Monday 10 September 2012

Colombia detains Mexican cartel's local partner

Colombian police detained in separate raids on 10 September Andrés Vieda Duque, a presumed representative in Colombia of Mexico's Gulf Cartel, and two associates, the website La Información reported, citing official declarations. Vieda was described as the local partner of the Gulf Cartel's acting chief Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez - El Coss - and entrusted with shipping drugs to Mexico. The three suspects were nabbed in Cali and Popayán, and in Madrid, outside Bogotá.

Mexican political leader abandons leftist coalition

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico's combative leftist politician and runner-up in July's bitterly contested general elections announced on 9 September that he would "amicably" leave the left-wing coalition he led in July and turn the National Regeneration Movement he formed in 2006 into a formal political party, El Universal reported on 10 September. López Obrador told supporters gathered in the capital's historic square the Zócalo that this was no split and he was leaving "in peace." He thanked members of his former party the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) for their work and the trust given him, and observed he had given the PRD "his best" for 23 years. But he said it was "his task in this new stage in my life" to devote "all my imagination and work to the cause of Mexico's transformation." He insisted he would not recognize the court ruling confirming Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party as winner of the elections and Mexico's next president. The Progressive Coalition or Movement that backed López Obrador's presidential candidacy consisted of the PRD, the Labour Party (Partido del Trabajo, PT) and the Citizens Movement (Movimiento Ciudadano, MC). López Obrador formed the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (Morena) after the 2006 elections, which he narrowly lost to the conservative Felipe Calderón. He said it would be henceforth the base of his political activities. Attending the gathering were allied politicians including heads of the PT and MC, Alberto Anaya Gutiérrez and Luis Walton Aburto, but not Mexico City's PRD mayor Marcelo Ebrard. The new formation was to hold a national congress on 19-20 November.