Martín Paredes

A Cohesive U.S.-Mexico Drug Policy: Is Mexico embarking on Drug Legalization?

Many in the U.S., especially the U.S. government, were mystified with Mexico’s recent decriminalization of small quantities of drugs for personal use. Some have even suggested that this shows that Mexico is seeking to legalize drugs in order to solve the pervasive drug problems the country faces both from a consumption and production standpoint. For those who can fully appreciate the differing points of view each country has, this recent action by Mexico makes perfect sense and does not signify a premise that legalizing drugs is the way to solve the drug issues.

Introducing Mexico’s first indigenously designed and produced assault rifle, the FX-05 Xiuhcóatl.

I produced this website to showcase this highly praised weapon. http://www.xiuhcoatl.org or http://www.fx-05.org

Les presento el primer fusil de asalto diseñado y producido por México, el fusil Xiuhcóatl FX-05.

Elabore esta página para presentarles este proyecto muy Mexicano. http://www.xiuhcoatl.org o http://www.fx-05.org

Salud, Bandera De Mi Patria Amada
por: Jesús Romero Flores

Salud, bandera de mi Patria amada,
De arco iris de paz jirón preciado,
Permite que nuestra alma entusiasmada,
Que conoce tu historia inmaculada,
Te venga a venerar, lienzo sagrado.

Antes bajo tus pliegus se ampararon
De heroicas libertades los guerreros.
Y con su noble sangre te empaparon
Y besos y caricas te mandaron
En sus instantes de existir postreros.

En Iguala tú fuiste la nobleza
Del insurgente que te izó en su mano,
Y en Veracruz tú fuiste la entereza,

While researching statistical information for a white paper I’m currently working on, I realized two things. The first is that there is a tremendous amount of information out there but it is difficult to compile into a dataset that allows me to analyze trends and create comparisons between the three NAFTA partners. The second is that although I intuitively knew that generally there is not much difference between Mexico and the other two partners; the general public has a misperception that Mexico lags significantly behind Canada and the United States in terms of support and resources for its population. More importantly, national governmental institutions continue to adequately and effectively respond to the needs of the country.

Mexican institutions have been under a tremendous amount of pressure to deal with four major issues this year; the Drug War, the global recession, the April 27, 2009 Earthquake in Mexico City and the N1H1 (Swine Flu) outbreak. As a Mexican, I am proud of how our national institutions and my paisanos have dealt and coped with these significant national issues.

Today I launched the first paper in my Mexico Studies Project.

FACT SHEET: United States Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service - January 2008

The final provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) were fully implemented on January 1, 2008. Launched on January 1, 1994, NAFTA is one of the most successful trade agreements in history and has contributed to significant increases in agricultural trade and investment between the United States, Canada and Mexico and has benefited farmers, ranchers and consumers throughout North America.

An e-El Paso Initiative Plan - Leveraging the Internet for a vibrant and economically prosperous borderplex was written in June 2001.

Abstract

El Paso and Cd. Juárez currently sit on the crossroads of economic prosperity in the gold rush of the 21st century. The Internet has a created a mechanism whereby the borderplex can become the next “Silicon Valley” of the world’s e-commerce rush. With the inherent infrastructure in labor and resources the border region offers, the establishment of e-commerce development and implementation will benefit the region for decades to come. By implementing this initiative as a team, both El Paso and Cd. Juárez would lead the way to global e-trading.

This white paper presents a preliminary concept of how the communities can leverage the Internet as a tool for economic prosperity of the border region, specifically El Paso, Texas and Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, México.

This is one of the first white papers I produced. It was written in 1991 as the basis for a startup company looking to do business on both sides of the border.

The introduction and the conclusion follow. You can download the entire document at the bottom.

From: North American Free Trade Agreement - A Hesitant Handshake Between Neighbors first published in May 1991.

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

One of the greatest pleasures I derive from the Internet is the sharing of culture and identity. I wish I had the resources to visit each country and take in the cultural identity humanity has to offer. Fortunately for me some individuals have satisfied my appetite for getting to know other cultures by producing blogs, a website or participating in the numerous social networking sites in cyber space. I few years ago I decided to share a little bit about my culture, one of my favorite childhood events, the breaking of the piñata.