Seeking to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship.
01/30/21
Source: Reuters
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – There were at least two Guatemalans among the 19 bodies found earlier this month at the scene of a suspected massacre in northern Mexico, state prosecutors said on Saturday.
The attorney general’s office of the northern border state of Tamaulipas, where the corpses were discovered, said in a statement that investigators had so far genetically identified four of the dead with the aid of their families.
1/17/2020
Source: The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY (AP) — One day after Mexico angered U.S. officials by publishing an entire 751-page U.S. case file against former Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos, the Mexican prosecutors who exonerated him released their own version — but with so many pages wholly blacked out it was almost impossible to tell what they’d found.
The report released Sunday by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office included a 226-page stretch with every page blacked out, followed shortly thereafter by a 275-page stretch of blacked-out pages.
1/13/2021
Source: Reuters
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s president will seek better terms for the government in private prison contracts signed by his predecessors, he said on Wednesday, adding that he could cancel them if better deals cannot be reached.
The private prison contracts were much too expensive and represented the worst of privatization, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said at a regular government news conference.
12/11/2020
Source: The Guardian
A Mexican photojournalist has been killed after taking pictures of dead bodies left alongside a road, bringing Mexico’s death toll of journalists to nine this year.
Jaime Castaño Zacarías happened upon the dead bodies with their hands bound in northern Zacatecas state on Wednesday morning, following a clash between drug cartels in the city of Jerez, according to media reports.
12/04/19 – Bloomberg
By Andrea Navarro
San Miguel de Allende oozes old Mexico charm. There are the cobblestone streets, the colonial-era buildings and wrought-iron balconies, the neo-Gothic steeples soaring high above the pink-sandstone church anchoring a corner of the main plaza. Travel and Leisure magazine has twice named it the best city in the world, a ratification of how beloved it is with tourists and retirees from the U.S., Canada and beyond.
But lately, San Miguel has been attracting a very different sort of crowd: the drug cartels. And the moment they arrived and began pushing cocaine and imposing their brutal brand of property tax, the murders began.
12/03/19 – NY Times
By Kirk Semple
The Mexican authorities on Sunday detained several suspects implicated in the massacre of nine members of a Mormon sect in northern Mexico in early November, according to the office of the nation’s attorney general.
The detentions came during a joint operation by members of the Mexican armed forces and intelligence agents and followed the detention last month of another suspect living in Mexico City, the attorney general’s office said in a statement, providing no further information about the suspects’ identities, their connection to the murders or the circumstances of their arrests.
12/03/19 – AP News
By Maria Verza
When dozens of pickup trucks crowded with armed men and mounted machine guns roared into Villa Union, residents of the small town near the U.S. border began to realize they were the target of a military-style invasion. What followed were hours-long gunbattles between a cartel force estimated to number 70 to 150 men and state police that left 23 people dead. At least 50 homes and buildings were riddled with bullet holes.
In the aftermath, authorities found about 20 abandoned vehicles, some with machine-gun turrets and welded armoring; the doors of many were professionally printed with the initials of a drug cartel. At least four had .50 caliber mounted machine guns. Residents claimed there were at least twice that many pickups, with some escaping.
12/2/19 – Reuters
By Dave Graham
Ten suspected cartel gunmen and four police were killed during a shootout on Saturday in a Mexican town near the U.S. border, days after U.S. President Donald Trump raised bilateral tensions by saying he would designate the gangs as terrorists.
The government of the northern state of Coahuila said state police clashed at midday with a group of heavily armed gunmen riding in pickup trucks in the small town of Villa Union, about 40 miles (65 km) southwest of the border city of Piedras Negras.
11/21/19 – AP News
Mexico’s murder rate inched up 2% in the first 10 months of the year, but the latest violence has included much more brazen challenges to authorities.
Federal officials said late Wednesday there have been 29,414 homicides so far in 2019, compared to 28,869 in the same period of 2018.
11/20/19 – Los Angeles Times
By Katie Linthicum
The cartel members showed up in this verdant stretch of western Mexico armed with automatic weapons and chainsaws.
Soon they were cutting timber day and night, the crash of falling trees echoing throughout the virgin forest. When locals protested, explaining that the area was protected from logging, they were held at gunpoint and ordered to keep quiet.
