Extradiction Halted...

A judge in Mexico has temporarily halted the extradition of cartel boss Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the US after his lawyers filed appeals.

Mexico agreed to transfer Guzman in May after the US guaranteed he would not face the death penalty.

But the ruling means it could be months or even years before he is sent to the US, where he faces murder and drug smuggling charges.

Guzman is being held in a maximum security prison near the US border.

He was arrested in January after six months on the run following his escape through a tunnel in his jail cell. 

He had already escaped a maximum security facility once before, spending 13 years at large.

One of the appeals argues that the statute of limitations has run out on some crimes Guzman is accused of in the US, his lawyer Jose Refugio Rodriguez told Associated Press.

Guzman's defense also argues some of the accusations lack direct evidence.

It would appear that money buys the law and truth outside of USA as well.

Drug Dealer to US Jail

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's Foreign Relations Department ruled Friday that the extradition of convicted drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States can go forward.

The process can still be appealed, meaning it could be weeks or months before the Sinaloa cartel leader may be sent to the U.S., where he is wanted in multiple jurisdictions on charges related to drug trafficking and organized crime.

Guzman's lawyers now have 30 days to appeal the decision, and they have said they will.

The department said Friday in a statement that the United States has provided "adequate guarantees" that Guzman would not face the death penalty. 

Mexico has abolished capital punishment and does not extradite its citizens if they face possible execution.

Friday's ruling covered an extradition request from a Texas federal court related to charges of conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and marijuana, money-laundering, arms possession and murder, and another extradition request from a federal court in California.

In all, Guzman faces charges from seven U.S. federal prosecutors including in Chicago, New York, Miami and San Diego.

Jose Refugio Rodriguez, one of Guzman's lawyers, said Friday the legal team planned to appeal the decision all the way to Mexico's Supreme Court, and possibly to international tribunals. 

Rodriguez told the Milenio television station that any extradition would take "at least one to three years."

"We expected it," Rodriguez said of the foreign relations department decision. 

"It is no surprise."

Rodriguez said Guzman knew about the ruling and said he was "calm."

"He knows and is conscious that the real battle against extradition is going to be waged through the constitutional appeals process," Rodriguez said.

Guzman was arrested in January after almost six months on the run following his escape from a maximum-security prison through a mile-long tunnel that opened to the floor of his shower.

He had already escaped once before in 2001 and spent more than a decade as one of the world's most wanted fugitives until he was recaptured in 2014.

Guzman's lawyers have so far waged a public-relations offensive, speaking to the press and even organizing protests; but as extradition draws nearer, the battle could turn violent, like the one Colombian drug lords waged extradition in the 1980s, said Mike Vigil, a former head of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Drilling Into Crater

A joint UK-US-led expedition has got under way to drill into the Chicxulub Crater off the coast of Mexico.

This is the deep scar made in the Earth's surface 66 million years ago by the asteroid that scientists believe hastened the end of the dinosaurs.

Today, the key parts of the crater are buried beneath 600m of ocean sediment. 

But if researchers can access its rocks, they should learn more about the scale of the impact, and the environmental catastrophe that ensued.

They are particularly interested in a feature called the "peak ring".

This was created at the center of the impact hole where the Earth rebounded after being hit by the city-sized object.

• An 18km-wide impactor punched a hole in the Earth's crust some 100km across and 30km deep
• This bowl then collapsed in on itself, leaving a crater about 200km across and a few km deep
• The central zone of the crater rebounded and collapsed again, leaving an inner "peak ring"
• Today, much of the Chicxulub Crater is buried offshore in the Gulf, under 600m of sediments
• On land, the crater is covered by limestone deposits, but its rim is traced by an arc of sinkholes

In geophysical surveys that can sense beneath the ocean bed, the ring looks like an arcing chain of mountains.

"We want to know where the rocks that make up this peak ring come from," explained Prof Joanna Morgan, the co-lead investigator from Imperial College London.

"Are they from the lower, mid or upper crust? Knowing that will help us understand how large craters are formed, and that's important for us to be able to say what was the total impact energy, and what was the total volume of rock that was excavated and put into the Earth's stratosphere to cause the environmental damage," she told BBC News.

The cataclysm that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous Period doomed many species, not just the dinosaurs. All the material hurled upwards would have darkened the sky and cooled the planet for months on end.

But even as it took life away, the event also opened up new opportunities for those species that survived. 

And the expedition team wants to know if the impact zone itself became a life cradle. 

Because the asteroid hit what was back then a shallow sea area, it is likely the newly created crater was quickly filled with water. 

This water would have infused the hot and fractured rocks, leaching chemicals that could then sustain micro-organisms. 

