Mexico celebrates 200 years with huge fiesta,Viva Mexico!

MEXICO CITY  Mexico looked beyond its drug war to throw a 200th birthday bash celebrating a proud history, whimsical culture and resilience embodied in the traditional independence cry: “Viva Mexico!”Across the capital, hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets despite their fears, blowing horns and dancing alongside a parade of serpent floats, marching cacti and 13-foot-tall warrior marionettes and staying late into the night at open-air concerts.President Felipe Calderon capped the evening by ringing the original independence bell from a balcony in the Zocalo square and delivering “El Grito,” patterned on founding father Miguel Hidalgo’s 1810 call to arms against Spain: “Long live independence. Love live the bicentennial … Long live Mexico!”Roaring thousands echoed his cry as fireworks exploded in the square and at the iconic Angel of Independence about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) down the city’s crowded main promenade.

“I love being Mexican!” said Michel Dosal, wearing a green, white and red Mohawk wig. “The 15th of September is better than Christmas. It’s better than my birthday!”In cities where drug violence is heaviest, festivities were more subdued. The grito was canceled in Ciudad Juarez for the first time in its history. People still showed their patriotism in the border city – Mexico’s most violent – by hanging Mexican flags from their roofs and hosting family dinners.

In the western city of Morelia, the scene of a cartel-related grenade attack that killed eight during the 2008 independence celebration, barely 2,000 showed up at the main plaza for a “grito” that once drew tens of thousands.”My son asked me to take him to see the grito, so I brought him despite my fears,” said Silvia Godinez Perez, a secretary. “We can’t easily forget what happened two years ago.”

But in Mexico City, a $40 million fiesta, two years in the making, drew people from across the country to the main Reforma Avenue and Zocalo. Moments before Calderon emerged on the balcony of the National Palace, a voice boomed from loudspeakers: “Let’s show the world that Mexico is strong and standing.””This one is special,” said Iris Mari Rodriguez Montiel, a small business owner who had traveled from the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz and waited since morning for the festivities to start. “It gives me chills just to think about it.”

Little girls wearing ribbons of the Mexican flag watched the 1.7-mile (2.7-kilometer) parade down Reforma from the shoulders of their fathers. Other children blew trumpets as the air filled with confetti.”It’s like a Carnival of Rio, plus an Olympic ceremony, plus Woodstock all put together in the same day,” said artistic director Marco Balich, who produced the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. “For the cost of a warplane, you can celebrate the birthday of a country.”

Several neighboring heads of state and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis attended.Still, anxiety hovered over the festivities in a country that most recently has seen car bombs, the assassination of a gubernatorial candidate, and the massacre of 72 migrants who refused to smuggle drugs for a brutal gang.Military helicopters buzzed overhead in the capital, heavily armed federal agents and metal detectors greeted revelers.

The Interior Department said there were no attacks against the celebrations. Prosecutors in the Caribbean coast resort of Cancun said they were investigating whether six men detained with assault rifles and hand grenades had planned an assault on bicentennial festivities. In northern Nuevo Leon state, eight gunmen were killed in a shootout with soldiers, authorities said.”In Mexico, we all live in fear. And the worst part is that we are starting to get used to it,” said Eric Limon, 33, a professional dancer who volunteered to wear a jaguar mask and swing a colorful Aztec club and spear for the parade.

“I want to be part of something important,” he said. “I know this won’t solve our problems, but this is my grain of sand to create a sense of unity. This is what Mexico needs.”Those who stayed away from the city center celebrated from their rooftops and staged their own neighborhood fireworks displays. All night long, rockets whistled and boomed skyward, blanketing the yards and streets with smoke.(AP)

Mexican soldier said that a U.S. citizen attacked an army convoy and was killed when troops shot him in self-defense outside the resort city of Acapulco

ACAPULCO, Mexico  A Mexican soldier said that a U.S. citizen attacked an army convoy and was killed when troops shot him in self-defense outside the resort city of Acapulco, a police official said. The man’s father said Monday that he found it hard to believe.An army lieutenant told police that Joseph Proctor opened fire on a military convoy with an AR-15 rifle, forcing the soldiers to shoot back, said Domingo Olea, a police investigator in the western state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located.

