American Buddhist Net

July 21, 2008
By MARC LACEY

TIJUANA, Mexico — “Cocaine?” a hustler working Tijuana’s seedy Avenida Revolución called out on a recent night, his voice not the least bit muted.

“How about girls?”

When neither offering elicited the desired response, he tried another: “Cuban cigars?”

He could have continued for quite a bit longer reciting from Tijuana’s extensive menu of contraband. One product from this border town, though, trumps all others in terms of shock value: death in a bottle, a liquid more potent than even the strongest tequila.

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16 July 2008

A Mexican truck driver convicted of raping his four young daughters, two of whom were made pregnant and gave birth, was sentenced to 15 years in jail, Jalisco state court officials said.

The youngest daughter, 11, gave birth to a child in 2006 while her father was driving his rig in northern Mexico in the company of his eldest 15-year-old daughter, whom he was sexually abusing at the time, prosecutors said in a statement on Tuesday.

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15 Jul 2008 17:02:44 GMT
By Robin Emmott

HARLINGEN, Texas, July 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Border Patrol agent Reynaldo Zuniga was arrested last month lugging a bag of cocaine up from the Rio Grande, one of a growing number of law enforcement officers accused of taking bribes from drug gangs.

Former colleagues say Zuniga used to wait until agents in the south Texas town of Harlingen were distracted with paperwork, then slip down to the river and help smuggle in drugs from Mexico.

The increasing use of bribes by Mexican drug cartels to corrupt U.S. agents comes as Washington is sending $400 million to help Mexico's army-led war on the trafficking gangs, whose brutal murders have surged to unprecedented levels.

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14-Jul-2008

Remnants of the bacterium that causes stomach ulcers, Helicobacter pylori, (H. pylori) have been discovered in gastric tissue from North American mummies. A study of human remains believed to predate Columbus' discovery of the New World has shown for the first time that H. pylori infection occurred in native populations, according to research published in BioMed Central's open access journal, BMC Microbiology.

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12 July 2008

Mexican police are investigating a number of classified ads on the internet which purport to be from hitmen offering the services.

The ads can be found alongside ones for private tuition or domestic help.

In one of them, a person describing himself as an ex-military killer offers "discreet, professional services" for $6,000 (£3,000).

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Thu Jul 3, 2008

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Archeologists are opening a cave sealed for more than 30 years deep beneath a Mexican pyramid to look for clues about the mysterious collapse of one of ancient civilization's largest cities.

The soaring Teotihuacan stone pyramids, now a major tourist site about an hour outside Mexico City, were discovered by the ancient Aztecs around 1500 AD, not long before the arrival of Spanish explorers to Mexico.

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Images show officer jumping on a suspect, another being dragged in vomit

July. 1, 2008

MEXICO CITY - Videos showing city police practicing torture techniques on a fellow officer, dragging another through vomit and jumping on a suspect created an uproar Tuesday in Mexico, which has struggled to eliminate torture by lawmen.

Two of the videos — broadcast by national television networks and displayed on newspaper Internet sites — showed what Leon city Police Chief Carlos Tornero described as training for an elite unit that must face "real life, high-stress situations."

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Sun Jun 29, 2008
Julie Watson

Scientists were fascinated by the ghostly find: a human skeleton buried in an Aztec temple with a clay, skull-shaped whistle in each bony hand.

But no one blew into the noisemakers for nearly 15 years. When someone finally did, the shrill, windy screech made the spine tingle.

If death had a sound, this was it.

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By Miguel Angel Gutierrez
Reuters
Thursday, June 26, 2008; 9:55 PM

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Mexican police chief and his bodyguard were shot to death as they ate lunch in Mexico City on Thursday, the latest police slaying in a drug war that has killed more than 1,600 people this year.

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Archaeologists excavate Aztec ruins in heart of downtown Mexico City

June. 11, 2008

MEXICO CITY - Mexican archaeologists say they have unearthed the remains of an Aztec palace once inhabited by the emperor Montezuma in the heart of what is now downtown Mexico City.

