U.S. workers shot in Mexico may be CIA employees

By William Booth and Greg Miller, Published: August 29

STRINGER/MEXICO/REUTERS - U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Earl Anthony Wayne (L) and Mexico's President Felipe Calderon sit together during an event in Mexico City August 28, 2012. Calderon on Tuesday promised justice for two U.S. agents as new details emerged on how they were allegedly shot at by federal police officers in plain clothes while heading to a Mexican marine base.

TRES MARIAS, MEXICO — Mexican President Felipe Calderon apologized to the United States on Tuesday for an attack last week in which two U.S. government workers were wounded when Mexican federal police fired multiple rounds at their armored U.S. Embassy vehicle.

Speaking at a forum on Mexico’s security situation, Calderon turned to U.S. Ambassador E. Anthony Wayne and promised that the Mexican attorney general would get to the bottom of the case. Calderon also suggested that 12 federal police officers arrested Monday for alleged involvement in the shooting might have ties to criminal organizations.

Calderon’s comments coincided with new indications that the wounded U.S. officials were CIA employees. The agency link was first reported in the Mexican media. U.S. public records suggest that the name reportedly used by one of the shooting victims was a CIA cover identity associated with a post office box in Dunn Loring, Va. The agency declined to comment.

Calderon also did not address those reports Tuesday.

The CIA has expanded its presence in Mexico significantly in recent years as part of a broader U.S. effort to assist the Mexican government’s crackdown on drug cartels. Former senior CIA officials said the agency has shared intelligence with Mexico and helped its elite counter-narcotics teams root out corruption and identify officers with ties to drug lords.

But the former officials said the CIA has been frustrated by delays that can last months before Mexican authorities mount operations based on U.S.-provided intelligence and acknowledged that lingering mistrust makes the agency reluctant to share its most sensitive information even with vetted Mexican units.

Top Mexican officials have long denied or played down links between the CIA and their military.

The two U.S. employees and a Mexican navy captain serving as an interpreter were heading Friday to a navy training camp south of Mexico City when, the U.S. 

Embassy says, they were ambushed.

GlobalNoise October 13

Via: el5antuario.org

Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho: 'I don't scare easily'

Emine Saner

The Guardian, Saturday 1 September 2012

In Mexico we need good journalists. It’s important. I want to be there to see the change
Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Lydia Cacho is one of Mexico's most fearless journalists. Her investigations have led to attempts on her life, and now she has been forced to flee her country. What next?

In 2005, Lydia Cacho was approached by several police officers. They bundled her into a van and for the 20 hours it took to drive from Cancun in southern Mexico, where she lives, north to the city of Puebla she was, she says, "tortured". Sexual assault was threatened. A gun was pushed into her mouth. A sickening see-saw: "I kept thinking one minute I was going to die, then that I would survive."

When they arrived, a female guard told her she would be raped in jail. In fact, a network of friends, contacts and activists swung into action and she was bailed. Attempts on her life continued, and she has become well known as one of Mexico's bravest journalists. A recent estimate put the number killed there since 2006 at 67. Amid this, Cacho started work on her next book.

This story tells you several things about Cacho and the world she works in: alleged corruption (tapes surfaced that appeared to show her arrest was orchestrated by a man she had written about, alleging he had connections to a paedophile ring), the vulnerability of Mexico's journalists, and that Cacho is not somebody who can be silenced. Her new book, Slavery Inc: the Untold Story of International Sex Trafficking, is about to be published in the UK. Although she has lived with death threats for years, she took the most recent one four weeks ago seriously enough to leave the country.

Mexique : la gauche appelle à manifester contre l'élection de Peña Nieto

Le Monde.fr | 31.08.2012 à 08h08 • Mis à jour le 31.08.2012 à 17h38

Le nouveau président mexicain, Enrique Peña Nieto, à Mexico, lundi 2 juillet. | REUTERS/CLAUDIA DAUT

Le Tribunal fédéral électoral du Mexique a rejeté jeudi 30 août à l'unanimité le recours en invalidation déposé par la gauche contre l'élection d'Enrique Peña Nieto, du Parti révolutionnaire institutionnel (PRI) à l'élection présidentielle du 1^er juillet. Les sept juges du tribunal ont estimé qu'aucune des accusations de la coalition de gauche sur les achats de vote ou les financements irréguliers n'avait été étayée par des preuves.

