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THE SITUATION IN MEXICO: A. The Mexican State is engaged in an increasingly violent, internal struggle against heavily armed narco-criminal cartels that have intimidated the public, corrupted much of law enforcement, and created an environment of impunity to the law. • Thousands are being murdered each year. Drug production, addiction, and smuggling are rampant. The struggle for power among drug cartels has resulted in chaos in the Mexican states and cities along the US-Mexico border. Drug-related assassinations and kidnappings are now common-place occurrences throughout the country. • Squad-sized units of the police and Army have been tortured, murdered, and their...

Wow! I never knew spiders would hve these reactions.Link

A jury sentenced a Lakeview man to 10 years in prison for growing nearly 7,500 marijuana plants. Andrew Stever, 40, was sentenced on Monday after a three-day trial in the Federal District Court in Medford.Ten years is the mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of growing 1,000 or more pot plants. In July 2007, officers from several local, state and federal agencies found 7,459 plants growing on Stever's Lakeview property, which bordered Forest Service land. Two men fled the scene, leaving behind personal property and three firearms, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Portland. Physical evidence and testimony linked...

MYFOXPhoenix.com/Arizona Dept. of Public Safety Arizona Department of Public Safety Detectives have confiscated about 2,118 pounds of marijuana from a truck that appeared identical to a United Parcel Service truck. A suspect fled the scene when an officer and narcotics canine attempted to stop the vehicle, according to MYFOXPhoenix.com. A search of the truck yielded nearly $1.2 million worth of marijuana bundles typically transported by

MEXICO CITY — The U.S. government finally released the first part of a $400 million aid package Wednesday to support Mexico's police and soldiers in their fight against drug cartels. The money comes at a critical time: Mexico's death toll from drug violence has soared above 4,000 so far this year, and drug-related murders and kidnappings are spilling over the U.S. border as well. U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza formally released $197 million at a signing ceremony in Mexico City. The rest will be disbursed throughout the year. Garza said the Merida Initiative aid will enable the U.S. and Mexico to...

Over 40 Murders Reported this Week CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - New details on a deadly discovery across the border from El Paso. This morning police in Ciudad Juarez say at least 12 masked gun men opened fire inside an upscale seafood restaurant and killed at least eight people. The attack comes a day after seven men were found executed in a school soccer field in an upper class neighborhood in Juarez. In all, 40 murders were reported over the holiday week along the border near El Paso. Police say the men were armed with AK-47 and fired off more than...

Few rituals are more futile than the "housecleaning" of Mexico's police forces. So deep, broad and brazen is cop corruption south of the border that removing it makes eradicating rats from landfills look easy. Mexico stages quasi-annual purges of officers high and low — last year it was 284 federal police commanders — and yet every year it seems to find itself with an even more criminal constabulary. This year's scandals, however, are especially appalling. Over the summer, President Felipe Calderon's anti-drug czar, Noe Ramirez, resigned abruptly. This week, the likely reason became apparent after Ramirez was detained and accused...

Police officials said Friday that a group of men may have kidnapped a 6-year-old boy here this week because his grandfather allegedly stole millions of dollars from Mexican methamphetamine dealers, a violent retaliatory tactic rarely seen north of the border. Cole Puffinburger -- 48 pounds, nearly 4 feet tall, blond, blue-eyed and wearing silver-rimmed glasses -- was abducted Wednesday by two or three Latino men with "heavy accents" who posed as police officers, tied up the boy's mother and her boyfriend and ransacked their home looking for money. "They got the attention of an entire nation. We will not stop...

Mexican marijuana cartels use pesticides, herbicides that pollute US parks, forests National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said. The grow sites have taken hold from the West Coast's Cascade Mountains, as well as on federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. Seven hundred grow sites were discovered on U.S. Forest Service land in California alone in 2007 and 2008 — and authorities say the...

More than 150,000 Mexicans dressed in white marched on Saturday to protest a wave of kidnappings and gruesome murders, putting pressure on President Felipe Calderon to meet his promises to crack down on crime. Demonstrators filled the capital's historic Zocalo Square, holding candles and pictures of kidnap victims and bearing signs that read, "Enough Is Enough." (snip)

A massacre at a drug rehab center last week helped push the number of homicides in the Mexican border city of Juarez to more than 800 this year as rival drug gangs battle for turf. On Wednesday a commando-style group fired a barrage of more than 60 rounds during a religious service at the drug rehab center, killing eight and wounding five. Five other people were killed elsewhere in the city on that day. More than 100 people have been killed so far in August in the war between the Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels, which broke out in January,...

