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Amnesty International said Monday that a newspaper editor whose decapitated body was found over the weekend in the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo appears to have been targeted by a drug gang carrying out a reprisal for her work on social networks. Though no investigation has yet been carried out, a message was found next to the body indicating that she was killed by members of organized crime "in retaliation for the information that the victim had distributed in social networks denouncing the activities of criminals in Nuevo Laredo," the human rights group said in a statement posted on its website.


The decapitated body of Maria Elizabeth Macias, the editor of Primera Hora, a daily newspaper based in Nuevo Laredo in the eastern state of Tamaulipas, was found Saturday morning.
"The message is a clear threat to the users of social networks in the regions of greater violence in Mexico," the Amnesty statement said. It noted that two other people were found in Nuevo Laredo on September 14 along with a message that also indicated they had been killed in retaliation for their social network postings. "These three killings seem to represent an alarming strategy to intimidate social network users so that they will give up communicating information related to the violence."

Macias, 39, was the fourth woman journalist to killed this year in Mexico, Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. "There seems to be no way out of this horror," it said. 'The country is immersed in an all-out war and just writing the word 'narcos' or 'trafficking' can cost you your life. What will be left of freedom of information while the barbarity continues?"

Citing unidentified sources, it said Macias used online social networks to report about organized crime along the border and blogged under the name "La Nena de Nuevo Laredo," which translates as "Nuevo Laredo Girl."


According to Reporters Without Borders, the Tamaulipas state attorney general's office said two computer keys, a music player, several cables and the following message were found near her body:

"Ok Nuevo Laredo live on the social networks, I am La Nena de Laredo and I am here because of my reports and yours ... for those who don't want to believe it, this has happened to me because of my actions, because I trusted SEDENA (the army) and MARINA (the navy)... Thank you for your attention. Att: La Nena de Laredo... zzz"

The Z presumably refers to the Zeta drug cartel.

A spokeswoman for the attorney general's office would not confirm the Reporters Without Borders report.

Earlier this month, attackers left threats mentioning two websites on signs beside mutilated bodies in northern Mexico. A woman had been hogtied and disemboweled and left dangling from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo. A bloodied man next to her was hanging by his hands.

Signs left near the bodies declared the pair, both apparently in their 20s, were killed for posting denouncements of drug cartel activities.

Content credits: CNN - find the original report here...

The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search Tuesday for seven Americans who have been missing since a charter fishing boat sank off the coast of Mexico nine days ago.
"Despite the thorough search of the region by Mexican and U.S. search teams, no signs of the missing men were found," U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Joseph "Pepe" Castillo said in a statement.
Family members said they hoped to raise enough money for a private search effort to find the missing men and wreckage from the boat, which sank in the Sea of Cortez July 3. 2011
Since then, devastated family members and friends have scrambled to get information from officials on both sides of the border and listened to survivors' terrifying accounts of the night the boat capsized.


"It's just a terrible waiting game," said Cathy Lambiase, whose uncle -- Al Mein, 62, of Twain Harte, California -- is among the missing. "I didn't realize all the politics involved to bring them home."
Family members received word from U.S. consular officials Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Defense had denied a request to send deep-sea divers to the scene.

"We are sympathetic to the loss of life, but unfortunately our limited capability for operating at this depth is currently unavailable, and ,will remain unavailable, in the near term," Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Robert Ditchey said in a statement. "It is our assessment that contract support is the only available option to recover the missing U.S. citizens."
But on a "Find our Fathers" Facebook page and a blog created to drum up support for the search, friends and family members continued a campaign aimed at convincing U.S. officials to reverse the decision.

Joseph Jacinto, Mein's stepson, said survivors' stories made it clear to him that his stepfather and several others likely were trapped inside the boat, as it was swallowed by the sea. But family members want divers to search underwater for the wreckage and their loved ones' remains "to have closure," he said.

"It would answer a lot of questions. It would take a lot of tension away," said Jacinto, who drove last week from San Diego, California, to San Felipe, Mexico, where he spent days handing out flyers and searching the waters with the help of local fishermen.
The U.S. Coast Guard said its aircraft searched more than 7,300 miles on 10 missions to the area near where the boat sank.

The Mexican Navy also has "officially suspended active search operations," the Coast Guard's statement said.
The Mexican Navy has not released a statement on the search for more than a week.

At least one American was killed when the boat with more than 40 people aboard sank into rough waters near Isla San Luis, Mexico.
Dozens of passengers and crew members escaped or were rescued. In addition to Mein, authorities say Donald Lee, Russell Bautista, Mark Dorland, Brian Wong, Gene J. Leong and Shawn Chaddock are missing.

