MEXICAN PRESIDENT CALDERON ANNOUNCES ARREST IN JOURNALIST'S MURDER

Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Wednesday told a journalists
group that authorities have made an arrest in the death of a Juarez
newspaper reporter slain two years ago.

Calderon's announcement comes as the editor of the Juarez news website
La Polaka.com has reportedly received political asylum in the U.S.
after fleeing Mexico in fear of his life.

During a meeting with members of the Committee to Protect Journalists
and the Inter American Press Association, Calderon said investigators
have arrested a suspect in the homicide of Armando Rodriguez, the
committee reported. Details were not disclosed.

On Nov. 13, 2008, Rodriguez, a crime reporter for the Diario de
Juarez, was shot multiple times in his company-issued car outside his
Juarez home while waiting to take his daughter to school. The girl was
not hurt.

Calderon also said he would push for laws that would make attacks on
journalists a federal crime and for the creation of a federal program
to protect at-risk journalists.

Last week, two Diario photography interns were shot in a daytime
attack in a parking lot in Juarez. Luis Carlos Santiago, 21, was
killed, and Carlos Manuel Sanchez was wounded and survived.

More than 30 journalists and other media workers have been killed or
have disappeared in Mexico since December 2006, making it one of the
deadliest countries for the press, stated the Committee to Protect
Journalists.

Jose Luis Aguirre, who runs the Juarez news website La Polaka.com
while living in El Paso, on Tuesday told Reuters news service that he
had been granted political asylum by the United States. Aguirre, his
wife and their three children crossed the border in 2008 after Aguirre
received a death threat on his cell phone telling him "you're next"
while driving to the wake of Rodriguez, the slain reporter.

Carlos Spector, an immigration lawyer representing three other Mexican
journalists seeking asylum, said the grant for Aguirre was "a welcome
decision that signals a change of policy from the Obama administration
because they can no longer deny reality."

Aguirre testified about his experience to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee
on Crime and Drugs during a hearing last year on Mexican drug cartels.

"The government of Chihuahua allowed the state to be converted into an
instrument of organized crime," Aguirre told the subcommittee. "Press
freedom is threatened by a terrifying dilemma: 'Plata o Plomo,'
(silver or lead) meaning accept a bribe or face a bullet."

Aguirre, who came to El Paso on a temporary visa, said he was
threatened because of his criticism of Chihuahua state Attorney
General Patricia Gonzalez.

Violence against members of the news media has become a concern as
rival drug cartels fight a war that has killed more than 6,400 in
Juarez since 2008.

"On a daily basis, ordinary citizens in Juarez are condemned to die,
to be kidnapped, to be assaulted, to suffer extortion or to be exiled
at any moment," Aguirre told senators. "Who can help them if they are
persecuted and threatened? Criminals, police and politicians are often
one and the same. People are more afraid of the police than of the
drug cartels."