Join us as we proudly present the first ever Liberty Village Special Edition of Mercado News Magazine this coming Thursday. Mercado News has called Liberty Village home for the past 3 years now and we are delighted to pay tribute to our thriving neighborhood as we unveil our fresh look.

In our Impresario Series, we feature the latest addition to our neighborhood, television mogul Moses Znaimer, among other remarkable entrepreneurs from our community. It is an issue and event you don't want to miss.

Join us for the official launch of the Liberty Village special edition of Mercado News Magazine on Thursday January 26, 2012 at the Liberty Social Hour, which will take place at Williams Landing (120 Lynn Williams Street, Toronto, ON). LSH will be hosted by InLibertyVillage.com & Toronto City Events and sponsored by Mercado News Magazine and Bhive Social Media Labs.

If you can't make it, please support our magazine and pick one up at your local Chapters - Indigo and retail outlets across the country after Valentine’s day.  

On Sunday morning at the national convention of the Liberal party, over 1200 delegates voted on whether or not the Liberal party would officially endorse the legalization of marijuana. The motion passed with 77% of the participants voting for the move, and the Liberal party joins the NDP as the two major political parties pushing to legalize or decriminalize the substance.

A more cynical reading of their decision would be that this is an attempt by the Liberal party to create a minor buzz, especially among the youth vote, and make up for its embarrassing trouncing in the last federal election where it fell it lost nearly half of its seat, dropping from 77 to 34. Even considering the transparency of the decision, it nonetheless stands as a positive shift that would encourage Canada to take up the standards of countries like the Netherlands and Argentina where marijuana has been decriminalized.

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Following the conflict in Afghanistan, the George W. Bush administration established the controversial detention and interrogation facility Guantanamo Bay, located within Guantanamo Base Naval, Cuba. The first group of 20 detainees would arrive on January 11, 2002.

In the 10 years of the camp’s existence there have been 775 detainees accused of having links with Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Most of these prisoners have been released without any charges and transferred back to their home countries.

As of 2012, 171 detainees remain in Guantanamo Bay with their future in as much doubt as ever. According to the latest figures released by the Defense Intelligence Agency and published by the Miami Herald, there are 46 prisoners who have been deemed as “indefinite detainees” who will neither be charged nor released. 89 prisoners are eligible for release or transfer but are still held, 6 face death penalty trials, 4 are convicted war-criminals and 1 is serving a life sentence.

Obama’s 2008 campaign promise to close-down Guantanamo Bay has turned into a prolonged impasse with Congress throughout his first-term in office. Congress has thwarted the possibility of transferring detainees, while neglecting to finance the trials of Guantanamo captives in the United States.

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Mexico’s bloody war with drug cartels will drive July’s presidential election. It has been a strenuous war but one which the next president cannot undermine.

In 2006, newly-elected Mexican President Felipe Calderon initiated a war on the drug cartels and since then violence has been horrifically rampant throughout the country. The numbers are grim with the United States’ State Department claiming that that 40,000 people have died within this 5-year period.

The armed-conflict has vividly impacted the entire country, especially in the northern region of Chihuahua and the Pacific states. Ciudad Juarez, lying on the border with the United States has become the biggest victim to organised crime. In 2010 over 3000 people were killed in Juarez alone with a population of less than a million.

The drug cartels, which have split from former allies, continue to attack each other and innocent civilians in terrifying forms of violence. The bodies of decapitated civilians have become a dismal re-occurrence in the country’s headlines.

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