MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – Hopes that Mexico’s conservative ruling party would usher in an era of clean government and establish order have given away to despair as drugs war violence increasingly hits ordinary civilians.

At least 52 people died last week when an arson attack by suspected drug cartel members gutted an upscale casino in the prosperous northern city of Monterrey, a bastion of President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party, or PAN.

The drugs war has become more and more brutal since Calderon deployed the army to fight the cartels in late 2006, but Mexicans were still shocked by the Casino Royale attack.

Attending a funeral for one victim, retired local businessman Carlos Garcia struggled to grasp how Monterrey, a city that was once a beacon for urban development in Latin America, had become so violent.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. And it’s getting worse,” the 80-year-old said. “This government is doing nothing. I’ve always been a PAN supporter but we need a change.”

Over the past two years killings have surged in Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo Leon state and home to major companies like cement maker Cemex and conglomerate Alfa. Long viewed as a jewel in the crown of the Mexican economy, it is now is a potent symbol of how the drugs war can quickly ravage major cities.

The violence has eroded support for the PAN, which promised law and order as well as honest, efficient government when its candidate Vicente Fox won a historic presidential election in 2000, ending 71 years of authoritarian and often corrupt rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico has arrested five suspected drug gang members in connection with the torching of a casino last week that killed at least 52 people, one of the worst attacks on civilians in the country in years.

Thursday’s arson attack on the upmarket casino in the northern city of Monterrey has deepened skepticism about President Felipe Calderon’s fight against drug cartels, putting new pressure on his embattled government to root out crime.

Rodrigo Medina, governor of Nuevo Leon, the state where Monterrey is the capital, said on Monday the five suspects arrested had confessed to involvement in the killing and that the hunt for other perpetrators continued.

“From the initial indications we’ve observed the target was the casino, not the civilian population,” Medina told a televised news conference, adding that a strong line of investigation was that the casino was being extorted.

Medina said the suspects identified themselves as members of the Zetas drug cartel, which has ravaged the state and other parts of Mexico with killing, kidnapping and extortion.

President Felipe Calderon declared three days of national mourning after the attack and in a television interview on Monday pledged to continue the fight against organized crime.

He admitted corruption among judges and police was still helping criminal gangs go unpunished.

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – Despite suffering one of the worst attacks on civilians in Mexico for years, the state of Nuevo Leon is undaunted because it believes a radical police overhaul will soon start winning the drug war.

President Felipe Calderon declared three days of mourning after at least 52 people died on Thursday in an arson attack on a casino in Nuevo Leon’s capital Monterrey, a wealthy city that increasingly has fallen prey to the ravages of drug cartels.

In an interview with Reuters, Nuevo Leon Interior Minister Javier Trevino said the state had a “unique” plan to beat organized crime — starting with getting rid of half the police force, much of which had been corrupted by money from cartels.

“There are some municipalities here that used to have 800 (police officers) and now they have 80. Why? Because we started cleaning up and firing people and putting them in jail,” Trevino said late on Saturday. “Then we started from scratch.”

In 2009, when Rodrigo Medina, now 39, became governor of Nuevo Leon, one of Mexico’s richest states, the municipal and state police numbered around 8,000, said Trevino.

Today that total has fallen to around 3,500.

But far from planning to cut the police presence, Nuevo Leon aims to rebuild the force and raise the number of officers to 14,000 by the time Medina’s term ends in 2015.

MEXICO CITY, Aug 2 (Reuters) – Unchecked drug war violence, political gridlock and fears of a U.S. economic slowdown are clouding the outlook for Mexico, Latin America’s second biggest economy, ahead of a presidential vote next year.

DRUGS WAR

Anger is growing about the death toll of more than 40,000 people since President Felipe Calderon launched a war on drug gangs in late 2006, and violence has spun out of control in states along the U.S.-Mexico border. [ID:nN15124805]

Calderon’s conservative National Action Party (PAN) may pay a price for the violence at the presidential election next July 1, particularly in northern Mexico where the party traditionally draws strong support. The PAN was trounced in an election in the central State of Mexico on July 3, suffering its worst result there in a generation. [ID:nN1E762055]

No official candidates have been selected by Mexico’s three main parties for the election, but the field of hopefuls is narrowing and polls continue to show Enrique Pena Nieto, the former PRI governor in the State of Mexico, as front runner.

But analysts say the election is still wide open and one new poll in the daily Reforma newspaper showed Calderon’s approval rating at 63 percent. He can not seek re-election but could help the PAN candidate if he remains popular.

The government says the violence is a sign of chaos among the cartels. It points to the dozens of kingpins it has captured since December 2009. Since then newer, smaller groups have sprung up where established gangs have been weakened.

NEZAHUALCOYOTL, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexico’s leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution was so sure of winning the last presidential election in 2006 that supporters took to the streets for months when it lost.

Now the party may have to join forces with the very rival it accused of stealing that election — the ruling conservative National Action Party, or PAN — to even compete next year.

President Felipe Calderon’s party faces an uphill struggle to cling to power, tainted by a bloody war with drug gangs that he launched shortly after taking office at the end of 2006.

As the death toll in the war has risen beyond 40,000, Calderon’s ratings have slumped, though his old rivals in the leftist party known as PRD have failed to take advantage.

Seen in 2006 as a force for change, the PRD has lately made more headlines for infighting, opening the door for the return to power of a once-reviled party that dominated Mexico for most of the 20th century.

