Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Emilio Godoy MEXICO CITY, Jul 8, 2011 (IPS) – Reports of extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, kidnappings and assaults are some of the heavy baggage that U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay is taking home from Mexico. Pillay, who ended an official visit here Friday, met [...]
Prescription Drug Abuse on the Rise
June 23, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Haider Rizvi UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23, 2011 (IPS) – Some 13 million people across Europe, Russia, and other parts of the world remain largely dependent on Afghanistan’s poppy production to fuel their addiction to heroin, according to a new U.N. report on global use of illicit drugs. [...]
Drug-Related Violence Closing in on Mexican Capital
May 2, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Daniela Pastrana CUERNAVACA, Mexico, May 2, 2011 (IPS) – The military offensive waged by the conservative government of President Felipe Calderón against drug cartels in northern Mexico has resulted in an appalling death toll and grief-stricken relatives mourning the victims, many of them civilians caught in the [...]
AFGHANISTAN: A New Therapy Battles Soaring Drug Addiction
April 5, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Pavol Stracansky BEIRUT, Apr 5, 2011 (IPS) – A pioneering drug substitution programme in conflict-wracked Afghanistan has been hailed a resounding success as local doctors and international health organisations battle soaring heroin addiction rates and an HIV/AIDS epidemic. Doctors on the programme, which gives patients controlled doses [...]
Death Sentence Looms for Filipino Drug Mules in China
March 29, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Kara Santos MANILA, Mar 28, 2011 (IPS) – Time is running short for three Filipino workers in China. Ramon Credo, Elizabeth Batain and Sally Villanueva – who were convicted of smuggling heroin in 2008 – are set to be executed by lethal injection Mar. 30. The Department [...]
RIGHTS: Forced Disappearances on the Rise in Mexico
March 24, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Emilio Godoy MEXICO CITY, Mar 24, 2011 (IPS) – Malena Reyes, her brother Elías and his wife Luisa Ornelas were kidnapped Feb. 7 in the municipality of Guadalupe in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Their bodies were found two weeks later, in a case that is [...]
PERU: Fujimorismo Candidates Allegedly Tied to Drug Trade
March 21, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Ángel Páez LIMA, Mar 21, 2011 (IPS) – Congressional candidates nominated by the party of presidential hopeful Keiko Fujimori to stand in the Apr. 10 elections in Peru failed to inform the electoral authorities that they are under investigation for drug trafficking and money laundering. The media [...]
MEXICO-US: Little Spillover of "Narco-Deaths"
March 19, 2011 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Daniela Pastrana and Aprille Muscara CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico/WASHINGTON, Mar 19, 2011 (IPS) – In the U.S. city of El Paso, Texas the media sounded the alarm: six murders committed in just two months, more than the 2010 total of five. Just across the Mexican border, in the [...]
MEXICO: Narco-Sharks Replacing Drug Mules
December 2, 2010 By
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Emilio Godoy* MEXICO CITY, Dec 2, 2010 (IPS) – Sharks are facing a new threat: they are being fished off the Pacific coast of Central America and Mexico and used to smuggle cocaine to the United States, through Mexico. This stretch of ocean and its coasts have [...]
Can Mexico Shed Image as Ground Zero in Narco Wars?
Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Kanya D’Almeida WASHINGTON, Jun 4, 2011 (IPS) – Last year, the online branding company East-West Communications ranked Mexico 191st out of 200 countries on its Brand Perception Index, which is generated by analysing buzzwords in the international media’s quarterly and annual coverage of a certain country. Addressing [...]