Les juges ont rejeté la totalité des accusations selon lesquelles l'élection avait été marquée par de multiples violations des principes constitutionnels de l'équité. "Il ne suffit pas de les dénoncer, il faut les prouver", souligne le projet voté par le tribunal. "La demande d'invalidation de l'élection est sans fondement", a déclaré le président du tribunal, Jose Alejandro Luna Ramos, devant une salle bondée après une session de plus de cinq heures. Cette décision de justice ouvre la voie à la dernière étape du processus électoral présidentiel mexicain : la proclamation par la même instance, avant le 6 septembre, des résultats définitifs du scrutin et la désignation officielle du candidat du PRI comme le président élu, appelé à prendre ses fonctions le 1^er décembre, pour la période de 2012 à 2018.

Le candidat de gauche, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, a refusé vendredi de reconnaître la décision du Tribunal électoral. "Les élections n'ont été ni propres ni libres ni régulières, en conséquence, je ne vais pas reconnaître un pouvoir illégitime né de l'achat de votes et d'autres violations graves de la Constitution et des lois", a déclaré devant la presse M. Lopez Obrador.

Rejet des recours contre l'élection du président mexicain

31 août 2012 à 08:08

Des manifestants protestent contre l'élection d'Enrique Peña Nieto devant le Tribunal électoral fédéral, à Mexico, le 30 août 2012. (Photo Edgard Garrido. Reuters)

Enrique Peña Nieto, vainqueur du scrutin organisé le 1er juillet, n'a désormais plus qu'à attendre la proclamation du résultat. Il doit entrer en fonction le 1er décembre, en remplacement de Felipe Calderon.

Le tribunal fédéral électoral du Mexique a rejeté jeudi à l’unanimité le recours en invalidation déposé par la gauche contre l'élection d’Enrique Peña Nieto, du Parti révolutionnaire institutionnel (PRI) à l'élection présidentielle du 1er juillet.

Les sept juges du tribunal ont estimé qu’aucune des accusations de la coalition de gauche sur les achats de vote ou les financements irréguliers n’avaient été étayées par des preuves.

Cette décision de justice ouvre la voie à la dernière étape du processus électoral présidentiel mexicain : la proclamation par la même instance, avant le 6 septembre, des résultats définitifs du scrutin et la désignation officielle du candidat du PRI comme le président élu, appelé à prendre ses fonctions pour six ans le 1er décembre.

Alors que quelque 300 jeunes criant à la «fraude» devant le tribunal protégé par la police, les sept juges ont rejeté la totalité des accusations de la coalition de gauche selon laquelle l'élection avait été marquée par de multiples violations des principes constitutionnels de l'équité. «Il ne suffit pas de les dénoncer, mais il faut les prouver», a souligné le Tribunal.

«Mexico a connu une élection qui ne doit pas être invalidée (...) Il y a eu des élections libres et authentiques», a estimé le juge Salvador Olimpo Nava, en présentant le projet.

Enrique Peña Nieto, un avocat de 46 ans, ancien gouverneur de l’Etat de Mexico, est arrivé en tête de l'élection du 1er juillet avec 38,2% des suffrages contre 31,6% au candidat de la coalition de la gauche, Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador.

(AFP)

Source: Libération

Via: Comparte tu Wifi

Mexico’s Movement for Real Democracy

Posted on: 02/08/2012 by Laura Carlsen

“We are the children of the ideals you couldn’t kill.”

A young woman carried the hand-lettered sign as she marched with tens of thousands of people in Mexico City last July 22. Twenty-something, with long black hair and jeans, her message captures the spirit and sense of history of Mexico’s new movement for real democracy. At the same time, it reveals the resentment that especially youth feel about the presidential elections and a new government that for them representsan era of manipulation and repression.

Weeks after Mexico’s presidential elections, thousands of people have turned out to protest the declared winner, Enrique Peña Nieto, and the imminent return to power of the party that ruled Mexico for more than seven decades. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which is slated to take office December 1, now faces increasing accusations of fraud, a legal demand to declare the elections invalid, and a youth movement that refuses to go away.

Mexican court throws out presidential election challenge

Associated Press in Mexico City
guardian.co.uk, Friday 31 August 2012 07.44 BST

Enrique Peña Nieto celebrating in July. His rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed he engaged in vote-buying and campaign spending excesses. Photograph: Daniel Aguilar/Getty Images

Unanimous ruling by electoral tribunal paves way for Enrique Peña Nieto to take reins as PRI party returns to power

Mexico's highest election court has voted to dismiss legal challenges to the results of the 1 July presidential election by the second-placed candidate.

The unanimous ruling by the seven-member electoral tribunal paves the way for the Institutional Revolutionary party to return to power after it lost the presidency for the first time in 71 years in elections in 2000.

