Mexico City

MEXICO CITY — The Salvadoran single mother was hoping to support her children in the United States. Instead, gunmen from the Zeta drug cartel kidnapped her in Mexico and forced her to cook, clean and endure rapes by multiple men. Now the survivor of this terrifying three-month ordeal is a witness for a growing group of legislators, political leaders and advocates who are calling for action against the trafficking of women in Mexico for sexual exploitation....

MEXICO CITY — Mexico's government says it will create a special investigative unit to search for the missing, heeding a request by relatives of the disappeared who have been on a hunger strike for nine days. Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam made the announcement Friday after meeting with a group of parents who have been on a hunger strike and living in tents outside his office. Murillo Karam says the special unit will guarantee that the same investigators and forensic experts remain on the cases until they...

MEXICO CITY — In an aggressive bid to move beyond low-wage factory jobs and toward an entrepreneurial economy, Mexico is producing graduates in engineering and technology at rates that challenge its international rivals, including its No. 1 trade partner, the United States. President Felipe Calderon last month boasted that Mexico graduates 130,000 engineers and technicians a year from universities and specialized high schools, more than Canada, Germany or even Brazil, which has nearly twice the population of...

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican government says it has cut its economic growth forecast for 2013 from 3.5 percent to 3.1 after exports stagnated and first-quarter GDP figures came in weak. The Treasury Department says growth in the first quarter was only 0.8 percent, in part because Easter vacations fell in March instead of April as they did in 2012. Industrial production fell by 1.5 percent in the first quarter. Non-oil exports were largely unchanged, as compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

MEXICO CITY — The State Department advised Americans this week to defer "non-essential travel" to vast stretches of Mexico, warning that 14 of the country's 31 states are so dangerous that visitors should avoid them if at all possible. For four other states, it counseled caution or extreme caution. The travel warning is at once broader, more detailed and more alarming than the previous one for Mexico, issued in April. The new warning became public as Mexican troops announced Thursday that they had seized 15 tons of...

MEXICO CITY — With the Iraq war over and the American presence waning in Afghanistan, U.S. security contractors are looking for new prospects in Mexico, where spreading criminal violence has created a growing demand for battle-ready professionals. After years of lucrative work in the Middle East and Central Asia, where their presence has been occasionally marred by incidents of excessive force and misconduct, contractors and private security firms of varying sizes and specialties are being...

Having been an exchange student in Mexico City (and coming down to breakfast on Oct. 31 to find a small, brightly painted wooden coffin, with a plastic skeleton inside, at my place setting), I was interested to read the "Letter from Mexico" regarding the papier-mâché "alebrijes" in Mexico City. The graphic above the article drew a line between "Letter from Mexico" and a big red dot on the map. However, not only did the placement of the dot miss Mexico City, it missed Mexico altogether.

MEXICO CITY — For generations, Mexico has been widely seen in the United States as a Third World neighbor, a source of cheap labor, illegal immigration and drugs. But now, Mexico's growing economic might is transforming relations between the two countries, foreshadowing a new balance of power that was hinted at in President Obama's visit to the region Thursday and Friday. Despite growing concerns among U.S. officials that Mexico's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, might scale back coordinated efforts to stop the...

Cardinal Ernesto Corripio Ahumada, who helped establish renewed Vatican relations with Mexico's government, died April 10 at his Mexico City home. He was 88. Cardinal Corripio died of complications from heart problems, thrombosis and diabetes, said the Rev. Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the Mexico City Archdiocese. The archbishop was known for his skill at balancing relations between the Church and the state and was the country's most visible cardinal when Mexico reestablished formal...

SPANISH SCHOOLS: I booked through Spanish Abroad (888-722-7623, http://www.spanishabroad.com ), which offers language programs around the world. In Mexico City, I took classes at International House Mexico (Alfonso Reyes 224, http://www.ihmexico.com ), part of a worldwide network of learning institutes. The school, which sits in the student-friendly neighborhood of La Condesa (Starbucks, bakeries), has classrooms and a computer center with free Internet. The one-week package, including 20 hours of group...

