Should Mexico assassinate its Drug Lords?

POLITICS - This is doomed to be a controversial topic. Assassinating people usually is.

Mexico is fighting a war against drug cartels which is becoming increasingly violent and out of control. Its so bad that some Mexicans are fleeing the country and coming to the USA and Canada to make refugee claims.

The drug violence is so bad that when Felipe Calderon became the Mexican President on the promise of putting a stop to the drug cartels he declared war on them, devoting significant government resources to rounding up and arresting the gangs, their leaders and the powerful drug cartels who control them all. In the last three years over 23,000 Mexicans have died in a drug war that makes the USA's contribution to the war in Iraq look small (less than 4,400 Americans have been killed in the Iraq War).

In response to the government action the drug cartels declared war on each other. Gang vs gang violence in the streets and by the time the police or military gets there all the survivors have fled.

The drug cartels routinely murder people for so much of a whisper that they might be helping the Mexican military/police... or worse, rival gang members. Some of the murders are out right macabre as bloody corpses are hung up in the streets to warn other Mexicans not to talk to the police. Beheadings, bodies strewn in streets, dismemberments, mass killings... its sickening.

At one point 15 teenagers celebrating a birthday were killed in a mass shooting simply because gunmen mistook them for rival gang members.

That incident which should rightly be blamed on the drug cartels instead has caused public anger at Mexican President Felipe Calderon for his failure to stop the violence.

Frankly there isn't a lot Felipe Calderon can do... unless he declares a national emergency and culls the drug cartels in a massive military operation.

OPERATION CARTEL CULL

#1. Declare martial law for 3 days and tell the Mexican people to stay at home where it is safe. Violence in the streets is to be expected.

#2. Use all of Mexico's military and police power to round up every drug gang, drug cartel and their leaders in one massive three day operation. Any who resist will be shot with rubber bullets, tasered or otherwise subdued. Live ammo will be necessary in violent confrontations.

#3. Due to the backlog of legal cases that would need to be dealt with the people captured in this massive 3-day raid on drug cartels these people would have to be held indefinitely until they can be given a proper trial. This means a suspension of the right to a speedy trial.

#4. Assassinate or execute the drug cartel leaders. Obviously this means a suspension of civil liberties that we normally take for granted. Due process, trials, convictions and hopefully prison sentences. The problem however is that the drug lords of Mexico have this remarkable habit of either bribing all the necessary judges or escaping during the legal process.

So far to his credit Felipe Calderon is the first Mexican President to fight the drug cartels. Every president prior to him either ignored them or was secretly receiving bribes from the drug cartels for leaving them alone. He's the only Mexican President thus far who hasn't been corrupt or too frightened to fight the cartels.

Nobody expects Felipe Calderon or even the above mentioned 3-day operation to solve Mexico's organized crime problem permanently. The above operation is meant as a way to round up all the drug cartels and their gangs in a single blow. Doubtless some will hide and manage to escape notice.

The real danger of the above plan is how will those who escape notice respond? More kidnappings and assassinations of government people? Such things are already rampant so its hard to imagine how it could get worse.

Refugee claimant murdered by drug cartel

CANADA - In 2004 and 2008 a Mexican woman came to Canada seeking refugee status from a drug cartel that was trying to kill her. She applied for refugee status, was denied and deported both times.

Now the 24-year-old woman, identified only as Grise, is dead. She was found beaten and with a bullet hole in her forehead back in June 2009. Her wounds suggest she was tortured before the drug cartel killed her.

The woman's mother Nuemi and sister Bebe are back in Canada now seeking refugee status one more time, hoping this time the government will listen to their story. Nuemi's ex-husband was murdered by Colombian drug traffickers / the La Familia Michoaeana gang in Mexico. The drug cartel believes the women have money Nuemi's ex-husband supposedly stole and have been hunting for them ever since.

Mexico is practically a war zone when it comes to drug cartels. The police and even the military fear them.

