Drug kingpin El Chapo had same powers as my predecessor: Mexico's president

Current Affairs
Mexico President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador finished off 2019 with a splitting took shots at his ancestors, saying detained tranquilize boss Joaqun "El Chapo" Guzmn Loera had a similar power as the nation's leader.
In a video message from the southern city of Palenque on Wednesday, Lpez Obrador described his organization's achievements in its first year and featured its difficulties preeminent flooding viciousness. He said he had just discarded the significant level debasement that was widespread in past governments, however said it was urgent to draw a brilliant line between criminal components and specialists so the different sides don't blend as they had before.
"In the past Guzmn had a similar power or had the impact that the then president had ... since there had been a trick and that made it hard to rebuff the individuals who perpetrated violations. That has just become history, gone to the landfill of history," Lpez Obrador said.
It had all the earmarks of being a reference to the arraignment and capture a month ago of Mexico's previous open security secretary Genaro Garca Luna. Garca Luna was open wellbeing secretary in President Felipe Calderon's Cabinet from 2006 to 2012. Prior to joining Calderon's administration, Garca Luna drove Mexico's likeness the FBI, the Federal Investigative Agency, under President Vicente Fox.

He was charged in government court in New York with three tallies of dealing cocaine and one tally of offering bogus expressions. He had been living in Florida and was captured in Texas. US investigators assert he acknowledged a huge number of dollars in influences from Guzmn's Sinaloa cartel and in return enabled it to work without obstruction. Guzmn was sentenced on tranquilize scheme charges in New York. He was condemned a year ago to life in jail...Read More

Mexico grants asylum to Bolivia's Evo Morales for humanitarian reasons

International News
Mexico has said it has granted asylum to Bolivia's Evo Morales, after the leftist president's resignation left the South American nation reeling amid a power vacuum.
"Several minutes ago I received a phone call from (former) president Evo Morales in which he responded to our offer and verbally and formally requested political asylum in our country," Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told a news conference on Monday.
"The Mexican foreign ministry, after consulting Interior Minister Olga Sanchez Cordero, made the decision to grant him asylum... for humanitarian reasons." Morales's "life and physical integrity are at risk in Bolivia," added Ebrard, saying Mexico had asked the Bolivian foreign ministry to grant the former president safe conduct.
Ebrard did not answer journalists' questions on whether Morales would travel to Mexico, and if so when he would arrive. A Peruvian military source later said a Mexican air force plane had arrived in Peru's capital, Lima, en route to get Morales in Bolivia."We still don't have a departure time," the source told AFP.
Peruvian government sources said the plane was waiting for permission from Bolivian aviation authorities to take off.Mexico had said Sunday it was prepared to grant Morales asylum, after he stepped down amid massive protests and growing unrest over his fraud-stained re-election to a fourth term on October 20.
Morales, 60, had been in power since 2006.

Mexico, currently led by leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has repeatedly said Morales was the victim of a "coup." The country is already hosting a large group of Morales government officials and allied lawmakers in its embassy in Bolivia. Originally, there were 20 of them, but Ebrard said earlier Monday that there are now "many more."....READ MORE

Walmart to pay $282 mn for violating anti-corruption rules in 4 countries

Company News

International retail giant Walmart Thursday agreed to pay over $282 to various US bodies to settle charges of violating anti-corruption regulations while conducting its business in India, China, Brazil and Mexico.

According to the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), these violations were conducted by Walmart's third-party intermediaries who made payments to foreign government officials without reasonable assurances that they complied with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or FCPA.
SEC has charged Walmart with violating FCPA by failing to operate a sufficient anti-corruption compliance programme for more than a decade as the retailer experienced rapid international growth.Walmart agreed to pay more than $144 million to settle the SEC's charges and approximately $138 million to resolve parallel criminal charges by the Department of Justice for a combined total of more than $282 million, SEC said.

"Walmart valued international growth and cost-cutting over compliance," said Charles Cain, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division's FCPA Unit."The company could have avoided many of these problems, but instead Walmart repeatedly failed to take red flags seriously and delayed the implementation of appropriate internal accounting controls," he said.

Walmart consented to the SEC's order finding that it violated the books and records and internal accounting controls provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.


 According to the SEC's order, Walmart failed to sufficiently investigate or mitigate certain anti-corruption risks and allowed subsidiaries in Brazil, China, India, and Mexico to employ third-party intermediaries who made payments to foreign government officials without reasonable assurances that they complied with the FCPA.