Mexico City - More than a dozen armed men entered a hospital in the northern Mexican city of Chihuahua on Wednesday and abducted an alleged drug trafficker whose extradition had been requested by the United States, the authorities confirmed.

The group - made up of 12-20 men, according to the authorities - entered the hospital around 4 am and took the weapons and cellphones off seven bodyguards assigned to protect the man, Chihuahua public prosecutor's office spokesman Eduardo Esparza told German Press Agency dpa.

Mexico City  - Mexican President Felipe Calderon is to meet with Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and several British politicians and legislators during a state visit to Britain prior to the G20 summit next week in London.

"President Calderon will have an intense work agenda which includes meetings with the most relevant actors in political life of the United Kingdom," the Mexican president's office said Wednesday in a statement.

Mexico City  - On her first visit to Mexico, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Wednesday emphasized that Washington was prepared to help shoulder the responsibility alongside Mexico for fighting the increasingly violent drug cartels south of the US border.

Before her meeting with President Felipe Calderon, Clinton remarked to reporters that the "insatiable demand" for illegal drugs in the US feeds the drug violence and trade. Mexico's Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa joined the talks.

Washington/Mexico City - As US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived Wednesday in Mexico for her first visit to the southern US neighbour, the US Congress raised alarm about growing drug violence south of the border.

Heightened concern about the inflow of illicit drugs into the United States and the backflow of money and arms into Mexico are sure to dominate Clinton's meeting with her Mexican counterpart Patricia Espinosa.

Buenos Aires  - Mexican President Felipe Calderon is likely to press a double demand when he attends the G20 summit in London next month, with the global crisis and the wave of violence that hits Mexico giving him many headaches in recent months.

On the one hand, as the leader of the 13th-largest economy in the world, he will be seeking to curb the severe effects that the international financial and economic crisis is having on Mexico, a country that is very heavily dependent on its northern neighbour, the now-troubled United States.

Washington - The United States Monday said it was giving a huge boost to its cooperation with Mexican law enforcement officials to help bring down the illicit drug trade and was even doubling and quadrupling its anti-drug efforts on the border.

The efforts come as Mexico last week beefed up its military presence to 10,000 armed troops in the violence-plagued border city of Juarez.

"The Department of Justice stands ready to take the fight to the Mexican drug cartels," vowed Deputy Attorney General David Ogden at the briefing to reporters at the White House.