The nation's drug czar chopped down marijuana plants growing deep inside the Sequoia National Forest in Tulare County on Tuesday. John Walters.... came to California to bring attention to a new locally coordinated, but partly federally funded, marijuana eradication program to raid marijuana gardens planted on public lands by Mexican drug cartels. U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott joined Walters in a helicopter ride to a remote location to remove plants, then both spoke at a news conference in Visalia. Scott said those arrested for growing 1,000 or more marijuana plants on public lands face minimum 10-year terms. Mexican drug cartels are...

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As organized crime galvanizes their hold on Mexico, their network infiltrates our colleges, street gangs, and our communities. Our country is being raped and ravaged as our elected leaders remain insulated and uncaring within the halls of Congress.

Mexico City, Jun 22 (EFE).- Police found the bodies of five people who were killed with AK-47 assault rifles in Novolato, a city in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, in an apparent settling of scores between organized-crime groups, prosecutors told Efe. The bodies were found early Saturday lined up on the edge of an irrigation canal at the main entrance to the city's San Pedro neighborhood. "The five bodies had the hands tied behind their backs and were betweeen 25 and 30 years" old, a spokesman for the Sinaloa Attorney General's Office said. Police found 104 bullet casings from...

More than dozen people living in New Mexico and Texas are named in what appears to be a hit list from a Mexican drug cartel, law enforcement officials said. At least one police officer from southern New Mexico is among the 15 to 20 people named in the threat, said Arturo Baeza, a sheriff's captain in that state's Luna County. The list, thought to be a threat from one of Mexico's powerful and warring drug cartels, was provided June 12 to local authorities by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, Baeza said. Drug cartels are waging a bloody fight for...

Wachovia Corp. is involved in a federal investigation launched by the Department of Justice that targets money-laundering by drug organizations, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Charlotte, N.C., company is under scrutiny for its involvement with Colombian and Mexican money-changing establishments known as “casas de cambio,” located along the Mexican/U.S. border. These organizations may be used by drug cartels to launder their money. One such exchange, Casa de Cambio Puebla, a Mexican chain, was recently the subject of a court case in Miami in which $23 million in assets were seized. The money was spread out over 23 Wachovia...

TIJUANA – The drug war being waged in Mexican cities has found its way onto the Internet. The week after a fierce battle Jan. 16 between gunmen of the Arellano Félix drug cartel and Mexican police and soldiers, an anonymous video appeared on the Web site YouTube. The video used organizational charts from the Baja California state judicial authorities in Tijuana to identify allegedly corrupt agents by name and photograph and blame them for the shootout. The so-called narco-corridos, Mexican folk ballads describing and in some instances celebrating drug cartels or their hired killers, were among the first drug-related offerings...

TIJUANA – Days after a wild, deadly shootout between drug cartel gunmen and Mexican police and soldiers, authorities have uncovered what they say is a clandestine training ground for cartel assassins, complete with an underground target range that investigators believe went undetected for months. Heavily armed federal police raided the house Saturday night. They found two armored pickups at the home, along with two other vehicles that had hidden compartments, authorities said. At ground level, the two-story green-and-white hillside house in the Independencia section of Tijuana included a machine shop for assembling and repairing weapons. Parts of disassembled pistols and...

TIJUANA – Days after a wild, deadly shootout between drug cartel gunmen and Mexican police and soldiers, authorities have uncovered what they say is a clandestine training ground for cartel assassins, complete with an underground target range that investigators believe went undetected for months. The house was raided late Saturday night by heavily armed federal police. They found two armored pickups parked at the home, along with two other vehicles that had hidden compartments, authorities said. At ground level, the two-story green-and-white hillside house in the Independencia section of Tijuana included a machine shop for assembling and repairing weapons. Parts...

Informer tells of corrupt Mexico October 25, 2007 By Jerry Seper - An informant who worked for U.S. authorities for more than four years says government, police and military authorities in Mexico have been corrupted by drug smugglers, often carrying out kidnappings and killings on the orders of drug cartel bosses. The accusations are outlined in sworn testimony before a U.S. immigration judge by Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez Peyro, a former Mexican police officer who was paid $224,000 for information U.S. anti-drug agents used to convict dozens of high-ranking Mexican drug traffickers. Ramirez told U.S. Immigration Judge Joseph R. Dierkes in...

A submarine-like vessel filled with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cocaine was seized off the Guatemalan coast, U.S. officials said. Four suspected smugglers were operating the self-propelled, semi-submersible vessel when it was located and seized on Sunday evening by officials from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard, the Border Patrol said in a news release Wednesday. When the suspects realized they had been spotted by drug-surveillance aircraft patrolling the eastern Pacific, they scuttled the vessel but were unable to escape. Coast Guard officials, guided by the reconnaissance plane, intercepted the vessel...

