U.S. WARNING TRAVELERS TO BE CAREFUL IN MEXICO

Bloodshed is bad for the tourism industry.

Mexico is heading for its third straight year of more than 2,000
drug-related deaths -- casualty figures usually associated with war.

Then again, both sides -- the drug cartels and the law enforcement
officials -- would say this is war, and the proof is on the streets
of border towns such as Ciudad Juarez, where federal troops have been
deployed to battle the narco traffickers.

The violence has led the U.S. State Department to issue a travel
alert for Mexico, with emphasis on Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros.

Although officials said the alert should not be interpreted as a
suggestion to avoid traveling to Mexico, the threat of violence is
genuine, and travelers must take it into consideration.

"The purpose of this travel alert is to give them information they
should have about the situation so that they can make better
decisions and take necessary precautions," Todd Huizinga, the public
affairs officer for the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey, told the
Express-News.

President Felipe Calderon is waging an aggressive campaign against
the cartels, but the challenge is enormous. The drug lords are
powerful enemies. Their activities are abetted by corrupt law
enforcement officials. And every deployment of troops is met by a
similar deployment of criminals, more amorphous, perhaps, but no less powerful.

In Cuidad Juarez alone, more than 250 people have died in
narcotics-related incidents. Most of the victims have been cartel
members, police officers or journalists. But the danger of spillover
is always there; hence the travel alert.

"The situation in northern Mexico remains very fluid; the location
and timing of future armed engagements there cannot be predicted,"
the alert stated.

Tourists should not be paralyzed by fear, but neither should they be
guided by imprudence.