Shale Gas May Be a Mexican Mirage

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Emilio Godoy MEXICO CITY, Dec 5, 2011 (IPS) – In spite of mounting scientific evidence about its negative aspects, Mexico is getting ready to intensify exploration for shale gas, natural gas found trapped in shale, a sedimentary rock. The state oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), is planning [...]

Unique Mexican Oasis in Danger of Vanishing

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Emilio Godoy MEXICO CITY, Nov 18, 2011 (IPS) – A rare wetlands ecosystem in the Chihuahuan desert in northern Mexico that may hold key information about the origins of life on earth – and even about possible life on Mars – is in serious danger of disappearing [...]

MEXICO: Activists Organise Against Spiralling Threats

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Emilio Godoy MEXICO CITY, Aug 12, 2011 (IPS) – "Open the door! Open the door, you SOBs!" Policemen dressed in black, wearing balaclavas and carrying "what I suppose were high-power rifles" broke down the door of the home of Efraín Bartolomé, a poet who lives on the [...]

MEXICO-RIGHTS: Activists Tell U.N. High Commissioner They’re in Danger

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 [...]

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 [...]

Drug-Related Violence Closing in on Mexican Capital

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 [...]

Mexican Women March for Rights, Mourn Slain Activists

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Daniela Pastrana MEXICO CITY, Apr 12, 2011 (IPS) – For the first time, Mexico has a female attorney general – the highest post ever reached by a woman in this country. But elation at this achievement is overshadowed by grief over the brutal murders of women police [...]

Social Networking Sites Mobilise Mexicans Fed Up with Violence

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Daniela Pastrana MEXICO CITY, Apr 7, 2011 (IPS) – Thousands of people took to the streets in 20 cities across Mexico Wednesday to protest the wave of drug-related killings, in demonstrations triggered by the murder of the son of poet Javier Sicilia, in another show of the [...]

Q&A: The Fight Against Organised Crime Has to Start with Society

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS Daniela Pastrana interviews TONIO DELL’OLIO, of anti-mafia group Libera MEXICO CITY, Apr 8, 2011 (IPS) – In countries where powerful organised crime groups operate, like Mexico, there is a kind of "mafiosity" or culture of illegality deeply rooted in society, which must be fought by educating the young, [...]

RIGHTS: Forced Disappearances on the Rise in Mexico

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 [...]