I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Residents of Albuquerque’s Southeast Heights want the rest of us, and particularly the media, to stop calling their neighborhood “the War Zone.” Revitalization efforts have long made that moniker a misnomer. Albuquerque City Councilor Rey Garduño and state Sen. Tim Keller, both Democrats, are working on a memorial resolution to name the area the “International District” to reflect its ethnic diversity, according to KRQE.com.
New Mexico’s largest utility has sold its natural gas component to Continental Energy Systems for $640 million, which means about 500,000 New Mexicans will now get two bills: one for electric services, and one for natural gas. According to the New Mexico Business Weekly, PNM CEO Jeff Sterba said the move had to do with strengthening PNM’s financial standing.
“Completing the PNM gas operations sale is a key step toward returning our New Mexico utility, PNM, to financial health and strengthening the entire operation,” Sterba said. “Our plan is to use the net proceeds of the sale to reduce PNM and PNM Resources debt and other corporate purposes.”
Prairie dog woes: Human oil-addicted sprawl
Over 90 percent of prairie dog habitat — some of it in New Mexico — has disappeared, according to the nonprofit Wild Earth Guardians. New Mexico earned a D in the group’s report card because the state’s wildlife officials don’t actively preserve habitat. Oil and gas activity threatens habitat in rural areas, the group said, while urbanization is the culprit in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos. The group’s desert and grasslands projects director, Lauren McCain, said prairie dogs are important for grassland ecosystems. They are food for hawks, golden eagles, foxes and endangered black-footed ferrets, while their burrows offer shelter for a variety of other species.
Attention: Mexico is NOT collapsing
In light of the incredible drug-trafficking violence raging in Mexico right now, a litany of top brass in the United States has warned that Mexico might be on the verge of a meltdown. As the El Paso Times reports, these voices include the Joint Forces Command, ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden, former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, as well as ex-U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Those are some serious folks, but Mexico’s Ambassador, Arturo Sarukhan, said it isn’t so: “The violence unleashed by trafficking organizations in response to President (Felipe) Calderón’s effort to shut them down cannot be denied,” Sarukhan said. “If one considers the criteria that could lead to a ‘sudden collapse’ — loss of territorial control, inability to provide public services, refugees and internally displaced people, criminalization of the state, sharp economic decline and incapacity to interact as a full member of the international community — it is obvious that Mexico simply does not fit the pattern.”
The article in the El Paso Times is extensive and well worth the read.
