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Expert: Azteca Drug Gang Leader's Arrest Won't End Drug Prohibition Violence

Localização: 
Ciudad Juárez, CHH
Mexico
It is unlikely the arrest of the suspected leader of the Aztecas gang over the weekend will end the bloodshed in Juárez, says George W. Grayson, a government professor specializing in Latin America at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Publication/Source: 
El Paso Times (TX)
URL: 
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16739275?source=most_viewed

20 Bodies Found In Northern Mexico Mass Grave, Victims Said Killed by Drug Traffickers in Case of Mistaken Identity

Localização: 
Puerto Palomas, CHH
Mexico
The Mexican army discovered several clandestine graves holding at least 20 bodies near a ranch in the northern border state of Chihuahua. The bodies had been buried between four and eight months and that it had not yet been determined how they were killed because they were badly decomposed.
Publication/Source: 
CBS News (US)
URL: 
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/29/world/main7100609.shtml

Four Years On, Drug Prohibition War Bleeds Mexican Heartland

Localização: 
MIC
Mexico
A four-year army crackdown in Mexico's methamphetamine-producing heartland has provoked a dizzying increase in violence, fueling fears that the country is losing its battle against drug traffickers. Despite heavily armed patrols, hundreds of drug lab busts and thousands of arrests, locals say gangs in the president's home state wield huge power, ramping up drug output while using terror and bribes to control towns mired in poverty. "Crime has only gotten worse. Before, things were calm. Now you don't know what could happen...We are afraid here," said Miriam Ortiz, a 32-year-old teacher.
Publication/Source: 
Reuters
URL: 
http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE6AS3R620101129

Dozens Dead as Police, Drug Gangs Clash in Rio

A week of fighting between authorities and drug-trafficking groups in Rio de Janeiro has left dozens of people dead and two favelas, or shantytowns, occupied by heavily armed military police. Those favelas had for years been bases for the Red Command, one of the more powerful of the gangs.

Favela in Rio de Janeiro (Image courtesy Wikicommons)
The violence broke out a week ago when the drug gangs responded to an increased police presence in the favelas by attacking police patrols and burning buses. Nearly a hundred vehicles have been reported burned, and the death toll as of Sunday morning was at least 35.

After more than 2,600 heavily armed military police backed by armored personnel carriers and at least five helicopters, swept into the Alemao favela complex, the death toll as of Sunday night was at least 50. Red Command gunmen had retreated there after troops drove them from another favela, Villa Cruzeiro, earlier in the week.

While authorities reported at least 174 arrests, hundreds of other Red Command gunmen are believed to escaped through the labyrinthine passageways of the favelas. Authorities also reported seizing hundreds of weapons and several tons of marijuana.

The clashes come as Rio begins a campaign to integrate the favelas into the fabric of city life in preparation for the World Cup soccer tournament in 2014 and the summer Olympics in 2016. The favelas and their residents have historically been ignored by the Brazilian state, leaving a power vacuum that the drug gangs have filled in a number of them. But now the state is interested in establishing governance in them, and the commands are not going without a fight.

The military said it will occupy Alemao and Villa Cruzeiro as long as necessary. That has not been the pattern in the past, where occasional police sweeps and occupations have changed things temporarily, but have not had the staying power to change things permanently.

Rio de Janeiro
Brazil

Mexico's Modern City Succumbs to Drug Prohibition Violence

Localização: 
Monterrey, NLE
Mexico
Drug prohibition violence has painted Monterrey with the look and feel of the gritty border 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the north. This wasn't supposed to happen in Mexico's modern northern city with gleaming glass towers that rise against the Sierra Madre, where students flock to world-class universities, including the country's equivalent of MIT. The deterioration happened nearly overnight, laying bare issues that plague the entire country and speak to the nature of drug prohibition.
Publication/Source: 
The Gleaner (Jamaica)
URL: 
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20101128/news/news4.html

Sexist Violence Invisible in War on Drugs

Localização: 
Mexico
Yosmireli and Griselda, two and four years old, died by bullets to their heads from soldiers' guns -- their mother, aunt and seven-year-old brother Joniel were also killed, on a rural road in northwest Mexico. The killings became the first known case of civilians gunned down by soldiers in the prohibitionist war on drug traffickers declared by the government of conservative Felipe Calderón, which tipped the country into a spiral of violence. One very clear effect is "the invisibility of violence against women...If a girl is found dead on the street and the body shows signs of violence, whether she has a bullet wound, is tied up, or there is a dead man next to her, her death is recorded in the category of 'organized crime'...By recording the cases in the catch-all category of organized crime, the victims' families no longer have access to the case file and cannot pressure the authorities to solve the crime," said David Peña of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers.
Publication/Source: 
Inter Press Service (Italy)
URL: 
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53660

Mexico's Drug Prohibition War and U.S. business

Localização: 
Mexico
Drug prohibition violence is beginning to affect multinationals -- and not only on the border. "It's Al Capone and Tony Soprano doing whatever they want with little or no actual police interference," says Tom Cseh, deputy director of Vance International, a security firm in Mexico City. Among the recent reported incidents: Caterpillar ordered 40 American employees with children home after a shootout at a school in Monterrey earlier this fall; oil-services giant Schlumberger (SLB) said prohibition violence in northern Mexico hurt third-quarter earnings; and Canadian mining company Goldcorp (GG) plans to build a landing strip to fly gold out of a mine instead of hauling it on unsafe highways.
Publication/Source: 
CNN (US)
URL: 
http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/17/news/international/narco_terrorism_business_mexico.fortune/

Mexico’s Regional Newspapers Limit Reporting of Drug Trafficking Organizations’ Role in Prohibition Violence

Localização: 
Mexico
Mexico's regional newspapers are failing to report many of the murders, attacks on police and other violence linked to the nation's drug prohibition war, a new analysis shows. Regional journalists said they routinely do not report the role of the traffickers in the mounting violence. They said that with the central government unable to protect prosecutors and police, they feel forced to chose between personal safety and professional ethics.
Publication/Source: 
ProPublica (NY)
URL: 
http://www.propublica.org/article/mexicos-regional-newspapers-limit-reporting-of-cartels-role-in-drug-violenc

Hundreds of Mexicans Seek Shelter Near Border from Drug Prohibition War

Localização: 
Roma
Mexico
Eleven blocks from the Texas border, hundreds of destitute Mexicans are gathered in a shelter, escaping what they fear is certain death.
Publication/Source: 
The Texas Tribune (TX)
URL: 
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-mexico-border-news/texas-mexico-border/hundreds-of-mexicans-seek-shelter-near-border/

Gunmen in Mexico's Drug Prohibition War Getting Younger

Localização: 
Mexico
Mexican police detained a minor accused of working as a gunman for a drug trafficking organization after shocking videos and photos surfaced online of fresh-faced boys mugging for the camera with guns and corpses. One video, briefly posted on YouTube, showed a youth, apparently in his teens, confessing to working for a branch of the Beltran Leyva organization. "When we don't find the rivals, we kill innocent people, maybe a construction worker or a taxi driver," the youth said.
Publication/Source: 
The Associated Press
URL: 
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jFwO_9m-SrIQNpK9fvClvWlflc8w?docId=c162de08a5264041baa0fd96a28113de

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