All Entries in the "military" 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.

In Mexico, Outgunned and Underpaid

For those of you who read the account of my trip to the Yucatan and my experiences with Mexico’s military checkpoints, I thought that you might find this op-ed column in the New York Times of related interest.
Written by Kelly M. Phillips, a petty officer third class in the United States Coast Guard, it tells [...]

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.

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

Video: Training Day

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.

Video: Mexican journalists put through their survival paces

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

Video: 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.

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 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: 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.

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.

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

What do Mexicans think of their police force?

Video: Raising of the flag

Following last week’s filming session in the Zócalo, where I was denied the chance to film closeup to the military whilst they were raising the ntaional flag, I managed to edit the move into a decent summary of the ritual.

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.

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.

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.

Mexico still deadliest country in the Americas for journalists, says RWB

Mexico remains the deadliest country in the Americas for journalists with two murders in less than a month, and three disappearances, according to today’s annual report from Reporters Without Borders. Three journalists were murdered last year, and three media workers were shot dead.

Those levels are an improvement on 2006, when nine journalists were killed, but 2008 is looking grim if the stats are to be believed. As many journalists were killed last week than in the whole of last year.

Violence against journalists surged this week

The developments in the Lydia Cacho case and her revelations yesterday come in a week when violence against journalists surged again. Last year four reporters were murdered and three disappeared, and 2008 is promising to be as equally violent for members of the profession.

Drug-cartels kill journalists, says CPJ. But what about the Government?

Drug-fuelled violence against the press in Mexico is spreading. A report released yesterday by the Committee to Protect Journalists says more journalists are being killed or persecuted whilst covering the drug trade and the powerful Gulf and Sinaloa cartels in the country.
But the research from the NGO fails to address the high levels of violence [...]

Brad Will shot at close range, says investigation

Brad Will was shot by an assailant (s) just 50 centimeters away, and not from a distance of 30 meters as originally thought, according to the latest findings of the investigation of the Attorney General on the case in Mexico.

Results from the investigation into the death of the American IndyMedia journalist, shot dead in Oaxaca just over a year ago, suggest that he could have been killed by fellow protesters or members of the People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), as well as government agents or infiltrators, according to newspaper reports in Mexico last week.

‘Mexican Government is main perpetrator of violence against journalists in Mexico’, says human rights expert

‘The Mexican Government is one of the main perpetrators of violence against journalists in the country and complicit in its continuance,’ according to one of the country’s leading freedom of expression organisations.

MexicoReporter: What does the Tlatelolco Massacre mean today?

MexicoReporter interviewed Salvador Martinez dela Roca, a student leader at the time of the Tlateloloco Massacre, about his thoughts on what the tradegy means today and why people march.Watch the film below, and click here for more on Tlatelolco:

Video: Mexico City’s Military March, Independence Weekend

Mexico City’s Military March – Independence Weekend

Mexico City’s Independence Celebrations Pass Peacefully

Mexico celebrated the anniversary of its independence this weekend. It was the first time that Felipe Calderon, the country’s current president, oversaw the celebrations since he took office in December last year following controversial elections.

Observers said that the military presence surrounding the annual event was much higher than past years, and the volume of the music being played by the enormous speakers around the square was painful to the ears.

Mexico City’s military out in force for this weekend’s Independence Celebrations

Stalls and celebrations in Mexico City’s Zocalo. The country is preparing to celebrate its Independence Day. This will be the first Independence Day to be presided over by the country’s current president Felipe Calderon, who took office in December last year following controversial elections.

Conversation with a Nationalist Socialist in Mexico City

La Lagunilla, one of the biggest markets in Mexico City, is a boiling mass of furniture, cheap jeans, cameras, shoes, tacos, antique fur coats, old photographs, contemporary art, beer stalls, BBQs and practically anything else that you can think of. Whilst ambling through the hundreds of stalls that spring up each weekend at the market, NewCorrespondent stumbled upon a number of stalls selling paraphernalia from the Second World War.

Not only was the store selling original and replica objects that are testament to one of the most horrific chapters in European history, but the store’s owner claimed to be a Nationalist Socialist himself.