The Grito de Dolores:

In the early hours of September 16th, 1810, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest in the small town of Dolores, rang the church bell to gather the townspeople. He called for the people of Mexico to rise up against the Spanish Crown, thus initiating Mexico's War of Independence. The country did not achieve independence until 1821, but it is this event, known as the Grito de Dolores which is commemorated every year with the Grito in town squares across Mexico.  read more »

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marihuana (marijuana), cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge.

The law sets out maximum “personal use” amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution; the law goes into effect on Friday.  read more »

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's former ruling party made a strong comeback in midterm elections Sunday, defeating President Felipe Calderón's conservative party and setting the stage for more gridlock in a country already politically divided, early returns showed.

With nearly all the votes counted, the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, won 37% of the vote compared with 28% for Mr. Calderón's National Action Party, or PAN, in the race for 500 congressional seats, 565 mayors and six governorships.  read more »

On June 26, the small Mexican town of Apaseo el Alto, in Guanajuato state, was the scene of a deadly firefight between members of Los Zetas and federal and local security forces. The engagement began when a joint patrol of Mexican soldiers and police officers responded to a report of heavily armed men at a suspected drug safe house. When the patrol arrived, a 20-minute firefight erupted between the security forces and gunmen in the house as well as several suspects in two vehicles who threw fragmentation grenades as they tried to escape.

When the shooting ended, 12 gunmen lay dead, 12 had been taken into custody and several soldiers and police officers had been wounded. At least half of the detained suspects admitted to being members of Los Zetas, a highly trained Mexican cartel group known for its use of military weapons and tactics.  read more »

CUARTOSCURO/GERMAN ROMEROPublic infrastructure projects are one of the keys to combat poverty and recover from the global economic recession, said State of Mexico Governor Enrique Peña Nieto before the leaders of the Board of Latin American Businesspeople (CEAL).

Unfortunately, funding for those types of projects has been abandoned due to "political reasons," the governor said.

Lawmakers must also be efficient and prevent polarizing and alienating citizens, he asserted during the meeting with representatives from 18 countries at the Casino Español in Mexico City.  read more »

NOTIMEX PHOTO/CABACAXALAPA - Governor Fidel Herrera Beltrán ordered State Health Secretary Manuel Lila de Arce to take preventative measures in municipalities in the bordering areas of Chiapas and Oaxaca to avoid dengue from spreading. Beltrán said that in Veracruz it is highly controlled. Public Health Director Luis Fernando Antiga Tinoco said that even though instances of dengue have been reduced by 40 percent during the first half of the year, but Arce said it shouldn't be ignored and urged residents to participate by cleaning their patios and yards.  read more »

NOTIMEX PHOTO/LUIS LOPEZPresident Felipe Calderón's proposal for a global warming fund that rich and poor countries both pay into is gaining support as negotiators enter the last six months of U.N. climate talks leading to an international treaty.  read more »

The CONCACAF zone qualifier for the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup and 2009 CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship that was scheduled to be played in Puerto Vallarta (Mexico) from Wednesday 29 April to Sunday 3 May, and was postponed due to the growing concerns over the outbreak of swine flu in Mexico, has been rescheduled to take place from June 17-21.

Mexicans are getting back into the swing of normal life as the government announced that the worst is over and has eased curbs on commercial and public activity. For this reason CONCACAF and BSWW jointly took the decision to start setting new dates for the North and Central American Qualifying competition.  read more »

Discovery Channel's "The Amazing Race" is coming to Latin America and the producers are putting it to you, the public, to cast your vote and decide what country they will feature in the upcoming season of this popular program.

Mexico could certainly use some positive PR right now and this show has brought millions of dollars in tourism to the countries shown during the series.  read more »

($1.5 billion) in funding because of the peso's slump.

The currency's decline led to a "distortion" in Pemex's budget, Carlos Morales, Pemex's director for exploration and production, said Tuesday in Mexico City. The company may finalize an agreement with the government within days, he said.  read more »

Mexico City, - The U.S. Embassy would like to remind the public that the land and sea portion of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) will enter in effect on June 1, 2009. WHTI requires all travelers to present a passport or other approved secure document denoting citizenship and identity for all land and sea travel into the United States. WHTI applies to all who were previously exempt, including citizens of the U.S., Canada and Bermuda.

