Tuesday

In the news: Mexican president-elect Calderón will be touring Latin America next week. This is an alignment tour: Calderón will be visiting Central and South American nations in an effort to strengthen México's alliances with countries still on the fence over the present Mexican slash Venezuelan diplomatic divorce. This is just the next thing. A year ago Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called President Fox a "puppy" of US president Bush. Then Calderón used comparisons with Chavez in a fit of election year muckraking. Recently, Chavez has joined México's vocal left, publicly denouncing the July election and refusing to acknowledge Calderon's presidential victory. Now all of Latin America is moving to opposite corners. I like to be hysterical: this during a time of massive military spending in various Latin American countries.* Back to topic: Calderón will not be visiting Venezuela on his trip,* and México is still trying to decide whether to invite Chavez to the Calderón's inauguration.* Calderón came out with a bold statement against narcoviolence yesterday, literally indicating that a bad situation seems to be stymieing state and federal governments here and there.* Here? Los Zetas were probably to blame for a Nuevo Laredo firefight with Federal troops late Friday.* No small shootout, this included grenades, rocket launchers, and automatic weapons in a tony residential neighborhood. Four people were killed. Speculation has anonymous tips to the goodguys coming from the Sinaloa Cartel, hoping to use a federal crackdown to remove Gulf Cartel Zetas from the disputed territory. In the "what I said before" department: a long time ago my litmus to determine the dos and don'ts of international destinations was the following multiple-choice question: beheadings: they do or don’t? Sadly, I am not holding up my end of the bargain, anymore,* though I'm not in any danger. [Cavin]