During a routine renovation project on a Colonial-era building, experts uncovered pieces of a wall as well as a basalt floor believed to have been part of a dark room where Montezuma meditated, archaeology team leader Elsa Hernandez said Monday.

...The basalt floor likely belongs to the Casa Denegrida, or the Black House, which Spanish conquerors described as a windowless room painted in black, Hernandez said. The emperor was believed to have reflected there on visions recounted by professional seers and shamans.

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How U.S. farming policy leads to 'dead zones,' huge marine areas where nothing can grow

By Kent Garber
Posted June 6, 2008

Each spring, the cycle of death begins anew. Nitrogen and phosphorus, leached from fertilizer, pass from farmland into streams, from streams into rivers—the Mississippi, the Potomac, the Susquehanna—and then, finally, into some of the country's great bodies of water: the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay. There the chemicals collect each summer, spawning the growth of algae, which deplete the water of oxygen and lead to ghostly aquatic wastelands. Marine life, if mobile enough, will swim away; the rest will suffocate and die.

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By Robin Emmott and Mariano Castillo

MEXICO CITY, June 8 (Reuters) - A powerful coalition of drug gangs led by Mexico's most-wanted man is collapsing, meaning the surge in bloodshed and police killings will get worse, a senior U.S. counternarcotics official said.

Internal conflicts, greed and pressure by Mexico's military are causing a split among gangs from the Pacific state of Sinaloa, with each group seeking new alliances to smuggle illegal drugs into the United States.

"The Sinaloa cartel is weakened, divided ... . There are internal disputes, rivalries, betrayals," the official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters in an interview. "You're going to see more violence."

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May 27th, 2008

Practically overnight, this has gone from a forgotten small town to a religious mecca where pilgrims travel hundreds of miles to seek answers to their prayers. Their fervor is freaking people out. While a similar shrine to a Catholic saint would likely be a source of pride, many residents are appalled at a 75-foot-tall statue of a skeleton shrouded in black, Santa Muerte (Saint Death). Although the Santa Muerte icon has existed for decades in working-class Mexican neighborhoods, never has it towered so ominously.

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By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: May 26, 2008

MEXICO CITY — The assassination was an inside job. The federal police commander kept his schedule secret and slept in a different place each night, yet the killer had the keys to the official’s apartment and was waiting for him when he arrived after midnight.

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By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO – 19 hours ago

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Homicides related to organized crime jumped 47 percent in 2008, Mexico's attorney general said Friday in a rare confirmation of how bad violence has become.

Police later made two gruesome discoveries in northern Mexico. Five bodies — two of them decapitated — were found wrapped in blankets in a city on the border with Texas, along with two heads in sacks. In another state, police found four severed heads in ice chests along a highway.

Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told Radio Formula that 1,378 people have been killed so far this year, compared with 940 in the same period last year.

The statistic reflected what many in Mexico already knew: Drug-related killings have soared in recent months.

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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) -- The streets of Ciudad Juarez are empty after police became aware of an e-mail warning that this weekend will be "the bloodiest" in the Mexican border city.

The e-mail says that gunmen will open fire at malls, restaurants, nightclubs and other public places and that there will be "killings all over the city."

Ciudad Juarez Police Chief Roberto Orduna says the threats must be taken seriously and sought to reassure residents in a news release Thursday, saying police will be more vigilant.

Officials say that more than 200 people have been killed in Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million people across from El Paso, Texas, as drug cartels fight for territory.

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Ministry quiet on whereabouts of girlfriend of man slain Thursday in Cabo San Lucas

Bal Brach, Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade could not confirm reports Monday that a Canadian wounded in a shooting at a Mexican hotel was still in Mexico, being protected by Cabo San Lucas police.

"We can't confirm whereabouts of individuals because of the privacy act," said Foreign Affairs spokesperson Marie-Christine Lilkoff. "But I can tell you that we are aware of a Canadian citizen who was wounded in Cabo San Lucas and that consular assistance is being provided."

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Can Mexico's Drug Terror Be Stopped?

La Mesa Woman Among Four Killed In Rosarito

By Penny Starr
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
May 16, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. State Department has issued an alert, warning travelers that the "equivalent to military small-unit combat" is taking place across the southern U.S. border in Mexico and that Americans are being kidnapped and murdered there.

