Web Writer's comments:
Behold! Coming soon to a community near you. Looks like more links to China's communists.
Below is just a couple examples. There are new examples all the time. More than I could ever list on this site.
Cross-border methamphetamine trade booms amid Mexico's 'war on drugs'
According to information from Mexico’s Secretariat of National Defense, 22 methamphetamine labs were seized in 2007. That number increased to 206 in 2011.
The methamphetamine trade is only part of the drug problem confronting Mexico – the country’s cartels also produce or traffic large amounts of cocaine, heroin and marijuana, among other narcotics. Since Calderon's war on drugs began, more than 47,500 people have been killed, according to the country's attorney general's office. The worsening violence and continued flow of drugs has caused many to question whether Mexico’s militarized approach is the right way to stamp out the cartels.
While most of the bloodshed in the war on drugs has been south of the border, the problem has had a direct impact on Americans. Mexico is the primary source of methamphetamines consumed in the U.S., according to the Department of Justice’s National Drug Threat Assessment 2011.
"My impression is that this data shows a much greater effectiveness on the part of the army,” Rodriguez told msnbc.com. “But what these numbers imply to me is that if lab seizures are growing and the price is falling is that the production is so high that it is not causing a serious impact. In other words, if seizures are not having a real effect on prices and the price continues to fall it means that the seizures aren’t even affecting the level of production.”
...Key chemicals...
Officials say key to stamping out the methamphetamine trade is interrupting the flow of chemicals needed to manufacture it, known as precursors.
China and India are the main countries involved in the trafficking of key precursor chemicals to Mexico, the DEA’s Boggs said
“We’ve … taken steps to work with our international partners to curb international chemical smuggling,” he added.
Despite efforts by officials on both sides of the border, the trade in methamphetamines and precursors is likely spreading south. According to The Associated Press, 1,600 tons of precursors were seized in Guatemala in 2011, up from 400 seized there in 2010.
In December alone, 675 tons of precursors destined for Guatemala were seized in Mexico. Most of it came from Shanghai, China, the AP reported. At $100 per gram for the finished product, that would end up producing hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of drugs.
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...NEW STORY...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46233170/ns/world_news-americas/
Mexico: International gang made Indiana Jones-style bids to rescue Gadhafi son
Plot involved piles of stolen passports, luxury homes, white-knuckle flights, but may have been blown by hacker group Anonymous
MEXICO CITY — Prosecutors said Wednesday they broke up not one, but two Indiana Jones-style plots to "extract" a son of late dictator Moammar Gadhafi from Libya and bring him to Mexico as his father's regime crumbled.
The attempt to sneak out al-Saadi Gadhafi involved piles of stolen passports, white-knuckle flights with pilots who refused to land in war-torn Libya and luxury homes bought under false names in Mexico, Assistant Attorney General Jose Cuitlahuac Salinas said.
He said it was led by a Canadian woman, a Danish man and two Mexican suspects who were charged this week with attempted immigrant trafficking, falsifying documents and organized crime.
Under the foiled plans, the dictator's son would have entered the country under the names Daniel Bejar Hanan, Amira Sayed Nade, Moah Bejar Sayed and Sofia Bejar Sayed, according to Mexican newspaper El Universal. (Link in Spanish)
Salinas said the group hired pilots to fly from Mexico to Kosovo, from there to the Tunisian capital of Tunis and on to Libya in July, but that attempt failed to extract the dictator's son.
"They weren't able to do it out because the pilots refused to carry out a secret landing," Salinas said.
Authorities have said that Canadian Cynthia Vanier was the alleged ringleader of the plan, and the Danish man, identified as Pierre Christian Flensborg, was "the logistic liaison."
Salinas said the story began in 2009, when 4,586 blank Mexican passport forms were stolen in Mexico City.
The ring then allegedly made arrangements for a second attempt, hiring pilots and a plane. But Mexican authorities were tipped off to the scheme by a series of anonymous e-mails and arrested the four suspects in November, before the second flight could take off.
Apparently, the ring got hold of some of those blank passports. It had also discussed what false names to use for al-Saadi and his family, he said.
He said Vanier had a false Mexican passport and birth certificate in her own name when she was detained in November; the documents were apparently used to open bank accounts.
