El Chapo’s Prosecution Has Fueled the Drug War in Mexico

7/17/19 – The New York Times

By Azam Ahmed

In the bloody churn of the global drug trade, there are no fixed, permanent characters. Cartel leaders are seldom more than temporary players, rising and falling with unfailing predictability as a new cast rushes in to replace them.

So it goes even with Joaquin Guzman Loera, the infamous drug lord known as El Chapo, who was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday in New York for smuggling tons of drugs into the United States and leaving a trail of death in his wake.

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Mexico national guard shows lighter touch with migrants after president’s warning

6/25/19 – Reuters

By Anthony Esposito

Photo courtesy of lopezobrador.org.mx

Mexico’s National Guard, accused of being heavy-handed in its efforts to curb migrant flows, employed a lighter touch on the U.S. border on Tuesday after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said they did not have orders to detain migrants.

Earlier on Tuesday, Lopez Obrador faced repeated questions at a news conference about photographs that emerged last week of the National Guard catching Central American and Cuban women in Ciudad Juarez, which borders El Paso, Texas.

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Narco safe houses, ranches and luxury apartments auctioned in Mexico

6/23/19 – Reuters

By Diego Oré

Houses with swimming pools and escape tunnels, a ranch surrounded by hectares of land and a luxury apartment with a grisly history were among the 27 properties Mexico had seized from drug traffickers and others were auctioned on Sunday.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador promised that the proceeds from the auction of properties and land, which had been seized by previous governments, would go to aid marginalized communities in the poor and violent state Guerrero.

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Mexico: seventh journalist murdered in just six months

6/13/19 – The Guardian

By Tom Phillips

Photo by Ricardo Esquivel on Pexels.com

Mexico’s deadly assault on journalism has claimed another victim with the murder of a crime reporter from the home state of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – the seventh journalist to die this year alone.

Norma Sarabia, a 46-year-old journalist who had reportedly received threats for denouncing police corruption, was gunned down on Tuesday night as she returned home in Huimanguillo, a city in the south-eastern state of Tabasco.

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Two Prominent Migrant Rights Defenders Freed in Mexico

6/12/19 – Reuters

By Delphine Schrank

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

A Mexican judge has freed two migrant rights activists who organized caravans, said a member of their legal team and a rights group on Wednesday, a week after their arrest which their supporters said was meant to appease the Trump administration.

After 13 hours of oral arguments for Cristobal Sanchez on Tuesday and an eight-hour overnight hearing for Irineo Mujica, a judge in southern Chiapas state ruled that the two veteran defenders of migrants should not be held in pre-trial custody, said lawyer Santiago Nunez, who attended the hearings.

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Man accused of helping run ‘El Chapo’ cartel due in US court

5/29/2019 – Associated Press

By Cedar Attanasio

A Mexican man accused of running a death squad for convicted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was due in a Texas courtroom on Wednesday to face a raft of charges.

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Mexico environment minister quits, second top official to exit in a week

5/25/2019 – Reuters

Mexico’s environment minister resigned on Saturday after causing a commercial flight to be delayed, making her the second top official to depart from the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in less than a week.

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