Mexico, Drug Cartel | featured news

January, the first month of 2013 and the second month of Enrique Peña Nieto’s presidency, passed with a barrage of news about two topics: the health of the economy and drugwar violence. Both topics are themes with which Mexico’s previous president, Felipe Calderon, had become accustomed to talking about by the end of his term.

On the one month anniversary of Jenni Rivera’s death, new details are emerging about the alleged involvement that “La Diva de la Banda” had with a drug cartel in Mexico.

Going after the cartel kingpins made the problem worse, say aides to Mexico's new president. But killing it would jeopardize significant U.S. funding.

The Mexican press, as evidenced in recent attacks on two newspaper offices, grapples with decisions about how — and whether — to cover the drug war in ways that won't endanger lives.

In meetings, President Felipe Calderon has been telling guests that he and his family are likely to leave Mexico to live abroad after his term expires in December. It will be too dangerous to remain, he warns in private conversation, because powerful drug mafias might come after him.

The political watchers are now calling it the Yarrington Affair, and it is beginning to read just like a Robert Ludlum thriller, alive with conspiracy theories and hidden motives. There are drug cartels, luxury condos and the highest political stakes. But so far, there’s no Jason Bourne, no lone hero.

Police found the decapitated and dismembered bodies of 18 people near Mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara, on Wednesday, in what appeared to be the latest atrocity by the country's most brutal drug cartel.

Two decapitated bodies were found at the entrance to one of Mexico's most luxurious shopping malls on Wednesday and prosecutors announced that more than 47,000 people have been killed in drug violence in the five years since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown against drug cartels.

Mexico's hyperviolent Zetas drug cartel appears to be launching what may be one of the first campaigns by an organized crime group to silence commentary on the Internet....

It seems as if violence is everywhere, but it's really on the run. Yes, thousands of people have died in bloody unrest from Africa to Pakistan, while terrorists plot bombings and kidnappings. Wars drag on in Iraq and Afghanistan. In peaceful Norway, a man massacred 69 youths in July. In Mexico, headless bodies turn up, victims of drug cartels. This month eight people died in a shooting in a California hair salon.