"There is this old saying that historians don't like to use, but here it is: History does repeat itself," said Francisco Balderrama, a professor at Cal State Los Angeles who helped chronicle the 1930s exodus of Mexicans from the United States in the book "Decade of Betrayal," in this Dallas Morning News report.    

"Indeed it has. In the last three years, more than 500,000 Mexicans have been repatriated from the U.S. If their U.S.-citizen children joined them, that total is much higher.

"The scope of the current exodus has historians and policymakers delving deeper into the almost-forgotten history of the 1930s deportations."

Read the full report here and click here for more on immigration.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Facing a crackdown in Mexico, smugglers turn to Argentina as a base for importing ephedrine, which is turned into methamphetamine destined for the U.S. The trade has brought killings and intrigue, writes Patrick J. McDonnell.

The three young entrepreneurs met their contacts outside a Wal-Mart here and drove off with them, apparently convinced that they would be celebrating a lucrative new deal.

But authorities believe it was a set-up, linked to Mexican mobsters bent on reshaping the global drug trafficking map.

The three men were handcuffed, forced to kneel in the mud and sprayed with bullets; their bodies were dumped in a ditch. The execution-style slayings have sent shock waves across Argentina, which has largely been spared the drug violence seen in Colombia and Peru, the world's top cocaine producers. These killings, authorities say, were related to a more prosaic product: ephedrine, the synthetic stimulant found in cough and cold remedies. Ephedrine is also used in the manufacture of methamphetamine, the highly addictive drug long a scourge in the United States.

Officials suspect that the three men were involved with a relatively new smuggling route called the "ephedrine highway," the triangulated transport of ephedrine from Asia to Argentina to Mexico, ultimately destined for the booming U.S. meth market.

Click here for more about the drug trade, here for more about Argentina and here for more on Mexico.

Click here to read about how crystal meth is causing concern in Mexico.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

East L.A. can't rival the art hubs of Pasadena and Santa Monica, but ChimMaya gallery displays art with distinctly local flavor, writes Catherine Ho.

Outside, strains of Spanish radio flitted through the quiet neighborhood where residents walked their dogs and practiced skateboarding tricks.

But inside ChimMaya, a small corner boutique and rising art gallery nestled along the border of East Los Angeles, Montebello and Monterey Park, more than 60 artists and self-professed "art fans" chatted, shopped and snacked against a backdrop of purple and green walls, lively salsa music and paintings of dancing skeletons.

Photo: Helen Flores of Los Angeles strolls through ChimMaya, a small neighborhood boutique turned art gallery featuring local artists. A three-week-long Dia de los Muertos exhibit features 75 pieces by 31 Southwestern artists. Credit: Karen Tapia-Andersen / Los Angeles Times

Drug-related violence at the end of last week carried over into the weekend, according to the Associated Press, which is reporting the killing of six young men at a family party in Ciudad Juarez.

The men, ages 20 to 25, were killed during a party in a house, said Alejandro Pariente, a spokesman for the regional attorney general's office. The motive for the attack was unknown.

At least 1,000 people have been killed this year in Ciudad Juarez, a city across from El Paso, Texas. Many of the deaths were attributed to warring drug gangs.

Read Tracy Wilkinson's report from Ciudad Juarez earlier this year here.

Click here for more on Mexico, and go to our "Mexico Under Siege" page here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Another wave of violence washed across Mexico at the end of last week, as more than two dozen people, including a newspaper publisher and two federal agents were gunned down, reports the L.A. Times' Tracy Wilkinson.

"The slayings came as Mexico endures an unprecedented wave of drug-related warfare that has claimed thousands of lives as narcotics trafficking networks battle among themselves and with authorities."

"In the northern city of Chihuahua, 11 people died when four masked men dressed in black entered the Rio Rosas bar late Thursday and raked customers with gunfire. Seven people were wounded. The gunmen reportedly gained entrance by telling a guard that they were conducting a routine inspection. They disappeared into the night after the shootings, state prosecutors said, and no arrests had been made."

"A columnist for a local newspaper was among the dead."

"Early Friday, two federal agents and two suspected drug traffickers were killed in a shootout along the highway between Chihuahua and Ciudad Juarez, a city that borders Texas and has been an epicenter of drug violence."

Click here for our special report "Mexico Under Siege" about the violence, its causes and political consequences.

-- Reed Johnson in Los Angeles

When Alan Garcia was elected president of Peru in 2006, it was regarded as one of the biggest comebacks ever in South American politics. Garcia's previous presidential tenure, from 1985 to 1990, had been scarred by economic chaos (inflation hit an incredible 7,600 percent) and the government's inability to keep its violent conflict with the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement from deteriorating into a virtual civil war.

