Mexico: Capture of Omar Treviño

Last week, mexican police arrested the leader of the Zetas cartel in an early morning near the city of Monterrey.


Alejandro "Omar" Treviño Morales, who went by the name "Z-42," was seized in San Pedro Garza García – the wealthiest town in Latin America.
The media claim that it was a "clean capture" due to Treviño's peacefully giving himself up to the authorities.

Treviño Morales had a $5 million bounty placed on his head by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), while the Mexican authorities offered a 30 million pesos reward for information leading to his arrest. In the US he was also wanted for drug trafficking.

He had taken the helm of the cartel – which controls much of the north east of Mexico, and thus a large part of the strategically-vital border with the US – in July 2013, when his brother, Miguel Treviño Morales, was captured.

The family – Miguel, Omar and their brother Jose – were pillars of the Zetas cartel, which was formed in 2010 as a breakaway faction of the Gulf cartel. 

México captura a Omar Trevino

Mexico's most wanted: Which drug lords have been captured under Enrique Peña Nieto?

Venezuela: US government announces new sanctions on Venezuela

Obama administration just threw an executive order announcing the targeting of seven Venezuelan officials, that the United States says, are involved in corruption in Venezuelan and violated human rights there. 

The President of the United Stated stated that the target of those individuals, and that the Treasury Department is authorized as well to  target other Venezuelan individuals. They claim that those peopole assets in the US will be frozen and prohibited form traveling to the country. Treasury will be able to add more people to their list. 

"We are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government's efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents. Venezuela's problems cannot be solved by criminalizing dissent," the White House said in a release. (cnbc.com)

Who are these officers?

Commander of the Strategic Defense Central Region Integral (REDI), Antonio Benavides Torres; the director of the political police SEBIN Gustavo González López; the president of the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana and former commander of the National Guard Noguera Just Pietri and prosecutor Katherine Haringhton. 

The complete list of sanctioned officers is complete with the director of the Bolivarian National Police Manuel Pérez Urdaneta, the commander of the 31 Armoured Brigade of the Army Manuel Bernal Martinez and the Inspector General of the Armed Forces Miguel Vivas Landino. 

Related posts and links: 

Obama declares "national emergency" 

Obama declara emergencia por amenaza de Venezuela a Estados Unidos

El Salvador: El Salvador announces a slow process and irregularities in vote counting

After having their elections past March 1st, El Salvador still has no answer about the final results. 

El Salvador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) announced the normalization of the vote counting process. Julio Olivo, the President of the TSE,  called on voters to remain calm as the final vote count could take up to seven days. As they reported that the preliminary count was suspended due to a system failure in the digital electoral database and that the votes would be counted manually. 

Opinion polls in the lead-up to the vote suggested that the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which currently controls 31 seats, had an 11-point advantage over its right-wing political rival the ARENA party. 

According to preliminary reports the FMLN has won 86 of the 262 mayorships of El Salvador in the March 1 elections, including the capital San Salvador.

Eventhough there are man groups and organizations showing their disconfort about the situation, Olivo said in an interview that no political party is going to tell them how to work.

"I'm telling you, you are not going to settle me down and I make you responsible for my personal intgrity" Olivo said. 

The Elections: 

At the beggining of the month,  Salvadoran citizens voted for:

 84 seats in Congress

 262 mayors

 3,000 municipal council members (aprox)

 20 representatives for the Central American Parliament

Related news:

Dirigntes denuncian irregulariddades en conteo

TSE valora abrir urnas tras inconsistencias

Piden ingreso sin restricciones a la prensa para el escrutinio final

FMNL favored in El Salvador's Municipal and Legislative Races