A Payoff Out of Poverty?

New York Times, 12/19/2008
A classic description of the culture of poverty probably still fit the rural Mexican town of Paso de Coyutla 10 years ago. It doesn’t anymore. The town has transformed itself in the past decade, a result of a deceptively simple government program that is now rewriting poverty-fighting strategies throughout Latin America and [...]

Editorial: Mexico needs stronger free speech protection

Dallas Morning News, 12/29/2008
As much as we hate to admit this, the leaders of Mexico’s drug cartels know what they’re doing. By targeting the people who tell the rest of Mexico – and the world, including those of us in North Texas – about their deadly ways, the cartel’s honchos know they are silencing the [...]

Mexico cuts 2008 foreign direct investment forecast

Reuters, 12/19/2008
Mexico lowered its estimate of how much money foreign companies will invest in the country this year as the U.S. recession increasingly weighs on Mexico’s economy.
Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz told reporters on Friday that foreign direct investment in Mexico would fall to between $17 billion and $18 billion this year, down from $23 billion [...]

Extreme drug violence grips Mexico border city

Los Angeles Times, 12/19/2008
It is a time of extraordinary violence all over Mexico. Feuding drug-trafficking groups and the federal government’s military crackdown against organized crime have left 5,376 dead this year. Nowhere has the bloodletting been worse than in Ciudad Juarez, a sprawling border city that has registered more than 1,350 slayings in 2008, about [...]