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican government announced Wednesday it has fired an official whose daughter sent inspectors to shut down a restaurant that didn't give her the table she wanted. It's the latest comeuppance for the wealthy and well-connected who have recently caused anger in Mexico with arrogant behavior in public. Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong called a news conference to say the government fired Humberto Benitez Trevino as head of the country's consumer protection...

MEXICO CITY — The men who beat Malcolm Shabazz to death not only punched and kick him but also used a bat or stick during the attack, Mexico City's top prosecutor said Tuesday. Prosecutor Rodolfo Rios said the two waiters arrested in the case had served the grandson of civil rights activist Malcolm X and a friend at the Palace bar near Plaza Garibaldi. Shabazz's friend, Miguel Suarez, told investigators that the two had consumed about a dozen beers and then the...

MEXICO CITY — A driver who tried to escape arrest by claiming political connections was charged with manslaughter Tuesday after the woman she hit with her Porsche last week in Mexico City died of her injuries. Mexico is experiencing a backlash against the common practice of wealthy or well-connected people trying to browbeat police and businesses, after a series of such incidents were pilloried on social networking sites. On Thursday, suspect Dalia Ortega lost...

MEXICO CITY — Two waiters at a Mexico City bar will face homicide and robbery charges in the beating death of Malcolm X's grandson Malcolm Shabazz, authorities said Monday. Prosecutors said police were seeking at least two other people believed to have participated in the attack on Shabazz, who was beaten early Thursday in a dispute over a $1,200 bar bill. Prosecutor Rodolfo Fernando Rios said bar employees David Hernandez Cruz and Manuel Alejandro Perez de Jesus would...

MEXICO CITY — The death toll in a gas tanker-truck explosion on the outskirts of Mexico City has risen to 24 because another victim died of injuries suffered in the massive blast. The governor of Mexico State told local media about the latest fatality Thursday. The toll had stood at 23. Gov. Eruviel Avila says 12 people remain hospitalized. Avila says the state government will help people pay for rebuilding their homes and replacing lost possessions. Mexico State surrounds Mexico City.

MEXICO CITY — The Vatican's culture minister says Mexico's folk Death Saint is a blasphemous symbol that shouldn't be part of any religion. Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi says worshipping such an icon is a degeneration of religion. The Santa Muerte is a skeletal figure of a cloaked woman with a scythe in her bony hand. It is worshipped both by drug dealers in Mexico and by the terrified people who live in drug-torn neighborhoods. Ravasi spoke Wednesday at a...

MEXICO CITY — As accusations of fraud swirl around the presidential race, there is one Mexican election that is undisputed: the victory of Miguel Angel Mancera, the capital city's mayor-elect. The soft-spoken legal scholar, who until recently was the city's top prosecutor, won with 63 percent of the vote. Mancera was the candidate of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, which has run Mexico City since 1997 and is credited with transforming the colossal capital from urban dystopia to tourist destination.

MEXICO CITY, June 21 -- Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard acknowledged Saturday that "grave errors" were committed in a drug raid that sparked a stampede at a dance club late Friday, leaving 12 people dead. Nine clubgoers -- ranging in age from 13 to 22 -- and three police officers were killed in the stampede at the News Divine club in Mexico City, which police targeted because of suspicions about rampant drug use and underage drinking. "What happened fills the city with consternation, pain and...

MEXICO CITY — For generations, Mexico has been widely seen in the United States as a Third World neighbor, a source of cheap labor, illegal immigration and drugs. But now, Mexico's growing economic might is transforming relations between the two countries, foreshadowing a new balance of power that was hinted at in President Obama's visit to the region Thursday and Friday. Despite growing concerns among U.S. officials that Mexico's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, might scale back coordinated efforts to stop the...