El Paso not slowing down for swine flu

BBC, 4/30/3009
El Paso is a border town in more than just name.
It is where the Mexican and American cultures merge into a colorful mixture of language, culture and food. Tex-Mex is the predominant dining experience here. It is also one of North America’s largest and most important border crossings.
Each day, about 100,000 people crowd onto [...]

Mexico Plans Partial Shutdown to Reduce Spread of Swine Flu

Bloomberg, 4/30/2009
Mexican officials said the federal government will suspend all non-essential services and urged businesses to close to reduce the risk of spreading swine flu.
“For many families, the measures taken have involved a sacrifice,” President Felipe Calderon said in a nationally televised address. “It is worth it if we can protect the health of our [...]

Security in Mexico: Implications for U.S. Policy Options (report)

Agnes Gereben Schaefer, Benjamin Bahney, and K. Jack Riley, Report by the Rand Corporation
The security structure in Mexico is characterized by shifting responsibilities, duplication of services, and general instability, along with a lack of coordination among federal, state, and local security forces. The backdrop of a deteriorating security situation in Mexico and change in administration [...]

Mexico economy squeezed by swine flu

BBC, 4/30/2009
What was once one of the noisiest, dirtiest, busiest places in the world, has become strangely sterile – a quiet city, where many people wear masks outdoors, and most don’t go out.
This mutation is costing a fortune.
In Mexico City alone, the mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, has put the figure at $88m a day.
But how much [...]

Recession hits immigrant workforce harder than native workforce

Los Angeles Times, 4/30/2009
Immigrants have been hit harder than native-born Americans by the recession, with larger increases in joblessness among both educated and uneducated workers, according to a study released today.
Immigrants in California — both legal and illegal — fared particularly poorly, with jobless rates here nearly tripling to 12.2% in the first quarter of [...]

Filmmakers applaud reforms against pirated goods (in Spanish)

El Universal, 4/30/2009
Several filmmakers applauded the decision of the Senate to approve a reform to articles 429 of the Federal Penal Code and 223 of the Law of Industrial Property to allow prosecution of those who sell pirated goods.
Sergio Tovar Velarde, director of Aurora Boreal, which is to be released soon, said that “although some [...]

Mexico nabs Zeta gang leader on most-wanted list

Associated Press, 4/30/2009
Mexican police on Wednesday arrested suspected Zeta gang leader Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa, one of Mexico’s 24 most-wanted drug traffickers.
Sauceda Gamboa appears on a list of 24 alleged drug traffickers published by prosecutors in March. Authorities have offered rewards of up to $2.1 million for each suspect. Together with a list of 13 lower-ranking [...]

Immigration debate a new symptom of swine flu outbreak

Los Angeles Times, 4/30/2009
As word spread Wednesday that the first U.S. death from the swine flu outbreak was of a Mexican toddler being treated in a Houston children’s hospital, the baffling illness began bleeding over into the fevered national debate over illegal immigration.
Groups favoring a crackdown on illegal immigrants cited the death as proof of [...]

Mexico army ‘not tackling abuses’

BBC, 4/29/2009
Mexico’s army is committing human rights violations while engaged in anti-narcotics activities as an arm of the police, a human rights group says.
The armed forces are involved in rape, murder and torture, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
A new HRW report documents apparent abuses against environmentalists, indigenous women and others, many with no link [...]

Hospital staff scared, outraged

The Mexico City News, 4/29/2009
A growing number of medical staff in hospitals across Mexico City are voicing outrage over what they say are poor sanitary conditions that have put them at risk of contracting the swine flu. In the northern borough of Gustavo A. Madero, where there is a high concentration of infected residents, the [...]