"In the starlight, I could see the guys running around and the back end was going under," survivor Gary Hanson told CNN affiliate KRON last week. "They got off the boat and I saw the boat stand up on end ... it stood there, all by itself ... and then it just slipped under the water, just like the Titanic, it just went straight down."

Mein's daughter-in-law, Dena Jacinto, said she planned to continue efforts to lobby U.S. officials for more assistance Wednesday.
She described her father-in-law as "the family's sunshine" and a decorated Vietnam veteran.
"I just feel like we should give him the chance to be found," she said.
Source + Credits: CNN

A 19-year-old woman was arrested for allegedly trying to sneak her husband out of prison in a suitcase, according to authorities in the Mexican Caribbean state of Quintana Roo. According to officials at the prison in the city of Chetumal, the state's capital, the woman identified as Maria del Mar Arjona was caught as she was leaving the prison, pulling a black-wheeled suitcase.

Authorities said that as she was walking up a staircase to leave the prison, Arjona hit the suitcase against the stairs. When something inside the bulky suitcase moved, guards noticed and stopped Arjona, who acted nervously. The guards then looked inside the suitcase and found her husband, Juan Ramirez Tijerina.

Cesar Manuel Castilla, a spokesman for Quintana Roo's Department of Public Safety, says that in any case it would have been extremely difficult for the inmate to escape in the suitcase.

"We have three inspection stations at the prison and he was caught in the first one," Castilla said. "In any case, she would have been asked to open the suitcase for inspection at the third and last inspection station. I don't know what they were thinking."

Pictures of the incident released by Quintana Roo's Department of Public Safety show the man curled up inside the suitcase in a fetal position. He was covering his face when the pictures where taken.

Ramirez is serving a sentence at the Chetumal prison after being convicted of federal drug trafficking charges.

He was immediately returned to his cell while Arjona was detained. She now faces multiple charges stemming from the Saturday incident. According to Castilla, Arjona is six months pregnant. She fell ill after being detained. Charges and a court appearance are pending while she recovers at a state hospital.

Arjona was at the prison for a conjugal visit, Castilla said.

Mexican drug cartels have used cash and sexual favors as tools to corrupt U.S. border and customs agents, an inspector general investigation has found. In exchange, agents allow contraband or unauthorized immigrants through inspection lanes, protect or escort traffickers or leak sensitive information, said Charles Edwards, acting inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security.

Testifying before a Senate subcommittee, Edwards cited the Zetas drug cartel as one of the leaders "involved increasingly in systematic corruption."
He did not elaborate on how non-cash methods of corruption, like sexual favors, have been used to corrupt agents.

Since October 2004, 127 Customs and Border Protection employees have been arrested or indicted for acts of corruption, said agency Commissioner Alan Bersin, speaking at the same hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs.


Mexican President Felipe Calderon's offensive against the drug cartels, combined with a surge in the hiring of border agents in recent years, have multiplied the risks of corruption, Bersin said.

Today, the Border Patrol counts more than 20,700 agents, more than double its size in 2004. Bersin implied that the rapid hiring spree may have come at the cost of hiring less qualified agents.


"The accelerated hiring pace under which we operated between 2006 and 2008 -- and, frankly, mistakes from which we are learning -- exposed critical organizational and individual vulnerabilities within CBP," he said.

To face this challenge, the commissioner touted the passage of the Anti-Border Corruption Act of 2010, which requires that by 2013, all the agency's law enforcement applicants must receive a polygraph test before being hired. It also calls for periodic reinvestigations into the background of its agents.

"I cannot overemphasize that the overwhelming majority of CBP officers and agents demonstrate the highest levels of integrity every day," Bersin said.

Edwards noted that the department inspector general's Office of Investigations has added 10 positions to address corruption complaints among Customs and Border Protection agents. He added, however, that that represented a 6% increase in the size of his staff, compared with a 34% increase in the size of the agency as a whole.

Since 2004, his office has seen a 38% increase in the number of complaints against Customs and Border Protection employees, he said. The inspector general's office initiated a record 870 investigations in fiscal year 2010, he said.

"However," he added, "our investigations are complicated by the brutality the cartels use to control their organizations and coerce witnesses, and the sophistication and advanced technologies available to organizations with unlimited money."

Source: CNN

Mexico police chief Marisol Valles Garcia loses job. A 20-year-old Mexican woman who gained worldwide attention when she took over as police chief last year in a town plagued by drug-related violence has been sacked for abandoning her post. Marisol Valles Garcia was hailed as Mexico's bravest woman in October when she became head of public security in the border town of Praxedis G Guerrero. Last week she was reported to have fled to the US after getting death threats. This has not been confirmed, and her whereabouts are not clear.
Local officials said Ms Valles had asked for time off work to care for her sick baby, but had not returned on Monday as expected. The mayor of Praxedis said attempts to contact her had been unsuccessful, and he would take over direct control of the police force.

