Nws Summary for November 8th, 2010

The Navy revealed details about last Friday’s operation in which Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén, alias “Tony Tormenta,” the brother of the Gulf cartel leader, was killed… At a news conference Rear Admiral José Luis Vergara said the operation had been planned for six months, authorities were hot on his trail but he had escaped on three occasions in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, because his bodyguards, known as Los Escorpiones, had saved him…
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U.S. President Barack Obama called President Felipe Calderón to congratulate him on the operation in which 'Tony Tormenta' was killed… He reiterated his government’s pledge to help Mexico in the fight against organized crime.
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Hundreds of people gathered in the Morelia cathedral to pray for 18 Michoacán residents whose bodies were found in a clandestine grave in Guerrero, less than a month after being kidnapped by a commando in Acapulco…During mass, Morelia Archbishop Alberto Suárez Inda demanded justice from authorities and that those to blame be captured…
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An armed commando assassinated seven people and wounded another in Ciudad Juárez… The victims were at a gathering in Frida Kahlo neighborhood… In more violence in Ciudad Juárez, two municipal police agents, male and female, were assassinated in a shopping mall parking lot…
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The former head of public security in Morelos, Luis Ángel Cabeza de Vaca, was incarcerated in a prison in El Rincón, Nayarit, accused of links to the Beltrán Leyva cartel…
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Low temperatures were expected to continue in most of Mexico because of a cold mass of air created by cold front number seven… The Health Secretariat said that it had stockpiled medications and staff to face the increase in respiratory diseases because of freezing weather…

News Summary for November 6th, 2010

++ The Navy Secretariat said that Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén, alias "Tony Tormenta," one of the top leaders of the Gulf cartel, was killed in a shootout with the armed forces in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, together with four gunmen. National Security Council spokesman Alejandro Poiré, said that “Tony Tormenta’s death was yet another important step forward in the process of dismantling criminal gangs that hurt Mexico.


++ The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Department closed three of the four international bridges linking Texas with Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Texas University in Brownsville cancelled classed and closed the campus on the border with Mexico after the shootouts. Reporter Carlos Alberto Guajardo,with the Expreso Matamoros newspaper, who had gone there to cover the shootout, was killed in the crossfire...

++ The Guerrero Attorney General’s Office confirmed that five of the 18 bodies found in a clandestine grave in Tunzingo, belong to Michoacán residents who disappeared in September in Acapulco. The Guerrero investigative police said that 16 of the 18 people whose bodies were found in the clandestine grave died from blows to the head while the other two died from gunshot wounds.

++ Federal police confirmed the death of Mario Ángel González Rodríguez, brother of former Chihuahua attorney general Patricia González. Agents arrested eight suspects accused in the kidnap and murder of González Rodríguez. The federal police added that the kidnapping was ordered by the Sinaloa cartel and the execution was ordered by a Chihuahua municipal police officer.

++ Federal police also captured Colombian Harold Mauricio Poveda Ortega, alias "El Conejo," whom the Public Security Secretariat considers to be the major cocaine provider for the Beltrán Leyva brothers drug cartel.

++ The Labor Secretariat said Mexicana de Aviación airline could be ready to fly again by late December.

++ President Felipe Calderón said the Mexican economy is doing better than showy economies like that of China, Brazil and India.

++ The Health Secretariat said that winter started early this year and could be harsher than prior ones.