Very similar conditions are seen today along the volcanic ridge that runs down the center of the Atlantic Ocean. 

"So it's possible we may encounter some exotic life in the fractured rocks we drill," said Prof Morgan. 

"This is very interesting for Chicxulub, but it's also fascinating to consider in terms of the early Earth or even Mars. 

On the early Earth, there would have been many more, larger impacts. 

We think life may well have originated in impact craters."

Missing Students

Two Mexican federal police officers allegedly participated in the disappearance of 43 students, the National Human Rights Commission said Thursday, implicating national agents in the 2014 case for the first time.

The announcement adds a new twist to an investigation that has come under fire from international human rights groups and independent investigators.

The attorney general's office has charged municipal police officers in connection with the mass abduction in the southern city of Iguala on September 26-27, 2014.

But the governmental rights commission said that an eyewitness saw two federal agents near Iguala's courthouse, where municipal officers had stopped a bus carrying 15 to 20 students.

The commission also said another local police department, from the town of Huitzuco, had a previously unknown role in the disappearance.

The bus was one of five that around 100 students had seized that night in order to use them for a future protest.

Jose Larrieta Carrasco, a commission official investigating the Iguala case, said authorities should look into a "new route in the disappearance" of the students.

The attorney general's office declared last year that Iguala and Cocula police officers abducted the students and delivered them to a drug cartel.

The gang then killed the students, incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump in Cocula, and dropped the remains in a nearby river.

But experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights who conducted an independent investigation said that there was no scientific evidence that the 43 students were incinerated at the dump.

Attractiveness Inspections

Female police officers in Mexico have issued complaints stating they were forced to undergo “attractiveness inspections“ by their male superiors in order to join a new all-female unit.

Males officers conducting the inspections singled out young female officers in the Mexican city of Queretaro and remarked on their weight and appearance, Maricruz Ocampo, of Coincidir Mujeres, an NGO helping the women, told the Guardian.

Two officers have since complained to the state’s human rights commission.

Documents shared by Coincidir Mujeres on their Facebook page share a testimony from one of the female Queretaro police officers saying: “Like cattle, we went through several ballots… 

The atmosphere was filled with rage, helplessness, frustration, sadness.”

The statement also mentions “degrading treatment”, “lack of respect” and “a clear violation of our rights”.

“The women said, ‘I trained to be a police officer, not a showgirl,” Ms Ocampo said.

The accusations have surfaced during a strike by police in Queretaro calling for the resignation of police chief Rolando Eugenio Hidalgo Eddy, who took up the role last year.

In his previous role as a police chief in Aguascalientes, Hidalgo Eddy set up a similar team of female officers who wore high-heels and tight clothes while on duty.

The all-female police squad garnered international attention when they appeared in a picture with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in 2013. 

The female team in Aguascalientes has recently been scaled down and their uniforms changed to standard police attire, Mexican newspaper Excelsior reports.

Acapulco has also started a tourist squad of attractive female officers this year. 

Acapulco’s police chief Manuel Flores told the Mail Online: “Visitors numbers have dropped since the local gang wars began… we had to think of a way to inspire confidence in the tourists, and our new faces on the street are not only responsible but very eye-catching.”

Ms Ocampo says there has been a rise in sexual harassment allegations within the police and raised concerns “that the human rights violations inside the force are going to eventually move toward the public.”

Queretaro Police told the Guardian they deny there are plans to form such a female unit. 

They did not comment on the allegations of harassment adding they would wait for the human rights commission's investigation.

The Mexican Connection

An Al Qaeda terrorist on the FBI’s most wanted list for years crossed back and forth into the United States from Mexico to meet fellow militant Islamists in Texas and piloted an aircraft into the Cielo Dorado airfield in Anthony, New Mexico, law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch.

The same Al Qaeda operative helped plan the 2009 bombing of talk-show superstar Oprah Winfrey’s Chicago studios and the iconic Sears Tower (renamed Willis Tower), a story that Judicial Watch broke just last week. 

His name is Adnan G. El Shukrijumah (above with Mother) (also known as “Javier Robles”) and over the weekend he was killed in Pakistan, according to military officials in the Islamic republic.

In 2010 Shukrijumah was indicted in the Eastern District of New York for his role in a terrorist plot to attack targets in the United States—including New York City’s subway system—and the United Kingdom, according the FBI. 

The plot against New York City’s subway system was directed by senior Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, the FBI says, and was also directly related to a scheme by Al Qaeda plotters in Pakistan to use Western operatives to attack a target in the United States.

A year earlier Shukrijumah helped plan a terrorist truck-bomb plot targeting Winfrey’s Harpo Studios and the Sears Tower. Two of his fellow conspirators—Emad Karakrah and Hector Pedroza Huerta—were recently arrested for unrelated state crimes in different parts of the country. 

