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North Korea Warns Will Act to Get Back Ship Held by Mexico

Photo Credit: Yahoo

Photo Credit: Yahoo

North Korea accused Mexico on Wednesday of illegally detaining one of its ships with some 50 crew and warned it would take “necessary measures” to release the vessel, which United Nations sanctions monitors say belongs to a blacklisted shipping firm.

The 6,700-tonne freighter Mu Du Bong, which had come from Cuba, ran aground in July on a reef 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Tuxpan in Mexico’s Veracruz state. Mexico said the ship remains in the port of Tuxpan.

North Korea’s Deputy UN Ambassador An Myong Hun told a small news conference on Wednesday that the Mu Du Bong was not linked to the blacklisted firm, Ocean Maritime Management Company, and therefore not subject to U.N. sanctions.

He said North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), had paid an undisclosed sum to Mexico for damages to the reef where the ship had run aground and now the ship and its crew should be released.

“This ship is totally a peaceful and legitimate commercial ship which sails under the direction of the Ministry of Land and Sea Transportation,” An said. “The detention of Mu Du Bong is a rampant violation of the dignified sovereignty of the DPRK.” (Read more from “North Korea Warns Will Act to Get Back Ship Held by Mexico” HERE)

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“Unprecedented Levels”: New Record for Meth Seizures at Border in 2014

Photo Credit: Utsandiego Methamphetamine seizures at U.S. ports of entry on the California-Mexico border reached unprecedented levels in fiscal 2014, as drug trafficking organizations strive to smuggle growing quantities of the low-cost Mexican-made product into the United States.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures show 14,732 pounds of meth seized by the San Diego field office during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, accounting for 63 percent of the synthetic drug seized at all land, air and sea ports of entry nationwide.

With the California border as their main smuggling route, “the Mexican cartels are flooding the U.S. marketplace with their cheap methamphetamine,” said Gary Hill, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s assistant special agent in charge in San Diego.

Undercover agents are purchasing meth in San Diego for $3,500 a pound, versus about $11,800 for a pound of cocaine, Hill said. “We have seen the trend of the price of meth decreasing tremendously since 2008.”

Methamphetamine, a highly addictive synthetic drug, once was primarily produced in the United States, and San Diego was infamous as its manufacturing capital. But with a U.S. law enforcement crackdown on the precursor chemicals used to make meth, the drug is now largely produced in Mexico. (Read more about the meth seizures at borders HERE)

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Pregnant US Teen Wounded in Mexico Police Shooting

Photo Credit: AFP / Horacio Lopez

Photo Credit: AFP / Horacio Lopez

Mexican police wounded a pregnant US teenager when they opened fire on a vehicle that ignored orders to stop, authorities said Monday, in the latest episode of violence involving Mexico’s security forces.

Both the girl and the baby are out of danger, said prosecutors in the violence-plagued northeastern state of Tamaulipas, which borders the United States.

The girl and a friend were leaving a convenience store Sunday night near a bridge that links the Mexican border city of Reynosa and Pharr, Texas, when state police officers ordered their truck to stop.

Instead the driver sped away and police shot at the tires, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

When police reached the truck, the driver had disappeared and the girl was found with a stomach wound. The officers took her to a hospital.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mayor and Wife Arrested in Disappearance of 43 Students

Photo Credit: Fox NewsFederal police early Tuesday detained the former mayor of the southern Mexican city of Iguala and his wife, who are accused of ordering the Sept. 26 attacks on teachers’ college students that left six dead and 43 still missing.

Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, were arrested in Mexico City without resisting, according to two security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The couple was in the custody of the Attorney General’s Office, where they were giving statements. At least 56 other people have been arrested so far in the case, and the Iguala police chief is still a fugitive.

The couple’s detention could shed light on disappearances, which have prompted outraged demonstrations across the country to demand the students be found. The case forced the resignation of the governor of Guerrero state, where Iguala is located.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama 'AWOL'?: GOP Questions President's Role in Freeing Marine

Photo Credit: Fox News Republicans on Saturday welcomed the news of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi being released from a Mexico prison and the efforts by GOP congressmen to help broker a deal but questioned whether the Obama administration did enough.

“President Obama still isn’t using all of the tools and levers that we have as the world’s lone super power, whether it is as simple as getting Sgt. Tahmooressi released from custody to defending our interests or protecting our allies in the Middle East,” Arkansas GOP Rep. Tom Cotton told Fox News.

Cotton, who is now running for Senate, wrote Obama asking him to intervene.

A Mexican judge on Friday ordered Tahmooressi’s immediate release, after he spent seven months behind bars for crossing the border with loaded guns.

The judge said Tahmooressi should be freed because of his mental state. But he did not make a determination on the illegal-arms charges against the Afghanistan veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a Mexican official who had knowledge of the ruling but was not authorized to give his name.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mexico Police Questioned in Killing of 3 Americans

Authorities were investigating on Friday a possible police connection to the killing of three U.S. citizens visiting their father in Mexico who were found shot to death along with a Mexican friend more than two weeks after going missing.

Parents of the three siblings, whose bodies were identified Thursday, have said witnesses reported they were seized by men dressed in police gear calling themselves “Hercules,” a tactical security unit in the violent border city of Matamoros wracked by cartel infighting. Nine of the unit’s 40 officers are being questioned, Tamaulipas state Attorney General Ismael Quintanilla Acosta said.

It would be the third recent case of alleged abuse and killings by Mexican security forces.

