Jennifer Aniston arrived in Los Cabos over the weekend with the good friends, the Arquettes, while John Mayer flew in to the resort town with his brother.
She’s been all over the place promoting her new flick “Marley and Me” and now it looks like Jennifer Aniston is prepping for some down time in the New Year in Mexico.
When the American economy was growing, successive Mexican governments counted on foreign investment and exports to generate growth. Exports account for almost a third of Mexico’s gross domestic product. But more than 80 percent of them go to the U.S., and when Americans stop buying, there is no market for Mexican-made goods.
Mexico is credited by economists with economic policies that reduced debt and tamed inflation, but that has not saved it from the pain of a global recession.
The effect on Mexico is becoming clear. Unemployment is at the highest level in eight years. The peso has fallen 25 percent, leading to a spike in the price of imports, hurting consumers and businesses that rely on imported goods. Exports, industrial production and retail sales have all fallen in the last few months.
Mexico’s Federal drug tzar, Noe Ramiriz Mandujano, was arrested on charges that he had received huge bribes from one of the biggest cartels. A witness said Mandujano received $450,000 (£300,000) each month from the Beltran Leyva cartel in exchange for information on investigations.
“Enrique Gonzalez, killed while eating breakfast, had been a police officer. Manuel Inzunza, a local crime reporter, had known Gonzalez for 20 years as a friend, adding that he had been the head of the city’s homicide squad, and an honest policeman. “You know, this is the 10th member of Culiacan’s homicide squad to be killed since May. Almost the entire unit has been wiped out. The cartels have targeted the homicide squad because they don’t want any of the Drug murders investigated.”
link: huffingtonpost.com
MEXICO CITY – Mexico arrested a military officer suspected of passing information to drug traffickers as part of a government sweep to rout out corruption, the attorney general’s office said in a statement on Friday.
Army major Arturo Gonzalez allegedly received $100,000 a month to pass information about army anti-narcotics plans to the Beltran Leyva drug Cartel, Mexican daily Reforma reported.
Gonzalez was picked up as part of “Operation Clean-up,” which has netted several high-ranking police officers accused of collaborating with the Beltran Leyva brothers, who split off from the Sinaloa cartel run by Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman.
Mexico’s liaison to Interpol and the former head of the country’s organized crime bureau were also arrested in recent weeks for alleged drug ties. Another 30 anti-drug police have been fired on suspicion of corruption.
Since taking office in 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon has deployed thousands of troops and federal police to drug
There are signs that Immigration to the U.S. is no longer as attractive an option for Mexican immigrantsa and so Mexicans are Coming Home , Mexico prepares for Repatriation.
•The Pew Hispanic Center says the Hispanic immigrant labor force in the U.S. decreased by 217,000 between the third quarter of 2007 and the third quarter of 2008.
•The Mexican Foreign Ministry reports a nearly 30 percent increase from 2007 to 2008 in citizens who filed paperwork to move belongings from the U.S. to Mexico, although the sample size is small.
In response, Mexico is bracing for a possible influx of citizens returning for good.
•Mexico City is offering unemployment insurance and other benefits for an estimated 30,000 returnees.
•A federal micro-loan program is offering loans to returnees at favorable rates.
•The state of Zacatecas is offering a fund to start small businesses and is allowing returning immigrants to certify the job skills they learned in the U.S.
Mexicans Contributing to The American Economy
Mexican shoppers with fists full of cash and long Christmas lists are pouring across the border into hotels, restaurants and shopping malls here, providing an economic boost in a downward spiraling economy.
A clerk at a J. C. Penney store in Tucson rang up a purchase for Cecilia Rivera, left, on a shopping trip from Hermosillo, Mexico. Tucson’s economy depends on shoppers from south of the border.
“It’s extremely vital to make sure we do everything we can do to accommodate them at this time,” said George Bon, national sales manager for the Radisson Suites Tucson. “The bottom line is, we can’t afford to lose them.” (more…)
In this two image composite, Laura Zuniga is crowned as “Miss Sinaloa” state at left in the city of Mazatlan, Mexico July 8, 2008 and is shown to the press with [made members] of the Juarez Cartel and their gunmen after her arrest in the city of “Zapopan”, Mexico Tuesday Dec. 23, 2008. Police said Zuniga who was stopped at a checkpoint, was riding in one of two trucks with seven men, where mexico’s Special drug enforcement soldiers found a large stash of weapons and some $53,300 in U.S. currency. (more…)
MEXICO CITY, Dec 23 (Mexico) – Violent Mexican cartels that have killed thousands in a drug war at home this year are increasingly smuggling drugs to Europe by way of Africa.
Under pressure from a government and army crackdown at home, the Mexican Drug Cartels are seeking new lucrative markets.
Recent high-profile arrests of Mexicans around the globe show how the Gulf cartel and its main rival, the “Sinaloa Outfit” run by Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, are moving beyond their traditional market in the United States.
A 15-month international drug sweep called “Project Reckoning” captured 500 Gulf cartel collaborators in the United States, Mexico and Italy, where the The powerfull Mexican Drug Cartels have teamed with the notorious Italian ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate.
“Mexico’s Beauty Queen” Laura Zuniga.
Will her beauty fade in a orange prison jumpsuit?
The question now hangs over Laura Zuniga, 23, who emerged this summer as the reigning beauty queen of Sinaloa, the Mexican Pacific Coast state known for its stunning women and vicious drug Cartel.
She won Miss Hispanic America 2008 in a November pageant in Bolivia, placed third in the Miss Mexico contest and was heading to a global competition in Asia next year.
But “Zuniga” is ending the year in police custody after being arrested late Monday while traveling with seven alleged mobsters, including a boyfriend identified by federal police as a “top made member” of the Mexico’s Juarez Cartel.
Mexico has 2 Eurocopter Panther in current service, there’s a good chance SEMAR officials will purchase another 6 panthers within two years. Armed with gatling guns and/or rocket launchers when required for anti-narcotic operations. Option for 8 more Panthers.