Mexicans took to the streets yesterday to demand justice for the victims of a mass-killing by Government troops on the night of October 2nd forty years ago. But the protests in Mexico City had a bitter end.
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.
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.
Video: Mexico’s Military Marches as Citizens React to Yesterday’s 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.
Kidnappings in Mexico up by 9 percent
The number of kidnappings in Mexico grew by 9.1 percent in the first five months of the year, according to figures published this week.
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?
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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.
No. 2 police officer gunned down in Juarez: police death count rising
The attacks on police officers, detailed here, continued over the weekend.
The No. 2 police officer in this border city across from El Paso was shot to death Saturday, the latest high-ranking official killed in an onslaught of attacks blamed on gangs resisting a crackdown on drug trafficking. Associated Press.
Mexico: Impunity and Collusion
Threats to reporters from government and criminals are making investigative journalism impossible, writes Deborah Bonello
In February this year, the car of Mexican journalist Estrada Zamora was found empty on the side of the road in the southern state of Michoacán with its engine running. Zamora was not inside and has not been seen since.
Click on the link above to read the full article, published today by Index on Censorship.
‘Innocent until proven guilty’ to underlie Mexican justice system
Sweeping overhauls to Mexico’s criminal trial system announced last week could bring the country into the modern world, according to the Financial Times. People suspected of crimes will be presumed innocent until proved guilty, according to the reforms backed by President Felipe Calderon.
‘For the first time – and assuming that a majority of the country’s 31 local legislatures approves the constitutional change – defendants will be presumed innocent until proved guilty. Trials will become open and more transparent, with judges and lawyers having to work in public and under the scrutiny of the media.’
amnesty.gifBut according to human rights groups, some of the elements of the reforms threaten to undermine human rights by allowing prosecutors to enforce house-arrest on suspects or to put suspects in jail before they’re charged.
Alberto Herrera, executive director of , said: “We want the judicial system to be efficient but this can mean permission to violate human rights.”
Ethical living? Stop taking cocaine
There is a great Leader in this Sunday’s Observer which makes a point I’ve often debated – how cocaine takers in Britain and the US, which provide the demand for the illegal drug industries in Latin America, tend not to think too hard about the impact their weekend drug habits might be having on other people.
If they did, given the trend for ethical shopping that is sweeping the Western World, demand would surely drop.
Rights group attacks impunity in Mexico
The limited attempts of the Mexican Government to tackle the high levels of violence against journalists testifies ‘to the inability or unwillingness of the Mexican authorities to make the fight against impunity,’ according to Article19, the freedom of expression NGO.
Dr. Agnes Callamard, executive director of the group, said in a statement that the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for violence against journalists is ‘one of the most alarming characteristics of the overall human rights situation in Mexico’.
Mexico is still the deadliest country in the Americas for journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Supreme Court Judges Were Bribed, says Cacho
The Supreme Court judges who voted that the rights of Lydia Cacho were not violated enough when she was arrested, detained and tortured by Puebla’s police under the orders of Governor Mario Marin were paid off by Marin’s lawyers, according to the journalist.
Cacho made the accusation, which if true promises to scandalize Mexico’s Supreme Court, in a conference last night during which she launched her new book ‘Memorias de una infamia’.
In her latest publication, Cacho documents her maltreatment at the hands of Marin, local businessmen Kamel Nacif, Jean Succar Kuri and other Mexicans that she implicated in a pedophile ring in Cancun in her book, ‘Demonios del Eden’.
President Calderon: Cacho Case ‘Not a Political Compromise’
Writers, journalists and non-governmental organisations have called the Supreme Court’s decision at the end of last week a ‘disgrace’. The Court ruled that the rights of journalist Lydia Cacho’s had not been sufficiently violated to warrant legal action against Puebla State Governor Mario Marin.
In a show of solidarity for the journalist, twenty of the country’s writers signed a brief declaration in Guadalajara over the weekend that says that the Supreme Court’s decision last week not to investigate the alleged human rights abuses against Cacho has disgraced the country, according to reports in today’s newspapers.
In addition, a number of the country’s NGOs that work in issues of press freedom and freedom of expression today issued a statement saying that the Supreme Court decision violates human rights.