Local human rights activists told that Ms Valles and her family had fled to the US after receiving threats. The criminology student attracted headlines around the world in October when she took on the job of head of public security in Praxedis after other possible candidates were reportedly too scared to apply.

At the time, she told the BBC she was accepting the role despite the risks involved because she felt Mexican citizens had a responsibility to try to improve security.
Praxedis is in the Juarez Valley in the northern state of Chihuahua, a battleground for drugs cartels fighting over lucrative smuggling routes across the US border.
Local police and officials in the region have been frequent targets for attack.
The town is close to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's most violent city, where more than 3,000 people were killed in drug-related violence in 2010 alone.
Credits: BBC

Mexico is celebrating the bicentennial of its independence with parties across the country. However, security is high in many regions, with some towns and cities cancelling or cutting back festivities amid fears of drug cartel violence. The celebrations mark the 1810 uprising that paved the way for the end of Spanish rule in 1821.
Wednesday's show of concerts, parades and fireworks in Mexico City is said to be the largest of its kind in Mexico. But correspondents say the run-up to the events has been marred by accusations of overspending, bad planning and security concerns.
Heavily-armed agents carrying metal detectors are being deployed for the capital's celebrations and helicopters will provide added security.
More than 100,000 people are expected at the Mexico City events, guarded by more than 14,000 police officers, including snipers on rooftops.

A 65ft (20m) warrior statue is being erected in the centre of the capital to soar over the revellers.
After the massive parade, the climax of the celebrations will be the traditional "grito" (shout of independence) by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, which will be broadcast across the country from the capital's main square.
The shout is an echo of the battle cry of Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo, who began the 1810 uprising.
Local leaders and Mexican citizens will cry "Viva Mexico!" in response. However, the grito cry by the mayor of Ciudad Juarez will come from behind closed doors.
The city, close to the Texan border, is the centre of the drug-related violence that has left 28,000 people dead in Mexico since 2006.
Guadalupe, east of Ciudad Juarez, has cancelled its celebrations.
Security will also be tight in Morelia, in the president's home state of Michoacan. Eight people were killed in a grenade attack there on Independence Day in 2008. The central square will be largely closed off.

Read more here...

Credits: BBC

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has used the start of a state visit to the US to renew his attack on Arizona's controversial new immigration law.
Mr Calderon said migrant workers were forced to "still live in the shadows and, occasionally, as in Arizona, they even face discrimination".
President Barack Obama emphasized a message of solidarity, saying the US and Mexico would "stand together".
The battle against drugs is also high on the agenda of the state visit.
The Arizona law requires police officers to question people they stop for a "legitimate reason" about their immigration status if the officers have "reasonable suspicion" the person is in the US illegally. It takes effect on 29 July.
Opponents of the law say it will encourage racial profiling of Hispanics, who make up three-quarters of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the US.
Mr Calderon has already criticized the measure as "backward" and issued a travel warning for the US state. He is under pressure from some Mexican lawmakers to cut off commercial ties with Arizona.

Mr Obama has also already been critical of the law, although it had not been expected that he would raise it in discussions with Mr Calderon.
Mr Obama said in a news conference that he had discussed the "misdirected" law with Mr Calderon, and that his administration was "taking a very close look at it", including the civil rights implications.
"No law-abiding person... should ever be subject to suspicion simply because of what they look like," Mr Obama said. He added: "The Arizona law has the potential of being applied in a discriminatory fashion." But he emphasized that he was "sympathetic" to Americans' dissatisfaction with the immigration system.
"The Arizona law expresses some of the frustrations the American people have had in not fixing a broken immigration system."
Both men indicated that border infrastructure would be improved.
Earlier in the day, against a backdrop of US and Mexican flags at the White House, Mr Calderon spoke mostly in Spanish, but finished his speech in English to address the question of whether the two nations could work together by echoing Mr Obama's famous campaign slogan: "Yes we can."
Mr Calderon has praised the US administration for its recognition that many of the guns used in crimes in Mexico come from the US.
Mr Obama acknowledged to reporters that US "demand for drugs helps to drive this public safety crisis in Mexico".
He also said the flow of guns from the US to Mexico must be stopped.
After the talks, the Associated Press news agency drew attention to the sometimes halting translation of Mr Calderon's comments, suggesting a translator from the Mexican delegation was to blame, and noting the official White House transcript did not use this translation.
On Thursday, Mr Calderon will address a joint session of Congress.