Mexico ousts hundreds of police commanders Government is cracking down on corruption By James C. McKinley Jr. NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE June 26, 2007 MEXICO CITY – Mexico purged 284 commanders from the top ranks of its federal police forces yesterday as part of the government's effort to contain corruption and halt an underworld war between drug traffickers. “We know Mexicans demand an honest, clean and trustworthy police force,” Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna said at a news conference. “It's obvious there are mafias that are acting to keep the situation from changing, to continue enriching themselves through...

GUARATINGUETA: Pope Benedict warned Latin America's ruthless drugs cartels they would face God's harsh judgement for wrecking countless lives across the region. After hearing moving stories of hardship and recovery from former cocaine and heroin addicts on the fourth day of his visit to Brazil, the Pope said drug abuse was a scourge throughout Latin America. "I therefore urge the drug dealers to reflect on the grave harm they are inflicting on countless young people and on adults from every level of society," he said in a speech to recovering addicts at the Farm of Hope (Fazenda da Esperanca)...

MEXICO CITY — President Felipe Calderón’s deployment of more than 20,000 soldiers and federal police in the drug war has reduced rampant violence in the areas where they were sent. But the narco cartels’ power remains virtually intact, and gangland-style killings have spiked in at least three states formerly immune from the menace, officials and drug experts say. Since Calderón launched the first arm of the anti-drug offensive on Dec. 7 — just days after his inauguration — soldiers have arrested hundreds of suspected traffickers, seized tons of cocaine and other drugs and destroyed thousands of acres of marijuana and...

Cartels' hands seen in border abductions Mariano Castillo Express-News Border Bureau NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — One afternoon in late August, Olivia Luque de Lopez looked out the window of her home and weighed the fate of her husband, then considered her own future and that of her four children. A group of unexpected visitors had thrust a decision of immense proportions upon the homemaker: Should she risk her husband's life, or hers and their children's? Lopez, her three daughters and son had been captives in their house in an upscale neighborhood here for 21/2 days on Aug. 25, the day...

MEXICO CITY - To send a chilling message to their underworld rivals, Mexican drug cartels are adopting a method of intimidation made notorious by Middle Eastern terrorist groups. At least 26 people have been decapitated in Mexico this year, with heads stuck on fences, dumped in trash piles and -- most recently -- tossed onto a nightclub dance floor. Although beheading goes back centuries as a form of execution, it has become the latest tactical escalation of an ongoing turf war that gets nastier all the time, with hit men looking for new ways to instill fear. "Before, they tortured...

Washington has promised action against Mexican drug-traffickers who the US says are growing billions of dollars of marijuana in US national parks. Mexican cartels controlled 80% of the marijuana grown in forest and mountain areas, drugs tsar John Walters said. He blamed the cartels for much of the expansion of the crop, in particular in public lands such as national parks. Every American should be outraged that national parks were being turned into centres of drug production, he said. But growing marijuana in the US is not entirely a new phenomenon, despite it being illegal for more than 70 years....

The head of a group of companies and people that officials say laundered thousands of dollars in drug proceeds for the Arellano-Félix cartel owned a condominium here in a complex called Camelot. K.C. ALFRED / Union-Tribune Federal authorities yesterday served the owners of this house with papers ordering them not to sell because they have been suspected of links to drug-cartel money laundering. Yesterday, as children played in a nearby pool, federal agents taped a notice to the unit's front door, advising anyone who reads it that the owner, Tijuana businessman Lorenzo Arce Flores, is linked to drug traffickers. As...

Mexican drug cartels operating in cities in the U.S. are buying up legitimate businesses to launder money and using some of the proceeds to win local mayoral and city council seats for politicians who can shape the policies and personnel decisions of their police forces, according to Rep. Tom Tancredo "The Tijuana-based Felix drug cartel and the Juarez-based Fuentes cartel began buying legitimate business in small towns in Los Angeles County in the early 1990s," "They purchased restaurants, used-car lots, auto-body shops and other small businesses. One of their purposes was to use these businesses for money-laundering operations. Once established...

MEXICO CITY - With Mexico's presidential election two weeks away, the drug wars are a central issue in the race, and the main candidates are all trying to look tough on the issue, while splitting over whether U.S.-style solutions are needed. The candidate who speaks most closely to American concerns is conservative Felipe Calderon. He advocates extraditing more drug lords to the United States, and replacing Mexico's secretive court system with open, U.S.-style trials. Roberto Madrazo of the former ruling party claims the toughest law-and-order platform: One of his campaign ads depicts a criminal wetting his pants out of fear...

