In November 2006, President George W. Bush received Mexican president-elect Felipe Calderon in the Oval Office as part of a traditional protocol meeting that brings together the Mexican president elect and the United States president. At the time, immigration was the hot topic for discussion. Days before their meeting, President Bush passed a bill that authorized the construction of a border wall.

To better understand Mexico’s attempts to reclaim its global reputation, the Holmes Report recently travelled to the nation’s capital city. The country may not be known as a hotbed of public relations innovation, but the lessons from Mexico’s public relations programme are ones that should be heeded by any government, or indeed organisation, facing its own issues or crises.

Youth in Action is a new youth exchange program in Mexico... It will provide workshops in the United States for Mexican high school students so that they can develop their leadership and civic engagement skills. A joint public-private funded program, it emphasizes community problem-solving and grassroots action to address violence and drugs.

The arrest of Juan Ortiz Lopez, an alleged drug kingpin in Guatemala, may mark the beginning of increased cooperation between the US and Central American nations dogged by increasing drug-related violence...On his recent tour of Latin America, President Obama announced $200 million in funding to combat drug trafficking and insecurity in the region.

In her well-received remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton let slip a statement that immediately sent the inter-American affairs semantic fashion police scurrying. She referred to the on-going threat posed by Mexican drug cartels and their allies to Mexican society as an "insurgency."

Mexican President Felipe Calderon is launching a global public relations campaign to try to improve his country's image and neutralize coverage of the violent drug war scaring away tourists and foreign investors.