Meanwhile, the director of the Mérida-based daily Por Esto!, Mario Menéndez Rodríguez - whose criticism of drug-war "reporting" by the NY Times' Dillon appears in the Village Voice...
...continued to aim his newspaper's journalism at the "simulation and cynicism" of US-imposed drug prohibition.
A four-part series, March 8th-11th, in Por Esto! by reporter
Juan Pablo Becerra-Acosta Molina was titled "Impunity in
the drug trafficking show of the United States," and examined
US domestic drug policy from a Mexican lens. Exhaustively researched,
it is a damning indictment of the nation that has the audacity
to "certify" other nations for drug enforcement activities,
while inside its own borders exist the highest percentage of illegal
drug users on earth.
Por Esto! -- the number-three most-read newspaper in Mexico and the daily of highest combined circulation in the peninsular states of Yucatán (its capital, Mérida), Quintana Roo (with the international tourist center of Cancún) and Campeche -- also published a five-part series on its director's March visit to New York City, invited by Columbia University Law School´s Latin American Students Association.
This second series reports on Menéndez's public confrontation with New York City police chief Howard Safir, during one of the Columbia University forums. It translates, to Spanish, transcripts of the panel on the drug war (moderated by the publisher of the Narco News Bulletin), and of the WBAI New York radio program "Let 'em Talk!", hosted by Miss Joan Moossy and Paul DiRienzo, upon which Menéndez and the publisher of Narco News appeared on March 2nd. The series recapping the whirlwind tour of New York City began on March 19th and is featured on the main page of the Por Esto! web site under "suplemento de narcotrafico."http://63.77.149.61/ And the March 22nd issue reports on Por Esto!'s 9th anniversary breakfast in which the international drug theme was also prominent, with hundreds of Yucateco citizens who warmly welcomed international participants from Venezuela, Cuba and the United States.
The audiotape of the WBAI program is available over the internet through the "Let 'em Talk" website:http://pdr.autono.net/ (WBAI 99.5 FM New York hosts Paul DiRienzo and Miss Joan Marie Moossy tell Narco News that the program with Menéndez was "the best show we ever had," and promise to keep updating their Big Apple listenership on Por Esto!'s drug war exposés) Meanwhile, another Mexican daily, La Jornada, beat the US press on a story out of Washington. Click here....