Meanwhile the Conservative government in Ottawa has been trying to decrease immigration in an effort to appease their voters. In this case political posturing has led to a woman being killed.

Worldwide Influenza Pandemic Warned

HEALTH - The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the pandemic alert level for the swine flu to five out of six.

Dr. Margaret Chan, the director-general of the WHO, says the world must be prepared. "All countries should immediately activate their pandemic preparedness plan," she says, and countries should remain on high alert for signs of the deadly influenza virus.

PANDEMIC THREAT LEVELS

Phase 1: No animal to human transfer of viruses.

Phase 2: An animal influenza virus causes infection in humans.

Phase 3: An animal or human-animal hybrid influenza virus has caused sporadic cases or small clusters of disease in people, but has not resulted in human-to-human transmission sufficient to sustain community-level outbreaks. Limited human-to-human transmission may occur.

Phase 4: Verified human-to-human transmission of an influenza virus able to cause “community-level outbreaks.”

Phase 5: Wide-spread human-to-human transmission of the virus in at least two countries in one WHO region (usually a continent).

Phase 6: The pandemic spreads to at least one other country in a different continent or WHO region.

Global Pandemic: Widespread influenza outbreaks, even spreading to remote regions.

Post-Peak Period: Pandemic disease levels begin to decrease is multiple countries. There may be premature signs of it, as influenza tends to move in waves.

Post-Pandemic Period: Influenza disease activity will have returned to levels normally seen for seasonal influenza.

So far this virus (commonly known as swine flu, a misnomer since its actually a hybrid of bird, swine and human flu viruses) has effected Mexico, the United States and Canada, with most of the deaths in Mexico and 1 death in Texas.

There is also confirmed cases of swine flu (but no deaths so far) in Spain, England, Germany, Israel and New Zealand. This suggests we could see the threat level raised to 6 very soon when it starts human-to-human transfer overseas.

CANADIAN INFLUENZA PANDEMIC

In Canada the raised pandemic alert level does not alter Canadian plans, said Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer. “We have a Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan, we’ve been following it, and we will continue to adapt our surveillance, our infection prevention measures and communicating as our own situation dictates,” he says.

Critics however are saying it may be time to close Canada's borders and cut off plane flights in and out of Canada for all non-essential travel.

But is it too late for that? Six more cases of swine flu in Canada were confirmed today - three more in British Columbia and three more in Ontario - bringing the total of Canadian cases to 19. We're also expecting our first deaths in the coming days.

There are now 7 confirmed cases in Ontario, all cases have mild flu like symptoms and most people are between the ages of 20 and 40. Four are in Durham region, two are in York region and 1 in Peel region, but its considered just a matter of time before cases become widespread. In British Columbia all of the new cases are in the Vancouver region.

Its believed one of the cases in Vancouver, who has been hospitalized, may be the first Canadian to die.

NOTE: It would take approx. 6 months to make enough vaccines for all of Canada. In the meantime we will have to use TamiFlu shots, which helps, but is not fully effective.

AMERICAN INFLUENZA PANDEMIC

Ten states are now reporting confirmed cases of the virus, up from five states yesterday. The first American death from swine flu was this morning — a 23-month-old toddler in Texas. American officials say more deaths are expected in the near future.

American investigators believe the virus seems to cause vomiting and "diarrhea more often than normal" influenza. Symptoms so far include fever, lack of appetite, coughing and respiratory problems. Cause of death is pneumonia (respiratory failure).

Health officials across the United States are taking aggressive steps to try to minimize the impact on people's health. Some are even arguing in favour of mandatory isolation of influenza patients.

So far the United States has 91 confirmed cases, with 14 cases in California, 51 in New York, 16 in Texas, two each in Kansas, Massachusetts and Michigan, and single cases in Arizona, Indiana, Nevada, and Ohio. There is 343 suspected cases.

The United States is seeing a broader age range of cases, with the youngest confirmed case aged 2 and the oldest aged 81. Sixty-four per cent of confirmed cases are under the age of 18. So far there has been 5 hospitalizations as more deaths are expected.

