Are 1,555 drug war deaths a month encouraging?

MGR's view - Spin doctoring works well in any language

President Enrique Peña Nieto, today in Mexico City:

Mexican Supreme Court overturns release of Guadalajara drug lord convicted of murdering U.S. DEA agent

Guadalajara -
Mexico's Supreme Judicial Court today vacated a lower court ruling which freed former Guadalajara Cartel boss Rafael Caro Quintero in August.

The drug lord was convicted more than a quarter century ago of the torture and murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena Salazar at a Guadalajara safe house in February 1985. State Dept. puts $5 million bounty on DEA agent killer.

LAN Airlines: The carrier of choice for drug smugglers?

Travelers' alert

Guadalajara -
LAN Airlines S.A. is a consortium of South American Airlines based in Santiago, Chile which form part of LATAM Airlines Group, Latin America's largest airline holding company. LAN is the Chilean flag carrier, the predominant airline in Perú and Ecuador and the second largest carrier in Argentina and Colombia through its local affiliates. It also appears to have become very popular with determined narcotics traffickers, who never give up looking for ways to move their products in international commerce. Innocent travelers are often the unwitting mules, and the consequences can be severe.

State Dept. puts $5 million bounty on DEA agent killer

*Updated June 12, 2014*
Guadalajara -
The U.S. Dept. of State today announced a $5 million dollar award for information leading to the arrest and conviction of former Guadalajara Cartel boss Rafael Caro Quintero, a convicted killer who was liberated on a legal technicality three months ago.

Caro Quintero was released from a Jalisco prison last August, after serving 28 years of a 40 year sentence for the brutal torture and execution of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operative in February 1985. Agent Enrique Camarena Salazar was 37 when he was murdered at a cartel safe house. He was kidnapped in broad dalylight two blocks from the U.S. consulate in Guadalajara, and carried off by corrupt police officers on the payroll of the long defunct cartel. The death house on Lope de Vega.

Forbes praises Peña Nieto's "courageous" energy policy

Guadalajara -
Forbes magazine has praised the "courageous" energy reform proposals of Institutional Revolutionary Party president Enrique Peña Nieto, maintaining they constitute the "most significant change in Mexico’s economic policy in 100 years."

Forbes called the PRI president, who completes his first year in office on Dec. 1, the leader of a Mexican "oil revolution."

Mexico forgives $341 million USD in Cuban bank debt

In a separate statement the island government denies a move towards capitalism

Guadalajara -
Mexican internal revenue and budget planning secretary Luis Videgaray, a key member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party administration of president Enrique Peña Nieto, has announced that his country will forgive 70% of the $487 million dollars Cuba owes to the Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior (Bancomext) under a 15 year old loan agreement.

Videgaray is secretary of the powerful Hacienda y Crédito Público, which manages the nation's financial life.

In a press interview yesterday the secretary said that Cuba has agreed to retire the remaining 30% of the debt over a 10 year period.

Same sex civil unions now approved in Jalisco - but they won't be called marriage

*Nov. 4 - updated content*
Guadalajara -
Despite stiff opposition from center right National Action Party (PAN) deputies, coupled with critical comments and dire warnings by the influential Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Guadalajara, the Jalisco legislature today passed the state's first same sex civil union law.

The vote was 20 to 15, with a single abstention. The bill was introduced six months ago by a deputy of the left wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD)

Today's debate on the legislation lasted more than three hours. In the end the measure was carried by a coalition of center left Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) representatives and far left PRD delegates. PAN was solidly opposed to the bill, with every deputy present voting against it. Only one PRI legislator broke ranks with his party and joined the PAN block.

Teachers return to Guadalajara streets in large numbers, protesting alleged education privatization

The heroes of Mexico (top row) gave their lives for the country. But two who sold it out, according to some teachers, are former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) and Enrique Peña Nieto.

Guadalajara -
On the same day that president Enrique Peña Nieto and his secretary of education Emilio Chuayffet traveled to three Mexican states to deliver tens of thousands of computers to elementary and high school students, several thousand Jalisco teachers shut down major thoroughfares in Guadalajara yesterday afternoon, protesting what they say is a plan to completely privatize education nationwide.