The country is already convulsed by the case of 43 students from a teachers college in the southern state of Guerrero, their disappearance blamed on a mayor and police working with a drug cartel. Fifty-six people are under arrest, including dozens of police officers.

Read more from this story HERE.

Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi Freed from Mexican Jail, Immediately Returns to US

Photo Credit: Fox NewsAfter 214 days in a Mexican prison, Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi crossed the US – Mexican border Friday night, boarding a private jet for Florida shortly after 9 p.m., after a strong diplomatic push convinced a judge to release the former Marine on humanitarian grounds.

His release comes after a lengthy trial and a Congressional hearing in September highly critical of Obama Administration efforts to secure his release and Mexico’s refusal to let him go. Tahmooressi said he made an innocent mistake the evening he crossed into Tijuana with three weapons in his truck on March 31.

While his defense rested its case several weeks ago, Tahmooressi’s release came only after a strong diplomatic push from former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Reps. Ed Royce (R-CA) and Matt Salmon (R-AZ).

The three officials, along with Tahmooressi’s mother Jill, have spent the last week in Tijuana pressing officials for his release.

Speaking by phone on his way to board a plane with Tahmooressi, Richardson said the trio, along with talk show host Montel Williams, met with Mexico’s Attorney General and Ambassador to the US, advocating for his liberation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Citizen Journalist Kidnapped and Murdered Near Texas Border by Mexican Cartel

Photo Credit: BreitbartA citizen journalist in the border city of Reynosa, Mexico has fallen victim to the hands of the Gulf Cartel in the most brazen attempt to date to silence information about the worsening security situation on the Mexican side of the shared border with Texas.

Social media postings on Thursday morning mourned the passing of Maria Del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, a Reynosa doctor better known by her Twitter handle @Miut3.

Law enforcement sources in Tamaulipas, Mexico confirmed her kidnapping Wednesday afternoon and found her body overnight. Due to the early stages of her investigation authorities didn’t release details of the murder. Officials who spoke with Breitbart Texas said they are not only looking at social media but also at her work as a doctor and acquaintances before determining the motive for the murder.

On Thursday early morning the twitter handle @miut3 posted a farewell message identifying Fuentes by name, posting her picture and telling the community to remain quiet about Reynosa and not make her mistakes “you won’t get anything out of it” as well as warning other citizen journalists that criminals were on to them. The profile image of @Miut3 was changed from the Catwoman photo she always used to a photograph of Fuentes’ bloodied body.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mexico Says Students Not Among Dead in Mass Grave

Photo Credit: mountainxNone of the 28 bodies found in a mass grave in restive southwestern Mexico belongs to a group of 43 missing students, Mexico’s attorney general said on Tuesday.

The students, who are feared to have been massacred by police in league with gang members, went missing in the southwestern state of Guerrero on Sept. 26.

The discovery of a series of mass graves near the town of Iguala, where the students went missing, has sent shockwaves throughout Mexico…

Read more from this story HERE.

Judicial Watch's Farrell: ISIS Terrorists Did Cross Mexican Border

Photo Credit: Gregory BullBy Bill Hoffmann.

Rep. Duncan Hunter is not lying about Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists crossing over the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Chris Farrell, director of research and investigation for Judicial Watch.

Farrell said Friday on the “Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV that his sources have confirmed that four Islamic State members have been apprehended. Hunter said he had heard that 10 had crossed over.

“It was not instantaneous recognition, they didn’t declare themselves, there wasn’t documentation,” Farrell said.

“This was a matter of detaining people who were suspect and then hours later with additional follow-up and additional record checks and interviews, they confirmed back down to the field level that they were ISIS operatives.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Top Right NewsTwo of Obama’s Illegal Alien ‘Children’ Escape Detention, Carjack 91-Year Old WWII Veteran

By Brian Hayes.

The narrative of Barack Obama’s virtual amnesty for 60,000 “poor unaccompanied children” took a hit this week as two illegals escaped from DHS custody and led police in two states on a 220-mile crime spree.

Two teenage illegal aliens who were allowed into the U.S. in recent months by Barack Obama, broke out of a detention facility in Illinois and committed two carjackings, including of a 91-year-old Navy veteran.

The Guatemalan illegals, ages 16 and 17, were eventually caught. That’s the good news. The bad news is that despite their crimes, they will remain in the United States.

As TRN has reported for months, Obama engineered this border bum rush of tens of thousands of illegals, who swarmed an overwhelmed Border Patrol and were quickly transported to all 50 states — skipping critical medical checks that have led to the spread of dangerous disease in at least 14 states.

But in conjunction with a lapdog media, the Administration and leading Democrats have pretended these illegals were all helpless, harmless “children” escaping crime and miserable poverty in Central America.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APHispanics want Obamacare for illegal immigrant ‘dreamers’

By Stephen Dinan.

Top Hispanic leaders asked President Obama last week to grant some illegal immigrants access to Obamacare, saying the “dreamers” to whom the White House has given tentative work permits are already paying taxes, so they deserve government benefits.

The request is yet another complication stemming from the legal limbo Mr. Obama created for the dreamers, hundreds of thousands of young adults to whom the president gave a tentative legal status in 2012, but who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents as minors and thus remain illegal immigrants.

Under government policy, illegal immigrants are barred from buying insurance on Obamacare’s exchanges, and about half the states also prohibit them from getting Medicaid benefits. But the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda said those whom Mr. Obama has freed from the danger of deportation should be considered “lawfully present for all purposes, including eligibility for public benefits and affordable health care.”

Read more from this story HERE.