GUANAJUATO, Mexico - More than a month after the disclosure of cables in which American diplomats questioned progress in Mexico's drug war, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton came here on Monday to deliver a message of solidarity with President Felipe Calderon and to rebut public doubts about persistent violence.

After a private meeting with the Mexican foreign secretary, Patricia Espinosa, in this historic, pastel-splashed colonial city, Mrs. Clinton declined during a news conference to directly address the cables, published by several news organization after they were revealed by WikiLeaks.

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The family of the Penticton man shot in the thigh while vacationing in Mexico are trying to find a way to get him back to the Okanagan.

"There are people offering to pay for flights back, but we really want a direct flight back so they don't have to stop in Vancouver then take another plane. We were hoping to get some kind of private jet or at least have a direct flight here. That is our goal right now, to make him the most comfortable," said the man's daughter Lisa Di Lorenzo-Biggs.

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MEXICO CITY-The drug-related death toll in Mexico climbed to 15,273 in 2010, the highest casualty rate since the government launched an assault on powerful cartels in 2006, Mexican officials said.

The staggering toll-higher than combat-related deaths in places like Iraq and Afghanistan-shows how Mexico is struggling to turn the tide on drug cartels that are fighting each other to control lucrative smuggling routes to the U.S.

"We all know we're going through difficult times in matters of public safety," President Felipe Calderon said in a televised speech minutes after the figures were announced. He urged Mexicans to be patient with his government's assault on cartels.

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More Than 30 Are Found Slain After Two Days Of Brutality-At Least 16 With Their Heads Severed

The discovery of four more bodies in Acapulco Sunday brought to more than 30 the number of people found slain after a weekend of violence in the Mexican resort city, with at least 16 of their bodies found without their heads.

Authorities early Sunday discovered a body hanging from a bridge on the main highway between Acapulco and Mexico City, and the bodies of two other men nearby, one missing its limbs and head. A fourth body was found elsewhere in the city.

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Mexico needs to refocus its war on drugs away from enforcement and concentrate instead on fighting money-laundering and tackling the causes of violence, a leading opposition politician who is widely tipped to win the country's 2012 presidential elections said.

More than 30,000 people have died since President Felipe Calderon launched an army-led offensive on Mexico's drug cartels four years ago, an approach that has led to growing criticism at home.

Writing for the Financial Times' emerging markets website, beyondbrics, Enrique Pena Nieto, governor of the state of Mexico, said the country needed to find ways to prevent violence from occurring in the first place.

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Violence Shrinks Ranks by Half, but Some Doctors Are Fighting Back

MEXICO CITY - Trauma specialist Jose Alberto Betancourt was kidnapped from the parking lot of a Ciudad Juarez hospital after finishing work Dec. 2.

He was found murdered two days later after negotiations with the kidnappers - who had demanded 2 million pesos (about $160,000) - broke down.

The violence that has claimed more than 3,000 lives in Ciudad Juarez last year has hit physicians especially hard. Their upper-middle-class status has made them targets for kidnappers and extortion demands.

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