In the six months since he won the highly controversial and disputed Mexican presidential election, Felipe Calderón’s main focus has been on implementing measures and policies to control extensive drug-gang violence and curb corruption within local police forces. With at least 1,400 people killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since January 2007, Calderón has ordered 24,000 soldiers and federal police to states where drug lords hold sway. Assassinations of police officials are common; top officers were recently killed in Monterrey, Tijuana and Mexico City. In response to Calderón’s strengthening assault on narcotics crime, drug gangs have grown increasingly violent, and their most popular form of protest has been the exhibition of severed human heads in several public venues. Nonetheless, Calderón is currently experiencing a relatively high approval rating of 58%.

The demand for combat-style guns is on the rise, as drug traffickers arm themselves to resist the massive military crackdown instituted by Calderón and to compete for control of trade routes into the U.S. It is nearly impossible to legally obtain a gun in Mexico. Of the 5,000 to 10,000 confiscated firearms that are run through traces in Mexico each year, more than 90% are first purchased in the U.S. The Christian Science Monitor reports that a senior Mexican official speaking on condition of anonymity says, “There is a contradiction. The U.S. says they are so worried about drug trafficking, but the U.S. is the one arming the drug traffickers.” In June, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora called U.S. policies on guns “absurd."

As part of the government’s effort to curb corruption, Mexico purged 284 commanders from the top ranks of its federal police forces on June 25, 2007. The New York Times quotes Genaro García Luna, the public security secretary, as stating that federal police chiefs in all 32 states were among those demoted and sent to be retrained: “We know Mexicans demand an honest, clean and trustworthy police force. It’s obvious there are mafias that are acting to keep the situation from changing, to continue enriching themselves through corruption and crime.” Officers will now face a “trust test,” which will include drug checks, a lie detector and psychological tests. Those who fail will lose their jobs, but those who get the highest marks will be promoted to regional federal police chiefs.

President Calderón has been stepping up extradition of accused drug traffickers to the U.S. As of mid-June, Calderón had shipped 21 people to this country and currently the former governor of Quintana Roo, Mario Villanueva Madrid, is in the process of being extradited. Mr. Villanueva is accused of taking millions of dollars in payoffs from the Juárez cartel in the 1990s in return for helping it ship about 200 tons of cocaine from South America through the Yucatán. If Mr. Villanueva is successfully extradited to New York City, he would be the highest- ranking former elected official from Mexico to stand trial in the U.S. on drug-trafficking charges.

President Calderón’s intention to reduce the immense power held by many of Mexico’s largest companies was voiced by Luis Téllez, Mexico’s new telecommunications and transport minister, in his attack on Cofetel, the country’s telecoms regulator. Cofetel remains largely independent of the central government and Mr. Téllez has accused it of playing more to the interests of corporate giants than to those of consumers. He is quoted in the Financial Times as saying “the regulators have been captured by the regulatees” and that Cofetel does not always “respond to the public interest.” His two main areas of concern are interconnection (the mechanism by which other operators gain access to the fixed-line network of Telmex, the sector’s dominant company) and portability (the ability of consumers to switch companies without changing their telephone number). Currently, Mexicans have to change their telephone number whenever they change carrier, a factor tending to suppress competition.

A leftist rebel group, the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), claimed responsibility for attacks in early July 2007 on the state-owned oil company, Pemex. One of the blasts forced the town of Coroneo in central Mexico to evacuate, after earlier blasts had shut down the pipeline running between Mexico City and Guadalajara. While the attacks disrupted oil supplies in Mexico, its oil exports were unaffected. According to the BBC News, the EPR posted a statement on the internet making clear that “the actions of harassment will not stop” until two jailed EPR members are released.