How can he possibly be worried  if Mexico - according to him - is immune against that kind of problems. But what can this man possibly be aware of; he's the only one who gets the idea to travel to the American Union right in the middle of an electoral debate. Who paid attention to him, who cared about his visit. The country is coming apart: we Mexicans are in a war against ourselves, we live in a society separated by unmoving compartments. The miserable ones, who are the immense majority, live in worse conditions than the fine pet dogs of the plutocrats, who though in the whole a reduced minority are the ones who rule in Mexico. There is no communication at all between the rich and the poor. From the former, perhaps disdain, and from the latter a mixture of hatred, envy and fear. Neither is there a dialogue between the government and the majority of the citizens. The rulers' offices are open half the day for the upper classes. We live in a country where black is white and white is black: it's noon at midnight and we freeze in the dog days of summer. What is ours are lies, corruption, violence, self gratification. Nothing works well and everything is more expensive than in the industrial nations. We don't even manufacture straight pins here and now we have to import sugar, corn, beans. We produce petroleum but we cannot refine it. And, the way we are going, we will soon finish off the reserves and when that happens, what are we going to do for a living. We buy from the Americans coffee, canned pineapples and many other things we produce here. We look down our nose to what is ours and get on our knees about what isn't. There are more computers in the city of Los Angeles than there are in all the Mexican Republic. Our children are not taught computer science nor English; what's worse, they don't even teach them Spanish. We don't understand ourselves because a common language does not unite us. This is the country where sometimes, in order to pay taxes, you have to pay "mordida" (a bribe) ; here they give you a driver's license without asking you if you know how to drive; nobody answers to you, almost no one carries out their duties: the firemen, the paramedics and drivers for the Green Cross and the Red Cross are among the few who serve society with total dedication. Ah, but we have soccer and soap operas.
-------------------
 
El Diario de Yucatan  (merida, Yucatan)  2/16/08
 
According to a researcher with the Autonomous National University of Mexico, Pablo Cabanas Diaz, the traffic of firearms in Mexico went into an upward spiral in the last five years and this has allowed organized crime, especially narcotics traffickers, to surpass police agencies (firepower) by a wide margin.
Reports by the "PGR" (Mex. Dep't. of Justice)( indicate that weapons enter Mexico through its northern border as well as through its southern one, using the same routes as those for drug traffic, but the weapons have increased not only in number but in quality and power.
 
El Financiero  (Mexico City) 2/16/08
 
The commander of the city of Navolato's "public security" (the chief of police) Juan de Dios Ramos Herrera, was executed last night in that city.
He and three other officers were in a patrol unit when they were "intercepted by several heavily armed subjects" who rode five "deluxe" vehicles. The four officers were made to exit their car, surrender their arms and lie on the ground. Ramos was identified and singled out, then made to rise and was shot on the chest; once fallen, he was shot several more times. The killers then left.
Ramos is the fifth police officer executed in Navolato in one week. The other three last night were spared.
(note: Navolato is just outside Culiacan, Sinaloa, on Mexico's west coast across from the tip of the Baja peninsula)
-------------------
 
El Imparcial  (Hermosillo, Sonora)  2/16/08
 
In Nogales, Sonora, federal agents seized 1,740 kilos of marihuana from the "hermetically sealed" bedroom of a house at #73 Francisco Diaz St. The weed was in 394 packages.
35 more packages of weed weighing a total of 240 kilos were also found on a northbound freight train headed toward Nogales from Empalme, Sonora.
------------------
 
El Sol de Mexico (O.E.M.; nationwide paper chain)  2/16/08
 
An explosion early yesterday afternoon in downtown Mexico City is believed to have been caused by a homemade device. The "PGR" reported that "it is not attributable to armed or subversive groups."
The device was apparently carried and triggered by a man who died on the spot; two other persons were wounded.
------------------
 
Cambio de Michoacan  (Morelia, Michoacan)  2/16/08
 
A new governor was sworn into office yesterday in Michoacan. Also in that state yesterday, two men were executed, one in Morelia and one in Lazaro Cardenas.
------------------
 
Milenio  (Mexico City)  2/16/08
 
A tractor trailer truck was stopped just as it was about to cross from Tabasco into the state of Veracruz. Thirty seven "undocumented" were found hiding inside. Most were Central Americans but there was also a "Hindu."
------------------
 
Norte  (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua)  2/16/08
 
Juarez police officer Juan Hernandez Sanchez is now the second law enforcement agent currently missing in Juarez.
Jesus Enrique Solis Luevano has now been missing for twelve days (our report of 2/14/08). Juan Hernandez hasn't been seen in four days. His car sits parked at a local station.
------------------
 
Noroeste  (Culiacan Sinaloa)  2/16/08
 
An additional aircraft search operation by Mex. army special forces took place in Sinaloa, this one at the Culiacan airport. A total of 103 light aircraft and 3 helicopters were seized; this brings the aircraft seizures to 152 in the Culiacan area in one week, counting the 46 seized at the Los Mochis area last Wednesday.
------------------
 
El Heraldo  (Tegucigalpa, Honduras)  2/16/08
 
(note: first two sentences of the first paragraph, main editorial, titled "Justified Alarm")
 
"The levels of violence and criminality which the country suffers have reached such volume that in the first 9 months of 2007 they caused a daily average of 15 violent deaths, with 2,400 murders. So far this year, the crime wave seems to have worsened." (note: no other numbers cited)
-------------------
 
Prensa Libre  (Guatemala City, Guatemala)  2/16/08
 
(note: Guatemala is reinstituting the death penalty. A telephonic poll of 7,770 persons this week resulted in a 97.3% approval rate for the death penalty . The following are the first two paragraphs of the main editorial "Response to Criminality")
 
The citizens are overwhelmed by so much violence and frustrated by the government's inefficiency at finding another solution to insecurity and impunity other than the death penalty for criminals.
It is more than well known that one leaves one's house without the certainty that one will return, because at the least suspected time and place life can be lost at the hands of crazies who kill for the least thing, like the theft of a cellular phone, for their anger because the victims do not carry money or objects of value, and in many cases, because of their diabolical pathology, they are determined to be aggressive against defenseless persons who have already complied with their evil demands.
-----------------
-end of report-

---