Silicon Valley of Mexico: Gateway to possibilities

Global Business Hub, 3/6/2013

Two new partnerships bring a vibrant and growing Mexican tech cluster closer to the already prominent innovation economy in Massachusetts. The goal is to open doors for entrepreneurs and industry leaders on both sides of the border to broaden their potential markets and increase opportunities for collaboration and business.

The World Class Cities Partnership (WCCP) joined newly elected City of Zapopan Mayor Hector Robles for a rare and special signing ceremony during a formal session of the Zapopan City Council. The official document, which inducted Zapopan and the region of Guadalajara (the Silicon Valley of Mexico) into the WCCP network, formalized the partnership between Zapopan (signed by Mayor Robles), university Tec de Monterrey (signed by Director of Innovation & Regional Development, Alfredo Ortíz) and the WCCP (signed by Founder & Executive Director, Mike Lake).

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Mexico housing project goes solar

United Press International, 2/25/2013

A housing project in Guadalajara is going solar with help from Mississippi’s Solar America Corp., an innovator in the cost-saving technology. Mexico leads Latin America in solar energy production but analysts say the country has yet to exploit its full potential. More solar power generation in Mexico will free up its oil output for exports and save the state precious resources that are currently spent on producing non-renewal energy.

Industry analysts say Mexico can combine solar power with wind energy production to get the best results from its existing potential of the two natural resources. The latest solar energy deal takes development of the resource a few steps forward. Solar America Corp. said Monday it signed a memorandum of understanding with Valdez Cueva Constructores Asociados S.A. de C.V., the principal contractor for the housing project.

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The Kingpins

The New Yorker, William Finnegan, 6/2/12

Guadalajarans sometimes offer it [their yearly book fair] up as Exhibit A for the case that the city is a civilized place where life goes on unmarked by the violence that disfigures large parts of Mexico.

By late 2011, that argument was hard to make. Two days before the fair opened, twenty-six corpses were dumped under the Millennium Arches, a downtown landmark. Near the bodies, which bore signs of torture, was a message—what is known as a narcomanta—signed by the Zetas, the most feared organized-crime group in Mexico. The message taunted the Sinaloa cartel, the country’s biggest crime group, and its leader, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo (Shorty). Sinaloa has controlled Guadalajara, which is the capital of the western state of Jalisco, for decades. “We’re in Jalisco and we are not leaving,” the Zetas announced. “This is proof that we are deep inside the kitchen.” Most narcomantas (which appear virtually every day somewhere in Mexico) are disinformation, their assertions dubious, their true authorship unknowable. But the Zetas have been pushing westward from their strongholds on the Gulf Coast, and they had already taken the neighboring state of Zacatecas, so there was no reason to doubt that they coveted Jalisco, a rich prize, or that this was indeed their atrocity and their message to Guadalajara.

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Arrest of alleged kingpin seen as blow to Sinaloa cartel

Los Angeles Times, 5/19/2012

Alleged drug kingpin Victor Emilio Cazares, among the most wanted trafficking suspects in the United States, has been arrested in Mexico, U.S. and Mexican officials say, despite having changed his appearance through plastic surgery.

A senior U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico confirmed this week that Cazares was captured April 8 at a highway checkpoint near the western city of Guadalajara. Mexican authorities on Friday confirmed Cazares was in custody.

Mexican authorities did not make the arrest public at the time, and it has not been previously reported. Cazares, 48, is believed to be a key lieutenant of Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel. The arrest is seen as a blow to the sprawling criminal organization, the most powerful in Mexico.

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Peña Nieto advertisement takes over the streets [In Spanish]

Reforma, 4/24/2012

With three weeks into the presidential campaign, the political propaganda of Enrique Peña Nieto is three times more the advertisement one can see for Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Josefina Vázquez Mota in the streets of the Federal District, Monterrey, and Guadalajara.

Grupo Reforma carried out a field study between April 15th and April 20th in the main highways of those three cities and their metropolitan areas. The study concluded that inside this area the four presidential candidates occupy at least 3,625 forms of campaign advertisement including posters, billboards, and signs on buses.

Enrique Peña Nieto, the PRI-PVEM candidate, is shown in at least 2,187 advertisement locations. This figure represents almost 16 times more the advertisement quantity of Gabriel Quadri, the candidate of Partido Nueva Alianza. In contrast, Josefina Vázquez Mota, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Gabriel Quadri have hired 1,438 spaces to display political propaganda.

