Drug Wars: When a ‘Cartel’ Really Isn’t
Amazing – people talking about the semantics of the issues rather than trying to solve them.
— Javier from Brooklyn
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico – For the second time in two weeks a drug rehabilitation centre in Mexico’s violence-scarred Ciudad Juarez became a scene of carnage. Gunmen burst into a drug treatment center in the northern Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and shot to death 10 people.Two doctors and eight clients are killed in an attack by gunmen at a rehab facility in Ciudad Juarez.
TIME TO LEGALIZE DRUGS, For Mexico’s sake.
MEXICO CITY — As the end of the four-month rainy season approaches here in Mexico City, it has finally begun to rain. But the daily downpours, which have overwhelmed the city’s drainage network and flooded subway stations, arrived too late.
The Cutzamala reservoir system was depleted this spring.
Mexico is enduring its worst drought in six decades. Crops are drying up in the fields and water is being rationed in the capital. Residents of poor neighborhoods have hijacked water trucks, and there are other signs of social tensions building.
El Niño, a weather pattern that warms water in the Pacific Ocean and leads to changing weather around the Pacific Basin, is causing the drought, Mexican officials say. (more…)
EXICO CITY, Sept 7 (Reuters) – Mexican state oil monopoly Pemex awarded a $464 million contract to France’s CGGVeritas (GEPH.PA) to search for crude in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Pemex said on Monday.
Pemex, fighting to halt declining reserves and production, said the geophysical survey company would provide more than 46,000 square miles (75,000 square km) of 3D images over five years.
“This work will improve the precision in finding oil wealth in the deep Gulf of Mexico,” Pemex [PEMX.UL] said in a statement.
Mexican oil output has fallen by nearly a quarter since 2004 as output from the aging Cantarell field has slumped.
In the parched Mexican countryside, the corn is wilting, the wheat stunted. And here in this vast and thirsty capital, officials are rationing water and threatening worse cuts as Mexico endures one of the driest spells in more than half a century.
A months-long drought has affected broad swaths of the country, from the U.S. border to the Yucatan Peninsula, leaving crop fields parched and many reservoirs low. The need for rain is so dire that water officials have been rooting openly for a hurricane or two to provide a good drenching.
“We really are in a difficult situation,” said Felipe Arreguin Cortes, deputy technical director for Mexico’s National Water Commission. [la.times]
The Volkswagen company of Mexico and the firm’s union reached an agreement Saturday ending the strike that began earlier this week at the auto factory in mexico. Volkswagen reached a wage agreement with workers at its Mexican plant, who agreed to lift a five-day-old strike.
Mexicos 2010 Budget Plan Sees 2.5MB/D Crude Output
Mexico’s oil production may fall 4.9 percent next year as the nation faces the greatest “fiscal shock” in 30 years, said Finance Minister Agustin Carstens told a Senate committee today.
Lower output is costing the nation as much as 300 billion pesos ($23.05 billion) in lost sales annually and may create a deficit in the federal budget next year, Carstens said. Oil revenue funded 38 percent of the government’s budget last year.
Mexico’s economy, the second-largest in Latin America, may have shrunk as much as 10.4 percent in the second quarter as remittances, foreign direct investment and exports fell, according to a
government report last month. Standard & Poor’s in May placed Mexico’s credit rating on negative outlook as the government struggles to narrow its fiscal deficit.
“We are going to face a huge hurdle to pass a budget that maintains the stimulus with less government revenue,” Carstens said.
State-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos on July 30 cut its production forecast to 2.65 million barrels a day for this year, from an earlier estimate of as much as 2.8 million. Carstens said Pemex may pump 2.5 million barrels a day next year and output would keep falling through 2012.
mexico oil :http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aPGPhD5VddqI
US officials handed $2.4 million in proceeds from stolen oil products to Mexican authorities as part of a case against a Houston importer.
US refineries bought millions of dollars worth of oil stolen from Mexican government pipelines and smuggled across the border, the US Justice.
* Texas says Cemex owes at least $558 mln in royalties
* Lawsuit latest concern for debt-laden Mexican company
* Cemex says sand, gravel not subject to royalties (Recasts; adds background, Cemex debt details)
By Robin Emmott
MONTERREY, Mexico, June 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. state of Texas said on Tuesday it filed a lawsuit against Mexico’s Cemex SA for $558 million in royalties owed in the United States, the latest headache for the debt-laden cement maker.
Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said Cemex (CMXCPO.MX)(CX.N), the top cement maker in the United States, was mining a quarry near El Paso, Texas, without paying royalties to the owner, the state’s Permanent School Fund.
*Jabil to build SunPower solar panels at Mexican plant
*First step in implementing regional panel assembly
*Financial terms not disclosed
LOS ANGELES, June 8 (Reuters) – Solar power company SunPower Corp (SPWRA.O) said on Monday it had signed a contract with electronics maker Jabil Circuit Inc (JBL.N) to build solar panels in Mexico beginning in the second half of 2009.
Jabil will start making solar panels for SunPower’s North American solar customers in the second half of 2009, SunPower said in a statement. The San Jose, California, company said the deal was the first step in its long-term strategy to implement regional panel assembly to reduce costs.
SunPower currently produces its solar panels in the Philippines and has a partnership with SunEnergy in China. It is also looking at establishing manufacturing in large solar markets in the United States, the company said. – [reuters.com]
