New Progressive Movement aims to unite Mexican left
The movement will enjoy the support of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), with party chairman Jesus Zambrano welcoming its formation at the inaugural event. Ebrard said he will serve as chairman of the Progressive Movement and also aims to eventually take over the PRD leadership.
Ebrard said he hopes that the Progressive Movement can serve as a forum to unite Mexico’s disparate left – which also comprises the PRD, the Citizen’s Movement, the Labor Party and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) – against President Enrique Peña Nieto and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
“We have an obligation to represent the nearly 16 million Mexicans who voted progressive [in 2012]. We must act as a counterbalance to the abuses and excesses of the Institutional Revolutionary Party,” Ebrard said. He also affirmed the PRI should call a public referendum over its plans for tax and energy reforms: “If you want to change the Constitution why not invite the whole population to vote yes or no. What are you afraid of?”
Ebrard previously sought the PRD candidacy ahead of the 2012 presidential election, but lost out to his predecessor as mayor of Mexico City, Lopez Obrador. As a fresh face in the Mexican left, Ebrard may stand a better chance in 2018 than his former mentor, who finished second in last year’s election, but proved too jaded and divisive to win over a majority of voters.
Having stolen a 1995 Volkswagen Derby in Tlajomulco, Enrique Paredes Zermeño, 59, then tried to sell it online. An interested party soon made contact and arranged with the suspect to meet in person to buy the vehicle.
Unfortunately for Paredes, the mystery buyer was in fact the car’s original owner. Upon verifying that it was indeed his car, the former owner then called the Ministerio Publico and had the hapless thief arrested.
Restaurant held up at gunpoint
A gang of armed thieves held up an Italian restaurant in Santa Anita at gunpoint earlier this month, stealing the valuables of everyone on the premises and then locking them in the bathroom.
Although authorities believe this to be an isolated case, robberies of this type were once common in the Guadalajara metropolitan area.
To avoid being victimized, the Prosecutor General’s Office advises business owners to ensure they have good lighting both within and outside their properties. Likewise, in order to minimize risk, customers should not flaunt expensive jewelry, they carry only the amount of money they believe necessary and they should leave credit cards at home unless they plan to use them.
Was top Zetas leader a DEA informant?
Captured Zetas boss Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, alias “Z-40,” was working as a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informant since at least 2011, Mexican daily 24 Horas reported Friday.
Treviño, who was detained in Nuevo Leon on Monday, provided the DEA with information on his rivals within Los Zetas and in other cartels, according to 24 Horas. The U.S. agency reportedly knew of Treviño’s movements and the locations of his safe houses in Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Coahuila, but did not share such information with the Mexican government until very recently.
If proven, such revelations would reignite tensions between the United States and Mexico, for Treviño was one of the most powerful and ultra-violent criminals in Mexico. The subject of at least 12 criminal investigations in Mexico, he had seven warrants issued against him and faces charges of organized crime, drug trafficking, money laundering, torture and homicide.
There has no been no official comment on the allegations to date, but the DEA congratulated the Mexican government on Tuesday for Treviño’s arrest.
“Treviño Morales is of one of the most significant Mexican cartel leaders to be apprehended in several years and the DEA will continue to support the Government of Mexico as it forges ahead in disrupting and dismantling drug trafficking organizations,” read the DEA statement.
Citing unnamed sources within Mexico’s federal government, 24 Horas indicated that Treviño may have provided the DEA with information that led to the death of Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, his predecessor and main rival for control of the Zetas cartel (Lazcano was shot dead by Marines in Coahuila last October following an anonymous tip-off).
Mexican authorities also suspect Treviño may have betrayed Enrique Rejon Aguilar, alias “El Mamito,” captured in Mexico City in July 2011 and Raul Lucio Hernandez, alias “Z-16,” detained in Veracruz in December 2011, 24 Horas reported. Likewise, the arrests of Luis Reyes Enriquez, alias “Z-12,” Jamie Gonzalez Duran, alias “El Hummer”, and Daniel Perez, alias “El Chachetes,” in 2008 and 2009 could also have been the result of information provided by Treviño.
The Tequila Files 