Politics Outside US

Russia has one of the fastest spreading HIV epidemics in the world, driven largely by the government's refusal to institute measures to treat the country's drug addicts — measures that have dramatically reduced HIV infections in drug addicts in other countries, including the U.S.

Colombia's largest rebel group FARC may benefit from the recent killing of neo-paramilitary drug lord "Cuchillo," newspaper El Espectador reports. According to the newspaper, the death of Pedro Oliveiro Guerrero, alias Cuchillo, late last month brought an end to the paramilitary rule of the underworld of Colombia's eastern plains that started when the AUC took control of the region in the 1990s. A police investigator told El Espectador that members of Cuchillo's organization ERPAC have been meeting to assure a continuation of the drug trade, but have not been able to appoint a successor of their slain leader.

The number of civilians killed in Mexico’s drug prohibition war soared by 172 percent in the last 12 months. Collateral deaths of civilians increased from 61 in 2009 to 166 last year, according to a report from the Attorney General’s Office.

A priest who shelters stranded migrants needs police protection, a chopped-up body turns up with a threatening message, beheadings are on the rise, and the local press is too frightened to write about any of it. This is not northern Mexico, where traffickers created by drug prohibition fight for turf along the U.S. border and the Mexican government wages an open battle against them. This is the south, where the brutal Zetas organization is quietly spreading a reign of terror virtually unchallenged, all the way to the border with Guatemala — and across it.

The Mexican government has released a database it says covers all murders presumed to have a link to the country's drug prohibition war in which at least seven different drug trafficking organizations are fighting each other and federal forces deployed in a massive offensive against them launched in December 2006. The number of deaths has risen rapidly since then to total 34,612 up until the end of 2010, by far the most violent year so far with 15,273 people killed.

Mayor Luis Jiminez Mata, of Santiago Amoltepec, was shot to death by prohibition-created drug traffickers when he was visiting the state capital of Oaxaca. He is the third municipal leader to be killed in a week and in 2011.

A string of academics, health experts and former politicians have lent their names in support of a trial of a needle and syringe program in Australian correctional facilities.

Drug trafficking organizations fighting over Mexico's richest city have launched a wave of attacks against police and rivals since New Year's Eve, crushing hopes of a fall in violence and alarming business leaders.

The body of a murdered man found dumped on a main road into Acapulco Monday brought the four-day death toll in the once peaceful Pacific coast Mexican resort city to 31. With the weekend toll, Acapulco is facing the highest levels of drug prohibition violence since President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug trafficking organizations in 2006.

The fabled resort of Acapulco closed its bloodiest weekend ever due to drug prohibition. In less than a day 14 headless bodies and a 15th intact victim were found on a street in front a shopping mall frequented by locals. On Saturday, six people were shot dead and all their bodies stuffed in a taxi, two police officers were also killed and four others in another part of the city.