Mexico's Drug War
Mexico's struggle with its powerful drug cartels took a grisly turn in 2010. Troubled border cities were subsumed in violence as the country's drug kingpins warred over turf. All the while, security forces were either outgunned or cowed — or sometimes even in cahoots with the cartels. In September, blood-spattered Ciudad Juárez dismissed some 400 corrupt police officers. There have been a few small triumphs in President Felipe Calderón's war on the cartels — the apprehending of a feared drug lord called "El Barbie," as well as the capture of an unprecedented 340 tons of marijuana in the border town of Tijuana. But the good news has been far outweighed by a steady drumbeat of horrifying reports of kidnappings, mass graves and nocturnal executions. More than 3,000 people have been killed this year alone.