Vanier, 52, has been identified in Canadian news media as a former mediator for Indian tribes from Mount Forest, Ontario.
The suspects also reportedly arranged to acquire properties where al-Saadi Gadhafi and his relatives were to have lived under false identities once they arrived in Mexico.
Those properties included a $1.25 million dollar apartment at the St. Regis, a hotel and residential tower on Mexico City's leafy Reforma boulevard. The hotel's website describes its 24-hour room service and butlers, and says "St. Regis Residences offer a unique opportunity to expand your incomparable lifestyle."
They had allegedly made arrangements to buy that apartment but the deal had not yet gone through, prosecutors said.
The conspirators had also allegedly made a $57,000 down payment on a home at a coastal development near the Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta.
The beachfront house, whose total cost was not clear, sports an ornate double car port, a swimming pool and direct beach access, according to photos of the property at the address listed by prosecutors.
Vallarta & Beyond, a real estate company that once represented the sellers, said the house had been for sale at a a price of around $600,000.
Prosecutors said Wednesday that a fifth suspect, who they would not identify, was still at large.
'Humanitarian rights'
In December, Gary Peters, the director of the Canada-based Can/Aust Security & Investigations International Inc., told The Associated Press that he had worked as al-Saadi's North America security chief in Canada, and that Vanier had been involved in efforts to get him into Mexico.
Peters said Vanier's role was to get travel documents for Gadhafi's son, but he said the arrangements were legitimate, as far as he knew.
"It wasn't smuggling," he said. The plan, Peters said, "was to help him get there on humanitarian rights."
"I don't know where these documents were coming from; that was all Cindy's area. I was just doing security," Peters said.
"As far as I knew, the contacts that she was talking to, they weren't going to be false, they were going to be legitimate documents." But he added he didn't know whether al-Saadi's name would appear on the passports. "I don't know whose name, I don't know, that wasn't my area."
Prosecutors described the anonymously emailed tip in a slide presentation along an image of the Guy Fawkes mask.
The image of Fawkes, a 17th century English revolutionary, has become a symbol of the Internet network "Anonymous," which has claimed credit for internet hacking around the world. They did not explain that connection.
A Twitter account linked to the Anonymous IberoAmerica website, which has carried comments from the movement in Mexico in the past, did not immediately respond to queries about whether the Anonymous movement was responsible for blowing the whistle on the plot.
In December, a lawyer for al-Saadi Gadhafi denied that his client plotted to sneak illegally into Mexico.
Al-Saadi Gadhafi, who is known for his love of professional soccer, playboy lifestyle and run-ins with police in Europe, never made it to Mexico, but did reach the Western African country of Niger, where he has been living.
The elder Gadhafi ruled Libya with an eccentric brutality for nearly 42 years before he was ousted by an uprising in August.
He was captured and killed in October, along with his son Muatassim. Killed earlier in the civil war were younger brothers Seif al-Arab and Khamis. Another son, Seif al-Islam, was captured in Libya in November. Their mother, Safiya, and sister Aisha fled to neighboring Algeria.
Msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The suspects were detained in November and held under form of house arrest until last week, when they were formally charged. Because they have not been ordered held over for trial, they have not entered pleas, nor do they have lawyers of record.
...4 NEW STORY headlines below...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33641310/ns/us_news?q=Arizona
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Getting Congress to work for America
Updated 6 hours, 53 minutes ago
MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan recaps his conversation with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., about taking back America from “greedy bastards.”
-two-
Arpaio office lawyers to meet with DOJ
Updated 5:20 p.m. CT, Thurs., Feb. 2, 2012
Lawyers in Arizona for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and attorneys from the U.S. Justice Department plan Monday to meet for the first time to resolve federal accusations of civil rights violations against the department run by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Full story
-three-
Bodies found bound, burned in AZ positively ID'ed
Updated 7:15 p.m. CT, Thurs., Feb. 2, 2012
Police on Thursday said the elderly man and woman found tied up and burned in a posh Phoenix suburb were the owners of the home where their remains were discovered. Full story
-four-
Police bust Arizona-Mexico drug ring, arrest 12
Updated 5 hours, 11 minutes ago
Police in southern Arizona have broken up a drug trafficking network that smuggled more than 15 tons of marijuana and cocaine from Mexico and arrested 12 suspects, authorities said on Friday. Full story
