Mexicans throng streets in anti-violence protests

Hundreds of thousands of frustrated Mexicans, many carrying pictures of kidnapped loved ones, marched across the country to demand government action against a relentless tide of killings, abductions and shootouts.

The mass candlelight protests were a challenge to the government of President Felipe Calderon, who has made fighting crime a priority and deployed more than 25,000 soldiers and federal police to wrest territory from powerful drug cartels.