Mexico Sinaloa ( Women COPS are the only ones who can write you a ticket - New Law )

Borderland Beat

Perhaps all that is needed to remedy corruption among Mexican police is a woman’s touch.

Officials in the nation’s central State of Mexico have hired hundreds of female officers and declared that only they may issue traffic violations. Why? Simple: You can trust ladies in uniform more than you can men, authorities say.

“Women are more trustworthy and take their oath of office more seriously,” Carlos Ortega Carpinteyro, police chief of Ecatepec, a suburb of Mexico City told NPR. “They don’t ask for or take bribes.”

The Mexico State governor Eruviel Ávila Villegas has launched a broad anti-corruption campaign, which is being advertised on billboards and on radio and television. “Mexico State’s traffic police is only made up of women now,” says the announcer in one of the advertisements. “Remember, they are the only ones authorized to write you a ticket.”
Although officials are favoring female traffic cops, they seem to be doing so for seemingly sexist reasons.

“When a man is approached by a female cop, even though he is the stronger sex, he calms down and will listen to her,” Ortega says, without offering anything to back up his opinion.

Currently, the women are only able to give verbal warnings to motorists who break traffic rules. Mexico State’s government hasn’t given the green light for full authority until all anti-corruption measures have been put in place, which none of the state agencies have done yet.

Drivers are still waiting to see if the new policy works, and at least one isn’t impressed. Diana Mendez told NPR that she had to pay a bribe to a female cop in order to prevent her car from being impounded. “I had to pay her the 200 pesos,” she said. “But let me tell you, it’s not a pleasant thing to do.”

But Maria Villa Fuerte says she wants a chance to prove that women can be honest cops. “That will be much better than just standing here in the middle of the street, blowing a whistle.

Japan ( Over 500 prisoners suffer food poisoning in Hokkaido - E.Coli )

Crime Oct. 02, 2013 - 06:16AM JST

HOKKAIDO —

Hokkaido prefectural police said Tuesday that 516 male prisoners suffered from food poisoning at a Hokkaido jail last month.
According to police, 516 of the 1,100 prisoners in Tsukigata Prison began to complain of stomach pain, diarrhea and fevers between Sept 12 to 19. TBS reported that 74 of the men were treated in the prison’s infirmary, and by Sept 30 most of them had made a full recovery.
An investigation revealed that at least 46 of the men had developed an E. coli infection from food which had been prepared by the prison. The investigating health care center reportedly ordered that the prison’s kitchens be shut down until Oct 4.
In a statement to the press, the prison’s operators said, “We intend to manage hygiene more thoroughly in the future.”

GUATEMALA CITY ( Ex Police Chief Sentenced to 16 years for stealing 350 kilo's of Cocaine )

GUATEMALA CITY – A former director of Guatemala’s PNC national police force was sentenced to 16 years behind bars after being found guilty of stealing at least 350 kilos of cocaine, the judiciary said Tuesday.

Baltazar Gomez was convicted of stealing the drug last April 24, 2009, from a private warehouse complex in the southern municipality of Amatitlan, an encounter in which five antidrug agents were killed.

Investigations into the multiple murders indicate that members of the Mexico-based Los Zetas cartel were behind the deaths of the five cops.

Also sentenced to 16 years in jail were Nelly Bonilla and Fernando Carillo, formerly high officials of the PNC’s antidrug department.

Thirteen civilians who took part in the clash were given sentences ranging from three to 61 years in prison.

The drug belonged to Los Zetas, and the five agents had come to confiscate it when they were attacked and killed by gang members in two SUVs.

“This was a drug robbery planned and directed by authorities of the PNC,” the verdict said.

Hounduras ( 5 members of family killed for not paying extortion fee - 5 yr old girl dies )

TEGUCIGALPA – Five members of the same family, including a 5-year-old girl, were slain Tuesday in northern Honduras, police said.

Honduran street gang members were suspected of killing the victims after they refused to pay extortions, police said.

