Apr 6, 2012

Week's Top Articles Mar. 30- Apr. 6, 2012

Drug War and Rule of Law News

Intolerance in Chiapas and Oaxaca
La Jornada: (Original translation) It is not a new issue, but its resurgence is worrying. Cases of religious intolerance against evangelicals are occurring once again in Chiapas and Oaxaca, states with the highest portion of indigenous populations. Their persecutors are political and religious authorities. This is a dangerous partnership, because they do not value the freedom of belief and worship enacted by Benito Juárez, and indigenous man, on December 4, 1860. read more

Mexican gang member sentenced to life in U.S. prison for murders
Reuters: " A senior member of a Mexican drug cartel was sentenced to life in prison in a U.S. court on Thursday after authorities implicated him in more than 1,500 murders, including the 2010 execution of a U.S. consulate employee in northern Mexico. read more

Mexico extradites alleged cocaine kingpin to New York
Reuters: "Jesus Zambada, 50, alias "The King," was taken from a top security prison in the border city of Matamoros and put on a plane to New York, where he has been indicted in a federal court in Brooklyn, Mexican officials said Wednesday. read more

US judge denies immunity claim for top lieutenant in Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel
The Washington Post: "A Chicago federal judge issued a ruling Thursday denying a sensational claim by an admitted Mexican cartel lieutenant imprisoned in Michigan that the U.S. government granted him blanket immunity that gave him carte blanche to smuggle cocaine over the border. read more


Is Mexico's Drug War Worth The Cost?
 NPR: "President Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon Monday, and praised him for his courage to stand up to his country's drug cartels. But former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda tells host Michel Martin that his country's president has produced few results from a deadly war that has killed nearly 50,000 people." read and listen to more

Mexico casino fire mastermind killed in gunfight
 CBC News: "One of the masterminds behind an arson attack on a Mexican casino that killed 52 people last year was killed in a gunbattle with soldiers Wednesday.Suspect Franisco Medina Mejia was among the four gunmen killed during the confrontation on a highway near the border city of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, the Defence Department said in a statement." read more

Citizens of Juárez demand social support and security from the next federal government
CNN Mexico (translation Americas Program) Activity in Ciudad Juárez, in the state of Chihuahua, began to reawaken a few months ago, but crime continues to affect business, slowing job creation and making it difficult for people to live a peaceful daily existence, according to local residents. read more

Mexico Asks United States to Ban Assault Weapons to Stem Drug War Violence
Fox News Latino: "U.S. President Barack Obama, Mexico's Felipe Calderón and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday concluded a summit that highlighted their commitment to greater cooperation on security and economic advancement in North America. read more

Obama: Mexico pays a “heavy price” from narcotrafficking
El Universal (translation Americas Program) US President Barack Obama said that Mexico is paying a high price for the war waged against organized crime and drug trafficking waged by the government of Felipe Calderón. “Mexico has paid a heavy price,” assured Obama. read more

War on drugs takes center stage as Calderon meets with Obama
LA Times: The unchecked scourge of drug violence in Mexico and that country's campaign to hobble the cartels is expected to overshadow economic discussions when Mexican President Felipe Calderon visits the White House today.read more


Mexican Presidential Election
López Obrador calls for reconciliation with EZLN to move the country forward
 La Jornada: From the Plaza de la Paz, Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador called on the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional), or EZLN, for reconciliation in order to move Chiapas and the country forward. “I extend my hand in a sign of respect, in admiration, for those who fight for justice.” read more

A Wary Mexico Sizes Up Contenders for the Presidency
NY Times: Mexico’s presidential campaign has begun, and the disdain seeping from these common descriptions of the three main candidates reflects what experts say are low expectations. Mexican voters, polls show, have been losing faith in democracy as their nation teeters between modern success and violent failure. Whoever wins on July 1 will inherit a Mexico disillusioned and stuck, caught between forces of the past that resist change and the frustration of those who have begun to expect more from their leaders.read more

Mexico’s vanquished ruling party, once the ‘perfect dictatorship,’ poised for comeback
The Associated Press. PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto starts the 90-day campaign, set by electoral law, with more than a 10-point lead in most polls over Josefina Vazquez Mota of the now-governing National Action Party, or PAN. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, known as the PRD, trails in third. Though the PRI lost the presidency in 2000 after ruling 71 years with an iron fist, it has maintained the political machinery of eight decades, not to mention two-thirds of Mexico’s 31 governors. Read more.

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