Venezuela's Chávez recovering from surgery

Venezuela's acting president Nicolás Maduro announced on state television that President Hugo Chávez had successfully received cancer surgery in Havana on 11 December and was in recovery; Venezuelans would be informed of his physical progress in coming days, Venezuela's state news agency cited him as saying. He said doctors had informed officials who accompanied Chávez to Havana of the "complex" six-hour surgery carried out; these included the speaker of Venezuela's parliament, the prosecutor-general and the science and oil ministers who Maduro said "are like daughters and sons to Chávez more than politicians." He thanked Latin American leaders and officials who had sent expressions of support, but apparently said nothing about a similar statement by the US State Department in recent days. Maduro also urged the "adversaries, opponents and even enemies of our fatherland, and above all those who are Venezuelans, who exude their hate and venom every day: stop it, stop this poison, stop the hate against" Chávez. Maduro urged an extensive voter participation in regional elections scheduled for 16 December.

Former policeman among six killed in Mexico

A former police chief from the north-western state of Sinaloa reported kidnapped on 10 December was found dead the next day with "his face destroyed;" he was one of six people reported killed by suspected criminals in Mexico on 10-11 December. The body of Alfredo Mejía Pérez, the former head of Sinaloa's state Preventive Police was found in the district of El Limón de los Ramos north of the city of Culiacán. Victims that day included three men gunned down in a bar in the northern city of Torreón; armed men entered the bar, and lined the three up behind the drinks bar to execute them, Proceso reported.

Hugo Chávez stirs emotions, sympathies in illness

Moved to tears by his own words or by circumstances, Venezuela's acting president Nicolás Maduro reiterated in public on 10 December the enduring loyalty of Venezuelans to President Hugo Chávez, who was in Cuba for treatment of a resurgent cancer. Maduro was shown speaking to a crowd of supporters, many also in tears, at the inauguration of a cable-car line in Caracas; on 8 December Chávez handed him his powers for his "temporary absence," though opposition politicians were demanding by 10 December that the public be told of the president's state of health. Certain opposition members, and the US State Department, urged that constitutional provisions be respected in case of a power transition, Globovisión reported on 10 December. This meant general elections must be called if Chávez were unable to return to work. Vice-President Maduro prayed for recovery however and said "Chávez has a people, he has us and will have us for ever in this battle from victory to victory," EFE reported. Messages of encouragement and sympathy were emitted by American governments of all persuasions; Ecuador's Rafael Correa was visiting him in Cuba. In Argentina, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner recalled speaking in Buenos Aires in 9 December that Chávez had helped "Argentina when nobody was helping it," and asked God to "give him back" his health, Venezuela's El Universal reported. The daily observed on 11 December that the illness was of particular concern to Nicaragua's Sandinista regime, a recipient of generous financial help from Venezuela since 2007.

Gang "terrorises" Mexican town, 16 killed

Sixteen or 17 people were shot dead in the town of Guadalupe y Calvo in the northern state of Chihuahua during 7-9 December, apparently by gangsters intermittently patrolling the town unchecked, Proceso reported. The gunmen, described as possible members of a gang associated with the Sinaloa drug cartel, turned the town into a "war zone" when they arrived late on 7 December, Proceso reported citing witnesses. The killings continued after army and police reinforcements were reported to have mobilized in response; five of the victims were killed on the afternoon of 8 December or later. Proceso cited residents as saying on 8 December that they remained mostly at home, while the gunmen circulated around "the streets in absolute calm, dressed in military gear and in super-equipped and armoured" estate vehicles. "They have everything," a resident said; the website observed that residents found out "on the news" that troops were acting to retake control of the area. Separately a "young man" and possible criminal was found dead on 8 December half-naked and apparently after being "tortured," in the district of Carichí in the state of Chihuahua, Proceso reported. A note was left by his body that this was "for killing women and children, which you don't do," signed by La Línea. This was presumably the gang of gunmen of the same name active in Chihuahua in recent years, though there was no immediate confirmation.

