Mexico Trucker Online

<h4>Lawmakers defy AMLO leftists protesting measures supporters say will overhaul industry as production declines</h4>

 Ignoring thousands of left-wing demonstrators. lawmakers Tuesday and passed constitutional reforms aimed at allowing foreigners limited investment in Mexico’s vulnerable petroleum industry.

After debating over the protests of leftist legislators who had taken over the podium in the Chamber of Deputies, the lawmakers passed the measures 395-82.

“With this reform the national economy wins; all Mexicans win,” President Felipe Calderon said in a nationally televised message several hours after the vote. “And it’s particularly important that Mexicans have reached agreement at a time when the world economy goes through a particularly adverse situation.”

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Unknown gunmen shot at the US Consulate in Monterrey and threw a grenade at the building, which did not explode. No one was injured according to a Consulate spokesman.

Two unidentified men approached the US Consulate General. One of them fired several times hitting the gates and a window. The second man threw a hand grenade which did not explode because the man forgot to pull the pin, according to the statement issued concerning Sunday mornings incident.

Six bullet casings from the pistol were found at the scene.

Local Police and US Federal investigators scoured the scene looking for more evidence, but at this time, no motive had been determined.

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Traders are falling over themselves this week to unload Mexico’s currency, on fears that a U.S. economic downturn would savage Mexico’s economy.

The peso plunged to nearly 13.2 per dollar on Thursday from 12.3 on Wednesday and 10.9 at the end of September.

The latest dive has occurred despite heavy intervention by Mexico’s central bank to stem the rout. It’s the peso’s biggest drop in value since the country’s 1994 devaluation.

This is panic behavior,” said Alberto Bernal, head of emerging-markets research at Bulltick Capital Markets in Miami. “It has nothing to do with Mexico and everything to do with the U.S.”

Bernal said investors and currency traders naturally fear that the turmoil roiling financial markets in the U.S., Mexico’s largest trading partner, will have painful consequences for Mexico: falling exports, falling oil prices and falling remittances.

It all adds up to fewer dollars flowing south of the border, leading to an abrupt re-pricing of the peso.

The peso is just one of many emerging-market currencies that have slumped against the dollar in recent weeks, as investors have pulled funds from markets deemed high risks.

But the turnabout has been particularly hard on the peso, which in early August was below 10 per dollar — the strongest the Mexican currency had been since 2002.

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Turning to Mexico’s increasing narcotics consumption, President Felipe Calderon has proposed stiffer penalties for small-time drug dealers while suspending punishment for addicts who agree to enter rehabilitation.

“Drugs are the slavery of this century,” Calderon said in a speech Friday. “Criminals seek to make slaves of children and youths. They seek to place drugs, sometimes free of charge, in schools, in neighborhoods, to create addictions, to generate dependency.”

Calderon’s initiative, part of a package of proposals aimed at bolstering his offensive against the country’s powerful drug traffickers, also includes procedures for cleaning up Mexico’s police forces and getting them to better coordinate enforcement efforts.

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Mexico’s government plans to search 10 percent of all vehicles entering the country from the United States in an effort to curb arms smuggling, the attorney general said Tuesday.

Most illegal weapons in Mexico come from the United States, according to officials in both countries.

Many end up in the hands of powerful drug cartels who supply most of the cocaine entering the United States from South America.

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More than 400 members of the Juárez police department will be dismissed after failing confidence exams done by the Mexico federal Public Safety secretary’s office, Juárez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said.

About 2,000 soldiers arrived in Juárez over the weekend and are expected to begin anti-crime patrols as part of Operation Juárez, the new name of Joint Operation Chihuahua, the local federal offensive against organized crime.

“It’s important that citizens know the Mexican army will be doing patrols throughout the city to stop the collateral crimes generated as a result of Joint Operation Chihuahua,” Reyes Ferriz said.

The city police department has offered the military 65 vehicles for the patrols.

The city has recruited about 900 new officers in recent months as authorities have been unable to stop a crime wave this year, including more than 900 homicides, more than 50 bank robberies, a jump in auto thefts and other crimes.

Officials said the confidence exams by federal authorities found that some Juárez officers had criminal histories in other states. Some had been fired from other agencies.

Other officers were found to have been bribed or had ties to organized crime.

Reyes Ferriz said that federal public safety officials made a registry of fingerprints, DNA samples, voice and iris scans of the officers tested to allow federal authorities to track their future activities.

How can this be? In a country, according to Dale “The Trucking Bozo” Sommers and his son Steve and of course Eric “Bubba Bo” Boulanger, that has no DATA BASES to track Mexican Truck Drivers and others? They are compiling a DATABASE of DNA Samples, Voice prints and iris scans, biometrics in other words? Kudos to the Mayor and Federal Officials for their ongoing efforts