Posts Tagged ‘Mexico’
Written by admin on 07 May 2012
Mexico City, May 7 (IANS/EFE) More than 100 journalists staged a protest in Mexico City to draw attention to the killings of several journalists in the eastern state of Veracruz, call for justice in the cases and demand an end to the murders of members of the media.
The demonstration took place Saturday at the Angel of Independence monument, a traditional site for public protests.
The protesters placed a wreath with the message “Gobierno mataperiodistas” (Government Journalist Killer) and dozens of candles at the iconic monument.
The recent killings of journalists in Veracruz “is an intolerable insult”, Carmen Aristegui, one of the leading figures in the Mexican media, said during the reading of one of the two manifestos presented at the protest.
Proceso magazine’s correspondent in Veracruz, Regina Martinez, was murdered April 28, while the dismembered bodies of photojournalists Gabriel Huge and Guillermo Luna, and former photojournalist Esteban Rodriguez were found Thursday in the Gulf state.
Martinez, who covered the war on drugs and had been Proceso’s correspondent in Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz, since 1999, worked for a number of different media outlets during a career that spanned more than 30 years.
Veracruz has been plagued by a turf war between rival drug cartels that has sent the state’s murder rate skyrocketing.
There is “an absence of freedom of expression” in Veracruz and critical thinking “lacks space”, turning journalism into “a high-risk exercise”, the manifesto read by Aristegui said.
Nearly 80 journalists have been murdered in Mexico since the start of this century.
Proceso columnist Alvaro Delgado read another communique addressed to President Felipe Calderon and officials in Veracruz, noting that the recent crimes against journalists were not “an isolated incident”.
“All of these murders have gone unpunished,” Delgado said during the demonstration.
The names of the dozens of members of the media killed in Mexico in recent years were read.
Journalists have increasingly been targeted in recent years by drug traffickers and other organized crime groups, especially in northern Mexico.
–IANS/EFE
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Tags: Mexico, Mexico City
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Written by admin on 03 May 2012
Mexico City, May 3 (IANS/EFE) Remittances from Mexicans living abroad climbed 5.3 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2011, Mexico’s central bank said Wednesday.
Expats sent a total of $5.37 billion home to Mexico in the first three months of the year, up from $5.1 billion a year earlier, according to figures compiled by Banco de Mexico.
The number of transactions also rose from the first quarter of 2011, climbing 7.3 percent to 16.8 million.
Remittances rose 16.4 percent last month from the level of March 2011, to $2.08 billion.
The median transfer in the first quarter was $318.41, down 1.94 percent compared with January-March last year.
Remittances are Mexico’s second-largest source of foreign exchange and help cover the living expenses of millions of households.
Most of the remittances are sent from the US, where an estimated 12 million Mexicans live, about half of them undocumented migrants.
–IANS/EFE
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Tags: Mexico, Mexico City
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Written by admin on 03 May 2012
Bogota, May 3 (IANS/EFE) The Rev. Jesus Maria Parra, a priest of Colombia’s Orthodox Catholic denomination, was fatally shot at a downtown Bogota hotel he owned, police said Wednesday.
Two suspects were arrested shortly after the killing at the Santamaria de Jesus Hotel in the poor neighbourhood of Santa Fe, police Maj. Eduardo Tovar told radio stations.
The 56-year-old Parra had a reputation as a faith healer.
Tovar said police had no information on a motive for the murder, but media outlets reported the priest received threats from people unhappy over their eviction from another Bogota property owned by Parra.
Roughly 100 Catholic priests, bishops, monks, nuns and seminary students have been slain in Colombia since 1984, according to figures from the Colombian bishops conference.
–IANS/EFE
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Tags: Bogota, Mexico
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Written by admin on 02 May 2012
Bogota, May 2 (IANS/EFE) Colombia’s FARC guerrillas admitted Tuesday that they are holding French journalist Romeo Langlois, who disappeared three days ago in the middle of a firefight between security forces and the guerrillas in the southern province of Caqueta.
The acknowledgment came in a telephone call to a Colombian journalist from a woman identifying herself as a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
“We have the French reporter in our power,” the woman told a correspondent of Caracol Radio in La Union Peneya, the village where Langlois was last seen.
“We have declared him a prisoner of war,” she added, explaining that the FARC decided to hold Langlois because he was wearing a helmet and other military-issue clothing.
The purported guerrilla confirmed that the French reporter had been wounded in the left shoulder and had received medical attention from the insurgents.
The Caracol reporter said that the woman asserted she belonged to the 15th Front of the FARC, the guerrilla unit that last Saturday clashed with a contingent of Colombian troops and police in La Union Peneya.
Three soldiers and a police officer died in the fighting, which broke out as the troops were conducting an anti-drug operation accompanied by Langlois, a correspondent in Colombia for France 24 television and Paris daily Le Figaro.
On Monday, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said that the government had “clear indications” that Langlois was in the hands of the FARC and demanded that the rebels free the reporter.
–IANS/EFE
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Tags: Bogota, Mexico
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Written by admin on 02 May 2012
Mexico City, May 2 (IANS/EFE) The lower house of the Mexican Congress approved a bill that includes urgent measures to protect journalists and human rights defenders.
The measure, which now goes to President Felipe Calderon for his signature, was backed by all 338 members present at the final session of the current legislature, just two days after the murder of prominent reporter Regina Martinez.
The bill obliges the three levels of government to establish measures to protect the lives, integrity, freedom and safety of journalists and human rights activists who are in “a situation of risk”.
The government must also offer protection to their families and adopt security measures in their workplaces, according to the law.
During the debate on the bill, legislators agreed that the increase in violence has made Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in the world in which to practice journalism and to defend human rights.
“Currently, the human rights defenders and journalists see themselves as silenced, gagged and they even run the risk of having their freedom of expression restricted,” said Arturo Villasenor, a congressman with the governing conservative National Action Party, or PAN.
After approving the bill, the lawmakers observed a minute of silence in tribute to Martinez, who was found strangled to death inside her home in Zalapa, capital of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.
Mexico, where nearly 80 journalists have been murdered and several others have disappeared since 2000, is considered the world’s second most dangerous country for members of the media.
Journalists have increasingly been targeted by drug traffickers and other organized crime groups, especially in northern Mexico.
–IANS/EFE
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Tags: Mexico, Mexico City
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Written by admin on 02 May 2012
Mexico City, May 2 (IANS) A major earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale jolted offshore Mexican state of Chiapas, Tuesday, according to a local radio station. There was no immediate report of any casualty or damage to property.
According to Chiapas Civil Protection Direction sources, the temblor occurred at 5.43 p.m., reported Xinhua citing the local radio station.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the quake’s epicentre, with a depth of 44 km, was initially determined to be at 14.42 degrees north latitude and 92.96 degrees west longitude.
Tags: Mexico, Mexico City
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