The U.S. Embassy strongly urges all U.S. citizens currently in Mexico who do not have a passport or WHTI-compliant documents such as a passport card or a Trusted Traveler Card (NEXUS, SENTRI and FAST) or Enhanced Driver's License (EDL) to apply for a passport in the near future as they will need one to enter or re-enter the United States after June 1.  read more »

Money Talks.

That is a common phrase in English that you don't find in Spanish. And if money does talk, listening at the long end of the yield curve in Mexico must make Mexico's financial authorities a little bit nervous. That's because what money is trying to tell us is that there is something not completely right with the way monetary policy is being conducted in Mexico.  read more »

Jorge Dan Lopez/ReutersTodd Bensman interviews a former Mexican soldier who changed sides, joining a drug cartel.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Through Department of Homeland Security contacts, Texas journalist Todd Bensman arranged in November 2008 to interview a former Mexican special forces soldier who went AWOL and joined the Gulf Cartel's notoriously brutal The Zetas enforcement gang. The Zetas are responsible for thousands of murders and for operating houses of torture all along the Mexican side of the Texas border.  read more »

THE NEWS PHOTO/RODRIGO OROPEZAThe government is initiating a program to offer 11 billion pesos ($840 million) in financing to small and mid-size businesses hurt by the country's outbreak of swine flu, Finance Secretary Agustín Carstens said.

The program, the biggest emergency financing this decade, will target businesses in the tourism, airline and pork industries, Carstens said Monday in a news conference in Mexico City. He reiterated that the flu outbreak may shave 0.3 percent off Mexico's gross domestic product this year.  read more »

Sunday May 10, is Mother's day in Mexico, we love Mother's Day because it celebrates the strong, amazing women who shaped our lives with all they do. Here at the Sayulita Son we would like to publicly thank our Mother's for always being there.  read more »

Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini/AP: Edgar Hernández Hernández, the four-year-old survivor of swine flu at his home in La Gloria in Mexico's Veracruz stateA Mexican village whose inhabitants were overwhelmed by an outbreak of respiratory illness starting in February has emerged as a possible source of the swine flu outbreak which has now spread across the world.

The state government of Veracruz in eastern Mexico has confirmed one case of swine flu in the village of La Gloria with the sufferer named locally as a four-year-old boy, Edgar Hernández Hernández. The federal government said tonight that he tested positive for the same strain of the virus which has claimed lives in Mexico.  read more »

At least 16 people - and possibly dozens more - have died from a swine flu virus in Mexico, and world health officials worry it could unleash a global flu epidemic. Mexico City and the State of Mexico closed schools across the metropolitan area Friday in hopes of containing the outbreak, and tougher measures were being considered.

Scientists were trying to determine if the deaths involved the same new strain of swine flu that sickened seven people in Texas and California - a disturbing disease that combines pig, bird and human viruses in a way that researchers have not seen before.  read more »

Buying dollars cheaply?

U.S. novelist Raymond Chandler liked to say "killing is easy; it is what happens next that is difficult."

Mexicans will be offered a relatively cheap dollar for some time, but the truly big question is; what will happen next?  read more »

Introduction
The holiday of Cinco De Mayo, The 5th Of May, the victory of the Mexican militia over the French army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. It is primarily a regional holiday celebrated in the Mexican state capital city of Puebla and throughout the state of Puebla, with some limited recognition in other parts of Mexico, and especially in U.S. cities with a significant Mexican population. It is not, as many people think, Mexico's Independence Day, which is actually September 16.  read more »

MEXICO CITY – Administration officials say President Barack Obama will push for Senate ratification of a Latin American arms trafficking treaty.

Obama planned to make the announcement after meeting Thursday with Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Officials discussed the plan on the condition of anonymity so they wouldn't pre-empt Obama's first trip to Mexico as president.

The regional treaty, adopted by the Organization of American States, was signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1997 but never ratified by the Senate.

Officials say the inter-American arms trafficking treaty would curb guns and ammunition trafficking that threatens regional security. Officials say the move is meant to show the United States is serious about confronting a security threat on its doorstep.  read more »