One of Spain's top bullfighters, Jose Tomas, has been badly gored during a fight in Mexico, his manager says. The matador was in a serious condition in hospital after losing several litres of blood, manager Salvador Boix said.
He received a 4-inch (10cm) tear to the groin when he was pierced by a 1,100 pound (500kg) bull, Navegante, in Saturday's fight in Aguascalientes.
The injury punctured one of Mr Tomas's veins and an artery and he was operated on immediately at the scene.
The 34-year-old bled so profusely that officials appealed over loudspeakers for compatible donors to come forward from the crowd, Mr Boix told the Spanish radio station Cadena Ser.
Mr Tomas - who has the relatively rare blood type A+ - was then taken to hospital where he underwent surgery for a number of hours, his manager added.
Despite the dangers of their profession, top-level bullfighters are rarely seriously injured in the ring.

This is all about the US economy - what's the connection to Baja and Mexico?? Well, is their not the saying: "If the American economy coughs the Mexican economy has a flu" or such?? Woth all the positive thinking and hopes: does not look so good at all to the editor. Look at the whole picture.... Does a 20% occupation around xmas at one of the main resort areas in Mexico, Loscabos ring a bell?? How long will the living in self denial within the Baja business people continue until they think of plan "B" ??? One is wondering when observing some of the actions that are going on within some industry. Noticeable in the so called 'luxury" real estate industry...
The US Commerce Department said Thursday durable goods orders, excluding transportation, slipped 0.6 percent last month, but overall orders jumped as civilian aircraft bookings surged 126 percent. Separately, the number of people filing initial claims for jobless aid rose for a second straight week last week, topping analysts' expectations, although the figures were likely affected by snowstorms that blanketed parts of the country. "Rising jobless claims and weaker orders suggest the economy is retrenching in the first half of the first quarter," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York. Still, he said the data did not suggest the start of a "double dip" recession. "Some back-and-fill is standard operating procedure in recoveries," Low said.
The weak reports and threats from rating agencies to downgrade Greece's sovereign debt pulled U.S. stocks down. Prices for U.S. government debt soared, while the dollar neared a nine-month high against the euro.
The data, coming in the wake of reports showing a drop in consumer confidence and a plunge in new home sales to a record low in January, supported views economic growth would slow in the first quarter after a brisk 5.7 percent pace in the October-December period.
"The fourth quarter was supported by a swing in inventories. That adds to growth, but it's not something that can be sustained over time," said Andrew Gledhill, an economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
"First quarter (growth) will be more dependent on how the U.S. consumer is doing and what kind of production levels manufacturing is doing. It's more the underlying economy, less the kind of temporary technical factors."
The economy resumed growth in the second half of 2009 after the worst downturn since the 1930s. However, employment is lagging the recovery and weekly jobless claims have failed to hold retreats made since mid-November.
The latest report from the Labor Department Thursday showed first-time filings for state unemployment benefits rose to 496,000 last week from 474,000 a week earlier. An analyst with the department said snowstorms may have kept some workers sidelined and could have delayed the processing of claims, leading to the unexpectedly large spike.
While economists remained optimistic the economy would start to create jobs in the first half of the year, they worried the continued rise in jobless filings could be a sign of a shift in the downward trend that layoffs had displayed. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke also acknowledged the harsh weather could negatively impact employment data, but he said he expected the effects to be temporary.
"We will have to be particularly careful about not over interpreting the data," he told a congressional committee. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, payrolls have dropped every month, except in November last year when employers added 64,000 jobs.
Durable goods orders, excluding transport, were pulled down last month by the biggest decline in a year in orders for machinery. Economists had expected a 1 percent gain. Disappointment was tempered by an upward revision that showed non-transport orders increased 2 percent in December.
In January, motor vehicles and parts orders saw their largest fall in eight months, and a closely watched gauge of business spending dropped 2.9 percent after a 3.3 percent rise in December.
Shipments, which go into the calculation of GDP, slipped 0.2 percent. They rose 2.4 percent in December.
Some analysts drew comfort from gains in some categories, in particular large orders for computers and electronic products, which they said pointed to increased business investment in equipment and software.
"Unfilled orders increased for the first time since September 2008 and inventories did not fall for the first time since December 2008," said Tony Crescenzi, portfolio manager at PIMCO in Newport Beach, California. "In this context these data are not as bearish for the economy as the core data suggest."
Durable goods inventories were flat last month after easing 0.2 percent in December. Unfilled orders rose 0.1 percent, snapping a record 15 straight months of decline.

