Mexico Pushes Bush for More in Drug War

[Purveyor]

MERIDA, Mexico - President Bush sought to soothe strained ties with Mexico on Tuesday by promising to prod Congress to overhaul tough U.S. immigration policies. But Mexican President Felipe Calderon criticized U.S. plans for a 700-mile border fence and said Bush must do more to curb American drug appetites.

---
Bush walked a high wire: He wants to improve frayed ties over immigration and drug trafficking and the Iraq war, but without alienating supporters back home, particularly Republican lawmakers advocating stiff penalties against undocumented workers.

---
Welcoming Bush to a restored hacienda on the sun-drenched Yucatan Peninsula, Calderon said it would be hard to reduce Mexico's drug production while demand remains high in the United States.

"We need the collaboration and the active participation of our neighbor," Calderon said.

---
Calderon's complaints about the fence marked the second day in a row that Bush drew a rebuke from a host. In Guatemala on Monday, President Oscar Berger complained about roundups in the United States of undocumented Guatemalans.

---end of excerpt---

http://www.poststar.com/articles/2007/03/13/ap/headlines/d8nrj1qo0.txt

[Olney Blue]

1. Dear Southern neighbors,

we don't like him either.