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By Justin Lahart and Tom Orlik / Dow Jones

Buying stuff from China isn't such a bargain anymore. One consequence of that: Companies that move freight from Mexico are getting busier.

China has long been the destination for companies looking to cut costs. A huge population of untapped workers, along with a leadership keen to build out the country's manufacturing infrastructure, made it the world's best place to make things cheaply. But nothing lasts forever.

The pool of Chinese workers is getting shallower. China's one-child policy and cultural preference for boys have led to a shrinking population of young people, particularly the women who work the floors of the apparel and electronics firms. Add rising affluence, and labor costs are going up faster than productivity increases at Chinese firms can offset them.

http://By Justin Lahart and Tom Orlik / Dow Jones Buying stuff from China isn't such a bargain anymore. One consequence of that: Companies that move freight from Mexico are getting busier. China has long been the destination for companies looking to cut costs. A huge population of untapped workers, along with a leadership keen to build out the country's manufacturing infrastructure, made it the world's best place to make things cheaply. But nothing lasts forever. The pool of Chinese workers is getting shallower. China's one-child policy and cultural preference for boys have led to a shrinking population of young people, particularly the women who work the floors of the apparel and electronics firms. Add rising affluence, and labor costs are going up faster than productivity increases at Chinese firms can offset them.

By Guy Taylor / The Washington Times

The front-runner in Mexico’s presidential race represents a party known for allowing drug-trafficking cartels semiautonomous control of certain regions during its rule in the previous century.

The prospect of a victory by Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the July 1 presidential election is troubling U.S. policymakers about future drug-control efforts with Mexico.

Noting that law enforcement and intelligence collaboration between the U.S. and Mexico has advanced at an unrecedented rate under President Felipe Calderon, a high-ranking Mexican official said, “A lot of policymakers in Washington would be concerned to see that evaporate.”

www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/3/resurgent-party-clouds-future-mexico-drug-war/

Fox News Latino

Researchers have developed "environmentally friendly tortillas" that are more nutritious, help prevent osteoporosis, slow the aging process and help fight obesity, Mexico's Center for Advanced Research and Studies, or Cinvestav, said.

A team led by Juan de Dios Figueroa Cardenas, of Cinvestav's unit in Queretaro, developed an environmentally friendly method for producing tortillas from gourmet corn that have a high nutritional content and double the shelf life without increasing the price of the final product, the center said.

Mexicans eat about 14 million tons annually of tortillas, which are one of the main sources of calcium for the population.

latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2012/02/01/environmentally-friendly-tortillas-new-hit-in-mexico/

Fox News Latino

Months before Mexico's presidential elections, political rivals are trading accusations over $1.9 million in cash found stuffed into a state official's luggage at a Mexico airport, a find that has inflamed rampant speculation about the possibility of organized crime or illegal campaign money influencing the July 1 presidential election.

The wads of cash, many of them bank-fresh 1,000-peso bills, were found when police decided to search passengers arriving on a private flight to Toluca, the capital of the home state of leading presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto.

The money came from Veracruz, a Gulf coast state governed by Peña Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI. The state official carrying the cash said he was making a hurried payment to a legitimate company for consulting services.

latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/02/01/mexicos-politicians-battle-over-1-m-found-in-bags/

By Karla Zabludovsky / New York Times

A drought that a government official called the most severe Mexico had ever faced has left two million people without access to water and, coupled with a cold snap, has devastated cropland in nearly half of the country.

The government in the past week has authorized $2.63 billion in aid, including potable water, food and temporary jobs for the most affected areas, rural communities in 19 of Mexico’s 31 states. But officials warned that no serious relief was expected for at least another five months, when the rainy season typically begins in earnest.

Nearly 7 percent of the country’s agricultural land, mostly in the north and center, has suffered total loss.
 

www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/world/americas/drought-and-cold-snap-cause-food-crisis-in-northern-mexico.html

By Aram Roston
Newsweek Magazine

There are usually just three ways for a trafficker to leave a Mexican drug cartel: go to prison, get killed, or become a government informant.

Two weeks ago, I had dinner at a restaurant near the Mexican border with a man who got out by the third route. He was, until recently, an important figure in the Sinaloa cartel’s drug-running operations, working indirectly for the boss, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The drug dealer told me how, acting with the full approval of his cartel, he strolled into the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office for an appointment with federal investigators. So began an extensive operation by Chapo Guzmán’s forces to manipulate American law enforcement to their own benefit.

www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/29/el-chapo-guzm-n-mexico-s-most-powerful-drug-lord.html

Fox News Latino

Mexico is the world's No. 2 producer of child pornography and is classified as a source, transit and destination country for people traffickers involved in sexual exploitation, lawmakers said.

Child pornography is the No. 2 illegal business, trailing only drug trafficking, and generates $42 billion annually, Special Committee to Fight People Trafficking chairwoman Rosi Orozco said.

Just 19 jurisdictions in Mexico have laws against child pornography, and only courts in Mexico City, Chiapas and Puebla have handed down convictions.

latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/01/26/mexico-no-2-producer-child-porn-lawmakers-say/

By Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times

He was a muralist, an educator and a civic activist who once helped save a colonial-era convent from demolition by moving in and living there. He published books, invented paints and signed his works "Dr. Atl," an imaginary honorific using the Nahuatl-language word for water.

Born Gerardo Murillo in Guadalajara in 1875, Dr. Atl is one of the most accomplished and enigmatic figures from the golden period of modern art in Mexico.

Yet Dr. Atl's greatest pieces have resided mostly in private collections, making them rarely available for viewing to the public.

latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/01/mexico-painter-dr-atl-exhibit-masterpieces.html

David Agren / USA TODAY

Office worker Ana Martínez lined up at 7 a.m. on a recent Sunday to renew her voter credential, a document required at a polling station to vote.

But voting was not the main reason she was getting it. The free photo ID issued by the Federal Electoral Institute had become the accepted way to prove one's identity — and is a one-card way to open a bank account, board an airplane and buy beer.

Voting was almost an afterthought. "They ask for it everywhere," Martinez said. "It's very difficult to live without it."

www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-01-22/mexico-national-voter-ID-cards/52779410/1

By Patrick Witty / Time

The first time Mexican photographer Eunice Adorno saw the flower girls, they were standing in the shadow of a tree, wearing shiny pantyhose, staring directly at her.

“When I walked up to them, there was a mysterious silence,” Adorno said. “When I talked to them, their sole reply was an enigmatic glance. From that moment on, I felt an immense curiosity for them.”

This was the beginning of a project that spanned the course of several years, culminating in the book, Las Mujeres Flores, published this month by La Fabrica. The book is an intimate portrayal of women within the isolated Mennonite communities in Nuevo Ideal, in the state of Durango, and La Onda, in Zacatecas, Mexico.

lightbox.time.com/2012/01/24/the-flower-girls-mennonites-in-mexico/#1