Interesting reading, in particular when considering the blown out of proportion "lifestyle" area around Loscabos. We all see how the recession did affect that area and the people living and working there. (Yeah, the editor does know: we just see things NOT the right way and without having a vision..... sure...!!) Luxury hotels with $1,000-a-night room rates and extravagant resorts may face a tougher recovery than the rest of the industry. "The most over-the-top excesses will probably be a long time -- if ever-- coming back," Marriott President Arne Sorenson told the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit. He drew a distinction between these hotels and the typical Ritz-Carlton luxury hotels the company operates. Marriott's other brands include its namesake properties and Courtyards. Sorenson added that some projects in the Caribbean, which tend to be smaller and partly rely on residences, "may never come back" because they rely on the kind of lavish spending that has gone out of vogue with travelers. "They require really that conspicuous consumption to support their entire business model," Sorenson told reporters in a telephone interview. Of all hotels, luxury properties were the hardest hit last year. While rates sank nearly 9 percent for the U.S. hotel industry, luxury hotels saw their rates tumble more than 16 percent, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Many hotels across the spectrum have buckled under their debt loads in this downturn, as lower room rates constrain cash flow used to service these payments. The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel indicated last year that it would no longer be able to meet debt service, Fitch Ratings said last month.
Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co, a division of Marriott, will close its Lake Las Vegas property this year. Some distressed properties have bristled against standards set by companies like Marriott. Sorenson said the company is working with some hotels to manage their payments, and has extended the deadline for hotels to put flat-screen television sets in rooms.
"We've also got some one-off owners who just don't have two nickels to rub together," Sorenson said. "If it goes too long or if it is too severe, that is a place where the response is really to pull the flag." Chief Financial Officer Carl Berquist and Sorenson said typically 5,000 rooms leave the Marriott system each year, but this year a few thousand more rooms could be shown the door.
These properties would largely fall in the limited-service category in tertiary markets. In the event that a hotel goes into foreclosure, Marriott has "non-disturbance agreements" on many hotels, which prevents that hotel from leaving its brand, Berquist said.
Widespread distress in the hotel industry, lower rates and tough economic conditions do not mean all luxury hotels will go belly-up, Sorenson said. Some of these hotels will be able to restructure their debt with their lenders. "There's a whole bunch of hotels that are in established destinations, dealing with meaningfully lower rates," Sorenson said. "Over the next number of years (these hotels) are going to see their owners work with their lenders."
Interesting reading for one living at Baja Sur with all of it's Baja luxury.... Read that and the next post and then go back to our post last year about the 'W" of double-dip and build yourself a opinion....

This is a interesting report, however we like too emphasize that the described circumstances in NO WAY reflect conditions at Baja California or the majority of Mexico! Ciudad Juarez, which lies just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, hit perhaps its lowest point in years of violence when suspected drug gang hitmen burst in on a party of high school students in January and killed 15 people, most of them teenagers. Kidnappings and extortion's are also rampant as drug gangs seek extra income, despite a government security crackdown.
"I fled to El Paso when a gang tried to kidnap me last year," said the head of a cross-border trucking firm who declined to be named for safety reasons. "They came for me but I had a change in my schedule so I wasn't home and they kidnapped my neighbor instead," he added.
Once one of Mexico's fastest growing cities, Ciudad Juarez is now blighted with shuttered restaurants and shops. Garbage and unopened mail gathers around the doorways of empty office buildings and once upscale suburbs are devoid of cars.
About a quarter of homes in the city lie empty as residents escape or new houses are left vacant, according to the municipal planning institute. Wealthy and middle class families are heading to safer Mexican cities like Guadalajara and Monterrey, traumatized by the 4,500 drug murders in Ciudad Juarez since violence exploded in early 2008.
At least 30,000 people have moved to El Paso.
Estimates vary on the size of the exodus but academics and Ciudad Juarez officials put it at between 75,000 and 200,000 people since mid-2008. An economic crisis has also hit the city but violence is the main reason for the exodus, city officials say.
Ciudad Juarez, which boomed in the U.S. Prohibition era of the 1920s and until recently attracted Americans seeking cheap medicine, dental care and tequila, is home to U.S.-run plants producing goods ranging from auto-parts for General Motors to surgical masks for Johnson & Johnson.
The factories, attracted to Mexico by lower labor costs, are operating normally. But some U.S. companies are halting investment in Ciudad Juarez because of the violence, said Carlos Chavira, president of a leading local business group.

red the whole report on Reuters.com here...