Karakrah is in Cook County, Illinois Jail on charges of making a false car bomb threat after leading police on a high-speed chase through Chicago with an ISIS flag waving from his car in August. Huerta, an illegal alien twice convicted for driving intoxicated, is in the El Paso County Jail and is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.

Despite being one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists, Shukrijumah for years managed to slip in and out of the U.S. through the southern border to meet fellow militant Islamists—including Karakrah and Huerta—in the El Paso region, JW’s law enforcement sources confirm. 

In fact, in March the most wanted terrorist piloted a private aircraft from Mexico into the airfield at Cielo Dorado in Anthony New Mexico, according to JW’s high-level government sources.

Shukrijumah, 39, probably could have qualified for Obama’s amnesty. He was born in Saudi Arabia and moved to the U.S. with his family as a youngster in the mid-1990s. 

As a teenager he lived in South Florida’s Broward County and he attended the local community college where he took computer science and chemistry classes, according to the area’s newspaper. His mother, Zurah Adbu Ahmed, still lives in South Florida, the paper reports.

Mexican Police Chief Criticized

Mexico City's police chief, Jesus Rodriguez Almeida, has resigned after strong criticism of his handling of protests in the city.

A largely peaceful march on 20 November over the disappearances of 43 students in Guerrero state ended with riot police dispersing the crowd.

Mr Rodriquez gave no reason for his departure and the city mayor said he had stepped down immediately.

Earlier this week President Pena Nieto announced new justice and police plans.

After the 20 November protest, Mr Rodriquez Almeida said he had "congratulated his personnel for their work," in particular for "restoring public order, no matter whether others like it or not".

Lawyers for 11 people who were arrested on the day called for his resignation.

They said the protesters were arrested with no proof of criminal action and arbitrarily taken to a high security prison.

They were freed a week later due to a lack of evidence provoking accusations of abusive police practices.

Human rights groups also accused the police of indiscriminate violence during the protest against activists, journalists and bystanders.

Mr Rodriguez' departure comes after President Enrique Pena Nieto's announcement of a series of proposals to reform Mexico's security system.

Included in the plans is the replacing of local municipal police forces, which are more vulnerable to corruption, with state-level security officers.

Correspondents say Mr Rodriquez's resignation may signal a reshuffling of top police chiefs going on behind the scenes as the government attempts to plan out its new justice and policing framework for Mexico.

The 20 November protest took place during months of nationwide outrage and demonstrations against the abduction by police in the Guerrero state city of Iguala of 43 students.

State prosecutors say the municipal police were ordered by the local mayor to hand the students over to criminal gangs who executed them.

Missing Students

After a student protest in Iguala, Mexico, last month, dozens of young men were seen being hauled off into police vans. 

Then, they vanished.

One month later, 43 students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers college are still missing and presumed dead. 

Instead of finding the students, authorities investigating the events of Sept. 26 have instead found other horrors: a string of mass graves, police working for drug cartels and government officials at the helm of a dark underworld.

The hunt for the students has laid bare the brutality and lawlessness in parts of Mexico still under the grip of the cartels, despite years of Mexico’s war on drugs.

The students -- men in their late teens and early 20s -- were studying to become teachers in rural Mexico at a college with a history of radical leftist activism, the BBC reported. That Friday, they went out to demonstrate against hiring discrimination and solicit funds for an upcoming protest march.

Witnesses have said that the students were in Iguala, a city in southern Mexico, when they came under fire from police.

By the end of the night, six people were left dead. The body of one student was later found with his face skinned and eyes gouged out, the New Yorker reported, "the signature of a Mexican organized-crime assassination."

Some of the students escaped Iguala, but 43 of them have not been seen since that night. Survivors described their classmates being taken away by police, but authorities denied they were in state custody.

When the students didn't return and relatives and sympathizers took to the streets in protest, Mexico's federal government launched an investigation.

The City's Former Mayor And His Wife (above) Allegedly Control The Local Drug Cartel...

According to the investigation, former Iguala Mayor José Luis Abarca Velázquez instructed municipal police to stop the student protests at all costs.

Abarca and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa, are the “probable masterminds” behind the crime and are on the run from arrest, according to Mexico’s attorney general.

The investigation has led to allegations that Abarca and Pineda were the heads of a murderous personal fiefdom in collaboration with the local drug cartel -- the Guerreros Unidos.

Americans Need Their Illegal Drugs

Ricardo Garza Ramirez pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy just moments before his trial was about to start before U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez. 

Garza, 55, is due back in court in November where he faces a possible life term in prison for the charge. 

