Mexican President Felipe Calderon

In Ciudad Juarez this month, Mexican President Felipe Calderon insisted that appearances notwithstanding, drug violence had begun to recede thanks to the yearlong presence of 10,000 Mexican troops in the border city. Yet according to his own government's figures, there have been 536 executions in Juarez since Jan. 1, which is 100 more than during the same period last year. And the violence is not localized to a few border towns like Juarez. Over a holiday weekend in Acapulco this month, 34 people were assassinated in drug-related incidents; nearly 20 suffered the same fate in the drug-producing state of Sinaloa; and perhaps most poignant, two graduate students from Mexico's premier private university, Monterrey Tech, lost their lives March 19, victims of crossfire as the Mexican military pursued drug cartel members at the entrance to the campus.

WASHINGTON - President Obama hosted the leaders of Mexico and Canada on Monday in a White House summit aimed at boosting the region's growing economic ties, but the scourge of drug violence in Mexico muddled the message and highlighted friction between the neighbors. Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and the three announced an initiative to cut regulations that constrict trade across the northern and southern borders. But Mexico's drug war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, dominated a Rose Garden news conference.

When he was the ruthless military commander of El Salvador's leftist guerrillas two decades ago, Joaquin Villalobos was a big fan of body counts. The higher the death toll, he would say, the closer to victory, because it meant the enemy was being eliminated. Today, the man U.S. officials once called "the baby-faced killer" has emerged somewhat improbably as one of the key advisors behind conservative Mexican President Felipe Calderon's military crackdown on powerful drug cartels.

President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced Thursday that they had resolved a long-running dispute over the passage of trucks across the U.S.-Mexican frontier, offering a brief moment of harmony at a time of tensions over the flow of drugs and guns across the same border. Reached at a summit in Washington, the agreement allowing Mexican trucks to operate in the United States was cheered by business leaders who say the dispute hurt trade. But union leaders and many Democrats fear that a free flow of trucks from Mexico will come at the expense of the U.S. trucking industry and the jobs it provides.

Mexico's biggest retailers, led by Wal-Mart, will lower prices during the first quarter under a government agreement to help families burdened by a new gasoline tax and rising food prices. The discounts will apply to 300 staples such as rice, beans, flour, chicken and sugar, as well as toilet paper, napkins and soap, National Retailers Assn. President Vicente Yanez said. Mexican President Felipe Calderon is asking retailers to help curb inflation to reduce the risk of further interest rate increases that would slow the economy.

A Mexican drug cartel kingpin accused of dissolving victims in barrels of lye and waging a terror campaign that turned Tijuana into one of Mexico's most dangerous cities was captured early Tuesday in the port city of La Paz, federal authorities said. Teodoro Garcia Simental, blamed for a years-long campaign of massacres, beheadings and kidnappings that chased away tourists and caused social upheaval in northern Baja California, was arrested by Mexican federal police without the suspect firing a shot, and immediately flown to Mexico City.

Almost everything to do with the Mexican government's war against drugs is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The threat from narco-trafficking is overblown. Fighting cartels won't stop the flow of illegal drugs or erase Mexican corruption. The real battle over drugs lies on the U.S. side of the border. That's the gist of a provocative new book that challenges virtually every premise on which Mexican President Felipe Calderon has based his 3-year-old offensive against drug cartels. "El Narco: La Guerra Fallida" ("Narco: The Failed War")

Amid rampant violence and growing doubts over the effectiveness of Mexico's war against drug cartels, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday pledged widened U.S. support for a battle she said must be shouldered by both nations. Clinton, leading an unusually large delegation of senior Obama administration officials, offered firm endorsement of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who declared war against drug cartels more than three years ago. More than 18,000 people have died since in drug-related violence.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon says his decision to dissolve the state-run utility that supplied electricity to Mexico City and surrounding states was based on simple economics: The government spent more than $3 billion a year to subsidize the company, yet consumers put up with regular blackouts and many businesses had to spend millions on their own energy substations. The Mexican electricians union, on the other hand, says that when Calderon ordered police to seize Luz y Fuerza del Centro on Oct. 10, it was baldly political: He hoped to break the union representing 66,000 current and retired employees and weaken his rival, leftist leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whom the union backed.

When Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug cartels in 2006, he summoned his military to serve as the tip of the spear. Since then, nearly 50,000 uniformed Mexican military personnel have manned roadblocks, patrolled cities haunted by drug killings and raided houses in search of traffickers and contraband. But as doubts mount over the effectiveness of Calderon's anti-drug crusade, with its death toll of 18,000 people, so do the political risks for Mexico's military, traditionally one of the nation's most trusted institutions.

