News Summary for July 10th, 2009

++ The Chihuahua state Attorney General’s Office has identified both the person who pulled the trigger and the mastermind behind the murder of Mormon leader Benjamín Le Barón and his brother-in-law Luis Whitman… However, Chihuahua officials were not giving names so as not to spoil the investigation…The Federal Attorney General’s Office took on the investigation into the two murders… In a press release the Attorney General’s Office said the killings could be linked to an earlier kidnapping, that of Benjamín Le Barón’s brother Éric, and the arrest of 25 alleged paramilitaries in Madera, Chihuahua. Chihuahua Governor José Reyes Baeza said the state Attorney General’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigations would help federal authorities with the investigation of Le Barón’s murder.

++ Justice Sergio Valls said the Supreme Court should take on the investigation into the ABC day care center fire in Hermosillo, Sonora, and investigate possible grave human rights violations… The fire led to the deaths of 48 infants…Health Secretary José Ángel Córdova Villalobos said it does not matter who the owners of privately-owned day care centers commissioned by IMSS to be part of their system are, but rather the important issue is that they have properly trained staff to care for children and contracts be awarded through contests.

++ Whose head will roll next? Could his name be Jesus? Dolores Padierna and Ricardo Ruiz, PRD national councilors, called for the head of party chief Jesús Ortega, saying he should voluntarily offer to quit after poor results in midterm elections last Sunday.

++ At the G8 plus G5 summit meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, President Felipe Calderón announced that Mexico joined the pledge by powerful nations to put an end to protectionism.

++ We still have the problem out there… And it will probably get worse. The Oaxaca Health Secretariat ordered health measures to close off the Isthmus of Tehuantepec after a number of A H1N1 influenza cases were reported in Chiapas.