Stopping the flow of money and weapons from the US into Mexico is critical to dealing with the violent drug cartels creating havoc on the border, the Mexican ambassador to the US said on Sunday.
Mexican officials believe that 90 percent of the weapons seized there can be traced to the US, Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan said.
“The key issue right now is how can the United States help to shut down those guns and shut down that bulk cash that is providing the drug syndicates in Mexico with the wherewithal to corrupt, to bribe, to kill,” Sarukhan said on CBS television’s Face the Nation.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon began a national crackdown on organized crime in 2006. Since then, violence among the drug cartels, their rivals and soldiers have led to nearly 9,000 deaths and crime that has spilled across the border into the US.
Although Sarukhan contended that the cartels’ use of assault weapons rose dramatically after the US ended its ban on the firearms in 2004, he stopped short of advocating that Congress reinstate the ban.
“What we will say is ... by reinstating the ban, that could have a profound impact on the number and the caliber of weapons going down to Mexico,” he said.
US President Barack Obama plans to visit Mexico this week before attending the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have visited Mexico recently as part of renewed efforts to work with their counterparts on anti-cartel strategies.
The Obama administration said it was taking several steps to provide more assistance to Mexico in its fight against drug violence, including providing more federal agents to try to stop gun smuggling.
Tightening border security has not had an impact on guns and drugs, Sarukhan said.
“We will be able to control our border if we can control illicit traffic in moving both directions, the drugs moving north, the weapons and the cash moving south,” he said.
“We will have to work together. And it behooves Mexico to ensure that this common border is secure, that we’re doing things on both sides of the border to jointly ensure that the border is secure, that the well-being of our citizens on both sides of the border is being protected,” he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS