MEXICO CITY, Dec 26 (Reuters) – Mexico landed its third blow against the country’s most wanted drug trafficker in as many months after capturing a suspected lieutenant of Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, boss of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.

On Monday, masked Mexican soldiers presented Felipe Cabrera, known as “el Inge,” to the media following his capture in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa, the northwestern Pacific state after which the drug cartel is named.

MEXICO CITY, Dec 8 (Reuters) – A mounting drugs war death
toll and concerns that Mexico’s fragile economic recovery will
fall victim to the European debt crisis are clouding the
outlook for Mexico ahead of a presidential election next July.

DRUGS WAR

Anger is growing about the roughly 45,000 lives that have
been lost since President Felipe Calderon launched a war on
drug cartels in late 2006, and violence has spun out of control
in large areas along the U.S.-Mexico border. [ID:nN15124805]

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Slowly but surely, drug cartels have ground down support for Mexico’s ruling conservatives with a trail of dead over the past five years.

Now, President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party (PAN) is trying to use the same gangs as a quick fix for its fading hopes of re-election next year – by painting rivals for the presidency as corrupt and in the pockets of the cartels.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Slowly but surely, drug cartels have ground down support for Mexico’s ruling conservatives with a trail of dead over the past five years.

Now, President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party (PAN) is trying to use the same gangs as a quick fix for its fading hopes of re-election next year – by painting rivals for the presidency as corrupt and in the pockets of the cartels.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – For years after the North American Free Trade Agreement came into force, the main road to riches for many Mexican entrepreneurs was across the border. Now they are increasingly likely to cross an ocean instead.

Mexico’s foreign trade with the United States soared after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which also includes Canada, kicked off in 1994, almost tripling in six years.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) – This city of dazzling hotels and sunlit beaches rose to fame as a playground of Hollywood stars. Today, Acapulco has now earned a very different reputation-for gangland decapitations, kidnappings and extortion.

As Mexico’s drug war grinds on, killings in Acapulco have almost tripled this year to nearly 900, making the Pacific resort one of the most violent cities in the world and the second-deadliest in the country. The endless reports of slayings have kept the drug chaos on the front page even as killing slows in some parts of Mexico, where in 2010 the war claimed a record 15,273 lives.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico picked the head of the national intelligence agency as the country’s new interior minister on Thursday, beefing up the job’s security profile as the government attempts to bring violent drug cartels to heel.

Alejandro Poire, director of the Center for Research and National Security (CISEN), succeeds Francisco Blake, who was killed in a helicopter crash on Friday.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) – This city of dazzling hotels and sunlit beaches rose to fame as a playground of Hollywood stars. Today, Acapulco has now earned a very different reputation-for gangland decapitations, kidnappings and extortion.

As Mexico’s drug war grinds on, killings in Acapulco have almost tripled this year to nearly 900, making the Pacific resort one of the most violent cities in the world and the second-deadliest in the country. The endless reports of slayings have kept the drug chaos on the front page even as killing slows in some parts of Mexico, where in 2010 the war claimed a record 15,273 lives.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s embattled ruling conservatives will enter the 2012 election year with renewed hope if the president’s older sister can pull of an unprecedented win in a state ballot on Sunday.

Luisa Maria Calderon’s capture of the governor’s office of Michoacan would throw sand in the eyes of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the favorites to take the presidency in 2012.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A leading presidential candidate of Mexico’s ruling party said on Wednesday he would break with government policy and withdraw the army from the fight against drug gangs if he wins the election in 2012.

Santiago Creel, a former interior minister belonging to the conservative National Action Party (PAN), told Reuters that President Felipe Calderon’s military strategy had served its course and that he would change “everything” as leader.