Court records obtained by Breitbart Texas establish federal agents were tipped off to Garza’s BMW sedan in January by a smuggler they caught with more than 30 pounds of marijuana. The smuggler said he had been driving in tandem with a Ford Escort, which the agents were able to identify. 

As part of their investigation, the agents learned that the Ford Escort had also been working with a BMW sedan, which the agents spotted on June 17 and stopped. Inside the vehicle the agents found more than 30 pounds of cocaine that had been hidden. 

Court records give details of an interview following his arrest, where Garza told some agents with Homeland Security Investigations that some unidentified men had bought the car and put it under his name telling him to drive it into the U.S when told to.

On the days that he was to pick up the vehicle, Garza would go to an area near the Pharr- Reynosa International Bridge, pick up the vehicle, and drive it over to the U.S. side where he would leave the car parked outside of a shopping center and would return hours later to pick it up. For the frequent trips, the man was paid between $200 and $300 which was his only source of income, court records show. 

“Mexican drug trafficking organizations have been in control of every major drug market in the U.S. for a long time,” DEA spokesman Rusty Payne told FNL.

Payne added that the cartels try to keep the violence in the U.S. to a minimum to detract from any unwanted attention from law enforcement authorities.

“The Mexican drug war has not spilled into the U.S.,” Payne said. “They’re not here to cause havoc. They know it’s bad for business and that they have to be well-behaved.”

Chinese Like Mexico Resorts Too

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Environmentalists say the only living hard coral reef in the Gulf of California is once again under threat, just two years after activists persuaded the government to block construction of a huge 30,000-room resort nearby.

Once an over fished area, marine life around the Cabo Pulmo reef just outside Los Cabos exploded following a decision nearly two decades ago by local residents to stop commercial fishing and instead develop ecotourism activities on the Baja California peninsula.

But environmentalists are alarmed by renewed plans for a 22,000-room resort, this time led by Chinese investors. Jeering and arguments erupted at a public comment session this week on the proposal, which is at the earliest stage in the approval process.

The developers, in one of their few public statements about the Cabo Dorado resort, say they have eliminated about one-third of the hotel and condo rooms proposed in the earlier project, and abandoned plans for a marina and a desalinization plant that caused controversy. They offer to treat and re-use water from existing aquifers.

But opponents say there isn't enough fresh water available on the bone-dry peninsula to support even the reduced plan, and that the project gives little consideration to how the reef could be affected by resort wastes and runoff from golf courses.

Critics of Cabo Dorado say just as worrisome is what they don't know about their deep-pocketed opponents: Chinese companies whose relationship with that country's government is unclear.

China's Foreign Ministry did not respond to an email requesting comment on whether the firms active in Mexico are Chinese state enterprises and the company's websites or statements are unclear.

An ad placed in Mexican newspapers by one investor, Beijing Sansong International Trade Group, suggests the project is backed by the Chinese government, and says it has $3.6 billion to spend on the proposed resort.

"In accordance with the agreements signed in recent months between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and the President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping ... we announce that the La Rivera Desarollos BCS company, in which we are investors, will carry out a new project on the Cabo del Este," it said.

Cheap Labor

Querétaro is a city in central Mexico that economic experts have said models the economic development of the entire country. Some of the city’s success has been attributed to the growth of American companies doing business in Querétaro.

“It’s an example of what’s working in this country,” said Arturo Herbert, Mexican economist and international commerce professor in Querétaro’s prestigious university Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Queretaro, Mexico

Querétaro is a city of about 1 million people located 120 miles northwest of Mexico City. In terms of logistics, Herbert said, Querétaro is attractive to American companies because it’s not far from both the east and west coasts of Mexico and it is 500 miles from the international border with the U.S.

Foreign companies do business in cities like Querétaro because labor is cheaper and because the pool of high-skilled workers is large, said Herbert, a former university president who retired from the National Bank of Foreign Trade in Mexico.

General Electric, Bombardier, BMW and Mercedes Benz are some of the big companies with factories and offices in Querétaro.

Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon spoke at the inauguration of GE’s newest plant in Querétaro in 2011.

He said Querétaro is General Electric’s second-largest engineering center outside of the U.S. for the company's aviation division. About 1,300 Mexican engineers work in the aerospace industry in Querétaro, he said.

“These companies are looking for a good deal and we are interested in them doing business in Mexico,” Calderon said. “This is an example of the strategic relationship between GE and Mexico.”

Many things make it attractive to operate in Mexico, said Mauricio Varela, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Arizona.

“It’s cheap labor--let’s start there,” he said. “Minimum wage there is $5 a day and here it’s $7 an hour. That says it all.”