A new telecommunications reform that was presented in Mexico by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto has been heralded worldwide.  The reform bill seeks to amend the Mexican Constitution and will open the telephony and television industries. The changes had been recommended last year by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation  and Development, which said the lack of competition in the telecommunications sector cost Mexico $25 billion dollars a year and offered among the highest prices in the world to consumers. The Mexican Congress’ lower house approved the law on Thursday March 21 and the Mexican Senate is expected to approve it in April.  The version approved opens radio, television and telecommunications to foreign investment.  The reform was presented to Congress [...]

Ciudad Acuña, a tiny town on the Mexican side of Del Rio, Texas, has been in the news regularly because of drug-related violence.  The town,  resides in the state of Coahuila, which has been dominated by the ultra-violent Zetas. A competing organised crime group, the Sinaloa Cartel has been trying to take control of this territory in recent months, creating a surge of violence. Just last October, Jose Eduardo Moreira Rodriguez, the son of Humberto Moreira, a high-ranking politician from the Partido Institucional Revolucionario (PRI) and former governor of the state of Cohauila was kidnapped and killed, a drug cartel with the cooperation of a top police official. But police in this city have decided to focus on a more serious threat — miniskirts. General [...]

A 28-year-old middle school teacher at a private school in Mexico City has been fired after showing her students the 2008 film Milk, which tells the story of gay rights activist Harvey Milk, who was murdered in San Francisco in the 1970s. Mexico’s capital has been celebrated as a champion of gay rights in the region, permitting civil unions in 2006 and approving gay marriage in 2009. However, the scandal around the dismissal of the teacher, Cecilia Hernandez, shows some of the ongoing battles for gay rights in the city. Until December last year, Hernandez was an adjunct professor of civics and ethics at Lomas Hill middle school, which serves a well-heeled community on the outskirts of Mexico City. In [...]

Another attack targeting the Mexican media was carried out on 29 July. The Monterrey-based offices of the regional daily El Norte, a newspaper owned by the Reforma publishing group, were set on fire by armed men late on Sunday. It was the third attack on one of the daily’s offices in the past month. The office attacked Sunday covers the weddings and community events of the elite living in the upper-class enclave of Monterrey’s San Pedro Garza Garcia.

The bodies of three photographers from the city of Veracruz — Gabriel Huge, Gabriel Luna Varela, Guillermo Rodriguez— were found dismembered and dumped in local waterway as Mexicans celebrated World Press Freedom Day yesterday.  The bodies showed signs of torture. The Attorney General’s Office for the State of Veracruz reported that both Huge and Varela, who were freelance photographers, had been reported missing by their families yesterday. According to Laura Angelina Borbolla Moreno,  Special Attorney General for crimes against freedom of expression, both Huge and Varela were among a list of eight journalists who had been identified as under threat from organised crime in Veracruz. Just last weekend, neighbours discovered the body of Regina Martinez, a reporter for the political weekly magazine Proceso, [...]