A new Mexico is emerging - Obama

 President Barack Obama said Friday he came to Mexico to break down stereotypes between the United States and its neighbor to the south.
Speaking at the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, Obama said that too often the relationship between the United States and Mexico is "trapped in old stereotypes," where Mexicans see America as trying to wall itself off from Mexico and Americans see Mexico through the sensational headlines of violence in the war on drugs.
"I have come to Mexico because it is time to put old mindsets aside," Obama said. "It's time to recognize new realities, including the impressive progress in today's Mexico."
He said it is clear that "a new Mexico is emerging," highlighted by a growing economy, a robust democracy and new generation of youth empowered by technology.
"I see a Mexico that is taking its rightful place in the world," he said.
(CNN)
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US Reports: Israel Launched Airstrike into Syria

U.S. officials say Israel has launched an airstrike into Syria, while Israeli officials say they cannot comment on the report.

U.S. officials told news agencies late Friday that the strike occurred late Thursday or early Friday and likely targeted a suspected weapons site. The reports said there is no indication that Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace.

The officials spoke to reporters anonymously. The U.S. government has made no official remarks on the reports.

Online news source Politico cites U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, as telling the audience at a Republican fundraising dinner Friday that Israel had bombed Syria that day. He did not elaborate.

Israel has declined to address the reports specifically, but says it is determined to prevent the transfer of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime to terrorists.

If confirmed, this would be the second time Israel has conducted airstrikes on Syria this year. Israel recently stated that it conducted a January airstrike on a weapons convoy in Syria that was thought to be headed for Lebanon's Hezbollah rebels.
VOA
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Red lines and the problems of intervention in Syria

The civil war in Syria, one of the few lasting legacies of the Arab Spring, has been under way for more than two years. The Americans and Europeans have had no appetite for intervention after their experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. At the same time, they have not wanted to be in a position where intervention was simply ruled out. Therefore, they identified a red line that, if crossed, would force them to reconsider intervention: the use of chemical weapons.
No one thought that Syrian President Bashar Assad was reckless enough to use chemical weapons because they felt that his entire strategy depended on avoiding U.S. and European intervention, and that therefore he would never cross the red line. This was comforting to the Americans and Europeans because it allowed them to appear decisive while avoiding the risk of having to do anything.
But in recent weeks the possibility of intervention increased, as first the United Kingdom and France and then Israel and the United States asserted that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons.[statesman]
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