The multiple crime was perpetrated before dawn in the Chamelecon neighborhood of San Pedro Sula, Honduras’ second city.

The victims were attacked by suspected gang members who broke into the family’s home.

Investigators suggest the killings were in retaliation for the family’s refusal to pay what the gangs call a “war tax.”

Honduras suffered 85.5 homicides for every 100,000 residents in 2012, compared with a global median rate of 8.8 murders per 100,000, the Violence Observatory at the National Autonomous University said in a study released in February.

Violence escalated sharply in the Central American nation in the wake of the June 2009 coup that ousted President Mel Zelaya, as political strife added to the carnage wrought by criminal gangs.

Iran ( Sudwind , 24thSession of HRC , Attieh Fard , Christians in Iran )

CHICAGO ( Blind Mexican Immigrant Is Example of Fighting to Win Against All Odds )

CHICAGO – Mexican-born Horacio Esparza says his activism on behalf of the disabled began the day after he went blind at age 7 and from then on struggled to have his family treat him the same way his 10 siblings were treated.

“I had to fight from day one so there would be no privileges or overprotection, and so they wouldn’t let themselves be overcome by taboos and try to hide me out of shame, as often happened in those days when there was a disabled person in the family,” Esparza recalled in an interview with Efe.

Forty-seven years have gone by, and after a life full of challenges and difficulties in Mexico and the United States, Esparza since 2008 has been executive director of the Progress Center for Independent Living in Illinois, located in the Chicago suburb of Forest Park.

“A lot of people discouraged me when I applied for the job, and I too believed they weren’t going to hire me because I was blind, Latino and inexperienced, but life had taught me to fight and win in the worst of circumstances,” he said.

Horacio, his mother and siblings remained behind in Mexico when his father migrated to Chicago for work.

After the accident at school that left him blind, he went five years without attending class because his mother feared something would happen to him

He returned to the classroom when he was 12 in Guadalajara, where his family found him a special educational center for the blind.

The family joined Horacio’s father in Chicago in the mid-’70s and the determined teen completed high school in three years.

He got his higher education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in Mexico’s Valle de Antemajac University, and at the Guadalajara Autonomous University.

Horacio became involved in activism for Hispanic causes and for the disabled when he established a support group called United Sightless Latinos of Illinois.

They would meet Saturdays with the undocumented blind, who had no right to rehab services, to teach them Braille and notions about orientation, movement and daily activities. “Motivation, acceptance and adaptation to a new life are very important,” he said.

Horacio Esparza has also hosted since 2005 a Saturday radio program on which the blind can share their experiences, and runs a campaign to make sure that immigration reform does not forget about the undocumented disabled.

Colombia ( A retired Colombian police general for President arrested for money laundering )

 
BOGOTA – A retired Colombian police general who was head of presidential security during the 2002-2010 tenure of Alvaro Uribe was arrested Monday on suspicion of money laundering.

Gen. Flavio Buitrago has been under investigation for his connection to Marco Antonio Gil Garzon, alias “El Papero,” who was convicted earlier this month of shipping large quantities of cocaine from the Colombian city of Medellin to Houston.

Buitrago acknowledged entering into a business and personal relationship with Gil in 1998, when he helped rescue El Papero’s daughter from kidnappers.

Prosecutors say Buitrago cannot adequately explain the origin of 600 million pesos ($313,373) found in his bank accounts.

The defendant, however, insists he can prove the money was legally acquired.

“I am always prepared to respond to the authorities,” Buitrago told reporters Monday prior to a court appearance. “I am subpoenaed, I come to a hearing, a procedure, with the evidence to demonstrate my innocence.”

Buitrago was taken into custody following the hearing.

The general’s wife, Elba Alieth Pulido, holds a 1 percent stake in Constructora America S.A., identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a front company created by El Papero to launder money.

Another former security adviser to President Uribe, police Gen. Mauricio Santoyo was sentenced in December 2012 to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty in the United States to charges of aiding drug trafficking.