Mexican health officials issue cholera alert for Hidalgo

"Given the natural disasters we've undergone recently, a cholera outbreak is a considerable risk"

*Updated Oct. 20*
Guadalajara -
Mexico's Secretary of Health has issued a cholera warning for the east central state of Hidalgo. The alert was published Thursday, Sept. 26.

Mexican Supreme Court establishes U.S. style property division rules in divorce cases

Diaper changing and floor mopping are just as valuable as a desk job

Guadalajara -
Mexico's Supreme Judicial Court ruled this week that in divorce litigation, a woman who never worked outside the home is nonetheless entitled to as much as 50% of the marital estate.

The judicial ministers recognized that household duties and the care of minor children have the same economic value as any other form of employment. The decision upheld a Federal District statute, passed Oct. 3, 2008, against a legal challenge filed by a man who contended that the law applied only to marital property acquired after that date. The court rejected the man's claim that by applying the statute to property acquired before its enactment, the constitutional rule against retroactive legislation would be violated.

Credit Suisse: storms will further reduce Mexican growth

Ingrid and Manuel left huge destruction in their wake - and the government a tab for $3 billion dollars

Guadalajara -
Zurich based financial services company Credit Suisse Group AG has reduced its projection for Mexico's 2013 economic growth from 1.3% to 1.1% as a result of two powerful storms which struck the country earlier this month, killing almost 150 people and causing billions of dollars in damage. Infrastructure repairs will likely take several years, and will place an added fiscal burden on state and federal governments which already find themselves in the economic ropes.

Soldiers kidnapped near Guadalajara

Covert mission wasn't covert enough

Guadalajara -
Four soldiers assigned to undercover duties were kidnapped late last night in the municipality of Magdalena, northwest of Guadalajara, a national news source reported early today.

The kidnappers seized the soldiers and spirited them away in a taxi, according to witnesses in the area. A municipality is the equivalent of a U.S. county. Magdalena's county seat is a town of the same name, and is home to over 20,000 people.

Officials of Mexico's department of defense have requested assistance from federal, state and local authorities.

"Peña Nieto completely under the control of Obama," says MORENA official during Guadalajara recruitment

MGR video report -
The far left National Regeneration Movement looks for new members in Jalisco, but finds few

Jalisco prosecutor announces arrest of gang members involved in bar attacks which killed American citizen

Dirty cops linked to gang violence

Guadalajara -
On March 31, U.S. national Jeff Lydell Comer, 45, was killed during coordinated assaults on two Guadalajara bars located a few miles apart. The Easter Sunday evening attacks left eight persons dead and many others injured. The bars had common ownership. Toll in Guadalajara bar attacks rises to eight.

Two weeks later, facilities belonging to Mural, a metropolitan daily, were the subject of an early morning explosive device attack. No one was injured. Guadalajara newspaper hit by grenade attack.

Narco violence leaves 10 dead after a baseball game in Ciudad Juárez

Execution gang which murdered two U.S. nationals in March 2010 may have carried out these killings

Guadalajara -
Over the past year officials in Ciudad Juárez, just across the border from El Paso, have been proudly pointing out that drug war homicides are dropping precipitously. But all is far from well in the city of 1.5 million, which is a major trafficking route to the enormously lucrative U.S. market (Mexican drug cartels operate in 1,286 U.S. cities).

Armed and masked gunmen carrying cuernos de chivo, or "goat horns" - a nickname for the the ubiquitous AK-47 - attacked family members celebrating a baseball victory about 9:00 p.m. Sunday evening, killing 10 of them, the Chihuahua state prosecutor has announced. Among the dead were a seven year old girl and two women. At least three other persons were wounded but survived. The victims included several adolescents.

Energy reform debate opens in Mexican Senate, with grave warnings of "foreign takeover" of PEMEX

"We're facing the grave reality that the foreign petroleum producers which were expropriated in 1938 - now with new names - may return to manage the industry, and to decide who will be the long term beneficiaries of Mexico's vast hydrocarbon deposits" - Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, today in Mexico City

Guadalajara -
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the 79 year old son of the man who seized foreign oil company assets and nationalized Mexico's petroleum industry three quarters of a century ago, today told a legislative committee in Mexico City that "call them whatever you want to call them, but the administration's energy reform proposals are a privatization plan."

The committee began public hearings this morning on a proposal by the 10 month old Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) administration of president Enrique Peña Nieto to amend articles 27 and 28 of the federal constitution, which grant the government a strict monopoly in the hydrocarbon industry.

Andrés Manuel's vision for Mexico

MGR's view

"The fix is in" on energy reform, says AMLO: new laws "designed for foreign business" will be passed Oct. 15

"Energy reform has been designed for the sole benefit of huge foreign enterprises, for which our last several presidents have been nothing more than puppets" - MORENA leader Manuel López Obrador

Guadalajara -
Leftist politician Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who hopes to lead a massive demonstration in Mexico City tomorrow against pending constitutional amendments which would open the state controlled oil company PEMEX to private investment, complained today that the new laws have already been approved behind the scenes, and will be officially passed Oct. 15.

Joe Biden makes things just a little harder for EPN

The Veep's Spanish is not so good, but he's happy to be here anyway

Guadalajara -
You have to wonder who plans (and times) the visits of foreign leaders.

Without energy reform, Mexico will need more than half a century to reach U.S. output

Guadalajara -
Mexico has plenty of oil and gas, but most of it is laying in the ground unexploited, making the country a net importer of natural gas. That was the conclusion in this McClatchy news service report filed two days ago.

Without the prompt enactment of energy reforms, it will take Mexico at least 60 years to reach U.S. production levels, the head of the country's department of energy noted this week. "By then it will be too late," said secretary Pedro Joaquín Coldwell.

Mexico's Left determined to shackle the nation to the past

MGR Opinion -
Hogtied to history, and on the wrong side of it

Guadalajara -
Leftist movements have frequently been on the right side of history. "Right" in the sense that they supported egalitarian principles, advocated the toppling of anachronistic regimes or systems which held power by might rather than by right, and championed the cause of the least powerful in society.

Mexico is in full recession, say business executives, with major pension and social service funds "broke"

Mexico battered by Ingrid, Manuel and a national economy in free fall

Guadalajara -
The Mexican Institute of Financial Executives (IMEF) has joined in the gloomy assessment of Mexico's struggling economy, predicting that growth in 2013 will be but a paltry 1.5%. Earlier this year IMEF estimated that the economy would expand a respectable 2.7%. But officials of the organization have significantly revised their forecast, noting that the country is "already in a recession."

Canada tightens predator laws aimed at sex tourism

Retired Canadian who victimized many Cuban children provided the legislative impetus

Guadalajara -
Canada says it will update its criminal laws to protect foreign children from Canadian sexual predators, by opening up databases containing detailed information on offenders who present a high risk of pedophilic behavior

The announcement, reported in Toronto and redacted by the Latin press, follows last summer's conviction of notorious Toronto predator James McTurk, who became the first Canadian to be convicted of committing sex crimes against Cuban children while vacationing there.