Saturday

News* of the three Mexican nationals rescued in the Pacific Ocean this week gets stranger and stranger. In the days since the first reports came in from the Taiwanese trawler that rescued them, survivors have begun claiming there were initially five men on board the boat that set sail last November from San Blas, México. According to survivors, the two extra men starved to death and were tossed overboard some two months into their ordeal. Starving survivors emphatically deny that they might have eaten these men. Where does it get strange? Witnesses and family at home just as emphatically deny that there was ever more than three people in the boat in the first place. Mexican officials hope that they can get it all straightened out when the Taiwanese boat finally docks in the Marshall islands on Monday. On this side of the world, Javier Arellano Felix is apparently pleading not guilty to charges of narcotics trafficking* and México has begun a petition for his extradition* after the US charges him for whatever international crimes they can. Here's the thing: in México, Arellano Felix has a far better chance of running his cartel from his cell, like his brother before him. Probably unrelated to the extradition request: authorities are concerned about possible violence in Tijuana as subordinates seek to fill the power vacuum left by Javier's arrest. This fear is appropriate: the vacuum following the capture of cartel jefe Osiel Cardinas was the precursor for the current violent turf war over the city of Nuevo Laredo. And a mild correction of Thursday’s Update. Only two of the Arellano Felix brothers are now incarcerated: Benjamin and Javier. Ramon was shot down in a bloody daytime gunfight with police in 2002.* [Cavin]