Mexico City
Ken Ellingwood, Correspondent
Ken Ellingwood, a Times staff writer since 1992, is based in Mexico City, with responsibility for covering Mexico and Central America. He was previously based in Jerusalem and covered Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He has also reported from Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Before joining the foreign staff in 2003, Ellingwood was the newspaper's bureau chief in Atlanta, where he covered a six-state swath of the American South. From 1998 to 2002, Ellingwood covered the U.S.-Mexico border, based in San Diego, and is the author of "Hard Line: Life and Death on the U.S.-Mexico Border." He earlier held a number of local beats, from the San Gabriel Valley to police and courts in Orange County, while on the Times staff in Southern California. EMAIL
October 28, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Grim glossary of the narco-world
Words can hardly convey how vicious, how over the top, Mexico's drug war has become. So they invented some.
October 17, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
In Mexico, gruesome slayings add to Guerrero's toll
Mutilated bodies of nine people turned up in the southern state of Guerrero, authorities said Friday, amid an increase in drug-related violence there.
October 14, 2009
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Surprise ending at Mexico City crime scene
The first gunshot drew me racing to the window. The second sent me ducking to the floor.
October 13, 2009
Mexico electrical workers fight disbanding of utility
Angry electrical workers on Monday asked Mexico's Congress to help them reverse the government's decision to disband the state-run utility that supplies electricity to Mexico City and several neighboring states.
October 12, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexico's 'narco-lawyers' risk everything
Reporting from Culiacan, Mexico, and Monterrey, Mexico -- Silvia Raquenel Villanueva, once hailed here as "the Bulletproof Lawyer," could outrun the bullets no longer.
September 26, 2009
Honduras puts off OAS delegation
Reporting from Mexico City and Tegucigalpa, Honduras -- Hopes for a breakthrough in Honduras' political crisis snagged Friday after the de facto government said it was not ready to receive a delegation of diplomats who were planning to help mediate.
September 25, 2009
Mexico Senate confirms Arturo Chavez Chavez as attorney general
Mexico's Senate on Thursday confirmed Arturo Chavez Chavez as the nation's attorney general, despite objections by human rights activists who assailed his record as prosecutor in the northern state of Chihuahua during the 1990s.
September 24, 2009
In Honduras, curfew eased so residents can buy essentials
Reporting from Mexico City and Tegucigalpa, Honduras -- For a few hours Wednesday, Honduras' political drama gave way to more important matters -- like buying groceries and filling gas tanks.
September 23, 2009
Honduran forces break up pro-Zelaya rally
Honduran forces toting batons and tear gas Tuesday scattered supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, as he holed up for a second day in an embassy in that nation's capital, Tegucigalpa.
September 12, 2009
COLUMN ONE
Not being on time a high art in Mexico
We attacked the start of first grade with military precision. Up at 6:15, with pretty purple dress at the ready. Pancake served, teeth brushed, sandals cinched -- with time to spare. We were a Swiss watch.
September 7, 2009
Mexico water shortage becomes crisis amid drought
In the parched Mexican countryside, the corn is wilting, the wheat stunted. And here in this vast and thirsty capital, officials are rationing water and threatening worse cuts as Mexico endures one of the driest spells in more than half a century.
10:12 AM PDT, September 3, 2009
Gunmen in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, kill at least 16 at drug rehabilitation center
Gunmen stormed a rehabilitation center for drug addicts in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez and executed at least 16 people, authorities said today.
August 26, 2009
Cash flow to Mexico stays slow
Cash remittances from Mexicans living abroad keep tumbling, with a second-quarter drop of 17.9% compared with the same period last year, officials said Tuesday.
July 17, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Forces hiked to counter drug gang in Mexican state
Mexican authorities announced plans Thursday to send 5,500 police officers and military personnel to the western state of Michoacan to confront a violent crime syndicate offering some of the fiercest resistance President Felipe Calderon's government has faced since launching its war on drugs 2 1/2 years ago.
July 16, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Fugitive politician is tied to gang targeting police
Last week, Julio Cesar Godoy was a congressman-elect. This week, he is a fugitive.