Mexican city's journalists scared silent Rival Mexican cartels employ violence to ensure silence By Hector Tobar Los Angeles Times NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - Here, it's better not to know. Information can be poison in this border city. When there's a shootout downtown, even the most ambitious radio reporter will not necessarily rush to the scene. So it went the day last month that four undercover federal police officers were ambushed and killed in thick lunch-hour traffic on the city's busiest street. The offices of several newspapers and radio stations were just blocks away - but the news broke 700 miles...

Under the government-enforced cigarette cartel, every state is a tobacco stateColorado Treasurer Mark Hillman calls the deal under which the top cigarette manufacturers pay the states billions of dollars a year "a protection racket." In truth, it's worse than that. The so-called Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), which resolved state lawsuits against the largest tobacco companies, is not a classic extortion scheme in which a business pays to be left alone. Instead Philip Morris et al. are paying for protection against their competitors, and they are passing the cost on to their customers, the very people whose victimization by Big Tobacco...

Full html version here: http://www.breederville.com/auction/forumtopic.php?topic=54&boardid=1 PDF Version for download here: http://www.agribusinessaccountability.org/pdfs/289_USDA%20Inc..pdf HOW AGRIBUSINESS HAS HIJACKED REGULATORY POLICYAT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE This paper was conceived by the ORGANIZATION FOR COMPETITIVE MARKETS www.competitivemarkets.com It was commissioned by a working group of the AGRIBUSINESS ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE www.agribusinessaccountability.org Each working group member had responsibilities for different case studies.The organizations listed do not necessarily endorse every detail of every case study. However, all collaborating organizations subscribe to the thesis that “revolving door” industry appointments at USDA constitute a problem that must be addressed. The following working group members helped research and edit the...

The original American system promised a society in which the benefits of civilization including liberty, property, privacy, security and justice would be available to all of its citizens who were willing to work for them. However, such a society can only be sustained when the majority of the citizens are mature adults who accept the basic principles of self-government, self-reliance, and mutual respect. Those principles require the individual to assume reponsibility for his own actions, to be a producer rather than a parasite, to exercise his liberty with consideration for others, and to support and defend the system. It doesn't...

Global Manipulators Move Beyond Petroleum The Saudis have a saying “My father rode a camel, I drive a car, my son rides in a jet airplane – his son will ride a camel.” In July this year BP Amoco, the world’s second largest oil company, announced it had chosen a flower as its new emblem in a dramatic upheaval of the oil multinational’s global brand. Unveiling the new emblem, Sir John Browne, BP chief executive, suggested that “BP” be read not as British Petroleum, but as “Beyond Petroleum”. The new green and yellow floral sunburst design distances BP from its...

A lone milkman is delivering misery to the doorstep of the giant dairy industry. Hein Hettinga was once a simple dairy farmer who sold raw milk from his farm in Chino, Calif. Today the Dutch immigrant has expanded his operation so much, so fast, that some of the biggest dairy companies and cooperatives in the U.S. have banded together against him. They are lobbying for federal laws to close loopholes they claim he exploits. Mr. Hettinga counters that the only purpose of the proposed legislation is to kill competition -- and keep milk prices high. "That's not right," says the...

HONG KONG National league tables make good journalistic copy, which is devoured especially avidly in nations that happen to score near the top of this or that list. But they can equally tell some very tall tales that reflect better the biases of their assessment criteria than facts on the ground. One of the more widely disseminated is the Index of Economic Freedom, published by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation for the past 12 years. This year, as in numerous past years, it has declared Hong Kong the world's freest economy, closely followed by Singapore, with Iceland, Ireland and Luxembourg close...

Police officer Richard Deomampo didn't know he was facing a suspected associate of a major Mexican drug trafficking group when two men started shooting at him in a busy parking lot. U.S. authorities learned later that one of the men arrested in the Sept. 28 incident was Edgar Lopez Frausto. Mexican and U.S. law enforcement authorities say Lopez is connected with the Arellano Félix drug cartel based in Tijuana. No one was injured in the noontime incident, which started when the Chula Vista officer responded to a report of shots being fired at a nearby house. However, the incident illustrates...

WASHINGTON - White tablecloths, polished silverware and candlelight are the tools of a cunning suitor. But when found in a dining room in the House of Representatives, they signal high politics rather than romantic intentions. The elegant atmosphere is what Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona, chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, is using to help build agreement among his GOP colleagues on an issue where there is little: immigration reform. "I want people to realize that there is more that holds us together than pulls us apart," he said. Now, the elements of a major policy push are coming...

NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO - When Esteban Perez sold $35 bags of heroin on the streets of this violent border city, he said he felt three things: fear, dread and terror. He feared not having enough money to bribe the local police to look the other way. He dreaded not having enough heroin left to feed his addiction. And he was terrified of not having enough cash for the drug smugglers who had sold him the narcotics and demanded a share of his profits. "I was scared of them, most of all," Perez, 24, said of the traffickers. "They ask you...

A tiny upstart in the cigarette business threatens to topple a comfortable cartel engineered by big tobacco companies and their strange bedfellows, the state attorneys general.Big tobacco was supposed to come under harsh punishment for decades of deception when it acceded to a tort settlement seven years ago. Philip Morris, R.J.Reynolds, Lorillard and Brown & Williamson agreed to pay 46 states $206 billion over 25 years. This was their punishment for burying evidence of cigarettes' health risks. But the much-maligned tobacco giants have subtly and shrewdly turned their penance into a windfall. Using that tort settlement, the big brands have...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Although reshaping U.S. immigration law is a priority of President Bush's second term, his proposal for a guestworker program wasn't on the table as the Republican-controlled House took up an immigration bill this week. Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, sponsor of the bill scheduled for a vote Thursday, said his legislation deals with border security. Including Bush's guestworker proposal or other measures would muddy the debate and mark all immigrants as terrorists, he said. "I think they are two separate issues. The immigration question is something the Judiciary Committee will handle later on,"

The National ID card is back in the news, as Congress is getting set once again to debate the issue. You will remember that late last year, Congress passed (and the President signed) legislation which starts us down the road to a National ID card. In the name of preventing alien terrorists from operating in this country, the so-called Intelligence Reform bill gave federal bureaucrats unprecedented new powers to force changes in state-issued driver's licenses -- including, possibly, the addition of computer chip technology that can facilitate the tracking of all U.S. citizens. Now, the House will be debating new...

H.R.418 is a measure before the House that will strictly control use of drivers'licences by illegal aliens and Grsssfire has sent a petition with over 110,000 signatures to Congress urging their support. They also gave a phone number,202-224-3121, by which one can contact one's representative in DC. To my amazement I delivered my message to my congressman's office in less than two minutes! Everyone concerned about illegals and the threat some potentially pose to national security should become involved!

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 - Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, said Tuesday that conservatives might be able to compromise with President Bush on his proposal allowing illegal immigrants to work in the United States legally. Such a compromise could entail, for example, requiring illegal immigrants to return to their native countries to apply for the program, Mr. DeLay said. Advertisement Mr. DeLay said he talked recently with the president, who has advocated a guest worker program that would be open to workers who are currently in the country illegally as well as to newcomers.

FEBRUARY 7, 2005 - Action 4 News undercover cameras catch Border Patrol agents dropping off illegal immigrants at a local bus station by the van load. How do we know the immigrants are not possible terrorists? You'll soon find out we don't! Could this be a sign of border breakdown? New Year's Eve morning agents pull up to the Valley Transit bus station in Harlingen, open the back of their van and a hand full of illegal immigrants jump out. But that's just the beginning, six days later more illegal immigrants were set free, free to travel anywhere they want...

...In an era of general acceptance of deregulation and privatization, Mr. Spitzer has introduced the world to yet a new form of regulation, the use of the criminal law as an in terrorem weapon to force acceptance of industry-wide regulations. These rules are not vetted through normal authoritative channels, are not reviewable by any administrative process, and are not subject to even the minimal due-process requirements our courts require for normal administrative rule making. The whole process bears no resemblance to a rule of law; it is a reign of force. And to make matters worse, the regulatory remedies are...

JUAREZ -- Five men's bodies found in the past three days deep in the dirt of a Juárez back yard are the most recent victims of drug turf battles, officials with the Mexican attorney general's office said. The latest body was unearthed Monday afternoon behind the house at 3633 Parsioneros St., which, officials said, belongs to an alleged operative in the Carillo Fuentes drug cartel. Family members of kidnap victims drove to the site Sunday and Monday, some from as far as Chihuahua City, hoping for answers about their loved ones' whereabouts. Mexican officials led them inside the house where...

MEXICO CITY - Reputed drug lord Osiel Cardenas was arrested Friday after a fierce firefight with Mexican soldiers, cutting short the career of a man so bold he once threatened U.S. federal agents, leading the FBI to offer a US$2 million reward for his capture. Allegedly the leader of the Gulf drug cartel and the third major drug boss to fall in the last year, Cardenas was arrested in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, Defense Secretary Gen. Gerardo Vega Garcia told a news conference. At least two Mexican soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in the shootout with Cardenas' gunmen, who...