Blog

1 - ZAPATISTA NEWS (www.enlacezapatisa.ezln.org.mx)
2 - EGG SHORTAGE THREATENS NUTRITION
3 - U.S. EMBASSY VEHICLE ATTACKED BY FEDERAL POLICE
4 - DISPUTE OVER WIRELESS FREQUENCIES TURNS POLITICAL
5 - SUPREME COURT LIMITS APPLICATION OF MILITARY LAW
6 - ELECTION DISPUTE CONTINUES
7 - WALMART LAUNDERING MONEY AND EVADING TAXES

-The Junta of Good Government in La Realidad denounces land theft, attacks and provocations by government authorities, the Green Party and the PRD.
-The Junta of Good Government in Morelia denounces an armed attack by members of ORCAO on August 2. The Regional Organization of Coffee Growers of Ocosingo (ORCAO) is affiliated with local PRD leaders.

2 - EGG SHORTAGE THREATENS NUTRITION
Egg prices are spiking at double the levels of only a few weeks ago as Mexicans face a shortage of their most important source of protein. A June bird flu epidemic in Michoacan- the heart of the country’s egg industry -wrought havoc in Mexico’s egg markets, with a kilo now priced at more than US$3. Mexicans typically consume 350 eggs per person per year, the highest consumption rate in the world. As the Calderon administration struggles to replace more than 11 million chickens slaughtered to control the flu epidemic, low-quality imports from the US and Central America are beginning to enter the market, often at usurious prices.

1 - PARTIAL VICTORY IN PATISHTAN CASE

2 - LUIS H ALVAREZ, ALWAYS THE OPPORTUNIST

3 - WALMART EARNINGS INCREASE DESPITE SCANDAL

4 - HSBC FINED US$28 MILLION

5 - UN FAILS TO CONTROL INTERNATIONAL ARMS TRADE AFTER US BALKS

Political prisoner and Zapatista support base Alberto Patishtan, unjustly imprisoned for the past 12 years, won a small victory this week when he moved from a high security prison in Sinaloa to the Amate medium security prison in Chiapas. This may not seem like much, but it means a great deal to Patishtan. In Sinaloa, he spent most of his time in isolation in a small cell and was allowed only one 15-minute phone call per month. In Chiapas, he will be free to move among the general prison population where he has many political allies and his family will be able to visit regularly. Patishtan was moved to Sinaloa after leading a hunger strike organized by Solidarios de la Voz del Amate, a prison group made up mostly of indigenous prisoners like Patishtan. The Fray Bartolome Human Rights Center handled the legal challenge that forced officials to return him to Chiapas. The Network Against Repression demands the immediate release of Patishtan and a dozen other political prisoners held in Chiapas jails.

1 - PRI STEALS ANOTHER ELECTION
2 - REMITTANCES INCREASE IN MAY
3 - CALDERON VETOES CRIME VICTIM COMPENSATION LAW

The PRI is back, suborning Mexico’s already limited democracy with a not so subtle mixture of the most up-to-date digital vote-buying techniques and well-worn old school practices to re-install last century’s “perfect dictatorship.” Remember 1988, when a mysterious “computer malfunction” saved PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Gotari from certain defeat? Salinas became perhaps the most hated man in Mexico when, in 1994, he handed a bankrupt country and the pending “tequila crisis” to another PRI President, Ernesto Zedillo. While that election may have been technically clean, the real contest was decided months earlier when populist PRI candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, in some ways the anti-Salinas, was assassinated during a campaign stop, almost certainly the result of internal party struggles, though the case was never solved. In 2000, former Coco-Cola president Vicente Fox captured the “voto util” (useful vote), a popular response to 70 years of PRI corruption that was really a vote for “anyone else.” Then in 2006, PAN candidate Felipe Calderon called on former PRI operator extraordinaire Elba Esther Gordillo and a stacked Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) to manipulate returns and guarantee a presidency marked by six years of death – 55,000 and counting – in a failed “war on drugs.” Reload to 2012, and another parody of democracy that will likely give the PRI’s Enrique Pena Nieto, a cute but largely vacuous “new face of the party,” yet another perverted presidential victory.

1 - MEXICAN ELECTIONS MARRED BY FRAUD
2 - US SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS KEY ANTI-IMMIGRANT LAW
3 - WTO RULING FAVORS MEXICO

Exit polls released late Sunday night show PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto winning Mexico’s presidency, with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the PRD finishing a surprisingly close second, and PANista Josefina Vazquez Mota a distant third. CNN, Parametria, and Mitofsky exit polls all showed Pena Nieto with about 41% and Lopez Obrador with about 32%, though a “quick-count” based on a sampling of returns from across the country showed a closer race, and the actual returns gave Pena Neta 38% with Lopez Obrador close behind at 33%. Vazquez Mota was quick to concede Sunday evening, while Lopez Obrador will wait for the official vote announcement on Wednesday and may contest the election after reports of widespread fraud. The PRI reportedly offered pre-paid supermarket cards worth up to 1,000 pesos and millions of boxes filled with food or cheap electro-domestics in exchange for votes. Vote-buying was particularly widespread in Mexico State, where Pena Nieto served as Governor, and Veracruz, with some reports of as many as a million votes purchased in Mexico State alone. Pena Nieto reportedly spent up to five times his legally allotted campaign fund, with massive private donations from businesses looking for influence in his administration. And he enjoyed a virtual lock on news coverage by Televisa, the largest of two national television networks. His wife, Angelica Rivera, is a popular soap opera star on the network.