Puebla, Mexico

Alleged drug lord nabbed: Mexican police captured another suspected drug kingpin this week, the fourth this year. Sergio “El Grande” Villarreal Barragán, an alleged leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel, was arrested just a week after the capture of Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez, an American with whom Leyva was competing for control of the cartel. The arrest provided a boost to President Felipe Calderón, who has poured resources and troops into combating the drug trade, just as Mexico prepared to celebrate its bicentennial this week. Nearly 30,000 people have been killed since Calderón launched the crackdown in 2006. Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton likened Mexico’s drug war to the “insurgency” that rocked Colombia in the 1980s.

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