Olea provided no further details on Proctor, who was found dead in his car early Sunday.A Defense Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said the army was investigating the lieutenant’s claim. The official said Proctor might have been a passenger in the car, although nobody else was found with him at the scene.Proctor’s father, William Proctor, said he did not know of his son being involved in any illegal activity and did not believe he would have owned a gun or attacked soldiers.”I doubt that. Joseph had a temper but he didn’t use guns,” Proctor said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his home in Auburn, New York.

William Proctor said Joseph, 32, had lived off and on in Mexico for at least six years. He said his son had been in the process of divorcing his wife in Georgia and lived with a girlfriend and their young son in Mexico. He said he had little contact with his son and was unsure what Joseph did in Mexico but that he had worked in landscaping in the U.S.He said Joseph had sometimes complained about being pulled over by Mexican security forces looking for bribes.”He would get mad when the police pulled him over looking for payoffs,” Proctor said.Olea said the Mexican girlfriend, Liliana Gil Vargas, identified Proctor’s body. She gave Mexican authorities identification papers that listed Proctor as a resident of Georgia.

In brief comments to Mexican reporters, Gil said she last saw Proctor on Saturday night when he went out to run an errand at a convenience store in Barra de Coyuca, a community outside of Acapulco.Gil said the couple had been living in the central state of Puebla, near Mexico City, but had moved to Barra de Coyuca four months ago.Joseph Proctor’s mother, Donna Proctor, declined to speak to the AP when reached by telephone at her home in Hicksville, N.Y.

A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said consular officials in Acapulco had been in contact with Proctor’s family and were providing assistance to repatriate his body. The spokeswoman declined to be named, in line with Embassy policy.Soldiers frequently come under attack from drug-trafficking gangs in the Acapulco area and there have been cases across Mexico of innocent bystanders dying in the crossfire between soldiers and drug gangs, or of soldiers opening fire on civilians who failed to stop at checkpoints.The military has faced mounting allegations of human-rights abuses since President Felipe Calderon deployed thousands of soldiers in 2006 to fight drug traffickers in their strongholds.

In November 2009, American Lizbeth Marin was shot to death in the Mexican border city of Matamoros. Mexican newspapers reported that Marin was hit by a stray bullet fired by a soldier participating in a raid.More recently, two Mexican university students were killed in March in the crossfire of a shootout between gunmen and soldiers outside the gates of their campus in the northern city of Monterrey.(AP)

6.5-magnitude earthquake struck southern Mexico

MEXICO CITY June 30  A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck southern Mexico early on Wednesday, shaking buildings in Mexico City, the U.S. Geological Survey and Reuters witnesses reported.The quake’s epicenter was 8 miles (14 km) east of Oaxaca, Mexico, the USGS said. The quake was felt in Mexico City, where some people fled their houses in the city center, a Reuters witness reported..(Reuters)

Mexican boxer boycott Arizona

MEXICO CITY, world boxing Council (WBC) will not allow Mexican boxer to fight in Arizona as their reaction on the part of the country of immigration laws they consider discriminatory.Arizona has issued a new law that states people who enter that state without a license declared a criminal act.

WBC President Jose Sulaiman said the ban on Mexican boxer to fight in Arizona is also supported by the Mexican boxing commission. In a written statement, Solomon called the boxer-boxer past seoperti large Mexican Julio Cesar Chavez or even Salvador Sanchez never fight in Arizona. This boycott will begin this Saturday.The new law raises fears would encourage the police to commit an act of racial discrimination, mainly to immigrants from Mexico.