Travelocity’s most recent poll shows a dramatic increase in travel intentions, indicating traveler confidence is on the rise. Travelocity's second Traveler Confidence Report reveals that nearly half of respondents plan to increase their travel in 2010 as compared to 2009. The Traveler Confidence Report gauges travelers’ plans and attitudes now as compared to six months prior and one year prior. Significantly more respondents (49 percent) plan to increase their travel in the year ahead, compared to 21 percent six months ago and just 10 percent in 2009. Another 44 percent plan to travel "about the same" as compared to last year. The number of travelers planning to decrease travel is down significantly to 7 percent, compared with 34 percent one year ago and 24 percent six months ago.
When asked how lower prices would impact travel plans, 33 percent said they would stay in a higher star-rated hotel; 30 percent said they would take a trip they had not expected to take; and 18 percent said they would extend their stay. The majority of respondents (56 percent) did not have a predetermined travel budget for 2010. Of those with a predetermined travel budget, 34 percent plan to increase that budget. An overwhelming 76 percent of respondents are at least somewhat likely to book a vacation package as a way to save money.
The findings are based on the intentions of more than 2,000 North Americans surveyed by Travelocity and even more let's hope that some of them "good" percent's think of Baja and all the great opportunities here....

As an increasingly violent and costly drugs war clogs up prisons with small-time users, some Latin American countries are abandoning hardline U.S. policies on consumption to intensify the fight against major traffickers. Convinced that the four-decade-old, U.S.-led war on drugs has failed, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and other countries are relaxing penalties for possession and personal use of small amounts of narcotics.
Former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico issued a report last year saying U.S. coca crop eradication efforts in Latin America have merely pushed cultivation areas from one region to the other. "The dominant strategy has been the so-called 'war on drugs.'... This strategy has clearly failed. It must therefore be changed," former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso said during a recent conference in Washington.
Most of the world's cocaine still comes out of the Andean countries of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, even after billions of dollars spent eradicating crops.
In Mexico, the drug war has killed more than 16,000 people since late 2006 when President Felipe Calderon took office and deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to combat ruthless cartels that behead and dismember rivals, and bribe or intimidate police and judges.
Drug violence has also soared in Central America, where street gangs have taken over the trade and in some cases infiltrated political parties. Mexico is the world's biggest producer of marijuana and Paraguay, in the heart of South America, has taken the No. 2 position as demand grows in neighboring Argentina and Brazil.

Rethinking the problem
Brazil and Mexico, the two largest economies in Latin America, are taking the lead in a new approach to individual drug consumers. Brazil has partially decriminalized drug use and in Mexico, carrying small amounts of any drug is no longer a criminal offense.
In Argentina, President Cristina Fernandez is expected to soon send a drug reform bill to Congress that proposes sending users to treatment instead of jail, following on a Supreme Court ruling that made it illegal to prosecute drug consumers.
"The U.S. is retreating from imposing a model," said John Walsh, head of drug policy for the Washington Office on Latin America think tank. "The White House... is going to be taking a more measured approach to talking about drug policy." Even some areas of the United States, the top global drug consumer, are rethinking their approach, with more than a dozen states now allowing marijuana use for medical purposes.

Editors opinion
One has to realize the current US drug policies are costing lives and money and they are not working. Marijuana should be legalized and taxed like alcohol and cigarettes. That will get rid of a significant portion of the problem. For hard drugs, it is time to mount a publicity campaign denouncing users, rich or poor, as murderers. It’s they’re demand that makes the drug business profitable and causes world wide misery.
Put the harsh realities of drug violence on prime time TV. Denounce Hollywood and the pop music industry every time they release "entertainment" that in any way excuses or glamorizes drug use and trafficking. At the same time keep educating our young people and keep busting the bigger players with tough mandatory sentencing including the death penalty. It is appropriate for the murderers that they are.

Nestle, the world's biggest food group, said on Saturday it will invest 5 billion pesos ($390 million) in Mexico over the next three years to increase coffee processing capacity, part of a $1 billion expansion plan. "The majority of these 5 billion pesos will be invested in the Nescafe instant coffee processing plant," Nestle said in a statement, adding that the investment would increase capacity by 40 percent at the factory in Toluca near Mexico City. Mexico, a major world coffee producer, has struggled to improve the quality of its beans in recent years but is positioning itself as a processor of coffee to serve U.S. and European markets. Nestle said it planned to invest $1 billion in Mexico between 2008 and 2012.
Source credits: Reuters.com