"Recent Mexican army and police force conflicts with heavily-armed narcotics cartels have escalated to levels equivalent to military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and fragmentation grenades," said the State Department alert.

"Confrontations have taken place in numerous towns and cities in northern Mexico, including Tijuana in the Mexican state of Baja California, and Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez in the state of Chihuahua," reads the alert. "The situation in northern Mexico remains very fluid; the location and timing of future armed engagements there cannot be predicted."

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By TRICIA CORTEZ
05/18/2008

Fans of Pati Chapoy, Mexico's most controversial and influential journalist in show business, can see her Friday at Las Cananas Revolution Bar.The event starts at 7 p.m., and tickets are $25.

Proceeds will go to Casa Tibet Mexico and its organization, Buena Corazon, which helps single mothers and battered women. A small portion will go to Casa Tibet Laredo, the only U.S. affiliate of the Mexico City-based Casa Tibet Mexico.

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By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer Wed May 14, 3:15 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Three Mexican police chiefs have requested political asylum in the U.S. as violence escalates in the Mexican drug wars and spills across the U.S. border, a top Homeland Security official told The Associated Press.

In the past few months, the police officials have shown up at the U.S. border, fearing for their lives, according to Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection.

"They're basically abandoned by their police officers or police departments in many cases," Ahern told AP.

..."It's almost like a military fight," Ahern said Tuesday. "I don't think that generally the American public has any sense of the level of violence that occurs on the border."

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May 6, 2008
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

MEXICO CITY — Gunmen killed 17 people over the weekend in the southern coastal state of Guerrero in a wild hunt for the head of the state cattlemen’s association, who has gone into hiding, the authorities said Monday.

On Saturday morning, several men dressed as commandos and carrying assault rifles opened fire on a cattlemen’s meeting at a hotel in Iguala, killing seven ranchers but missing the leader of the group, Rogaciano Alba Álvarez.

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By ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 45 minutes ago

TIJUANA, Mexico - Massive gunbattles broke out between suspected drug traffickers who fired at each other while speeding down heavily populated streets of this violent border city early Saturday, killing 13 people and wounding nine.

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U.S., Canada military ink deal to fight domestic emergencies

February 24, 2008
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

In a ceremony that received virtually no attention in the American media, the United States and Canada signed a military agreement Feb. 14 allowing the armed forces from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a domestic civil emergency, even one that does not involve a cross-border crisis.

The agreement, defined as a Civil Assistance Plan, was not submitted to Congress for approval, nor did Congress pass any law or treaty specifically authorizing this military agreement to combine the operations of the armed forces of the United States and Canada in the event of a wide range of domestic civil disturbances ranging from violent storms, to health epidemics, to civil riots or terrorist attacks.

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This story has an obnoxious audio ad, which you might want to mute. ABN
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By Jamie Reno | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Feb 25, 2008

...Kidnappings of American residents in the Tijuana area south of San Diego have accelerated dramatically since Roberto's 2005 abduction. There were 11 such incidents in 2006 and 26 in 2007. Over the last few months they've spiked to an unprecedented high—and grown ever more violent. Since Thanksgiving at least 18 U.S. residents have been kidnapped and held for ransom in and around Tijuana, according to Keith Slotter, the special agent in charge of the FBI's San Diego office. That averages out to about six per month.

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Interesting and well-worth reading. ABN
_____________

By KATE MURPHY
Published: February 8, 2008

HOUSTON — Jesús Malverde has been revered for almost a century in northwestern Mexico. According to folklore, he was a Mexican Robin Hood who took from the rich and gave to the poor until he was killed by the police in 1909.

Raul Gonzalez, the owner of Mystic Products, says some people believe the Malverde statue shields them from the police.

Now, immigrants have brought his legend to the United States. His image, which is thought to offer protection from the law, can be found on items that include T-shirts and household cleaners.

Malverde is widely considered the patron saint of drug dealers, say law enforcement officials and experts on Mexican culture. A shrine has been erected atop his grave in the remote city of Culiacán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, which has long been associated with opium and marijuana trafficking.

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