Mexican President Felipe Calderón, speaking at last week's APEC summit in Lima, warned US President-elect Barack Obama against following through on his campaign pledge to consider revising the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying it would send more Mexicans across US borders. "If you eliminate the benefits of free trade, you eliminate many of the opportunities for jobs and for growth for both Americans and Mexicans," Calderón told reporters. "If you get rid of the trade and job opportunities, one of the effects, which no-one wants, would be an increase in emigration from Mexico."

Twenty people were killed in apparent narco-violence Nov. 28—mostly in the border cities of Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana. The single bloodiest incident occurred when a group of hooded gunmen opened raided on a party at Juárez seafood restaurant, singling out and killing eight diners. Nov. 25 was one of the most violent days Ciudad Juárez has seen this year, with 17 assassinated in 15 hours, seven of whom were tortured and left just a few meters from a school. Ciudad Juárez is now Mexico's most violent city, accounting for more than 1,000 of the nearly 5,000 drug-related homicides registered nationwide this year. (EFE, Nov. 28; El Diaro, Juárez, Nov. 26)

Mexican authorities detained the country's former Drug Czar—officially the Special Investigative Sub-Prosecutor for Organized Delinquency (SIEDO)—Noé Ramírez Mandujano Nov. 20, a day after he voluntarily spoke to investigators. Ramírez was named to the post in December 2006 when President Felipe Calderón took office. He submitted his resignation in July at the request of the Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR).

A veteran crime reporter in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez was fatally shot as he left his home Nov. 13. The reporter, Armando Rodríguez Carreon, worked for the newspaper El Diario. He was in a car with his young daughter when he was shot at least eight times, authorities said. The gunmen fled. Rodríguez, 40, had extensively covered the narco-violence wracking the city. (NYT, Nov. 13)

Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe predicted that his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderón's controversial efforts to combat the drug cartels with the military will be successful. "When you live in a country like Colombia that has already faced that intense fight against crime, one is very happy to see efforts like those of President Calderón," Uribe told business leaders in the Mexican industrial city of Monterrey Nov. 9.

Grisly narco-terror continues to escalate in the Mexican border city of Juárez. A beheaded body was left hanging from an overpass on Nov. 7. A banner aimed at rival drug gangs was hung next to the body, and police found the victim's head in a black bag in a nearby plaza. Meanwhile outside Ciudad Chihuahua, the state capital to the south of Juárez, masked men gunned down two police officers at a supermarket—leaving a toy pig next to the bodies. And on Nov. 4, a victim was left hanging in house in Ciudad Juárez wearing a pig mask. A message next to the hanging corpse accused him of working for the Sinaloa Cartel and threatened to do the same to others.

Mexican federal police Nov. 7 apprehended Gulf Cartel kingpin Jaime "the Hummer" González, one of the country's most-wanted men, in an intelligence operation in the border city of Reynosa. An armed commando tried to rescue González as troops drove to Reynosa airport to fly him to Mexico City, sparking a fierece gun battle. González is a founding member of the Gulf Cartel's armed wing, Los Zetas, and is believed to be close to the group's leader Heriberto "the Executioner" Lazcano. (EFE, Nov. 8; Reuters, Nov. 7)

On the night of Nov. 4, a Learjet carrying Government Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño and José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, a former deputy prosecutor general, crashed in the middle of rush-hour traffic in an upscale neighborhood of Mexico City, killing all eight on board, many on the ground, and injuring dozens of others driving along the busy roadway. Authorities insist the crash was an accident, but rumors persist it was part of the drug cartels' murderous campaign against Mexico's security forces.