Illegal immigrants plan to leave over Arizona because of the law

PHOENIX Many of the cars that once stopped in the Home Depot parking lot to pick up day laborers to hang drywall or do landscaping now just drive on by.Arizona’s sweeping immigration bill allows police to arrest illegal immigrant day laborers seeking work on the street or anyone trying to hire them. It won’t take effect until summer but it is already having an effect on the state’s underground economy.”Nobody wants to pick us up,” Julio Loyola Diaz says in Spanish as he and dozens of other men wait under the shade of palo verde trees and lean against a low brick wall outside the east Phoenix home improvement store.

Many day laborers like Diaz say they will leave Arizona because of the law, which also makes it a crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants.Supporters of the law hope it creates jobs for thousands of Americans.”We want to drive day labor away,” says Republican Rep. John Kavanagh, one of the law’s sponsors.An estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants have left Arizona in the past two years as it cracked down on illegal immigration and its economy was especially hard hit by the Great Recession. A Department of Homeland Security report on illegal immigrants estimates Arizona’s illegal immigrant population peaked in 2008 at 560,000, and a year later dipped to 460,000.The law’s supporters hope the departure of illegal immigrants will help dismantle part of the underground economy here and create jobs for thousands of legal residents in a state with a 9.6 percent unemployment rate.

Kavanagh says day labor is generally off the books, and that deprives the state of much-needed tax dollars. “We’ll never eliminate it, just like laws against street prostitution,” he says. “But we can greatly reduce the prevalence.”Day laborers do jobs including construction, landscaping and household work for cash paid under the table. Those jobs have been harder to find since the housing industry collapsed here several years ago.

Standing near potted trees and bushes for sale at a Home Depot in east Phoenix, Diaz, 35, says he may follow three families in his neighborhood who moved to New Mexico because of the law. He says a friend is finding plenty of work in Dallas.Diaz says he has too much to lose by staying – he’s supporting a wife and infant son back home in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas.”They depend on me to survive,” he says. “I’m not going to wait for police to come and arrest me.”Jose Armenta, a 33-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico’s western coast, is already planning to move to Utah within the next 20 days because of a combination of the economy and the new law.”A lot of people drive by,” he says as he watched nearby cars speeding past, “and they yell, ‘Hey, go back to Mexico!'”

Analysts say it’s too soon to tell what lasting effects the law will have on the state’s underground work force, which also includes baby sitters, maids and cooks.A study of immigrants in Arizona published in 2008 found that non-citizens, mostly in the country illegally, held an estimated 280,000 full-time jobs. The study by researcher Judith Gans at the University of Arizona examined 2004 data, finding that they contributed about 8 percent of the state’s economic output, or $29 billion.Losing hundreds of thousands of unskilled laborers wouldn’t hurt the state’s economy in the short term, but it could limit the economy’s ability to grow once it recovers, says Marshall Vest, director of the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management.Legal workers who are willing to take any available job now will become more choosy if the unemployment rate falls back to low levels seen before the recession hit.

“That’s really the question, as to whether the existing population is willing to work those (low-level) jobs,” Vest says. “I think economics provides the answer. If job openings have no applicants, then businesses need to address that by raising the offered wage.”Some illegal immigrants, however, intended to stick around.Natalia Garcia, 35, from Mexico City, says she and her husband – a day laborer – will stay so their daughters – both born in the U.S. – can get a good education and learn English. The couple have been living in Arizona illegally for the last 10 years.”Mexico doesn’t have a lot of opportunities,” she says. “Here, we work honestly, and we have a better life.”Olga Sanchez, 32, from southern Mexico, lives in Phoenix illegally with her two brothers, who are 21 and 17. While the youngest boy is in high school, all three work and send money back home to their parents.

“This law is very bad for us,” says Sanchez, who gets about $250 a week cleaning three houses. “I’m afraid of what’s going to happen.”She says the family is going to wait and see if the law takes effect and what the fallout will be before deciding whether to leave. The law is certain to be challenged in court; Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff already are considering lawsuits.”All I ask from God is a miracle for us to stay here and work,” she says.(AP)

Mexico condemns Anti-Immigration Law

Mexico has warned its citizens to visit Arizona, responding to one anti-immigration legislation that cause anger strict in Mexico and throughout America. The law, signed in January Brewr, U.S. state governors, the southern part of it, from Republicans, allows police to inspect and arrest anyone who they suspect may be illegal immigrants, although they are not suspected of criminal acts.

