Mexican general sent to quell drug violence in new strategy

MEXICO CITY: A Mexican general took over all police and military operations in a chaotic western state on Thursday in a test run of President Enrique Pena Nieto's new security strategy to tame raging drug violence. alberto Reyes assumed control of all federal, state and city police forces, as well as military units in Michoacan, one of the most violent states in the country, after he was named the state's new security minister.

Big swaths of Michoacan have fallen under the sway of criminal gangs who are fighting among themselves and against authorities. Former President Felipe Calderon launched his military-led crackdown on drug cartels there in 2006.

Pena Nieto, who took office in December, has vowed to reduce the violence that has exploded in Mexico in the last decade by battling crime rather than hunting down drug lords.

He wants to create a new national police force and move away from Calderon's strategy of relying on the military, and he is clearly seeking to focus public attention away from violence and on to the economy.

More than 70,000 people have died in drug-related violence since Calderon began his offensive against the drug gangs.

The government says the pace of killing has slowed since Pena Nieto took office in December, but thousands of people still died in his first months in office.

Calderon had sent out generals to lead operations in violence-racked states and cities such as Tijuana and Juarez, but they did not control the state and city police.

Michoacan has been grappling with civil unrest since April. Protesters repeatedly blocked major streets and highways in the capital and others cities.

Compounding matters, vigilante groups have sprung up in the region this year, with masked militiamen claiming that state and federal police are not protecting them from criminal gangs.

Michoacan is a major center for methamphetamine production. Rival gangs are fighting over turf as they produce the drug in labs nestled among the poor state's rugged mountains, where marijuana and opium crops are also grown.

The state is known for brutal violence. In 2006, the feared La Familia cartel hurled five heads onto a cantina dance floor, setting off a wave of decapitations across the country that have typified many drug-related executions.

Earlier this year, seven bodies were set out on lawn chairs in the same town of Uruapan with a message for rival cartels.

"We want a more peaceful place," said Acting Governor Jesus Reyna at an event marking the general's new powers. "So that businessmen can do their work . and citizens can go out in the streets in peace."

Pena Nieto says he wants to improve coordination among the country's different police forces, which have been subject to the unrelenting pressure of threats and bribes from the gangs.

"We are looking for a unified command with municipalities. This is going to be a minister with a lot of authority, with a lot of power," Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio said in a radio interview.

Many companies have shuttered operations or moved businesses in Michoacan amid the spike in violence in recent years, according to local media reports. (Reuters) (GNN)

Russian media delight in U.S. spy case as leaders try to limit fallout

MOSCOW: Russian state-run media revelled on Wednesday in embarrassing the United States over a botched attempt to recruit one of its intelligence agents but both countries signaled they wanted to prevent the episode harming efforts to improve relations. moscow expelled a U.S. diplomat on Tuesday, saying he had been caught red handed with disguises, special equipment and wads of cash as he tried to recruit a Russian agent for the CIA.

U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul spent about 30 minutes at the Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday after being summoned to give an explanation, and the Ministry said it had issued a formal protest.

Although President Vladimir Putin said nothing about the incident, state news channels repeatedly showed footage of the U.S. diplomat, Ryan Fogle, in an incongruous looking blond wig being pinned to the ground by a Russian undercover agent in a "sting" operation.

The images, highly embarrassing for the United States, appeared part of efforts to boost Putin's ratings following his allegations that Washington has stoked protests against him, rather than an attempt to derail relations between the nations.

"It (the attempted recruitment) does not contribute to the future process of strengthening mutual trust between Russia and the United States and putting our relations on a new level," Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Itar-Tass news agency.

But he avoided inflammatory language over the expulsion of Fogle, a third secretary at the U.S. Embassy who was detained late on Monday.

There is little sign that either country wants to go beyond a minimum response as Washington and Moscow try to improve strained relations and bring the warring sides in Syria together for an international peace conference.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell suggested the episode was unlikely to affect broader U.S. Russian relations or plans for the Syria conference.

"I'm not sure I would read too much into one incident one way or another," Ventrell said.

RALLY SUPPORT

The incident may have been directed more at a domestic Russian audience to rally support among conservative and traditional voters following protests against Putin by mainly liberal and middle-class voters.

The former KGB spy has also used more blunt tactics against the opposition since the departure of long-term political adviser Vladislav Surkov at the end of 2011 and his replacement by Vyacheslav Volodin, a less sophisticated strategist.

"In the Russian elite there are influential groups who oppose America and waste no opportunity to spite the United States," political analyst Pavel Salin said.

State media moved into action quickly after the federal Security Service, a successor to the KGB, announced Fogle's detention.

Television channels soon started showing footage of Fogle's detention and photographs appeared on the web showing the diplomat in the blond wig, with props reminiscent of a schoolboy's spy kit.

A photograph published by the Russia Today channel on its website showed two wigs, apparently found on him, as well as three pairs of glasses, a torch, a mobile phone and a compass.

Also displayed was a wad of 500 euro ($650) notes and a letter printed in Russian and addressed to a "Dear friend" offering $100,000 if the target cooperated with the promise of more to come for long-term cooperation.

U.S.-Russian relations had thawed markedly under Obama's first-term "reset" of ties, although they have chilled again since Putin returned to the presidency a year ago.

Russia has ejected the U.S. Agency for International Development and curbed U.S. supported NGOs in moves it says are aimed at preventing foreign meddling.

Moscow has also responded to U.S. legislation imposing visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of human rights abuses with a similar law against Americans, and has banned Americans from adopting Russian children.

But President Barack Obama and Putin have signaled they want to patch things up again, including by improving counterterrorism cooperation after the Boston Marathon bombings. (Reuters) (GNN)