July 15, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
12 slain in Mexico were federal police officers
Marking a gruesome new setback in the war on drug gangs, Mexican authorities said Tuesday that 12 people found tortured and fatally shot in the western state of Michoacan a night earlier were federal police officers.
July 13, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Calderon's drug offensive stirs 'wasp nest'
Reporting from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and Mexico City -- In the baddest precinct of Mexico's most violent city, Jose Manuel Resendiz is the law.
June 8, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Acapulco shootout leaves 18 dead
As if Mexican tourism needed more bad news, a weekend shootout left 18 gunmen and soldiers dead in Acapulco, the iconic if faded beach resort that has been working on a comeback in recent years.
May 11, 2009
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
A trip to Mexico's Museum of Drugs
Army Capt. Claudio Montane wants one thing clear from the start: This place is not not a narco-museum. The point is not to glorify drug traffickers.
April 15, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mayors on front line of the drug war
If he was nervous, Salvador Vergara Cruz didn't act it.
March 24, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexico offers $2-million rewards for top drug suspects
Nab a drug lord, earn $2 million.
March 23, 2009
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Mexico's butterfly reserve alights in the soul
They first catch the eye as tiny, ghost-like flashes. It takes a moment to fix the flitting shapes.
March 22, 2009
U.S.-Mexico relationship hits some bumps
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ventures south of the border this week at a moment when the tricky dynamics of the U.S.-Mexico relationship are on full display.
March 21, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Abuse allegations rise against Mexican army
Reports of rights violations by the Mexican army have shot up during the two years that President Felipe Calderon has deployed troops nationwide to battle drug traffickers, a coalition of human rights activists said Friday.
March 6, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Tourists weigh Mexico drug violence
Buried under two months of winter in Buffalo, N.Y., Kim Kramer could take no more.
March 3, 2009
Mexico sending more forces to Ciudad Juarez
The Mexican government will deploy 1,000 more federal police officers as part of a wider effort to restore order in Ciudad Juarez, the nation's most violent city, officials said Monday.
March 2, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
A side of Cancun not seen during spring break
The suspect cruised around in an SUV that had been reported stolen. He toted corrido music glorifying drug smugglers and hit men, and allegedly helped them operate in this beach resort.
February 6, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
In a Mexico state, openness is the new order in the courts
Silvia Guadalupe Perez burst into tears as she named the bitter ingredients of her new life as a widow: three children emotionally adrift, a mounting pile of bills and meager factory wages to pay them.
January 25, 2009
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Calderon seeks to dispel talk of 'failing state'
Stark assessments of the threat that drug crime poses to Mexico's stability have put the government of President Felipe Calderon on the defensive as he tries to forge a relationship with a new U.S. president.
October 1, 2008
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexico's President Calderon has few choices in drug war
Stretched thin in an uphill battle against drug gangs, the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon faces increasingly stark options at a pivotal moment.
September 15, 2008
Mexico safety chief's tough job: policing the police
Federal police in the northern state of Coahuila had seven drug suspects in hand last week when they met a caravan of gun-toting men apparently intent on freeing the arrestees.
September 2, 2008
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Calderon presents Mexico's annual report in written form
There were no shoving matches at the door, no showdowns at the dais. Not a catcall was uttered.
September 1, 2008
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Fear of kidnapping grips Mexico
Perhaps nothing reveals this country's kidnapping dread better than one product now on offer from a Mexican company: a tiny transmitter that is implanted under the skin to beam the person's whereabouts to a satellite.
August 22, 2008
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexico moves to curb drug crime wave
Facing wide public indignation over Mexico's crime epidemic, President Felipe Calderon on Thursday proposed new steps to fight kidnapping and other violent offenses.
July 6, 2008
Reporters covering Mexico drug wars risk their lives
Rodolfo Rincon had reason to feel cheery when he left his newspaper office on a January evening last year.
November 23, 2007
COLUMN ONE
Airtime for Israel's Arabs
Maram frets that she's fat. Tony says men don't care how they look. Shahd thinks nose jobs are fine.
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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