Halloween, Mexican style

Entries in the Day of the Dead artists' competition, Guadalajara

United Nations again condemns U.S. embargo of Cuba

For the 22nd consecutive year a human rights motion carries easily, but will have no practical result

Guadalajara -
Every year for more than two decades, the United Nations General Assembly has condemned the United States' sweeping economic embargo against Cuba, which was imposed during the administration of president John F. Kennedy (Cuban embargo is 50 - Feb. 7, 2012).

Today it did so once again by an overwhelming vote of 188-2, with three abstentions. The measure is taken up annually on the motion of Cuba. Last year the vote was 188-3, and in 2011, 186-2. The United States casts one of the two or three negative votes, with Israel typically another dissenter, as it was this year.

Cartel attacks power plants, gasoline stations in violent Michoacán, using homemade bombs

Los Templarios focus on infrastructure systems and widespread terrorism

Guadalajara -
Drug traffickers attacked 18 electricity substations and at least six gasoline stations in the western Pacific coast state of Michoacán over the weekend, officials in the capital city of Morelia reported Sunday.

Government sources attributed the assault to the Los Caballeros Templarios drug cartel, which was formed in December 2010 when another organized crime group, La Familia Michoacana, disintegrated. The attack was carried out with automatic weapons and what one law enforcement official called "artisanal bombs."

Now well established, the Templarios control many parts of Michoacán. But they do not enjoy absolute dominion. Powerful organized crime groups from neighboring states, especially Jalisco, are staking their own claims to lucrative drug trafficking routes and a share of the plaza, which has led to a sharp increase in violence in the region since PRI president Enrique Peña Nieto took office on Dec. 1. Jalisco-Michoacán violence claims 28.

Drug war deaths on Enrique Peña Nieto's watch: 15,552

Homicide stats in PRI's first 10 months on the job make previous PAN administration's look modest

Guadalajara -
Mexico's Ministry of Public Security reported today that from Dec. 1, 2012 through Sept. 30, 2013, the nation recorded 15,552 homicides connected to organized crime violence and the 82 month old drug war - an average of 1,555 per month since president Enrique Peña Nieto took office with a promise to quell violence within 100 days.

In September alone there were 1,478 such deaths.

On Aug. 31 the same federal agency reported an almost identical murder rate since the new Institutional Revolutionary Party government was sworn in late last year. Mexico admits 52 daily drug war deaths in Peña Nieto administration - 12,598 through July 31.

U.S. DEA gets its wings clipped in Mexico

Guadalajara -
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has reduced the number of agents working in Mexico after officials in the government of president Enrique Peña Nieto changed the rules for intelligence sharing with their American counterparts, according to claims by several national security cabinet members of the 11 month old PRI administration.

Nor do DEA agents have the same free access to information in ongoing criminal investigations in this country which they had under the previous PAN government of former president Felipe Calderón.

Mexico losing patience with U.S. spying on its leaders

And more juicy tidbits are on the way, promises journalist Glenn Greenwald

Guadalajara -
Mexican secretary of government Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong may have been conspicuously ignored by his boss at a security conference last week, but today president Enrique Peña Nieto placed him at the top of the batting lineup to deal with the latest revelations of National Security Agency spying on world leaders, especially Mexico's.

Sen. McCain demands answers on release of former Guadalajara Cartel boss who murdered U.S. DEA agent

The senator may be distressed when someone explains to him how Mexican criminal justice works

Guadalajara -
It's been more than two months since a federal appellate court in Jalisco state ordered the midnight release of Rafael Caro Quintero, the 60 year old former boss of the long defunct Guadalajara Cartel who, according to law enforcement officials, was once worth a half billion dollars.

Caro Quintero was convicted of several murders, including that of U.S. Drug Enforcement Agent Enrique Camarena Salazar at a cartel safe house in Guadalajara in February 1985. He spent 28 years in prison, but a panel of Mexican judges eventually sided with the arguments of well heeled criminal defense attorneys and ordered his immediate release, finding that his murder prosecution should have been brought in state rather than federal court.The death house on Lope de Vega.