Fernando Velazquez, a PRD organizer in Nezahualcoyotl, a longstanding party bastion where it this month suffered a severe electoral reverse, said an alliance with the PAN would give the left a realistic hope of winning the 2012 election.

“I think we’d make a good team,” the 55-year-old said. “The outlook for the PRD is not good at the moment.”

MEXICO CITY, July 5 (Reuters) – Escalating drug war violence, a dysfunctional oil monopoly and political gridlock ahead of next year’s presidential election are clouding the outlook for Mexico, Latin America’s second biggest economy.

NO RESPITE FROM WAR

Some 40,000 people have been killed in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched his war on drug gangs in December 2006, and the country risks losing control of large areas to cartels near the U.S. border. [ID:nN15124805]

Calderon faces rising public anger at the deaths and recently apologized to victims of the violence but defended his strategy. [ID:nN1E75M18V]

Despite government assurances that the violence is ebbing, the monthly death toll has averaged more than 1,100 since the start of the year, according to media tallies, and shocking attacks continue on a daily basis across the country.

The government says the violence is a sign of chaos among the cartels, and that the army has cut the threat they pose, killing or capturing dozens of kingpins since December 2009.

Police seized the suspected leader of the cult-like La Familia (The Family) cartel on June 21 in a rare bloodless arrest, handing Calderon a minor victory. [ID:nN1E75K1WV]

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – President Felipe Calderon’s crushing defeat in weekend state elections has badly hurt his party’s hopes of retaining power in 2012, setting the scene for a rough campaign designed to thwart the main opposition party.

Calderon’s conservative National Action Party, or PAN, trailed way behind in third place in Sunday’s election for governor in the State of Mexico, the country’s most populous state.

The vote was a major victory for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a bitter rival of the PAN which ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century and is looking to return to power at the next presidential election in July 2012.

Bogged down in a bloody war against powerful drug cartels, Calderon’s popularity has been in steady decline, and analysts said the rout in the State of Mexico shows that he and his party are in serious trouble.

“Calderon has been a lame duck without really knowing it for the last year or more. And he’s close to being a dead duck now,” said George W. Grayson, an expert on Mexican politics at the College of William & Mary in Virginia.

The PAN’s share of votes in the 15 million-strong state flanking the capital plunged by half to 12.5 percent, while the PRI candidate stormed home with more than 62 percent. It was the PAN’s worst showing in the state since 1987.

Compounding the PAN’s misery, the PRI cemented its hold on two other states, Coahuila and Nayarit in Sunday’s elections.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Once praised lavishly by the United States for waging a war on drugs, Mexico’s last two presidents now say legalizing them may be the best way to end the rising violence the U.S.-backed campaign has unleashed.

Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox led efforts to crush drug trafficking gangs in Mexico between 1994 and 2006 but the rapid escalation of violence over the past four years under President Felipe Calderon has convinced them a change of tack is needed.

“As a country, we are going through problems due to the fact that the United States consumes too many drugs,” the 68-year-old Fox told business leaders in Texas last month. “I would recommend to legalize, de-penalize all drugs.”

Though public support for some legalization is growing on both sides of the border, resistance is firmly entrenched in the U.S. government and analysts say Mexico is very unlikely to liberalize its drug laws without Washington’s approval.

Calderon is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

He has staked his reputation on breaking the cartels and is unlikely to press for radical change in what remains of his presidency but the death toll is surging and Zedillo, Fox and other former Latin American leaders are pressuring Mexico to consider opening up the market.

Victims’ families are adding to the clamor for change.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – President Felipe Calderon apologized to victims of Mexico’s war on drugs in an emotional meeting with bereaved families on Thursday that sought to try and quell rising anger over violence sweeping the nation.

In a live television broadcast lasting several hours, Calderon sat in silence listening to accusations from grieving parents that his government was killing Mexico’s youth and allowing criminals to run rampant across the country.

Some 40,000 lives have been lost since his army-led crackdown on drug cartels began at the end of 2006, and Calderon said he regretted the loss of life the violence had caused.

“As a father, as a Mexican and as president, I am deeply aggrieved by Mexico’s pain,” he said in a hall inside Chapultepec Castle in central Mexico City. “We must ask forgiveness for the people who died at the hands of these criminals, for not having acted against these criminals.”

The drug war has hit support for Calderon’s ruling National Action Party and polls suggest the center-right grouping will be ousted in a presidential election due in July, 2012.

Thousands of people have joined peace marches organized by poet Javier Sicilia, whose son was killed by gunmen in March and who urged Calderon at the meeting to renounce his strategy.

But the president refused to apologize for taking on the heavily-armed cartels with the armed forces.

MANZANILLO, Mexico, June 21 (Reuters) – Hurricane Beatriz weakened into a tropical storm on Tuesday, sparing tourist towns and ports along Mexico’s Pacific coast from serious damage.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center downgraded what had been a Category 1 hurricane and called off all warnings by mid-day as Beatriz hovered near land and headed out to sea.

Beatriz is the second named storm of the Pacific hurricane season, following Adrian — which also passed quietly.

Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, the two biggest ports on the Pacific coast, reopened to large cargo ships after closing earlier on Tuesday. Each port moves around 150 barges a month. <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

TAKE-A-LOOK on the 2011 hurricane season [ID:nN180088] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>

Mexico has no major oil installations in the storm’s path and state oil monopoly Pemex said none of its operations were affected by Beatriz.

The coastline is dotted with beaches popular with tourists drawn to the region’s water sports and spectacular sunsets, although some surfers were not put off by heavy rains early in the day.