The Takeaway takes on topic of Mexico violence

Takes on Mexico's spreading violence

http://www.thetakeaway.org/stories/2009/nov/18/drug-violence-on-rise-in-mexico/

Killing Fields meeting on the Net by feminists

Discussion on the Juarez killing fields book

The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women - Feminista (Washington, DC ...Join us to discuss the book The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women written byEl Paso Times journalist Diana Washington Valdez. It exposes the Mexicankilling ...<http://www.meetup.com/Feminista/calendar/11701759/>

Three men killed 55 people in Juarez, Mexico

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pjr5yz1EAM



Copyright 2008, 2009 Peace at the Border

Link to October 2009 panel discussion on Mexico's drug wars in Italy by international journalists. Panelists include Diana Washington Valdez, El Paso Times, and author of the forthcoming book "Mexican Roulette: Last Cartel Standing."

Hired guns said they killed 55 people in Juarez, Mexico

Three suspects in custody confessed to killing 55 people between them for the Carrillo Fuentes drug cartel in Juarez, Mexico, army officials said.

There were identified as Pedro Eduardo "Medio" Martinez Gordillo, 18, Sergio Daniel "32" Martinez Segura, 22, and Rodolfo "31" Sierra Archuleta, 23.

Martinez and Martinez told officials they killed 34 people in the Cuauhtemoc police district, and Sierra said he killed 21 people in the same Juarez police district.

Members of Joint Operation Chihuahua captured the suspects while responding to separate incidents on Oct. 8 and 9, the army said in a statement.

Officials said the suspects said they killed rivals of the Carrillo Fuentes cartel who belong to the Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman cartel, to a group called "Gente Nueva" (new people), and members of the Mexicles and Artistas Asesinos gangs.

The suspects said they operate in cell structures, and carried out for the cartel numerous , carjackings, auto thefts and extortions of bars, massage parlors, restaurants, funeral homes and repair shops, officials said. They also placed banners with threats in various public places.

Authorities seized serveral weapons and suspected stolen vehicles from the suspects.
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Special report by the Telegraph of London

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/mexico/5044633/Mexico-drugs-war-cartels-recruit-child-assassins.html

The Next Thing: El Paso Times story on Mexico and the coca plant

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_13581006

El Paso serial killer led a troubled life

El Paso Times special report Sunday and today
Focus on convicted serial killer David Leonard Wood

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_13028346

Femicides in
El Paso, Texas
Juarez, Mexico,
Albuquerque, N.M.

Women's bodies buried in Albuquerque mass grave

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_13028346

Texas death row's convicted serial killer and El Paso's femicides

Texas death row's convicted serial killer

Read about El Paso's femicides in today's and tomorrow's El Paso Times. David Leonard Wood, the man suspected of killing young women in 1987, is to be executed on Aug. 20 in Huntsville, Texas.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_13024659

- Kelly McKenzie

Al Jazeera English airs special on femicides in Mexico

Police cordon off crime scene of woman's slaying in Juarez, Mexico. [Photo special to Peace Books.]

See the YouTube special at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2dpnNohz4o

Al Jazeera English presents special on serial murders of women in Mexico

Network program with Rageh Omaar will air July 16 and 17, 2009 at the following times (Greenwich Mean Time): July 16: 0830 and 1900 (7 p.m.); July 17: 0330, 1400 (2 p.m.) and 2330 (11:30 p.m.). Eastern Standard Time (EST) is 5 hours behind GMT. CST is 6 hours behind, MST is 7 hours behind, and PST is 8 hours behind.

Audiences in the United Kingdom may remember the earlier film "City of Lost Girls" about the notorious murders and featuring journalist Sandra Jordan.

Watch online interviews by downloading the free Livestation Application that streams near real time:

Al Jazeera English:

http://www.livestation.com/channels/3-al_jazeera_english

Read Amnesty International's "Intolerable Killings" report
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=3EC284DD25E3F2B080256D78005D4BB1&lang=e

Author travels to England to discuss the Mexico femicides with Al Jazeera-English TV

At left is Rageh Omaar, Al Jazeera-English TV show host. [Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera.] At left is author-journalist Diana Washington Valdez next to the Thames River in London. [Photo courtesy of Peace Books/Copyright 2009]

Al Jazeera takes on the Juarez femicides

By Kelly McKenzie

LONDON - Al Jazeera plans to air a special program on the femicides in Juarez, Mexico, featuring author-journalist Diana Washington Valdez of El Paso, Texas, and footage by international correspondent and film producer Sandra Jordan.

Popular Al Jazeera journalist Rageh Omaar is host of "Witness," the program that will highlight the femicides.

Ms. Washington Valdez's schedule this year has included other trips to Europe. She has also been to more than 20 U.S. cities and Mexico to speak on the femicides. She is the author of The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women (Cosecha de Mujeres in Spanish), an investigative book about the femicides in Mexico, drug cartels and political corruption. Her next book due out later this year is titled Mexican Roulette: Last Cartel Standing.

"In addition to being a talented journalist, Mr. Rageh Omaar was a gracious host," Washington Valdez said. "I am grateful to him and his network for their interest in the ongoing systematic murders of women in Mexico. We're seeing these kinds of murders in Guatemala, Africa, and in other places that would surprise you, where women and children are being placed in harm's way, mainly because of governmental negligence and a wanton disregard for human life."

