Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionMonarch butterflies fly in their millions to Mexico to hibernate in the forests
Concern is growing in Mexico about an environmental activist and expert on the monarch butterfly who has been missing for more than a week.
Homero Gómez manages a butterfly sanctuary in western Michoacán state, a region which is notorious for its violent criminal gangs.
Rights groups fear illegal loggers may have targeted Mr Gómez for his activism to conserve the local forest which is the home of the monarch butterfly.
Many of them have fallen victim to criminal gangs which control large areas of Mexico and kill anyone who could interfere with their illegal activities, which range from drug and human trafficking to extortion, logging and mining.
Who is Homero Gómez?
Mr Gómez is a 50-year-old agricultural engineer who manages the El Rosario sanctuary for the monarch butterfly, one of the biggest in Mexico.
On his Twitter account he invited people to visit the sanctuary.
He is a tireless campaigner for the conservation of the monarch butterfly, and the pine and fir forests to which they migrate every year in their millions from Canada and the US.
The sanctuary he manages opened in November as part of a strategy to stop illegal logging in the area which is key to the monarch butterfly. It was praised by the WWF's Mexico director Jorge Rickards as a model of conservation work when it was inaugurated.
What's special about the monarch butterfly?
Scientists have been fascinated with the orange and black butterflies because of the vast distances these insects fly each year to hibernate in Mexico - the longest migration of any insect.
They found that they use a kind of internal solar compass to guide them during their flight from Canada and the US to the same area on the border between Michoacán and Mexico state.
Media captionUS scientists say butterflies use the sun to navigate, as Victoria Gill reports
Once they reach the mountain hillsides of the oyamel fir forests in that area, they cluster together to stay warm. Tens of thousands of butterflies can be seen on a single tree, creating a colourful spectacle which has become a draw for tourists.
But environmentalists have warned that illegal logging poses a major risk for these forests and the butterflies which spend the winters here.
What happened?
Mr Gómez was last seen in person attending a meeting in the village of El Soldado on the afternoon of 13 January.
Messages promoting his butterfly sanctuary were still being sent from his mobile phone the next morning. But after his mobile went silent on Tuesday afternoon, his family reported him missing.
More than 200 volunteers have joined the search for the environmentalist.
Frustrated with the lack of any clues to his whereabouts, his relatives protested in front of the offices of the Michoacán state attorney general on Friday.
Human rights organisations have also asked the authorities to intensify their efforts to find Mr Gómez and to investigate if his disappearance may be linked to his anti-logging campaign.
Mayte Cardona of the Michoacán Human Rights Commission said that Mr Gómez "was probably hurting the interests of people illegally logging in the area".
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
REUTERS
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