Read full article and interactive map of the specific locations of political propaganda by political party throughout the Federal District, Monterrey, and Guadalajara.

Mexico drugs: How one DEA killing began a brutal war

BBC News, 2/7/12

Twenty seven years ago, the kidnap, torture and murder of a US Drug Enforcement Administration agent by Mexican drug traffickers sparked one of the biggest manhunts the US government has ever launched in North America. It also offered an ominous warning of things to come.

The picturesque Mexican city of Guadalajara is bustling with life. By day, its busy plazas are filled with street vendors and shoeshine boys. At night, the mariachis line up to play for the tourists. The country’s drug violence feels very far from here and, most of the time, it is. But that was not always the case.

“In 1985, Guadalajara was the base of operations for most of the major narcotics traffickers in North America,” says James Kuykendall, then-head of the Guadalajara office of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

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Thousands attend Pan Am Games closing ceremony in Mexico

Fox News Latino, 10/31/11

The Mexican city of Guadalajara concluded the 16th Pan American Games and passed the torch to Toronto, which in 2015 will be the next site of the hemispheric sports spectacle.

The Guadalajara Games were “the best in history,” providing “wonderful, spectacular” moments, Pan American Games Organizing Committee president Mario Vazquez Raña said during Sunday’s closing ceremony. For 17 days, from Oct. 14-30, 6,003 athletes competed in Guadalajara for 1,177 medals, 361 of them gold, 363 silver and 563 bronze.

Athletes in 15 of the sports were vying to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Jalisco Gov. Emilio Gonzalez Marquez thanked the organizing committee and authorities for all they did to ensure the Games’ success and said that since everything went so well, “we’re now aiming for the Olympics.” Gonzalez was in charge of passing the Games on to Canada, which he symbolized by handing over the flag to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

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Mexico approaches its goals in the 2011 Panamerican games (In Spanish)

CNN Mexico, 10/25/11

La delegación mexicana se acercó este martes a su meta de medallas en los Juegos Panamericanos de Guadalajara 2011, al llegar a 20 preseas de oro y 68 en total desde el inicio de la competencia. Durante la jornada, los equipos femenil y varonil de raquetbol aportaron dos oros más para México, que se fijó el objetivo de conseguir 24 primeros lugares.

El equipo varonil venció por la tarde a Estados Unidos. La dupla de Álvaro Beltrán y Javier Moreno superó a C. Crowther y Shane Vanderson, en lo que representa el segundo triunfo para los mexicanos en los juegos regionales, ya que ambos ganaron oro en la categoría de dobles.

En el raquetbol femenil, la pareja conformada por Paola Longoria y Samantha Salas también se impuso al equipo estadounidense.

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Mexico earns six gold medals in the first days of the Panamerican games (In Spanish)

CNN Mexico, 10/17/11

En una nueva jornada de victorias, México se coló en el tercer lugar del medallero con seis preseas de oro en los primero tres días de los Juegos Panamericanos en Guadalajara 2011.

Argentina es el país que protagonizó la tercera jornada de los XVI Juegos Panamericanos, que se celebran en Guadalajara, ya que este lunes sus deportistas lograron siete medallas: cuatro de oro. Estados Unidos sigue encabezando, de forma cómoda el medallero (16 oros, 16 platas y 11 bronces), en el que Brasil (9, 5 y 7) y México (6, 5 y 8) ocupan la segunda y tercera plaza, respectivamente.

Thiago Pereira, de Brasil, ya tiene tres oros en su haber en estos Panamericanos, tras imponerse este lunes en los 100 dorso (54.56) (el sábado lo hizo en los 400 combinado), una prueba en la que la plata fue para el estadounidense Eugene Godsoe (54.61) y el bronce para el también brasileño Guilherme Guido (54.81).

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Mexico steps up security as host of Pan Am Games

Los Angeles Times, 10/13/11

When athletes from across the Americas take to playing fields and swimming pools in Mexico this month, they’ll be guarded by unmanned drones, infrared-equipped Black Hawk helicopters, hundreds of surveillance cameras and more than 11,000 police officers.

It’s the first time since 1975 that Mexico is hosting the Pan American Games — a major multi-sport event held every four years — and the stakes are high, as the games play out amid a nearly 5-year-old drug war that keeps setting new thresholds for shocking violence.

About 6,000 athletes from 42 countries will take part in the two-week event, which opens Friday with festivities in the host city of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest. Sports events will also be held in four other cities in the same state, Jalisco.

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