Policemen killed: President Felipe Calderón said Friday that Mexico was sick and tired of rampant drug violence after five high-ranking police officers were killed in less than a week. “We have to come together to confront this evil. We Mexicans have to definitively and categorically say, 'That's enough!' ” Calderón said in Mexico City. He spoke after attending the funeral of national Police Chief Edgar Millán Gómez, who was slain Thursday by hired killers waiting for him at his home.
Inflation rises: Spiraling world food prices have helped push Mexico's inflation to 4.55 percent, a three-year high, the central bank said.
Ex-president speaks out: In his new book, “The Lost Decade,” former President Carlos Salinas lashes out against former Presidents Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox. Salinas also criticizes Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, saying the former Mexico City mayor is a populist who manipulates laws as he wishes.
Divided party: The two main factions of the PRD observed the party's 19th anniversary with separate celebrations. The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Ruth Zavaleta of the PRD, referred to Andrés Manuel López Obrador as a strongman and said the party could easily break in two.
Rebels reject talks: A leftist rebel group linked to a series of oil pipeline blasts rejected a government offer to hold talks. The People's Revolutionary Army said President Felipe Calderón's offer showed no willingness to solve crimes allegedly committed by the government against its members.
Poet fined: A poet was fined 50 pesos, or about $5, for writing a poem about using the flag to wipe up urine and excrement. Sergio Witz Rodríguez published the poem in a magazine in the southern state of Campeche in 2000 and could have faced as many as four years in prison under a law protecting the flag and national insignia. The poet described the ruling as an attack on freedom of expression and vowed he would not pay. His poem rejects nationalist values, with the opening lines: “I / clean my urine / on the flag / of my country / That rag / that dogs lie on / and that represents nothing.”
AFL-CIO opposes pact: A $1.4 billion U.S. aid package for Mexico for anti-drug efforts is under attack by U.S. organized labor, which says Congress should reject the Merida Initiative unless tough human rights conditions are included, according to a letter revealed Friday. In an April 30 letter to Reps. Howard Berman, D-Los Angeles, and William Delahunt, D-Mass., members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the AFL-CIO said fighting drug trafficking is “an important and legitimate foreign policy objective” but cited labor abuses in Mexico and considered the anti-narcotics strategy “ineffective.”
Compiled from news reports by Foreign Editor David Gaddis Smith: (619) 293-2211; david.smith@uniontrib.com