Garcia took office two years ago vowing to be a steadier leader than in the past. But, as the L.A. Times' Patrick McDonnell reports, Garcia was forced to accept the resignation of his entire Cabinet on Friday "amid a sweeping bribery scandal that has rocked the government of a major U.S. ally."

Equally worrisome are signs of resurgent violence. "As the corruption case was unfolding, authorities also said Friday that an attack by leftist rebels on a rural military convoy killed at least 14 soldiers and civilians, the deadliest such strike in years."

-- Reed Johnson in Los Angeles

Photo: Alberto Quimper, a former executive with the state oil company, is escorted by police in Lima, Peru. Credit: Associated Press

Hurricane Norbert stormed across Mexico's Baja Sur peninsula on Saturday, forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes.

"It hit land near Puerto Charley on Baja's southwest coast as a Category 2 hurricane, but weakened to Category 1 after emerging over the Gulf of California," according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. Norbert was expected to reach mainland Mexico before dawn today.

Photo: A girl struggles against the winds as Hurricane Norbert approaches Puerto San Carlos, Mexico. Credit: Guillermo Arias / Associated Press

From a story by Times Staff Writer Thomas H. Maugh:

About a quarter of U.S. teen girls received the controversial cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil last year in its first full year of distribution, federal authorities said Thursday....

But immunologist W. Martin Kast of USC's Keck School of Medicine said, "Twenty-five percent is not bad, but it's not good either."

He said data released earlier in the year by Gardasil's manufacturer, Merck & Co., show that only about 1% of Latina teens were receiving the vaccine, and "they are the population that needs it the most" because the frequency of infection is relatively high.

Click here to read the full story.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

From the Associated Press:

Five state police officers were killed in the western Mexican state of Jalisco by men who lobbed grenades and fired more than 800 bullets, officials said Thursday.

The officers came under fire Wednesday night as they prepared to search a car they had just stopped in the town of Lagos de Moreno outside the city of Guadalajara, the Jalisco state public safety department said in a statement.

The assailants arrived in two pickup trucks. Two bystanders were wounded, the department said.

Jalisco's public-safety secretary, Luis Carlos Najera, said authorities suspect the Zetas, a group of hit men tied to the Gulf cartel. The Zetas have a history of violence against Jalisco police, he said.

Meanwhile in Ciudad Juarez, across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas, two state police officers were shot to death along a busy avenue by men in another car, said Alejandro Pariente, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state prosecutor.

Hours after the attack Wednesday, a wreath was left outside the police headquarters in Ciudad Juarez, Pariente said. It was accompanied by a threatening message and the names of the two slain officers and other policemen.

No suspects were named.

Click here for more posts from Mexico and here for our drug-war coverage, "Mexico Under Siege," with more reports on the country's drug-related violence and troubled police forces.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

"In the Americas, the biggest threat to public safety comes from drug trafficking and the violence perpetuated by organized crime," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) speaking in Mexico City yesterday.

"Urban violence in the U.S., biker gangs in Canada, violence and kidnapping in Mexico, pandillas and maras in Central America, thugs in the Caribbean, gangs in Brazilian shanty towns, insurgency in Colombia -- in every case there is a connection to drugs," Costa said.

He urged governments not to be tempted to legalize drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine, saying: "At this point, we know what some people -- the pro-drug lobby, for example -- would say:  'Legalize drugs and crime will disappear.' In other words, while facing an undeniably tough problem, we are invited to accept it, hide our head in the sand and make it legal. 

"I do not agree, and let me explain why by using an analogy. Human trafficking is another tough crime problem, worldwide -- perhaps second in size, after drug trafficking. Should we legalize modern slavery, given the intrinsic difficulty in dealing with it? Of course not."

Instead, he called for more to be done across the hemisphere to tackle the problem from the demand and supply end, working more towards reducing the cultivation, processing and trafficking of drugs.

He added: "Until the number of cocaine users falls worldwide, the problems caused by narco-trafficking will be displaced (as we are now seeing in West Africa) rather than solved. Therefore, more attention and resources must be devoted to drug prevention and treatment. Demand and supply reduction measures will inevitably contain the trafficking problem and the crimes associated to it."

Mexico is currently in the grip of surging levels of drug-related violence. President Felipe Calderon has sent 40,000 soldiers and 5,000 federal police officers to secure large swaths of the country against its powerful drug cartels. In the nearly two years since Calderon launched a crackdown against drug gangs, more than 4,000 people have died.

Read the full speech by Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), here.

Read more about Mexico's drug war here at our "Mexico Under Siege" page.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Mexico's military during last year's Independence Day celebrations. Credit: Deborah Bonello / Los Angeles Times.

Federal authorities Wednesday announced indictments against the alleged leaders of six drug distribution rings charged with transporting cocaine and methamphetamine for one of Mexico's largest drug cartels, reports Richard Marosi.

"Thirty-five people face smuggling and conspiracy charges in what authorities described as a trafficking network based in the Imperial Valley. About $20 million in drugs and cash were seized during the 18-month investigation, according to federal prosecutors."

Meanwhile, drug-related fighting continues to claim lives in Tijuana.

The Associated Press is reporting this morning that "16 people were killed in 24 hours in the northern state across the U.S. border from California."

As Marosi reported last week, the ongoing violence in Tijuana is being interpreted by some as a sign that the Arellano Felix cartel is fracturing and losing its control of the city in which it was born and once dominated.

Read more about Tijuana here, and click here for more on Mexico.

Go to our "Mexico Under Siege" page for more about the drug wars here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: State police officers investigate the scene of a shootout between drug gangs in Tijuana on Saturday. Credit: Guillermo Arias / Associated Press

After taking an initially optimistic attitude toward the economic crisis ravaging the rest of the world, President Felipe Calderon warned on Wednesday that Mexico faces a fall in exports, investment and remittances as a result of the U.S. economic slowdown and announced plans for $4.3 billion in emergency spending on infrastructure to help Mexico amid world financial woes.

As we reported here, Mexico’s finance secretary Agustin Carstens said at the end of last month that the country would be able to withstand the crisis in the global financial markets because its banks aren’t reliant on external credit.

Although President Calderon insisted that Mexico's banks were solid despite the global economic crisis, he admitted in a televised address yesterday that it was clear that the slowdown in the U.S. and elsewhere would have repercussions in Mexico, including a decline in demand for Mexican exports, less investment and fewer tourists.

"At the same time, many migrants who send money from the U.S. to their families, either now have no job or are afraid of losing it, which suggests there will be less in remittances sent to Mexico," Mr. Calderon said.

Remittances to Mexico from nationals living in the United States fell by 12% in August.

Click here to read more about Mexico.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

The Mexican government must bring an end to the impunity enjoyed by those who kill and threaten journalists and "apply themselves to the investigation and review of all of the cases of journalists killed and missing," was the Inter American Press Association's (IAPA) message to Mexico at the closing of its 64th Annual General Assembly in Madrid this week.

In a resolution issued to the federal government of President Felipe Calderon and its state branches, the press freedom group noted the Mexican authorities' lack of will to investigate crimes against journalists here and the ineffectiveness of the Special Prosecutors’ Office for Crimes against Journalists.

The missive from the IAPA demanded "that the Special Prosecutors’ Office for Crimes against Journalists reexamine all cases of journalists killed or missing in the country, take them under its jurisdiction, investigate them and report on every one of the cases in a clear and serious fashion, in order to fulfill its mission of doing justice and ensure'' against impunity.

Three journalists have been killed in Mexico in the last six months, and as we reported earlier this week, this country is one of the most dangerous in the Western hemisphere for journalists.

Click here for more posts on Mexico.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

A 450-kilogram (990-pound) bedridden man who had appealed on Mexican television for help tackling his weight problem died Tuesday of heart failure, his family said.

The Associated Press reports this morning that emergency officials had to knock down Jose Luis Garza's bedroom wall and load him onto the back of a friend's pickup truck as he fought for his life. The 47-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in northern Mexico.

Garza said he always struggled with his weight, but that he fell into a desperate cycle of depression and overeating nine months ago after his parents died of natural causes within two weeks of each other. He had been bedridden for four months.

Read more about the death of Mexican Jose Luis Garza here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

A few weeks ago, 19 Ecuadorean citizens detained on these world-renowned islands were marched onto a plane and sent back to the continent under armed guard. Their crime? Illegal migration, writes Chris Kraul.

So far this year, the government has expelled 1,000 of its citizens from the Galapagos -- a living laboratory of unique animal and plant species -- who were there without residency and work permits. It has also "normalized" 2,000 others, in effect giving most of them a year to leave.

The migrants are attracted not by the tortoises or blue-footed boobies but by the islands' booming economy, which offers plentiful jobs and good pay. Typical wages run 70% higher than on Ecuador's mainland, the public schools are good, and violent crime is nonexistent.

Last year, Ecuador was stung by a United Nations warning that the islands, whose human population has doubled in 10 years to about 30,000, are at risk from overcrowding and mismanaged tourism.

