Drug smugglers’ creativity grows

Drug smugglers’ creativity grows

Produce truckers increasingly used

BY LESLIE BERESTEIN, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2010 AT 12:04 A.M.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/feb/15/drug-smugglers-creativity-grows

Hidden among truckloads of peppers, bananas, toilet paper and medical supplies entering from Mexico, customs officers have been finding another type of import.

With drug cartels becoming increasingly creative in evading border authorities, it has become commonplace to find drugs embedded among the truckloads of goods that move each day through the nation’s ports of entry. Two weeks ago, inspectors at the Otay Mesa cargo port found more than 3,800 pounds of marijuana hidden in a shipment of peppers and green beans. A few days later, they found a ton of pot stashed in a load of bananas.

{Posted by Alex Sobieski}

Mexican President Calderon to return to violence-plagued Juarez

By Nick Valencia, CNN

February 16, 2010 9:55 p.m. EST

CNN) -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon will return to Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, for the second time in as many weeks on Wednesday morning, a spokesman for the municipal police department said.

"For security reasons, details are nonexistent," police department spokesman Jacinto Seguro said.

Calderon will attend a meeting with local, state and federal officials, as well as civic and human rights groups, on Wednesday in Ciudad Juarez, which has been plagued by violence stemming from drug cartels.

The January 31 killings in southern Juarez of 15 people, most of whom were students with no ties to organized crime, has sparked outrage across the country. The slayings, which occurred at a house party, are thought to be the result of bad intelligence by a cartel and the gang that carried out the killings.

[Posted by Brenda Diaz]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/16/mexico.juarez.calderon/index.html?eref=rss_latest&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+Most+Recent%29

Mexican police find 5 decapitated men in drug cartel-plagued state of Sinaloa

CULIACAN, Mexico (AP) — Mexican authorities have found the decapitated bodies of five men in a western state known for drug-gang violence.Sinaloa state prosecutors spokesman Martin Gastelum says the bodies and heads were found Tuesday in front of a primary school in the town of Escuinapa.He says two of the heads were missing their ears and two more had a "Z'' carved on their backs in an apparent reference to the Zetas drug gang.The Zetas have been involved in some of the bloodiest confrontations in a drug war that has cost more than 15,000 lives in Mexico in three years.Sinaloa is the birthplace of the leaders of several drug cartels. The Zetas are based is the border state of Tamaulipas across from Texas.

[Posted by Julia Martinez]

Nuevas normas para visas de trabajo

WASHINGTON/AP — El gobierno estadounidense propuso aumentar los salarios y reforzar las medidas de seguridad en el trabajo de los braceros agrícolas temporales, alterando la política de su predecesor que según los sindicatos fomentaba la mano de obra barata en detrimento de la contratación de estadounidenses.

El Departamento del Trabajo propuso normas que, entre otras cosas, requeriría a los terratenientes agrícolas esforzarse en contratar mano de obra nacional para las tareas de recolección antes que acudir a los braceros extranjeros. En los últimos años miles de braceros extranjeros han sido contratados con ese fin.

www.impre.com/inmigracion/2010/2/14/nuevas-normas-para-visas-de-tr-173222-1.html

[Posted By Zelene Valencia]

Massacre in Juarez, Mexico

This article is about the massacre that occurred in Juarez on Sunday, January 31.

I chose this article because while it is important to remember such tragedies to help prevent them in the future, I also thought how the article refused to blatantly point fingers at the drug cartels as the perpetrators was interesting. I related it to the article we read, entitled "The Fall of Mexico". For me it was educational because my idea of Mexico is one devoid of the concept of drug cartels, which is an ignorance that needs to be corrected.

In conclusion, the article is mainly composed of interviews from people who witnessed the massacre, and also interesting facts about various drug cartels in Mexico.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123222185

Holly Bartow

Chicano 70, Spring 2010

Ciudad Juarez police baffled by shooting of teens

(Posted By Uriel Rivera)

The attack on a party attended by mostly high school and college students in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, has "no apparent motive," the mayor says. The death toll rises to 16.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-mexico-shootings2-2010feb02,0,7897849.story