Mexico drug-related killings soar*

BBC - The number of murders in Mexico linked to organised crime has
jumped by almost 50% so far this year to 1,378, according to Mexico's
attorney general.

Eduardo Medina Mora also said more than 4,000 people have died since
President Felipe Calderon took office 18 months ago, declaring war on
the drug cartels.

About 450 of those were police, soldiers, or prosecutors.

It comes as police in northern Mexico found four severed heads in
ice-chests outside a motorway convenience store.

Five bodies - some decapitated - were also discovered in a city on the
border with the US state of Texas.

Police attend the scene of a shoot-out between two drug gangs in
northern Mexico.

The government says the violence is a symptom of the drug gangs'
desperation amid the nation-wide crackdown involving more than 20,000
soldiers and police.

"Evidently when they are cornered and weakened, they have to respond
with violence," Mr Medina Mora said in an interview on local radio.