The party, known as the PRI, won the presidential vote with a 6.6-point advantage for its candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto. But leftwing rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador challenged the results, alleging Peña Nieto engaged in widespread vote-buying and campaign spending excesses.

Before the vote in their night-time session, all of the justices said they did not think supporters of López Obrador had submitted convincing evidence of the alleged abuses.

"Mexico has a president elected by the people, in the person of Enrique Peña Nieto," said Justice Salvador Nava.

Justice Flavio Galvan dismissed evidence submitted by the leftist coalition regarding alleged abuses by Peña Nieto's campaign as "vague, generic, imprecise". The evidence included gift cards, household goods and even farm animals purportedly given out to voters by the PRI.

Mexican court rejects challenge to result of presidential election

• Associated Press
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 31 August 2012 16.18 BST

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, runner-up in the 1 July ballot, told reporters
he did not recognise the official result of the election. Photograph: Henry Romero/Reuters

Runner-up Andres Manuel López Obrador still refusing to recognise rightwing victory amid allegations of vote-buying

Andres Manuel López Obrador, the leftwing candidate in Mexico's presidential election, has announced that he does not recognise the official results, leading observers to believe he may call for street protests similar to those that paralysed central Mexico City after he lost the vote in 2006.

Lopez Obrador says a federal electoral tribunal which rejected allegations of vote-buying and other campaign violations in favour of Enrique Pena Nieto, the candidate of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, was illegitimite. Lopez Obrador called a peaceful protest for 9 September.

"I am telling the people of Mexico that I cannot accept the judgment of the electoral tribunal that declared the presidential election valid," Lopez Obrador told a news conference. "The elections were not clean, free and genuine. As a result, I will not recognise an illegitimate power that's emerged as a result of vote-buying and other grave violations of the constitution and the law."

He said he wants protesters to respect the law, and did not call directly for a repeat of the blockades he launched in 2006.

Lopez Obrador attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the streets for campaign rallies, and retains a large and fervent base of support in Mexico City. But Pena Nieto's margin of more than 3 million votes was far wider than the few hundred thousand that cost Lopez Obrador the 2006 presidential elections, and much of the initial outrage at Pena Nieto's win appears to have faded since the 1 July ballot.

Lopez Obrador alleged that Pena Nieto engaged in widespread vote-buying and campaign spending excesses but Mexico's highest election court voted unanimously on Thursday to dismiss his challenges. The judgement handed down by a seven-member tribunal paves the way for the old ruling party PRI to return to power after losing the presidency for the first time in 71 years in the 2000 election.

The PRI said in a statement that the ruling "has ended the contentious and combative phase of the federal electoral process and has fully demonstrated the legitimacy of Enrique Pena Nieto's victory at the ballot box."

Before the vote, the judges questioned the nature of the evidence submitted by Lopez Obrador's supporters. "Mexico has a president elected by the people, in the person of Enrique Pena Nieto," said Justice Salvador Nava.

The judges said some of the evidence was hearsay, or unclear. But Ricardo Monreal, Lopez Obrador's campaign manager, accused the judges of "acting like a gang of ruffians."

Monreal complained that the tribunal wanted his coalition "to supply not just the evidence, but the victims and criminals" as well.

The accusations centered on hundreds and possibly thousands of pre-paid gift cards that shoppers at a Mexican grocery store chain said they were given by Pena Nieto's party before the election.

Source: The Guardian
Via: Comparte tu Wifi

Mexico: Court Rejects Challenge to Overturn Presidential Election

Written by J. Tadeo · Translated by Elizabeth
Translation posted 1 September 2012 3:08 GMT

On August 30, 2012, the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF) of Mexico rejected the petition to overturn the Presidential election of last July 1.
In a public session, the magistrates declared unanimously [es] that the alleged offenses presented by the Progressive Coalition (whose candidate was Andrés Manuel López Obrador) were groundless; therefore, it was unfair to declare the Presidential election null as the people unhappy by the results wanted.
The Magistrate President of the Tribunal, Jesús Alejandro Luna Ramos [es], declared:

A lo largo de mi labor jurisdiccional he tenido la fortuna de resolver innumerables y muy intrincados asuntos, inclusive de tipo similar al de la gravedad que ahora nos ocupa, y en ninguno de ellos he sido influido por otra cuestión que no sea la justicia y el derecho. Por esta vía, he colaborado a la independencia de este Poder Judicial Federal, al que he consagrado mi profesión y mi vida, y seguiré haciéndolo.

