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Fines are increased if you get caught violating traffic laws and regulations in La Paz. We did NOT independently verify the accuracy of a report by B. Crawford we seen at the cat-litter-box liner. We usual use that pamphlet laying out at some supermarkets aimed at gringos and consists of advertisements and other BS. Take one from 2002 and a 2012 issue. Same doo-doo!! Anyway, talk is about traffic laws and increased fines IF you… before we get into that I like to address a connected issue. very often you hear, mainly at online publications / foras this “La Paz police all corrupt etc.” talk. In a very simple way own experience: Foreigner, living almost 11 years Baja Sur (2 y. Loscabos, 9 y. La Paz). In this almost 9 years La Paz I got pulled over 3 times by La Paz traffic cops (in uniform) and 1 time by PGR at a street-block/control. All of the pull-over been 100% justified. 3 times I did cleary violate traffic rules. At the PGR control it was around midnight in a part of La Paz you rarely expect a foreigner, they stoped EVERY car and i could not produce the vehicle documents. continue

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One person drowned and six were missing after a fishing boat carrying 27 American tourists capsized in a storm and sank off Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, authorities said on Monday. The 115-foot (35 meter) chartered boat left the port of San Felipe on the Sea of Cortez, a haven for windsurfers and sports fishermen, on Saturday but was struck by an electrical storm and capsized early on Sunday, port and navy officials said. Emergency services officials in San Felipe said 27 of the 44 people on board were U.S. citizens.
The U.S. Coast Guard, which is sending a helicopter to help with the rescue, said one person was dead and authorities were still searching for six others, but had no information on their nationalities.
“(The helicopter) should be there around 0800 (Pacific time) to assist with rescue efforts,” Coast Guard official Benny Minton said. The boat, called the Erik, was found around 87 miles south of San Felipe, a popular holiday and fishing resort located south of Mexicali. continue

Headlines heralding violent news of Mexico’s drug war splash across the front pages of the country’s newspapers. Government tallies list more than 34,600 deaths since President Felipe Calderon began a crackdown on cartels in December 2006. Luckily this situation is in NO WAY occurring in La Paz or BCS and is related to certain areas at the Mexican mainland and the border areas to the USA. The United States are the main recipients of the smuggled drugs and the routes to deliver are the areas of conflicts. A comprehensive official database of drug-related killings around Mexico providing a new insight into the complexity of the conflict with criminal groups that traffic drugs into the United States has been released not long ago. But many stories behind the statistics are never told states Mexican journalist Marcela Turati Munoz.
“More of a voice has been given to the violent people; more of a voice has been given to the drug traffickers, and the victims really have not spoken,” Turati said. continue

What’s it all about? It’s a day — or to be more specific a night — when dark and wicked things creep from their lairs/tombs/caves/covens/coffins/haunted houses and … well, stalk the earth. Where does the name Halloween come from? Where does “Dia de los Muertos come from? The word Halloween is a contraction of All-Hallow-Even, or All-Hallows-Eve, since October 31 is the evening before the Christian festival of All Hallows’ Day (“Hallows” comes from the Middle English word “halwen” meaning holy.) This feast, more commonly known as All Saints Day, was first celebrated on November 1 by Pope Gregory III (731-741), although it was not until a century later, under Pope Gregory IV (827-844), that the day became standardized throughout the Christian world. continue

A powerful earthquake struck offshore in Mexico’s Gulf of California today, Thursday 21st October 2010. The epicenter was 85 miles (140 kilometers) northeast of La Paz in Baja California Sur, authorities reported some panic, but no damage or injuries. Alfonso Gomez, assistant director of civil protection in La Paz, told The Associated Press by telephone that some schools and public buildings were evacuated, and city offices received calls from alarmed residents. The region was hit by three moderately powerful earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 5.5 to 5.8 Tuesday night and early Wednesday, but they caused no known damage. The editor of this report experienced the quake in Fidepaz continue

About 3,200 Mexican federal police have been fired since May for failing to do their work or being linked to corruption, Federal Police Commissioner Facundo Rosas said Monday. Of those, 465 have been charged with crimes. In addition, Rosas said at a news conference, another 1,020 officers face disciplinary proceedings for failing confidence exams. The probe started in mid-May, said Marco Tulio Lopez of the federal police internal affairs department.
“Investigations of our department began many months ago and this is the result,” federal police spokesman Ramon Salinas told CNN. Among the officers who were fired, Rosas said, were officials in Ciudad Juarez who were publicly accused by fellow officers of corruption continue