MEXICAN & OVERSEAS INFLUENZA PANDEMIC

So far there has been 2500+ suspected cases in Mexico and 152 deaths. Worldwide there is 3,500 suspected cases and 153 deaths so far. Health officials have been slow at tracking confirmed cases, only 188 worldwide. Evidently more tracking needs to be done so people will know the seriousness of their illness and not pass it off as just a regular cold.

Swine flu hits Mexico and western United States

HEALTH - Mexico is on high alert today as the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the fast moving swine flu outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” today, giving itself powers to ask member states to beef up surveillance for the deadly virus. The virus has already spread to the western United States.

The pandemic threat level is currently Phase 3 and WHO is contemplating raising it if the situation becomes more dire. WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan says the current outbreak of the swine flu virus has "pandemic potential."

As a new disease doctors and scientists are unsure how quickly swine flu can mutate, be spread or how deadly it is, so WHO is currently gathering as much information as possible to get an idea of how to control and prevent the disease from spreading.

Many new human swine flu cases — caused by a new influenza A H1N1 swine flu virus — were reported in several locations of the United States today. In New York City health officials found 8 probable cases in a school where a 100 students were sick this week. The U.S. Center for Disease Control in Atlanta are currently testing samples and say an answer is expected Sunday.

Kansas state health officials say they have confirmed two cases as well, bringing to 11 the confirmed cases in the United States. There has also been 7 cases in California and 2 in Texas. The viruses were first discovered in California about 10 days ago.

Confirmed outbreaks of respiratory illnesses in parts of Mexico — including densely populated Mexico City — so far has 20 confirmed deaths, nearly 50 suspected deaths and more than 1,000 suspected cases. More cases are believed to be unreported and health officials say thats the dangerous thing when people ignore the warnings and just think its a regular cold.

So far Canada has been left alone, with no probable cases, but there is growing concern the disease could jump across the border and cause an outbreak in Canadian cities. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office says the prime minister “was briefed this weekend on the flu outbreak and is aware of the situation", but hasn't acted to do anything to prevent the disease from coming to Canada.

Infectious disease experts say Canada is likely to see its first cases soon.

"We now apparently have widespread swine H1N1 throughout the United States which tells us that it is highly infectious, therefore having all the makings of the next pandemic strain," says Dr. Donald Low, chief microbiologist at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital. "It is just a matter of time before we recognize it here."

To date only the United States and Mexico have confirmed cases.

Containment however may no longer be possible however.

"We don’t think containment is feasible," says Dr. Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s interim deputy director for science and public health. "Having found virus where we’ve found it, we are likely to find it in many other places."

So far cases have had relatively mild symptoms similar to seasonal flu, but the problem lies in the current death rate of approx. 7%. It is so far unclear how it is spreading person to person, either by touch or whether it is airborne.

Scientists so far have determined it is a hybrid of avian flu, swine flu and human flu viruses, possibly the result of farmers feeding dead birds to pigs.

Scientists at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control have typed and sequenced virus samples from Mexico over the past several days.

"This is an interesting virus. It’s a brand new virus, not only to humans but to the world," said Dr. Frank Plummer on Friday, scientific director of Canada’s national lab.

So far testing has shown the viruses are resistant to two old flu drugs, amantadine and rimantadine, but is vulnerable to the flu antivirals Tamiflu and Relenza, which are in many national emergency stockpiles, including Canada’s and Mexico's.

The flu seems to be targeting people ranging from their mid 20s to mid 40s, whereas with regular flu typically young children and the elderly are at the highest risk.

Some observers have suggested that if this virus were to spark a pandemic that it might look like the disastrous Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed approx. 50 million people worldwide. Death rates among young adults were disproportionately high in that pandemic, the worst in recorded history. The Spanish Flu had a 50% illness rate (meaning half of the people were immune), it spread to 20% of the human population and had a death rate of 5% (or 2.5% if you count the people who are immune).

WHO has yet to determine the percentage of people who are immune to this new swine flu, if any.