In contrast to their upbeat public assessments, U.S. officials expressed frustration with a "risk averse" Mexican army and rivalries among security agencies that have hampered the Mexican government's war against drug cartels, according to secret U.S. diplomatic cables disclosed Thursday. The cables quoted Mexican officials expressing fear that the government was losing control of parts of its national territory and that time was "running out" to rein in drug violence. The cables gave a much starker view of the pitfalls and obstacles facing Mexican President Felipe Calderon, a departure from the public statements of unwavering support that have come out of Washington for most of the 4-year-old war, which has claimed more than 30,000 lives.

When he was the ruthless military commander of El Salvador's leftist guerrillas two decades ago, Joaquin Villalobos was a big fan of body counts. The higher the death toll, he would say, the closer to victory, because it meant the enemy was being eliminated. Today, the man U.S. officials once called "the baby-faced killer" has emerged somewhat improbably as one of the key advisors behind conservative Mexican President Felipe Calderon's military crackdown on powerful drug cartels.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Wednesday delivered an uncommonly blunt and dispiriting assessment of the broad sway held by violent drug traffickers throughout the besieged country. From the "most modest little towns" to major cities, Calderon said, traffickers attack, intimidate and blackmail Mexican citizens as part of an illegal business that goes far beyond the simple transport of narcotics. "Their business is no longer just the traffic of drugs. Their business is to dominate everyone else," Calderon said.

With the nation reeling from a bloody drug war and presidential elections just two years away, Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Wednesday removed the No. 2 official in his government and shuffled other Cabinet posts. Calderon fulfilled weeks of speculation by ousting Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont, the official most responsible for domestic security matters. Gomez Mont's ministry oversees all police forces and is in charge of the government's offensive against powerful drug cartels — a strategy that Calderon has increasingly been forced to acknowledge is in need of adjustment.

Three days before Mexico faced powerhouse Argentina in the World Cup knockout phase, the new Argentine ambassador here happened to be presenting her credentials to Mexican President Felipe Calderon. "I told the president, 'May the best team win,' " Patricia Vaca recalled. "He said, 'No, no, may Mexico win!' " Mexicans go into Sunday's game fully aware that they are the underdog against fabled Argentina. They are torn between national pride that whispers "just maybe" and the louder voice that says "no way."

Carlos Monsivais, Mexico's preeminent man of letters and a highly regarded critic of the nation's social and political adventures for half a century, died Saturday after a long struggle with lung disease, the government health ministry announced. He was 72. As a prolific writer and unflagging activist, Monsivais was one of his nation's most lauded and consulted commentators and a leading intellectual of the Mexican left who championed causes but also fought back when ideals were betrayed.

Three days before Mexico faced powerhouse Argentina in the World Cup knockout phase, the new Argentine ambassador here happened to be presenting her credentials to Mexican President Felipe Calderon. "I told the president, 'May the best team win,' " Patricia Vaca recalled. "He said, 'No, no, may Mexico win!' " Mexicans go into Sunday's game fully aware that they are the underdog against fabled Argentina. They are torn between national pride that whispers "just maybe" and the louder voice that says "no way."

Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Wednesday delivered an uncommonly blunt and dispiriting assessment of the broad sway held by violent drug traffickers throughout the besieged country. From the "most modest little towns" to major cities, Calderon said, traffickers attack, intimidate and blackmail Mexican citizens as part of an illegal business that goes far beyond the simple transport of narcotics. "Their business is no longer just the traffic of drugs. Their business is to dominate everyone else," Calderon said.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon is expected to air strong objections to U.S. immigration policies during a two-day visit that opens Wednesday with a private Oval Office meeting with President Obama. Calderon will protest the strict new anti-immigration law enacted in Arizona. And he is likely to urge a far-reaching overhaul of the U.S. immigration system to give the estimated 11 million people living illegally in the United States a chance to gain legal status, officials said.

A onetime presidential candidate was missing Saturday, and "signs of violence" were evident at the reported abduction scene in central Mexico, federal authorities said. Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, a 1994 presidential candidate with the conservative party of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, disappeared Friday night, according to news reports. The federal attorney general's office said Fernandez de Cevallos' empty vehicle was discovered near his La Cabana ranch in the central state of Queretaro.