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Mexico ( Protesting Teachers Block Access to Mexico’s Airport ) Holy cow !

MEXICO CITY – The main access route to this capital’s international airport was blocked Friday by some 5,000 teachers angry about a sweeping overhaul of Mexico’s schools.

Police were reported to be negotiating with members of the militant CNTE teachers union to dissuade the protesters from getting any closer to the airport.

Though the protest is hampering access to the terminals, flight operations have not been affected, airport director Alfonso Sarabia told Radio Formula.

Describing Mexico City International as a “strategic installation,” he said authorities responded to his request for help by deploying 1,700 federal and municipal police to guard the terminals.

The capital airport handles some 970 flights a day.

“Many passengers are arriving late,” Sarabia said, adding that some travelers are reaching the terminals by hitching rides aboard airport vehicles and armored cars.

“It’s a pretty major disruption,” the airport boss said.

Other CNTE contingents remained entrenched Friday around the seats of Mexico’s Senate and lower house.

The teachers’ presence forced lawmakers to decamp to a nearby convention center to conclude this week’s special legislative session.

The agenda for the special session included bills to implement the educational overhaul promulgated in February by President Enrique Peña Nieto, but lawmakers decided earlier this week to delay consideration of those measures pending talks with the disgruntled teachers.

The centerpiece of the school plan is a system for teacher evaluation that many educators see as a threat to their jobs. EFE

PHOENIX Az ( Narco State - Lisa Ling - The real Arizona second in kidnappings in the world )

India ( Indian journalist raped while on assignment - Mumbai )

 

Police say a 22-year-old photographer was raped in this abandoned textile mill. (AP/Rafiq Maqbool)

New York, August 23, 2013--Indian authorities must conduct a thorough and efficient investigation into the rape of a photographer in Mumbai on Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

"It is appalling that a young woman working in the heart of Mumbai was attacked in this manner," said Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator. "We call on Indian authorities to investigate this attack with the utmost urgency and sensitivity, and hold the attackers accountable."
Police said that the photographer, an intern for a lifestyle magazine, was raped by five men while she was in a textile mill to photograph old buildings for a feature article, according to The Associated Press and other news reports. The attack took place in Mumbai's Lower Parel area, a neighborhood where upscale malls and restaurants are located in the same vicinity as slums and old abandoned textile mills, reports said.
News reports said the assailants approached the photographer and told her to get permission from the mill's supervisor to take photographs. The men then tied up and beat an unidentified individual who had accompanied the journalist on her assignment. The assailants took turns raping the photographer in a secluded part of the mill, Mumbai's police commissioner, Satyapal Singh, told reporters. The assailants fled the scene after the attack.
The photographer sought treatment at a local hospital for unspecified internal injuries, reports said. She is now in stable condition, reports said.
The Press Club of Mumbai released a statement today condemning the attack and calling on authorities to ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice.
Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said police had arrested one man, Agence France-Presse reported. The man in custody has identified four other men, news reports said.
The attack follows the fatal gang-rape of a student in Delhi, which drew widespread protests across India and led to policymakers passing stricter legislation that addresses rape.
CPJ's special report, The silencing crime: Sexual violence and journalists, documents cases of journalists that have come forward to say they have been sexually abused during the course of their work.

• For more data and analysis on India, visit CPJ's India page here.

Navajo Nation ( The cleanup of uranium mine contamination on the Navajo reservation )

FARMINGTON — The cleanup of uranium mine contamination on the Navajo reservation that started near the end of World War II is far from over, despite the accomplishments of a $100 million project by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a recent agency report.
The U.S. EPA released a 67-page report Thursday summing up the findings of the project, which combined the efforts of the agency and the Navajo Nation EPA, as well as other governmental agencies. "The progress that has happened so far is mixed," said Stephen Etsitty, executive director of the Navajo Nation EPA.   

Since 2008, when the cleanup began, the agencies have reduced the most urgent risks to the Navajo people. They have remediated 34 contaminated homes, meaning they removed all contaminated materials and in some instances renovated or reconstructed the homes. They assessed a total of nearly 800 homes and structures in the process. The agencies provided safe drinking water for 1,825 families, and performed stabilization or cleanup work at nine abandoned mines. They assessed 240 water supplies and 520 mines altogether. The agencies still say that there is much more to do and to study. "This effort has been a great start to addressing the toxic legacy of uranium mining on Navajo lands," Jared Blumenfeld, EPA regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest. More than 500 abandoned uranium mine locations and thousands of mine features, such as pits, trenches and holes
still have elevated levels of uranium, the report said.
"We're going to continue to push," Etsitty said. The land is naturally rich in uranium, a radioactive ore, but many of the areas that have unsafe levels are dangerous because of former mining efforts, the report said.
The federal government mined uranium at the close of World War II for weapons development. By 1986, the government had extracted approximately four million tons of ore.
Many of the people who worked in the mines were Navajo, and their families lived nearby. As a result, many of the workers and families were exposed to radiation, and some of the families later attributed health issues to that exposure. Though the mining itself stopped in the mid-'80s, the areas surrounding the work sites still were contaminated, along with many of the water sources, the report said. Initially, the U.S. and Navajo Nation EPAs asked for $500 million to cover the estimated costs of the cleanup. They received $400 million short of their request, though the agencies hope to ask for more the near future. "While there have been accomplishments that improved some conditions, we still need strong support from the Congress and the federal agencies to fund the cleanup of contaminated lands and water," said Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly, "and to address basic public health concerns due to the legacy of uranium mining and milling." Cleanup funding, however, is not guaranteed. The agencies expect they will receive some money, but there is no telling how much. They also have no idea how long it will take for the cleanup because each site has different needs. "One site could have very small amounts of contaminated material, but it may be very contaminated. Another site may have a large quantity of contaminated material, but it could have very low amounts of contamination," Etsitty said. When asked how worried he was about the future of uranium cleanup projects on the reservation, Etsitty paused and said "very."

Volleyball Game ( This is volleyball not soccer - Lets get out the rule book )

Mexico ( Ex-L.A. Cop Went Missing in Mexico in 2010, - possible homicide ) Abducted

MEXICO CITY – A Mexican man who had returned to his homeland after working as a police officer in Southern California went missing three years ago in the central state of Morelos, his relatives said.

The family had not reported the case until now because they had received numerous threats while searching for clues to the whereabouts of Angel Saul Muñoz Perez, his sister, Lorena, told Efe.

“That’s why we’re now reporting this case for the first time,” she said in a telephone interview.

Muñoz Perez worked a lengthy stint as a Los Angeles police officer until deciding for personal reasons to return to Mexico, where he planned to continue his work in law enforcement.

His experience in the United States instilled a desire to improve police work in Mexico, according to Lorena, who said her brother worked in the previous Morelos administration under then-Public Safety Secretary Luis Angel Cabeza de Vaca.

“They offered him work so he could start investigating how the police was working. Cabeza de Vaca hired him to start training” other officers, she added.

After a while, he started becoming aware of numerous corruption-related issues, according to Lorena, who declined to elaborate.

On Feb. 16, 2010, Muñoz Perez, 50, and another man who had worked as a bodyguard for local government officials were abducted by a group of individuals riding in an SUV.

When the family tried to look for him, they were warned to remain silent or stonewalled, “and the United States did not help us because they said that when someone works for the government here they can no longer intervene,” Lorena said.

Muñoz Perez’s family is one of six who traveled Wednesday from Morelos to Mexico City to meet and discuss their cases – four disappearances and two murders – with federal authorities.

Morelos is one of the Mexican states most beset by drug-related violence and an area of the country where kidnappings, homicides and extortion rackets are commonplace. EFE