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See Regah's bio at http://english.aljazeera.net/Services/Templates/FreeTemplate.aspx?Rq=6)O7AGuNR-5HhKZr=HO-6GOfSFQWx-7p(27inS6-6a(b(4YL5-6X!el5Fcg-5HhDI7!jw-6qrKRrAW4-H4

Inter-American Court of Human Rights to rule on Mexico femicides

"Mexico on trial in murders of Women"

El Paso Times article

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_12267856

We may be coming to a city near you. Here are some of the places on the map we have visited or plan to stop by soon. Help us to get the word out:

Mexico City, Ciudad Juarez, Oakland, El Paso, San Diego, London, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Albuquerque, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Houston, Austin, Nashville, New York, Washington, D.C., Barcelona, Madrid, Cartagena, Portland, Oviedo, Seattle, Boston, Burlington.

[Photo above titled "Diana" from "Ni Una Mas Series" by Lina Pallotta. Diana Washington Valdez in Juarez.]

Part of the proceeds from the book The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women is donated to the Frontera Women's Foundation (www.fonterawomensfoundation.org), which administers a scholarship fund for low-income girls and women in Juarez to pursue their education. Purchase the book through barnesandnoble.com or amazon.com, or contact us. It is also available in Spanish under the title Cosecha de Mujeres.

Multistrain killer flu recalls swine flu scare of the 1970s

Copyright 2009 by Peace at the Border/Peace Books

By Kelly McKenzie
Special to Peace at the Border

Commentary

Authorities must investigate flu outbreak thoroughly

The flu that killed dozens of people in Mexico is unusual because medical officials have described it as a multistrain virus. While some have rushed to characterize it as a mutated virus, others are questioning whether it was produced in a laboratory. This means that the virus came from a contaminated vaccine or came from an experimental virus administered by vaccine or other means. Before rushing off to suspect terrorists or drug lords or politicians, the main questions that ought to be answered first is whether the virus was genetically altered or was it a true mutation. According to some experts consulted, the second possibility is the less likely of the two.
Also, investigators (medical, academic, journalists/including Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN) need to revisit the swine flu issue of the 1970s, and the questions that arose then over the swine flu vaccine. - Kelly McKenzie
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Issue of torture is related to the femicides of Juarez and Chihuahua City

Opinion

By Diana Washington Valdez

Torture is a moral issue

The U.S. government under its new president, Barack Obama, has reached an important juncture on the issue of torture. It must decide and declare whether torture to extract information from suspects in official custody is ever justified.

Regular law enforcement officers are not permitted to torture suspects during questioning. Regular people who torture another human being are subject to prosecution for violating laws against assault and injury.

It is a documented fact that Mexican law enforcement officers applied torture in several of the investigations of people suspected of killing women in Juarez and Chihuahua City. One of the victims of this practice was Cynthia Kiecker, an American woman who, along with her husband, Ulises Perzabal,was accused of killing a young woman in Chihuahua City. They were taken into custody and tortured into confessing to a crime they did not commit. Eighteen months later, and after intervention by activists and U.S. authorities, they were exonerated and set free.

Some of the activists involved in seeking justice for the slain women have criticized the U.S. authorities for looking the other way when it came to the murders and disappearances of girls and young women in Mexico.Perhaps the United States considered it politically unacceptable to discourage other countries from torturing people in police custody while the White House was justifying the practice for terrorist suspects in U.S. custody.

Each year, the U.S. State Department issues a report on human rights conditions in countries around the world. In some of these reports, the U.S. government has condemned torture and extrajudicial executions by security forces in other countries.

The torture issue that confronts Obama can derail the United States from its historic role as a champion for human rights. Our great nation should not turn off its lantern for the sake of expediency.

At a fundamental level, whether or not to torture implies a moral decision; it is an issue of right or wrong, one which cannot be negotiated into something less than that. And, to argue that the use of water-boarding and other similar techniques on human beings does not constitute torture is to join the ranks of those who minimize the murders of women from poor families in Mexico and other countries and who deny the Nazi Holocaust took place.- April 22, 2009.

C-Span interviews author of The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women

C-Span interview aired March 22, 2009

http://www.riograndesun.com/articles/2009/03/26/news/education/doc49ca6bd3d63f5311990534.txt

Texas resident arrested in serial rapes committed in Juarez, Mexico

New book due for release in mid-2009 portrays the extensive corruption that led to the Mexican drug wars of the past decade. Diana Washington Valdez, a U.S. journalist born in Mexico, also wrote The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women, which exposes the systematic murders of women in Mexico.

March 26 Wisconsin Public Radio's interview at http://www.wpr.org/ideas/programnotes.cfm

Mexicans capture son of Amado Carrillo Fuentes

http://www.elpasotimes.com/juarez/ci_12059363

Other news

Man living in Texas accused of serial rapes in Juarez is arrested

April 5, 2009

Juarez, Mexico - Chihuahua state authorities have arrested a man accused of a dozen sexual assaults in Pradera Dorada and other subdivisions in central Juarez. They identified the suspect on Monday as 43-year-old Jorge Alberto Mendes, a native of Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico, naturalized U.S. citizen and resident of El Paso, Texas. - Kelly McKenzie.

Coming soon

Updated edition of The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women