Indigenous Triqui student from Oaxaca graduates from Alaska High School

Anchorage Daily News, 5/13/2013

Reynalda DeJesus-Martinez will graduate from East Anchorage High School on Tuesday not as a straight A student but as an average student who worked hard for the grades she got in honors classes. For her father, it feels like a miracle all the same. “I feel so happy,” said Lorenzo DeJesus. DeJesus-Martinez and her family are Triqui, the indigenous people of a mountainous swath of Oaxaca, in Southern Mexico.

The region that DeJesus-Martinez grew up in has been wracked with political violence since before her parents were born. As a young child she and her family lived with fear and violence. Each trip to a market or festival meant the chance of being ambushed on roads. When she was 6 years old, her uncle was killed by members of an opposing faction. Her grandfather was killed in political violence when her mother was a small child.

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Foreign wind farms cause uproar in Mexico

AFP, 4/7/13

Foreign energy firms have flocked to a narrow region of southern Mexico, known as one of the world’s windiest places, to build towering wind turbines, but some projects have angered and torn indigenous villages. The construction of wind farms has soared across Mexico, with the gusty Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the state of Oaxaca attracting investors from as far as Europe, Japan and Australia.

The projects are a key part of Mexico’s efforts to combat climate change, one of the priorities of former president Felipe Calderon that has been picked up by his successor, Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office in December.

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18 Women Who Were Sexually Exploited in Chiapas are Freed (Spanish)

Proceso, 3/22/2013

State Police forces and the National Migration Institute (INM) dismantled a prostitution network  in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, where 18 women, five Central American migrants and the rest from Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas,  were forced into prostitution.

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Surviving with $15 pesos (Spanish)

Photo by Flickr User Global Tribe

La Jornada, 2/22/2013

Maria Martinez’s sunken eyes and wrinkled skin make her seem more than 50 years old.  In Mixtec, she explains that she does not remember when she was born;  meanwhile, the nurse revises her records  clarifies the doubt:  Maria is 35 years and the baby she carries in her arms  is her seventh child.

Like her, many families live with 10 or 15 pesos a day (one quarter of the minimum wage)with which they can only afford  pasta, beans and, if revenues improve, chicken or beef every 15 or 30 days. “A chicken costs 80 or 90 pesos, and I can’t afford it,” says Maria.

Even though 300 families receive some aid, malnutrition, remoteness, lack of education, and unemployment keep them in the geography of poverty.

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Municipalities with the highest crime rates are identified (Spanish)

Animal Politico, 2/20/2013

Según los reportes de incidencia delictiva difundidos por el Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública, durante 2012 entre los municipios con el mayor índice delictivo se colocó una delegación del Distrito Federal. En el rubro de “Robo” la delegación Cuauhtémoc tuvo la mayor incidencia del país, mientras que Tampico encabezó el rubro de secuestros, Acapulco el de asesinatos (en promedio por cada 100 mil habitantes); Yautepec, Morelos, posee el mayor promedio de violaciones; Oaxaca es la alcaldía con la media más elevada de lesiones dolosas y Cuautla, también en Morelos, es la que más extorsiones sufrió.

Incluidas por el Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y la Justicia Penal AC en el estudio “La violencia en los municipios de México en 2012″, presentado ayer, las cifras oficiales analizadas se concentraron en las 212 alcaldías del país con más de 100 mil habitantes, y en los que radican dos terceras partes de la población mexicana

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Femicide cases increase in 9 states (Spanish)

El Universal 2/14/2012

Las nueve entidades que registran una tendencia creciente de homicidios de mujeres son Chiapas, Chihuahua, Distrito Federal, Durango, Guerrero, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Sinaloa y Sonora, según un estudio presentado por la subsecretaria de Derechos Humanos de la Secretaría de Gobernación, Lía Limón, en el Senado de la República.

El estudio también analiza las particularidades de cada zona. En el noreste del país, por ejemplo, una mujer de 20 a 24 años tiene 39 veces más riesgo de morir por homicidio, que una mujer de la misma edad de la zona centro del país.

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Mexico’s Robust Wind Energy Prospects Ruffle Nearby Villages

National Geographic, 2/7/2013

Largely thanks to Oaxaca’s unique geography, Mexico’s wind power capacity expanded to 1,350 megawatts in 2012, according to reports from a national wind industry conference in Mexico City last month, marking nearly a 140 percent expansion in capacity in a single year. Stands of the turbines now fill Oaxacan horizons, with more planned as developers pour millions of dollars into wind farms. While bringing development to the isolated area, the turbines have disrupted pastoral lifestyles and divided villages over leasing fees and other benefits promised to local communities.

The projects have arisen with strong support from Mexico’s central government. Before leaving office in December, Calderón was seen as an active proponent of wind power. The projects also have the participation of well-known Mexican companies, including cement maker Cemex and retailer Walmart de Mexico.

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Mexicans Without Identities Live In The Shadows — In Their Own Country

KPBS, 1/2/2013

Millions of undocumented migrants live a shadow existence in the United States. But it may come as a surprise that south of the border, Mexico has a shadow population of its own. It’s made up of Mexicans who lack a formal birth certificate and are technically invisible in their own country. They can’t vote, get a school diploma or practice a profession.

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Traffickers Arrested in Mexico with 22,000 Turtle Eggs

Fox News Latino,  12/29/2012

Two people were arrested in Mexico as they attempted to traffic the more than 22,000 turtle eggs they were carrying on a public bus. The arrest was made on a highway in the southern state of Oaxaca on an unspecified date by officers patrolling beaches where the turtles nest, Mexico’s environmental protection agency said in a communique. The 22,470 eggs that were seized came from olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea). The suspects were also transporting 105 turtle parts from the same species.

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Indigenous Groups Protest Mexico’s Biggest Wind-Energy Project

Fox Business, 10/17/2012

Mexican fishermen and indigenous groups from the southern state of Oaxaca protested Wednesday in front of the Mexico City offices of participants in a wind-energy project that would be one of the largest ever in Latin America, targeting Coca-Cola bottler and convenience-store operator Femsa (FMX), the Inter-American Development Bank and the Danish government, among others.

The few dozen protesters called for the cancellation of the Marena wind-farm project in a windy area of Oaxaca known as Tehuantepec on the grounds that construction and operation of the 132 windmill towers would hurt the livelihoods of local residents by damaging a delicate ecosystem in which fishermen eke out a modest living.

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