Read more about problems on the paradisaic Galapagos Islands here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Until he was gunned down over the weekend, Salvador Vergara Cruz was a man of some influence with a promising future in his political party. Mayor of an important resort town outside Mexico City, and a close confidant of his state's governor, Vergara apparently felt sufficiently at ease to travel without a specially assigned team of bodyguards despite receiving death threats from purported drug lords, reports Tracy Wilkinson.

The 34-year-old Vergara was killed by hooded assassins armed with semiautomatic rifles as he drove with other officials toward his home city of Ixtapan de la Sal on Saturday afternoon.

The killing of a sitting elected official may turn out to be one of the more significant political slayings in Mexico's raging drug war, not so much because of who he was as for what his death represented.

Prosecutors in the state of Mexico say Vergara was killed because he refused to allow drug gangs to move into and operate freely in his city, along a transit route for drugs into the nation's capital.

Click here to read more about the killing of a Mexican mayor. Go here for more posts on Mexico and here for our "Mexico Under Siege" special report.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

More than 300 suspected illegal immigrants were arrested Tuesday morning at a chicken processing plant near Greenville, S.C. -- the latest in a stepped-up federal enforcement effort that has resulted in the deportation of thousands of illegal workers in recent months, reports Richard Fausset.

Tuesday's raid was led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and involved hundreds of agents from numerous agencies. The target was Columbia Farms, a processing plant that had been the subject of a 10-month criminal investigation.

Resident David Wynn witnessed the hubbub from down the street and applauded the news.

"The excuse that they're taking jobs that Americans won't do -- well, that just doesn't hold water anymore," said Wynn, 48, the co-owner of a nearby air-conditioning wholesaler who spoke Tuesday afternoon by phone. "With the economic crisis we've got going on, we've got to put a stop to it."

Click here to read the rest of the report of the arrest of a suspected 300 illegal immigrants in South Carolina.

Click here for more posts on immigration.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Image: Santa Maria Diego, 68, center, a worker at Columbia Farms in Greenville, S.C., is comforted by her granddaughter Maria Juan after the raid. The chicken processing plant had been the subject of a 10-month criminal investigation. Mary Ann Chastain / Associated Press

Gael Garcia Bernal, Mexican heartthrob and actor, hasn't been put off by some of the reaction to HIS reaction to the double grenade attack in Morelia, Michoacan, on Sept. 15.

The actor, who is currently attending Morelia's international filmfest to promote the traveling documentary festival Ambulante that he runs with Diego Luna, took the opportunity to speak more about last month's attacks, which Mexican officials blame on organized crime networks.

"It's very important, in these times in which we live, that we don't lose the public spaces, that we don't lose the opportunity to speak, to connect with each other, to talk and reflect on the place in which we live," said Garcia Bernal.

Towards the end of last month, Garcia Bernal wrote a column that appeared on the front page of El Universal here in which he addressed the attacks and reminisced about Morelia, where he spent some of his childhood and where his father was born.

But the column was booed by rival newspaper Milenio.

Jairo Calixto's column said:

"Relax, Gael. Instead of asking, from a very nice place, 'Why, when I see so much violence, do I feel like the aggression was against my memories, and my identity?,' we should celebrate the fact that Mexico, for the third year running, has maintained its position as the 72nd most corrupt country in the world.

"You say, Gael, that it hurts you to be far away. Don't you worry -- they also say that to be far away is to forget."

Speaking yesterday, the Mexican actor reiterated his support for the people of Morelia and said: "If we all pull together on the same side, there's no greater protection against violence."

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

The central Mexican state of Zacatecas -- half of whose population lives in the United States -- is preparing to welcome an expected influx of Mexicans returning home from el Norte in the wake of the financial crisis currently gripping the U.S.

Amalia Garcia, governor of the state, announced yesterday that migrants returning home from the U.S. will receive medical attention and financial support until they're reintegrated into the work force.

As we reported Monday, some in Mexico are predicting that as many as 350,000 nationals could return -- both voluntarily and by force -- as a result of the economic crisis in the U.S.

Garcia said yesterday, quoted here in Milenio: "We've decided to prepare ourselves for the possible return of migrants. In the first place I decided, along with the cabinet, that families who return to Zacatecas will be able to put their children into education without having to ask for tickets or forms.

"Secondly, all of them will be attended to by the health services of the state."

Garcia also promised access to micro-credits and temporary work.

The governor, who was accompanied by President Felipe Calderon's wife, Margarita Zavala, in the opening of National Health Week, also said that although half of the state's population has migrated north, Zacatecas is not being as badly affected by the drop in remittances that is hitting Mexico.

Money sent home by migrants living in Mexico fell by 12% in August -- the biggest drop that the country has seen since the Bank of Mexico started measuring the flow of money south.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City