The Foreign Policy Association’s Sean Goforth recently wrote an article titled “While Brazil Waffles on FTA Méxican Trade Exports Surge” that should be interesting to people interested in México’s economy.

Seattle Times Travelwise columnist Carol Pucci asked who would you trust if you wanted to know about safety in Mexico? Americans who have been there, of course! Here is her article: Readers Speak Out on Mexico Safety

Headlines of the drug war project a narrow view of life in México. Reframing Mexico shifts the focus and takes aim at stories that reveal the complexities of life in one of the world’s most dynamic cities.

A multimedia team from UNC-Chapel Hill collaborated with students from Monterrey Tec University to create an online documentary project that explores the untold stories of a country known for its dangerous reputation.

Take a new perspective on a fascinating culture.

Travel guru Peter Greenberg talks about his views on safety in Mexico in his blog post linked below. He has spent an extended amount of time in Mexico this year filming Mexico: The Royal Tour, so he should have first hand and unbiased information. His article Is it Safe to Travel to Mexico Now? is worth a read, and be sure to visit his Why and How we Made Mexico: The Royal Tour for stations showing it in your area.

To help put the relative danger of travel in Mexico into perspective, we have prepared this map illustrating distances between the hotspots identified by the US State Department, and major tourist destinations. Please feel free to distribute this file, or download our print-quality PDF.

From NationMaster.com (Thanks LifeStyle Refugee!):

The United States leads most other countries in terms of crime per capita. On the world stage, the USA ranks #8, with 80 crimes reported per 1,000 people. In comparison, Mexico ranks #39, with 12 crimes per 1,000 people. This means that it is probably safer to vacation in Playa del Carmen than it is, say, Fort Lauderdale.

Click here to view the full chart, comparing relative crime per capita in nations around the world.

Source: Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, via NationMaster

Mexico is rapidly becoming a “failed nation.” Mexico poses greater threat to United States than Pakistan. Spring Break college students are urged to avoid Mexico. Drug lords control the streets, and the government has lost all ability to govern. It seems that since 2006, the same time we started hearing talk about a massive US-Mexico border wall, the international media has been publishing increasingly frightening headlines about the developing situation in Mexico. The situation is dire, and the “rapid and total collapse” of Mexico may pose the single greatest threat to humanity that has ever been seen.

There’s just one problem: Those of us who are actually in Mexico, making new lives, are seeing things a little differently. By most estimates, there are now at least 1,000,000 Americans living in Mexico full-time, many of whom are retirees, looking to stretch their retirement accounts a little further. Others are still working, forging ahead as teachers, writers, artists, choosing to make Mexico their adopted home. And many of us are seeing a massive disconnect between what is being reported in the news about Mexico, and what we are seeing when we look out our windows.

Without diving into the rationale or motivation for this big “Mexico is the new enemy” media push, we wanted this website to serve as a balance for the news we are hearing from the North, and to provide you, the reader, the opportunity to learn a little more about what life Mexico is REALLY like. We will invite the most prominent writers and bloggers from across the nation to contribute, in the hope that maybe, just maybe, we can provide even the meekest of protests, the smallest voice declaring that, actually, Mexico seems to be just fine.

If you would like to contribute to this project, please visit our “Submissions” page for further details.