Mexican drug gang barricades Monterrey roads

Retaliation suspected after shootout that killed alleged gang leader

 

Tomas Bravo / Reuters file

Mexican police say narco-blockades are becoming more common in Monterrey, with the most recent occurring Saturday. Earlier this month, soldiers stood guard around stolen trailers used by gunmen to form a barricade on a main road.

msnbc.com news services

updated 2 hours 3 minutes ago

 

In a violent show of force, suspected Mexican drug gang members cut off 13 major roads in Monterrey, Mexico, on Saturday, dragging motorists out of their vehicles to use as blockades against police.

Four people were killed in an earlier shootout, authorities in Mexico said. Among the dead was  an alleged leader of Los Zetas, one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent drug cartel, BBC News reported.

Soldiers from the Mexican Army clashed with armed assailants inside two armored vehicles, according to Blog del Narco, Mexico’s go-to Web site on information on the country’s drug war.

Mexican drug gang barricades Monterrey roads – World news – Americas – Focus on Mexico – msnbc.com

So is “rethinking strategy” the same as surrender to the cartels and accept the bribes the previous government accepted and allow the cartels free rein in Mexico?

Mexico rethinks drug strategy as death toll soars

Federal police officers beat fellow inspector Salomon Alarcon Olvera, aka "El Chaman," for allegedly participating in kidnappings, executions and extortions in Ciudad Juarez. | AP Photo/Raymundo Ruiz

 

 

By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers

MEXICO CITY — The drug war in Mexico is at a crossroads. As the death toll climbs above 28,000, President Felipe Calderon confronts growing pressure to try a different strategy — perhaps radically different — to quell the violence unleashed by major drug syndicates.

Even an elder from his own party, former President Vicente Fox, is taking potshots at Calderon, telling him that his policy is seriously off-track.

Many Mexicans don’t know whether their country is winning or losing the war against drug traffickers, but they know they’re fatigued by the brutality that’s sweeping parts of their nation.

Mexico rethinks drug strategy as death toll soars | McClatchy

Market Drop Signals Fears About Global Recovery

 

By GRAHAM BOWLEY and CHRISTINE HAUSER

Published: August 11, 2010

 

As economic recovery wavers in the United States, evidence is mounting that growth abroad is also slowing and may be unable to sustain the fragile rebound here.

Read more at;

Trouble Abroad Adds to Worries for U.S. Recovery – NYTimes.com

If only millions of Mexican understood what this Doctpr understands, only an aroused Mexican citizenry can fix Mexico.. running away to find a better life as an illegal or even legal alien is not the answer for all the Mexican people but is a selfish act!

rturo Valenzuela can be forgiven for dreaming of an escape to the land of his birth. Three years ago, he made plans to move north, knowing that life in Canada could give him and Lucia, his nine-year-old daughter, personal safety, a commodity in short supply here in the murder capital of the world.

Located across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Tex., Ciudad Juarez is ground zero in Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s war on illegal drugs and organized crime, which has claimed an estimated 28,000 lives in 31/2 years. Juarez has had 7,000 deaths so far this year, compared with 6,500 for all of 2009. The toll includes 20 of the 5,000 federal police in this city of 1.3 million; one of the two officers killed last weekend was found minus his hands, feet, head, legs and arms.

On Wednesday, two men were gunned down in a hospital emergency ward, and yet Dr. Valenzuela has not only stayed, he has taken an active role against the wave of violence. He is one of a few local surgeons who still respond to calls at night – when, he says, just getting to the hospital amounts to “an extreme sport.” And the man who once made a comfortable living by performing appendectomies and bargain-basement stomach reductions for overweight foreigners now treats as many as four gunshot wounds a day.

The doctor opts to stand and fight – The Globe and Mail

Well reasoned, this article should scare you into buying a bunker and food supplies!

Beware the VAT: Why the consumption tax is possible

By Shawn Tully, senior editor at largeAugust 11, 2010: 1:53 PM ET

FORTUNE — Last Saturday, I got a crackling cell phone call from Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, who was hanging drywall at his Victorian home in Janesville, Wisconsin. I’d found that Ryan a had knack for foreseeing unpredictable twists in economic legislation and wanted to chat with him about what he’s seeing now.

Last winter, when most experts reckoned that Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts spelled the demise of the Obama health care bill, Ryan — who’s intimately familiar with arcane congressional rules as the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee — told me that those rules left the Democrats plenty of room to pass the bill. He was contrarian, and he was right.  read more at;

Beware the VAT: Why the consumption tax is possible – Aug. 11, 2010