Mexico Government Officials

Border agent Jose Luis Maldonado raises his binoculars and scans the desert horizon, looking for would-be migrants making the perilous crossing into the United States. When he finds them, he doesn't arrest them. Rather, he makes sure that they know what dangers they face and lets them go their way. If they're in trouble, he helps.

This Mexican capital has an open secret: Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wants to be the country's next president. But first he needs to tackle the traffic problem in this auto-choked metropolis before the 2006 elections. This feisty politician has a plan though, albeit an expensive and controversial one making headlines here almost daily. He is rushing through a $900-million project that would add an upper deck above 18 miles of roadways in this city of nearly 20 million people.

Arguably the most powerful man in Mexico after President Carlos Salinas de Gortari is a slight, bespectacled economist with a French accent and a deliberately low profile. Jose Cordoba Montoya is the president's closest adviser. The press and political pundits alternately refer to him as "a virtual vice president," "a prime minister" and "a combined secretary of state and presidential chief of staff." Or, the Henry A. Kissinger of Mexico.

Mexico's former ruling party officially installed Roberto Madrazo as its new leader Monday, averting a rupture even as it suffered a setback in efforts to clean up its image as a corrupt political machine. In a sign of reconciliation between candidates who only last week leveled bitter criticism at each other, Madrazo praised losing candidate Beatriz Paredes during his swearing-in ceremony.

The state prosecutor of Baja California was hastily replaced Wednesday amid blistering criticism for the removal of state police guarding a crusading Tijuana journalist just weeks before the journalist was wounded in a botched assassination attempt by the Tijuana drug cartel. The resignation of Jose Luis Anaya Bautista came less than a week after gunmen of the Tijuana drug cartel opened fire on Jesus Blancornelas on his way to work last Thursday, seriously wounding him and slaying his bodyguard.

Arturo (Blackie) Durazo seemed like a natural target for prosecution in a campaign against high-level corruption in Mexico--natural but, as it turns out, not easy. Durazo was an obscure federal policeman whose career suddenly blossomed in 1977 when a childhood friend, Jose Lopez Portillo, became president of Mexico. Lopez Portillo named Durazo--a portly man with bulldog jowls and, some say, bulldog instincts--as Mexico City's police chief.

Twelve years after a U.S. drug agent was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in Mexico, evidence has emerged that federal prosecutors relied on perjured testimony and false information, casting a cloud over the convictions of three men now serving life sentences. The evidence suggests that the U.S. government, in its zeal to solve the heinous killing of Enrique Camarena, induced corrupt former Mexican police to implicate top officials there in a conspiracy to plan his kidnapping.

In the midst of the worst electoral showing in 68 years by this nation's long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party last week, Vicente Teran Uribe is a bright spot--a clear winner and possibly a symbol of the future PRI. The landslide victory of the 41-year-old businessman, who funded his own campaign for mayor of this border town, came despite--and even with the aid of--a recent U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration report that named him as one of Mexico's 20 top narcotics traffickers.

A hit team fleeing the Guadalajara airport after killing a Roman Catholic cardinal and six other people last month handed off their automatic weapons to a cohort in waiting--a federal police officer hired to stash the guns in his car. A federal investigation of the assault quickly led officials to arrest the Jalisco state police chief, charging that he was on the payroll of the drug barons who had meant to kill rival trafficker Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman.

In a case with explosive political potential, Mexican federal authorities have issued arrest warrants for a deputy attorney general of the state of Baja California, a prosecutor and six state police officers in connection with last week's deadly shootout between federal agents and state officers who were guarding a drug kingpin, Mexican authorities said Sunday.

One of the highest-ranking former Mexican officials to be extradited on corruption charges returned Friday aboard a police jet, marking the latest but largely symbolic victory in the government's struggle to punish crimes of the old regime. Former Tourism Secretary and Mexico City Mayor Oscar Espinosa faces charges that he embezzled $45 million from city coffers. But he won a court injunction against his arrest, so it is unlikely that he will be convicted.

A Swiss investigator questioned the brother of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari for more than 10 hours in a prison outside Mexico City about $130 million that the Swiss believe came from drug trafficking activity. Swiss Judge Paul Perraudin told Raul Salinas de Gortari that there was enough evidence to bring drug trafficking and money laundering charges against him in Switzerland, where the money was banked.

For an evening, the "Tomato King" reigned. Andres Bermudez, the first U.S. citizen to win elected office in Mexico, took a weekend victory lap through Southern California to the thunderous applause of fellow natives of Mexico's central Zacatecas state. Bermudez, a Yolo County vegetable producer known as the "Tomato King," was elected mayor of Jerez, Zacatecas, on July 1, a victory that signals increasing flexibility in Mexico's political system.

For an evening, "the Tomato King" reigned. Andres Bermudez, the first U.S. citizen to win elected office in Mexico, took a victory lap through Southern California this weekend to the thunderous applause of fellow natives of Mexico's central Zacatecas state. Bermudez, a Yolo County farmer known as the Tomato King, was elected mayor of Jerez, Zacatecas, on July 1, a victory that signals increasing flexibility in Mexico's political system.

What many prominent Mexicans have long suspected--that their private lives are hardly their own--was confirmed here Saturday as federal investigators disclosed the discovery of a rogue espionage network that was spying on public officials, politicians and government agencies in the capital.

For nearly two decades, leftist academic Jorge Castaneda was one of the most influential analysts of power in Mexico. Now, as foreign minister, he's putting his theories to work as he exercises power himself. "I'm a person of ideas--that's what I've been doing for the last 20 years," said the longtime columnist, prolific author and political advisor. "I write stuff and I say, 'This is what should be done, blah, blah, blah.' And all of a sudden, I have a chance to put them into practice.

Mexico's controversial drug czar, Javier Coello Trejo, was removed from his post Monday after repeated charges that federal anti-narcotics police under his authority committed widespread human rights abuses. Coello, 42, was named Monday night as federal attorney general for the consumer, a position that officials portrayed as a promotion but which, in reality, is far less powerful than his old job.

The controversy over the alleged solicitation of a $1 million bribe for a Mexican government contract now has moved into the British courts, where a former IBM representative and a former Cabinet minister accuse each other of slander. The case has proven highly embarrassing for the Mexican government, which has worked hard to eliminate even the appearance of official corruption in recent years.

Now that Mexico's most talked about office romance has ended with the marriage of President Vicente Fox and Martha Sahagun, the bride can turn to shaping her new role as possibly the most public, powerful and controversial first lady this nation has ever had. Mexican first ladies traditionally have been ornaments whose only official task is the largely ceremonial role of leading the country's major family welfare agency.

His political honeymoon over, President Vicente Fox began another one Monday, marrying spokeswoman Martha Sahagun in an early morning ceremony at the presidential residence. The private ceremony took place on the one-year anniversary of Fox's historic victory last July 2, when he ended the Institutional Revolutionary Party's 71 years in power. Monday was also Fox's 59th birthday.