It's the kind of thing that makes me furious fast.
"US, Mexico gingerly confront drug woes" April 03, 2012|By Anne Gearan
WASHINGTON - The explosion of drug-fueled violence along Mexico’s border with the United States could harm relations between the two nations, President Obama said Monday. Mexico’s leader retorted that much of the problem of drugs and guns begins on the US side of the line.
In the thick of political contests in both the United States and Mexico, Obama and President Felipe Calderon of Mexico traded unusually direct claims about the cause and effect of the drug violence that has consumed a swath of northeastern Mexico.
They were cordial and complimentary to one another, but did not hide the degree of worry on both sides about a six-year spasm of violence that has killed more than 47,000 people....
Calderon made a government crackdown on warring drug cartels the hallmark of his six-year term, which expires later this year. His center-right party has seen its election chances fall in the face of a wide perception in Mexico that the crackdown has not worked....
Must be all the corpses.
Beyond the terrible human cost, the battling drug cartels in Mexico and in Central America cause economic problems and political and security concerns for the United States, Obama said.
“If they’re undermining institutions in these countries, that will impact our capacity to do business in these countries,’’ Obama said after meetings with Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The three leaders launched a new bid to pare back regulation and boost North American trade. After a one-day summit, Obama said the United States has trimmed outdated and burdensome rules in talks with both its neighbors, but all three countries will now go beyond that.
“Our three nations are going to sit down together, go through the books, and simplify and eliminate more regulations [to make] our joint economies stronger,’’ he said.
It was a North American Union meeting.
Obama noted that trade among the three neighbors tops $1 trillion a year, and he wants to see that number rise.
The summit ranged broadly across issues of energy and climate change, immigration, and the war on drugs.
Obama warned of a possible “spillover effect’’ on American tourism and American expatriates living in Mexico and bordering nations that have also had problems with drug cartels.
Calderon remarked that no American “spring-breakers’’ were harmed in Mexico this year.
The flow of guns, especially assault weapons, from the United States to Mexico sabotages the work of his government in fighting the drug gangs, and the US government has not done enough to stop it, Calderon said.
He credited Obama with making an effort to reduce the gun traffic, but said Obama faces “internal problems . . . from a political point of view.’’ That is a reference to Republican opposition in Congress and wide opposition from Republicans and gun-rights advocates elsewhere to a new ban on assault weapons or other curbs on gun sales that feed the Mexican market.
No mention of Fast and Furious!!
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"3 sacrificed to Mexico’s ‘Saint Death’" Associated Press, March 31, 2012
HERMOSILLO, Mexico - Eight people have been arrested for allegedly killing two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman in ritual sacrifices by the cult of La Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, prosecutors said Friday.
Jose Larrinaga, spokesman for Sonora state prosecutors, said the victims’ blood was poured around an altar to the saint, which is depicted as a skeleton holding a scythe and clothed in flowing robes.
The slayings recalled the notorious “narco-satanicos’’ killings of the 1980s, when 15 bodies, many of them with signs of ritual sacrifice, were unearthed at a ranch outside the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.
While Saint Death has become the focus of a cult among drug traffickers and criminals in Mexico in recent years, there have been no confirmed cases of human sacrifices in Mexico to the scary-looking saint, who is not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. Worshippers usually offer candy, cigarettes, and incense.
Larrinaga said the first of the victims was apparently killed in 2009, the second in 2010, and the latest earlier this month.
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Related(?):
"VOLCANIC FURY IN MEXICO -- Ash and smoke spewed from the Popocatepetl volcano in the Mexican central state of Puebla Tuesday. Residents have not slept soundly since the towering mountain roared into action more than a week ago, spewing out a hail of rocks, steam, and ashes. The 17,887-foot volcano, Mexico's second-highest peak, started rumbling on April 13 (Boston Globe April 25 2012)."