Action caused resentment on both sides of the border, with MPs California, on Tuesday called for economic boycott against Arizona and one Mexican airline warned it may cancel more flights to the southern U.S. states that. Mexico’s foreign ministry suggested its citizens carry identity documents and to respect the laws of Arizona, warned that an adverse political situation for the migrant community and all visitors of Mexico.

“With this legislation is estimated to every citizen can be disrupted and examined for reasons that are not important at all times,” the statement said. President Felipe Calderon criticized the law as racial discrimination and said the government would use all means available to defend its citizens.

He said the law threatens the relationship of friendship, business, tourism and culture between Mexico and Arizona. Many Mexican migrants and the opposition party called for a boycott of businesses on the southern U.S. states, while the businessmen concerned about the negative reaction.

“Without doubt it will have an impact on traffic and the pelacong between Mexico and the state’s (Arizona),” Leader said Andres Conesa Aeroméxico airline told reporters at a tourism conference in Acupulco, Tuesday. “Aeroméxico’ve closed the routes between the cities of Mexico City and Guadalajara and Phoenix in Arizona in recent months,” he said.

In Sonora, the Mexican state bordering Arizona government symbolically membatalan one annual meeting with officials of Arizona, said its Internet pages, but said that trying to maintain good relations. North of the border, the legislation sparked a wave of criticism, including from U.S. President Barack Obama, and create legal and political fights while the Democratic party would consider filing a change in the law immigration wide.

Members of Congress in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Tuesday called for a boycott, including tightening up contracts with companies in Arizona and encourage private companies to reduce business with the state.

U.S. Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano says U.S. justice officials very worried about the law and the Justice Department is considering whether the law meets constitutional requirements. Mexico, which have a 3.200km long border with the United States, estimated to have approximately 12 million citizens in the U.S., half of them do not have documents or illegal. Arizona estimates in its territory there are 460 000 illegal immigrants, mostly from Latin America.

Mexican government warned its citizens Tuesday to use extreme caution if visiting Arizona

MEXICO CITY  The Mexican government warned its citizens Tuesday to use extreme caution if visiting Arizona because of a tough new law that requires all immigrants and visitors to carry U.S.-issued documents or risk arrest.Two top U.S. officials, meanwhile, criticized the measure and said it may face a legal challenge by federal authorities.A Mexican government-affiliated agency that supports Mexicans living and working in the United States called for boycotts of Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Phoenix Suns until those organizations rebuke the law.”We are making a strong call to the Arizona government to retract this regressive and racist law that’s impacting not only residents of Arizona, but people in all 50 states and in Mexico as well,” said Raul Murillo, who works with the Institute for Mexicans Abroad, an autonomous agency of Mexico’s Foreign Ministry.US Airways spokesman Jim Olson said “we have had absolutely no customers who have canceled fights” as a result of the controversy. Calls to the Diamondbacks and the Suns were not immediately returned.

The boycott demand came hours after Mexico’s Foreign Ministry issued its travel alert for Arizona, warning “that any Mexican citizen could be bothered and questioned for no other reason at any moment.”The law’s passage shows “an adverse political atmosphere for migrant communities and for all Mexican visitors,” the alert said.

In Washington, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano criticized the law, with Holder saying the federal government may challenge it.A number of options are under consideration, including “the possibility of a court challenge,” Holder said.A citizen effort to repeal the law also is expected. Jon Garrido, who produces a Hispanic website and ran unsuccessfully last year for the Phoenix City Council, said he plans to begin gathering signatures next week to get a repeal referendum on the November ballot. If successful, the effort would block the law from taking effect until the vote.

