Dallas Morning News, 3/17/2010
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano this afternoon brushed off Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s request for surveillance planes and 1,000 fresh troops along the Mexican border.
That drew swift denunciation from the governor, who put state police and other assets on standby, citing the heightened risk of spillover violence from Mexico’s drug war.
Filed under: U.S.-Mexico Border | Tagged: 150, DHS, Janet Napolitano, Rick Perry | Leave a Comment »
Associated Press, 3/17/2010
Mexico’s government has announced an austerity plan for trimming general spending $3.2 billion (40.1 billion pesos) over the next three years so it can provide more money for social and infrastructure programs.
The Finance Department says the plan includes a freeze on pay raises this year for high- and mid-ranking civil servants and a reduction in personal expenses.
Filed under: Economics and Business | Tagged: austerity plan, salary freeze | Leave a Comment »
USA Today, 3/16/2010
“They’re innovative, these people,” says Mexican Col. Ricardo Álvarez.
Gone are the days when twin-engine planes could fly drugs directly from the fields of Colombia to northern Mexico for delivery across the border via couriers. Those long-range flights raise too much suspicion on radar.
Now cocaine shipments arrive in Guatemala and are brought into Mexico by land or boat, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office says. Small planes move the drugs northward to avoid the army checkpoints that have sprouted on Mexico’s highways.
Filed under: Security and the Rule of Law | Tagged: cocaine, Drug trafficking | Leave a Comment »
Associated Press, 3/16/2010
Confused hit men may have gone to the wrong party, the FBI said Tuesday as it cast doubt on fears that the slaying of three people with ties to the U.S. consulate shows that Mexican drug cartels have launched an offensive against U.S. government employees.
According to one of several lines of investigation, the assailants — believed to be aligned with the Juarez drug cartel — may have been ordered to attack a white SUV leaving a party and mistakenly went to the “Barquito de Papel,” which puts on children’s parties and whose name means “Paper Boat.”
Filed under: Security and the Rule of Law, U.S.-Mexico Border, Uncategorized | Tagged: Ciudad Juarez, drug-related violence, FBI, U.S. Consulate | Leave a Comment »
Washington Post, 3/16/2010
The Obama administration will halt new work on a “virtual fence” on the U.S.-Mexican border, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Tuesday, diverting $50 million in planned economic stimulus funds for the project to other purposes.
Napolitano said the freeze on work beyond two pilot projects in Arizona was pending a broader reassessment. But the move signals a likely death knell for a troubled five-year plan to drape a chain of tower-mounted sensors and other surveillance gear across most of the 2,000-mile southern border.
Filed under: U.S.-Mexico Border | Tagged: Border security, DHS, Janet Napolitano, virtual fence | Leave a Comment »
Dallas Morning News, 3/16/2010
An emotional President Felipe Calderón on Tuesday condemned the weekend murders of an American couple and a Mexican man in Ciudad Juárez and vowed that Mexico and the U.S. would work jointly to solve the case while respecting each other’s national territory.
Calderón, accompanied by U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual, arrived in Juárez three days after the slayings. The visit of both men was seen as a sign of solidarity between both countries and a renewed urgency in restoring order to a city where more than 4,500 people have been killed since January 2008 – 500 of them this year alone.
“I want to express … my strongest indignation and my strongest condemnation for the cowardly murders of the three individuals related to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez,” he said, vowing that Mexico and the U.S. would win the fight against organized crime because there are more “good people here than bad people. … We will not back down.”
Filed under: Security and the Rule of Law, U.S.-Mexico Border | Tagged: Carlos Pascual, Ciudad Juarez, drug-related vio, President Felipe Calderon, U.S. Consulate | Leave a Comment »
Duncan Wood, Director, International Relations, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and
Senior Fellow, CSIS
The story of the oil industry in Latin America in recent years has been one of both highs and lows, with positive news coming out of countries such as Brazil and Colombia, and less encouraging developments taking place in Mexico and Venezuela. At the same time, we have witnessed a number of important and intriguing changes in the regulatory and contractual frameworks for foreign participation and investment across the region. Whereas some countries have chosen to remain open to the possibility of (or even expand the opportunities for) foreign involvement, a growing trend has been towards a resurgence of oil nationalism and the stifling of opportunities for international oil companies (IOCs).
In July of 2009, the Latin American Program and its institutes on Brazil and Mexico, along with the Global Energy Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. convened four experts from the region to talk about their perspectives on the potential for reform in four leading oil producing nations: Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. At a pivotal moment in the relationship between state-owned national oil companies (NOCs), the IOCs and broader oil services sector, it is clear that there is a need for an objective appraisal of the prospects for further change in the regulatory environment.
Filed under: Energy and Natural Resources | Tagged: CSIS, Duncan Wood, Energy Reform, ITAM, Latin America | Leave a Comment »
El Universal, 3/16/2010
President Felipe Calderón travels to Ciudad Juárez in midst of the aftermath of the crime against officials of the U.S. Consulate, the growing murder problem, and a lack of results from the plan to rescue the city.
This is the third visit by Calderón to the border city since the killing of the young students in January.
Antonio Vivanco, coordinator of Calderòn’s advisors, said, on March 4th in a chat on the page www.todossomosjuarez.gob.mx, that the program Todos Somos Juàrez is implementing actions such as the establishment of secure corridors of travel on the main travel routes through the city with armored Federal Police vehicles, special operations groups, and air patrols with helicopters.
Filed under: Security and the Rule of Law, U.S.-Mexico Border | Tagged: Ciudad Juarez, President Calderon, Todos Somos Juarez | Leave a Comment »
BBC, 3/16/2010
The authorities in Texas have launched a website which allows just about anyone to monitor the US/Mexico border.
Webcams have been installed in certain strategic sites and people from all over the country are being encouraged to log-on, watch live streaming of the border area and report any suspicious activity to the US border patrol.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
New York Times, 3/15/2010
The killing of three people linked to the U.S. consulate in Mexico’s bloodiest drug war hotspot has thrown President Felipe Calderon a major test as he heads to this border city on Tuesday to try to contain spiralling violence.
The FBI joined Mexican authorities in the investigation of the murders, while U.S. officials downplayed suggestions that U.S. diplomats had been targeted in the attacks.
NO EVIDENCE CONSULATE TARGETED
An FBI official in El Paso said there was still no evidence the consular killings were drug-related. “There is no information that indicates that the victims were directly targeted due to their employment at the consulate,” said FBI Special Agent Andrea Simmons.
Filed under: Security and the Rule of Law, U.S.-Mexico Border | Tagged: Ciudad Juarez, drug-related violence, FBI, U.S. Consulate | Leave a Comment »
