Politics Outside US

Mexican President Felipe Calderon caught serious flak this week from two different directions: Angry residents of Ciudad Juárez, tired of the killing and the soldiers, and the Mexican Catholic Church, which issued a report critical of human rights abuses in the military and crooked law enforcement.

Heads not attached to bodies keep popping up in unexpected places in Mexico. Yet another gruesome reminder of the prohibition-related savagery wracking the country.

Los Tigres del Norte, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, and dozens of other narcocorrido performers better watch out. The Mexican government wants to throw them in jail over the contents of their songs.

The South Pacific breezes could grow balmier, the mai-tais yummier, and tourists' dispositions sunnier, if a leading Tahiti political figure gets his way.

Cambodia's "drug treatment" centers are the scene of torture, rape, and abuse, said Human Rights Watch in a scathing report Monday calling for them to be shut down. Oh, and they don't do much drug treatment, either.

At least seven heroin users have died from dope contaminated with anthrax in Scotland, and one in Germany. Harm reductionists and public health experts are demanding that government respond with more than "quit using."

Acting from firmly prohibitionist principles, the Russian government saw potential new drug threats on the horizon and promptly criminalized them.

Last weekend saw the single deadliest 24-hour-period ever in Mexico's drug war, with 69 people killed. And that's just for starters.

Belgians, Frenchmen, Germans, and other "drug tourists" looking to score on the Dutch border have won a temporary reprieve, as officials in Limburg have delayed plans to make cannabis cafes members only.

Bolivian President Evo Morales wants to amend his country's drug law to legalize coca farmers' small holdings and to bring allowed national cultivation limits in line with Bolivian reality. This won't go over well in Washington or with the UN anti-drug bureaucrats.