If you’re looking for ground zero in America’s longest and deepest recession, El Centro in southern California appears on first glance to fit the bill. The unemployment rate here and for the whole of Imperial County hit 30.1 percent in September, the highest rate in the United States. Locals say there is no denying that El Centro has suffered as a result of the recession and that jobs are more scarce in an area where agriculture is the backbone of the community and forms 25 percent of the local economy.
El Centro city manager Ruben Duran say the jobless numbers don’t tell the full story. Duran points to the fact that back in March 2006 unemployment in Imperial County fell to 12.2 percent and the number of employed people in this county of around 160,000 totaled 54,057.
But when unemployment hit 30.1 percent – well over double the rate in March 2006 — the number of employed workers slid less than 1 percent, to 53,734. City revenue from taxes is only down about 10 percent this year, Duran said, which also does not tally with the sharp rise in the jobless rate. “Yes, there has been hardship and suffering here,” Duran said. “But where did all those extra unemployed people come from if the number of people in work has barely fallen?”
Drive around El Centro, a city of some 48,000, and it does not feel like some of America’s long-suffering communities like Flint, Michigan, where collapsing auto sales amid the recession have led to an unemployment rate of 15.8 percent. Whereas Flint is dealing with shuttered businesses and abandoned homes, relatively few stores have closed in El Centro.
Duran said the key to understanding the local economy and El Centro’s high jobless rate lies just across the border in the city of Mexicali, a city of more than 1 million people. “The border bleeds both ways,” he said. “Many people who live here work in Mexicali. The trouble with the statistics is they stop at the border and don’t take into account the role a major city across the border plays in our economy.”

More than 300 people have been arrested in a series of drug raids targeting a Mexican drug cartel operating in the US, American officials have said. The two-day operation, which involved thousands of police officers in 19 US states, is the latest aimed at the cartel known as La Familia. It was part of Project Coronado, which has led to almost 1,200 arrests over four years, officials said. The US attorney general said the cartel had been dealt a "significant blow". La Familia, which is based in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, has been accused of carrying out bloody attacks on Mexican security forces. Mexico's President Felipe Calderon has deployed more than 45,000 troops to fight drug gangs since he took office in December 2006. However, more than 11,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in that time.
Announcing the arrest of 303 suspected cartel members on Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder described the gang as demonstrating "an incredible level of sophistication and ruthlessness". The Mexican authorities "face a problem of almost unimaginable dimensions", he added. In the course of the two-day crackdown, US police and FBI agents seized $3.4m (£2.05m) in cash, 144 weapons and more than 100 vehicles, as well as stashes of methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. "These are drugs that were headed for our streets, and weapons that often were headed to the streets of Mexico," Mr Holder said.
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Workers have staged protests in several Mexican cities against a government decision to dissolve a state-run energy distribution firm. The powerful Electrical Workers' Union declared a state of emergency after federal police seized the offices of Luz y Fuerza del Centro on Sunday. The government accuses the firm of wasting billions of dollars on inflated salaries and pensions for employees.
Unions have called for larger demonstrations for later in the week. The Mexican government says that spending at the company, which has about 40,000 employees and 25 million customers, was increasingly outpacing sales. The firm faced an "unsustainable financial situation", President Felipe Calderon said.

Bottomless barrel
The union has called for a mass protest in Mexico City on Thursday. Its general secretary, Martin Esparza, said it could attract as many as 100,000 people. However, the main employers' organization, Coparmex, has welcomed the government's decision to take charge. Its president,

Ricardo Gonzalez, described the company as "a bottomless barrel". Mexico is trying to cut public spending to offset falling oil revenues. The Federal Electricity Commission, a state-run utility that provides electricity across the rest of the country, is to provide services to Luz y Fuerza's customers. The firm's costs between 2003 and 2008 were 433bn pesos (£20.6bn; $32.5bn) while its sales were 236bn pesos, the government said. Mr Calderon said the utility company could not continue to be funded without increasing electricity rates or taxes. "That would be unfair particularly when our country is going through tough economic times," he said.

One of the most heated issues in current public debate has been the jail system, mainly because far from being a place of rehabilitation it has been a place of overcrowding, violence and steep public spending both in California and Baja California. With more than 150,000 inmates, the California jail system is maxed out, and the governor is pushing the idea of freeing 40,000 non-violent inmates not only to reduce overcrowding, but also to save the state 1.2 billion dollars a year.
Many of those ex-convicts would soon be deported to Baja California because of their immigration status. Many of them belong to violent jail gangs, are addicted to drugs and, despite their immigration status, have never been to Mexico in their adult lives.

The prospect of such deportations has worried residents and authorities alike, because the mass deportation of inmates comes at a critical time where the Baja Penitentiary system is 35 percent overcrowded, arrests are up and a major legal system overhaul is scheduled for the beginning of 2010.
“This decision of liberating inmates in California will definitely have an impact in the public safety conditions along the border, where we already have a very complex scenario,” said Baja California Attorney General, Rommel Moreno Manjarrez.
His California counterpart, Jerry Brown, acknowledged that the deportation of ex-convicts could impact security in both sides of the border, and agreed to work with Rommel to create a plan to mitigate the impact. The plan includes working together in a system to share information about deportations and inmates, including a fingerprint database for future reference. Read more here...