[Throughout my judicial career, I have had the fortune to solve countless intricate cases, similar even in gravity to the one that brings us together today, and in none of them I have been influenced by anything other than justice and law. In this way, I have collaborated with the independence of the Federal Judicial Power, to which I have devoted my profession and my life and will keep on doing it.]

Once the ruling was known, the two times Presidential candidate Andrés López Obrador announced that he will not recognize the power that comes from this contested election, which he qualified as illegitimate. He also said that civil disobedience is an “honorable duty against the thieves of hope” and made a call to his followers to reunite at the Zocalo (downtown) in Mexico City next September 9.

Third Mega Protest against Imposition. Guadalajara, Mexico, July 22nd, 2012. Picture by Marte Merlos under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.

Mexican court throws out election challenge, sparking riots (PHOTOS)

Published: 31 August, 2012, 17:25

Protesters remove barricades during a demonstration outside Mexico's electoral court in Mexico City August 30, 2012 (Reuters / Edgard Garrido)

  Enraged protesters gathered in the capital of Mexico following a court decision to disregard a challenge to Enrique Pena Nieto’s presidency. The newly-elected president was accused of money laundering and buying votes.

­Hundreds of angry activists hurled stones, eggs and bottles at the police and the court building, and shouted slogans calling for a revolution. They brandished banners, saying “we demand this dirty election to be overturned,” and “Pena is not our president.”

The protesters knocked down metal barriers that had been erected around the court and brawled with the riot police who had assembled there.

Presidential election runner-up Andres Manuel Obrador accused Nieto and his Institutional Revolutionary Party of buying five million votes and courting voters with presents of supermarket gift cards, fertilizer, cement and livestock.

The electoral tribunal dismissed the claims on the basis there was not sufficient evidence to overturn the vote.

“After an examination of the evidence, we can confirm that constitutional principles were observed during the election,” tribunal member Salvador Nava said.

The Tribunal’s verdict sparked outrage among opposition activists, with Ricardo Monreal, a campaign coordinator for a leftist coalition, condemning the decision as “the verbal diarrhea of men who are paid millions of pesos and don’t work for the interests of the people.”

“They are fraudsters in the guise of learned men who are going to bury our constitution and become the vilest band of hucksters in the history of our country’s democracy,” Monreal said.

Pena Nieto won the Mexican election on July 1 by roughly 3.3 million votes, rejecting Obrador’s claims of fraud. Nieto’s victory sparked mass protests in Mexico City and calls for a recount.

Nieto will assume the Mexican presidency on December 1. His government has promised greater political transparency, and to modernize the country’s antiquated labor laws in an attempt to revitalize the Mexican economy.

Thousands protest in Mexico's capital

Published on Aug 31, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish

Thousands of people have been protesting in Mexico's capital against the results of the presidential election. The electoral tribunal has officially accepted Enrique Pena Nieto as the winner of the July Poll after it threw out an appeal by runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Adam Raney reports from Mexico City.

Source: Al Jazeera

Via: Comparte tu Wifi

Controversy in Mexico over changes to and use of Mayan palaces, Aztec pyramids

By Anne-Marie O’Connor, Published: August 28

Annie-Marie O'Connor - "Paul McCartney read our letter and said No!! to Chichen Itza. Thanks Paul — We love you," said a poster created by Mexico City archaeologists protesting the use of pyramids for rock concerts and New Age entertainment spectacles.

MEXICO CITY — Mexicans are taught to revere their pre-Columbian roots. So some archaeologists are outraged by what they view as the government’s failure to safeguard the nation’s Mayan palaces and Aztec pyramids.

A recent decision by the government to erect a glass-and-steel facade on a portion of the historic Fort of Guadalupe in Puebla in time for the Sept. 15 Mexican independence celebrations was the last straw. The archaeologists have occupied Mexico’s prestigious National Museum of Anthropology, telling visitors that taking liberties with federally protected buildings was becoming commonplace.

The late-summer tourists who flock to the Chapultepec Park institution are greeted by banners, petitions and angry anthropologists with megaphones. A barefoot Mayan-speaking researcher in a white tunic blows into a conch shell to announce speeches in the lobby.

The occupying scientists have also declared: Admission is free.

Archaeologists are tweeting about “aggressions against patrimony” and using Facebook to decry tacky tourist development and New Age spectacles that they say will ruin the ruins.

Just when government officials were hoping to make money on the hype over Dec. 21 marking the end of the world, as predicted by the Mayan calendar, archaeologists are threatening to shut down the party even before it has begun.

“Our national monuments are being violated,” said Felipe Echenique March, head of the union that represents the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the government agency charged with protecting historic sites. “Public archaeological sites are deteriorating. We are resisting this destruction.”