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Ed Webb

Four Mexican Cartels Battling for Control of Avocado Trade - 0 views

www.occrp.org/...g-for-control-of-avocado-trade

Mexico economy crime agriculture exports US USA corruption

shared by Ed Webb on 07 Oct 19 - Cached
  • Four cartels are battling it out for the lucrative US$1.5 billion dollar avocado trade in western Mexico
  • war over avocados has seen dozens of dead already
  • “Avocados are a catchy thing,” he said. “But I think it speaks more of a wider mutation of how organized crime operates in Mexico and Latin America. It’s not about drugs anymore, it’s about the territorial control and controlling the commodities.”
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • farmers are being forced to pay or face losing the ability to ship their crops
  • Attorney general Adrián López Solís blames the killings on a territorial war between the CJNG and the armed wing of New Michoacan Family, dubbed Los Viagras
  • Mexico’s avocado export rose by 16 percent between 2018 and 2019, and Michoacan accounts for 80 percent of it. Forty-eight tons of avocados are stolen by gangs every day in the region - according to farmers.
  • The US Department of Agriculture is threatening to suspend its avocado certification program after several inspectors were threatened and robbed by cartel members.
Ed Webb

Why we need restrictions on coronavirus surveillance - 0 views

news.trust.org/...20200328130228-rzdk2

pandemics surveillance opinion analysis politics

shared by Ed Webb on 04 Apr 20 - Cached
  • As governments around the world struggle to stave the spread of the disease they are understandably harnessing the power of technology. We must ensure this is done with respect for human rights and civil liberties and that we don’t weave a surveillance apparatus that can’t be undone.
  • These technologies are being deployed quickly and, it appears, without human rights impact assessments, sufficient privacy controls, or adequate restrictions on their use outside of the current context.
  • there’s an dearth of information about who has access to the data, how long it can be maintained, what sort of privacy rights people in the databases have, what types of restrictions are in place to ensure the data is only used as intended to combat the spread of the virus, and what could be done with the technology afterwards. If there is one thing we know from technological solutions, once a capacity is built it can be used for many purposes beyond that for which it was intended.
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  • The NSO Group, for example, sells sophisticated surveillance technology it says is for fighting terrorism to governments around the world, several of which have turned around and deployed it against journalists. Its Pegasus spyware has been linked to government surveillance of journalists in India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the United States, including associates of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Now the company is reportedly testing in a dozen countries a new technology that matches location data collected by national telecoms with two weeks of mobile-phone tracking information from an infected person to identify those vulnerable to contagion who were in the patient’s vicinity for more than 15 minutes.
  • implementing sunset clauses on any new surveillance powers is essential if we don’t want coronavirus to undermine our rights as well as our health
Ed Webb

RSF yearly round-up: "historically low" number of journalists killed in 2019 | RSF - 0 views

rsf.org/...number-journalists-killed-2019

journalists media RSF rights repression KSA Saudi China Turkey Mexico Syria Afghanistan Yemen

shared by Ed Webb on 17 Dec 19 - No Cached
  • With a combined total of 14 journalists killed, Latin America is now as deadly for journalists as the Middle East., with all of its wars.
  • more journalists (59%) are now being killed in countries at peace than in war zones. At the same time, there has been a 2% increase in journalists being deliberately murdered or targeted.
  • Worldwide, a total of 389 journalists are currently in prison in connection with their work, 12% more than last year. Nearly half of these journalists are being held by three countries: China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
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