The storm has been tearing off roofs, knocking down power poles and bringing welcome rainfall to the drought-stricken state Wednesday. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says the center of the storm made landfall between Puerto San Andresito and San Jaunico during the past few hours. Winds have fallen from Tuesday's roaring 150 mph (240 kph) Category 4 blasts.
The Hurricane Center says the storm is expected to weaken more as it runs up the Baja peninsula, which is home to about 3.5 million people. That includes more than 150,000 U.S. citizens.
The picturesque beach resorts of Los Cabos were mostly spared overnight, when the roaring hurricane toppled signs, choked streets with mud and knocked out power, but did little serious damage. No injuries were reported. Winds fell from Tuesday's roaring 150 mph (240 kph) Category 4 blasts to 90 mph (145 kph), making Jimena a Category 1 storm. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said it was expected to weaken further as it runs up the Baja peninsula, which is home to about 3.5 million people, including more than 150,000 U.S. citizens, according to the U.S. State Department. As of late morning, Jimena's center was just southwest of Puerto San Andresito, according to the center.
Winds damaged some homes in the small farming city of Ciudad Constitucion, Baja California Sur Gov. Narciso Agundez told the Cabo Mil radio station.
In Los Cabos, Ariel Rivero, 49, a fishing boat captain who grew up in Long Beach, California, and moved here 30 years ago, surveyed the marina where his boat, the Great Escape, was undamaged.
"We really lucked out," Rivero said. "If it had hit Cabo head on, this place would have been a disaster," he said of the hundreds of tightly packed boats, some worth millions, and the surrounding resort hotels now basking in the calm.
"All those windows would have blown out, (boat) cleats breaking, antennas breaking ... it would have been a disaster," Rivero said.
"Everyone is kind of breathing a sigh of relief," said Shari Bondy, who rents homes and runs a campground with her family in the remote coastal fishing village of Bahia Asuncion, halfway up the peninsula from Los Cabos.
With the weakening storm expected to arrive there Thursday night, she said "everything is still all boarded up, roofs are tied down, everything is ready, but right now we have blue skies."
In the town of Mulege, midway up Baja's east coast, tour operator Salvador Castro Drew said locals are keeping a close watch on a flood-prone river. "We have some rain and some wind right now," he said, "but what we're worried about is when the rain comes down from the mountains."
Baja California Sur state Interior Secretary Luis Armando Diaz said he was still worried about the storm's strike along the coast further north, but he said Jimena could alleviate the state's drought. "If it continues like this, and there is not a major impact, it will help more than it will hurt," he said.
Forecasters predicted the hurricane would drop 5 to 10 inches (12 to 25 centimeters) of rain onto arid Baja deserts, and dry stream beds already were gushing torrents.
But Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said Jimena would not bring much-needed rain to quench Southern California's wildfires, and will instead head back over the Pacific Ocean.

Mexico's tourism sector has weathered fierce hurricanes and raging drug gang battles, but the H1N1 outbreak could spur the biggest collapse in international visits in decades. Tourism Minister Rodolfo Elizondo says it could take until December for the flow of foreign tourists to recover, wiping out the key summer season when millions of Americans and Europeans traditionally escape to Mexican beaches. "The summer for foreign tourism is obviously lost," said Miguel Torruco, head of the National Tourism Confederation, or CNT, which represents small- and medium-sized companies.

Mexico is considered the epicenter of a flu outbreak that has spread to dozens of countries. Initial cases were linked to visits to Mexico, one of the world's top 10 destinations. The drop in tourism will be sorely felt as a drop in U.S. demand for Mexican manufactured goods has pushed Mexico into its most severe recession since a 1995 financial crisis. Tourism is one of Mexico's top sources of foreign currency, accounting for about 8 percent of the economy. The sector employs about 2 million people across the country. As the government moved to shut down much of public life in late April and early May, foreign tourists rushed to leave and international flights into Mexico arrived almost empty.

But tourism woes look set to last long enough to dent an economy already seen shrinking around 5 percent this year. Elizondo has estimated revenue from foreign tourists could drop by nearly a third this year, costing the industry some $4 billion -- the biggest drop on record, according to government data going back to 1980. The government has offered more than $2 billion in tax breaks and financing to businesses hit by the flu crisis. But the CNET's Amerigo said that without more drastic support measures, some 300,000 jobs could be lost this year.

"Tourist destinations are safe in Mexico," Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said recently. "People can come back with peace of mind because we are monitoring this very intensely." The CNT's Torruco says Mexico has to put money behind that message. "We have to start preparing a campaign to reposition the tourism sector and the image of Mexico abroad that will require unprecedented resources," he said.

Analysis by Michael O'Boyle and Jason Lange - Thomson Reuters