Texas officials rebuffed President Barack Obama’s claim that the U.S.-Mexico border is secure and told a congressional panel Wednesday that cartel-related crimes in this country are under-reported.

Steve McCraw, Texas Department of Public Safety director, said 22 murders, 24 assaults, 15 shootings and five kidnappings in Texas were linked to Mexican cartels since 2010.

“There are consequences when you don’t secure the border,” McCraw told the subcommittee. “There has been a proliferation of organized crime in Texas.”

“The border is not secure, and it has never been more violent or dangerous. Anyone who lives down there will tell you that,” said Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Austin, the subcommittee chairman.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said the U.S.-Mexico border in rural South Texas is a porous gateway for drugs and weapons flowing both ways – with cartels in control on both sides of the border.

“We have seen armed individuals coming into our country,” Gonzalez said. “We have seen the very ruthless behavior of the cartels.”

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/05/texas-officials-dispute-obamas-claims.html

Major protests in Mexico this month highlighted mounting frustration among many Mexicans toward violence that has claimed some 36,000 lives in the country since President Felipe Calderón declared war on drug cartels five years ago.

Some are now questioning the implications such public dissatisfaction may carry for the United States, which for the past several years has pursued a policy of supporting Calderón’s fight against the cartels.

… “The criticism,” he added, “is that the Mexican government is fighting a drug war on behalf of the United States, and it’s Mexicans that are doing the vast majority of the dying.”

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/05/mexicos-growing-frustration-with-us.html

“Minutes before 6:00 a.m. on Friday, the community of Salitral de Carreras, municipality of Villa de Ramos, San Luis Potosí, faced a group of armed gunmen.

Witnesses indicate that armed men were traveling in several luxury vehicles, which began to open fire with AK-47s, and as previous occasions they had succeeded to bring terror into the community. However on this occasion, the residents were already waiting to confront them, an act that surprised the gunmen.

Several neighbors of the community began to shoot at the vehicles. In addition, they left in a caravan and chased them to a gas station, where the gunmen decided to abandon their vehicles, which fled from a community that was tired of suffering from the abuses.”

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/05/mexican-communities-fighting-back.html

“Former members of a Guatemalan special forces unit are believed to have been involved in the killings of 27 people on a farm in a northern province, the country’s president said.

President Alvaro Colom said Tuesday that the former members of the Kaibiles, as the military group is known, had a hand in the massacre that led to a state of siege being declared in the province of Peten.

Authorities have blamed the killings on the Zetas Mexican drug cartel, which has been linked before to the Kaibiles.”

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/

Retired marine Colonel John Folsom watches as Smoke, the Iraqi donkey, checks out Annie, a 27 year-old Arabian horse, at the Miracle Hills Ranch and Stables, in Fort Calhoun, Neb., Wednesday, May 18, 2011. After traveling more than 6,000 miles from Iraq, Smoke the Donkey, who became a friend and mascot to a group of U.S. Marines living in Iraq's Anbar Province nearly three years ago, takes up residence in eastern Nebraska. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

FORT CALHOUN — Smoke The Donkey is now at his new home in an eastern Nebraska pasture after a more than 6,000-mile journey.

Smoke became a friend and mascot to a group of U.S. Marines living in Iraq’s Anbar Province nearly three years ago. The chest-high donkey, named for his grayish-tan color, soon became such a part of the unit that he received his own care packages and cards.

Retired Marine Col. John Folsom says Smoke “was a battle buddy, and you don’t leave your battle buddy behind.

So the Marines worked with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International bring the donkey to the United States.”

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/05/18/6670588-iraq-donkey-named-smoke-now-at-home-in-nebraska

By Tim Johnson

MEXICO CITY — “In the worst drug-related violence in modern times in Guatemala, assailants stormed a remote jungle ranch and killed 27 people, beheading 25 of them, an army spokesman said Sunday.

A national civil police spokesman in nearby Santa Elena, Moises Ical, said the killings were related to drug trafficking, and possibly carried out by Los Zetas, a brutal drug gang comprising former enforcers for Mexico’s Gulf Cartel. Los Zetas are known to operate freely in much of the Peten region, often in large convoys equipped with heavy weaponry.”

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/15/3628857/drug-gangs-in-remote-guatemala.html#ixzz1MTuYNMsU

NEW YORK (Reuters) – “North Korea and Iran appear to have been regularly exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of U.N. sanctions, according to a confidential U.N. report obtained by Reuters on Saturday.

The report said the illicit technology transfers had “trans-shipment through a neighboring third country.” That country was China, several diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110514/wl_nm/us_korea_north_iran_un

“The Walt Disney Company is attempting to trademark the name “Seal Team 6, the counter-terrorism unit responsible for killing Osama Bin Laden.

Filed May 3 (days after news of bin Laden’s death broke), Disney’s application covers clothing, footwear, headwear, toys, games and “entertainment and education services,” among other things, according to MediaBistro.”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/disney-seeks-trademark-seal-team-188394