U.S. politicians also weighed in on the growing controversy, with election season looming.In California, Meg Whitman, the Republican front-runner in the California gubernatorial primary, said Arizona is taking the wrong approach.”I think there’s just better ways to solve this problem,” Whitman said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, seeking re-election, told CBS’s “The Early Show” that his state needed such a law because the Obama administration has failed to secure the borders, resulting in drugs pouring into the southwestern United States from Mexico.Arizona’s law – slated to take effect in late July or early August – makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally. State lawmakers said the legislation, which has sparked huge protests and litigation, was needed because federal officials aren’t enforcing existing U.S. laws.

Mexico’s alert says that once the law takes effect, foreigners can be detained if they fail to carry immigration documents. And it warns that the law will make it illegal to hire or be hired from a vehicle stopped on the street.

Each day, more than 65,000 Mexican residents are in Arizona to work, visit friends and relatives and shop, according to a University of Arizona study sponsored by the Arizona Office of Tourism. While there, the Mexican visitors spend more than $7.35 million daily in Arizona’s stores, restaurants, hotels and other businesses, the researchers found.

Bimbo Bakeries, one of many Mexican companies operating in Arizona, said Tuesday it doesn’t expect Arizona’s new immigration law to affect its employees.”We carefully screen all associates to ensure they are authorized to work in the United States,” Bimbo spokesman David Margulies said.At the Mexico City airport Tuesday, Mexicans heading for the U.S. said they were very troubled by the new law.”It’s humiliating,” said Modesto Perez, who lives in Illinois. “It’s really ugly.”(AP)

Mexico Cargo Aircraft Falling , Killed Five Crew

Monterrey, A cargo plane fell into the street while trying to land in the city of Monterrey in northern Mexico. Accident that killed five crew and someone at the scene.Local civil defense Director Jorge Camacho Rescue, Wednesday (14/4/2010), said that all the crew were killed and one more person died in a car crushed the aircraft. He said only three bodies were found Wednesday the crew that night. Emergency teams still seeking two other crew.

According to Camacho, the Airbus A300 plane was trying to land in the middle of the rainy weather at about 11 pm, local time Tuesday, when the accident happened on the road to the international airport in the city’s third-largest in Mexico. The plane belongs to Aerotransportes de Carga Union, based in Mexico City that take off from Mexico City.Wreckage strewn around the scene. Nose and both wings were torn, while the remaining portion of the fuselage lying in between two lanes of the road.

MEXICO, At least 40 prisoners escape from prison Matamoros in Tamaulipas state, north of Mexico City

MEXICO, At least 40 prisoners, Thursday (25/3/2010) escape from prison Matamoros in Tamaulipas state, north of Mexico City, according to local government information.

There are no details about how all these prisoners to escape from the prison. All of these prisoners have been sentenced for committing a criminal offense.

Meanwhile, police personnel from various union and soldiers of the Mexican Army prison guard, while other officers were deployed to the area to catch the return of all prisoners.

Why Chile Earthquake is not as bad effect like Earthquake as in Haiti ?

Mexico City An earthquake measuring 8.8 that struck Chile SR 500 times more powerful than the earthquake that shook 7 SR Haiti last month. But the level of death and destruction in Chile sedahsyat not like what happened in Haiti. The number of victims of the earthquake in Chile less than the number of earthquake victims in Haiti. The death toll from the earthquake in Chile for a while just reached 300 people, while the death toll in Haiti through the 200 thousand inhabitants. In Chile, the number of people who lost their homes less than Haiti, and also telephone and communications network could be restored within 5 hours. Why does this happen?

As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Sunday (28/2/2010), explained that the earthquake happened in Haiti is more shallow depth of 10 kilometers and the epicenter was only a few miles of a densely populated area such as the capital of Port-au-Prince. Meanwhile, Chilean earthquake occurred at a deeper depth of about 35 kilometers and centered off the coast of the sparsely populated community. Other causes of, namely because Chile are relatively well prepared to face an earthquake. Past events in 1960, when the strongest earthquake ever SR 9.5 magnitude devastated Chile, became a valuable experience for the country. Schools and even an earthquake exercise routine for students.

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