Rebel shot dead in Colombia, gang suspects held

Colombian forces shot dead on 8 December a commander of the National Liberation Army (ELN) dubbed Duber in the northern department of Antióquia, the broadcaster Caracol reported. He was described as a veteran bomb-maker and number three in the command hierarchy of the Capitán Mauricio unit of the ELN, Colombia's second largest rebel force after the FARC. The broadcaster also reported the arrest in the same department of a member of one of the country's main drug gangs called Los Urabeños; the suspect identified as Jorge Luis Cordero Márquez or 400, was detained in the district of Yarumal at an unspecified date. Police announced on 7 December the arrests of two other members of Los Urabeños, detained on an estate in the district of Ayapel in the northern department of Córdoba, El Espectador reported. The two, respectively dubbed in the criminal underworld Boca de Perro and Montiel, were sought for suspected crimes including criminal conspiracy and attempted murder in the former's case and illegally making and carrying arms for Montiel. Early on 10 December, five people were shot dead in a shopping centre or store in the district of Villavicencio, south-east of the capital Bogotá. Six were injured in the attack and the gunmen fled, Caracol reported.

Colombian rebels said to have broken ceasefire pledge

They had promised not to attack for two months from 20 November while talking peace with the Colombian state, but this pledge by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was apparently broken by a deadly mortar or explosives attack on 8 December, which the army attributed to the FARC. An army colonel said members of the FARC's Sixth Front were suspected to have thrown explosives at houses in a rural zone of the district of Caloto in the Cauca department, killing a man and injuring three women, the daily El Espectador reported. One of the injured was a 16-year-old girl. "We don't know where the ceasefire is because look what happened here," El Tiempo cited a relative of the victims as saying. The daily cited the head of the army's anti-terrorist Apollo Task force General Jorge Humberto Jerez Cuellar as saying that troops were two kilometres from the site of the incident, meaning this could not have been a defensive action. Another army spokesman was reported as saying that there had been no recent clashes in this area. Jerez was cited by the same daily as saying on 20 November that the FARC broke their ceasefire pledge hours after declaring it. They apparently failed in their bid to draw soldiers onto a minefield that day. On 9 December, the FARC publicly urged the Colombian Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón Bueno to start a "verbal ceasefire" and stop his alleged hostility to ongoing peace conversations in Havana. "We urge the Defence Minister to at least end his verbal hostility, which is incessantly firing at the peace process," the rebel and FARC negotiator dubbed Iván Márquez stated in Havana, reading out a communiqué. The statement added that peace depended not just on negotiators but on the "involvement of the national country" and the "common people," El Espectador reported.

Venezuela's ailing leader envisages succession

Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez Frías handed over responsibilities to his vice-president, foreign minister and possible successor as head of the socialist regime Nicolás Maduro Moros, hours before travelling to Cuba on 10 December for surgery against a resurgent cancer first diagnosed in 2011. Speaking on Venezuelan television late on 8 December, he said "With God''s favour we will come out victorious and go forward," indicating that his cancer had recurred in February 2012 and been cured. He said surgery was deemed necessary now as he was in pain and admitted there were "risks" involved, but he reminded Venezuelans "this revolution does not depend on just one man" and had a "collective leadership," Venezuela's state news agency reported. Maduro was now acting president in keeping with constitutional provisions for the head of state's "temporary absence." This could only be until 10 January 2013 when Chávez was to be sworn in for his new presidential term, jurist José Peña Solís told the Venezuelan daily El Nacional. He contemplated a situation of particular political gravity if he did not return to his duties by then for death or physical incapacity. The constitutional jurist Pedro Afonso separately told El Nacional that this would effectively reactivate the electoral machinery. The constitution he said, required the parliamentary speaker - to be chosen with a new parliamentary presidium on 5 January - to take over the executive branch on 10 January and call general elections within 30 days of doing so.

Fifty or so killed in crimes around Mexico

Some 50 people, or perhaps more, were reported shot or found dead in presumed criminal incidents around Mexico on 5-7 December, many in the form of bodies buried in clandestine graves. Among the victims: six men were shot dead on 5 December in the northern city of Gómez Palacio in the state of Durango, while police found a ditch in Jiutepec in the south-central state of Morelos, containing the remains of two adults, a child and a baby. The review Proceso numbered at 14 or more those killed or found dead on 5-6 December. It reported at least 35 victims on 6-7 December, including 13 bodies found in two lorries on 6 December in the districts of Soto la Marina and Ciudad Mante in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas, and four bodies found hanging from a bridge in the northern city of Saltillo early on 7 December, Proceso reported. The lorries likely contained the bodies of members of The Zetas cartel, as messages were found addressed to the cartel signed by its rivals the Gulf Cartel. In the district of Calera in the north-central state of Zacatecas a ditch or grave was found on 6 December, revealing "at least" 11 bodies.

Salvadorean president sees "unprecedented" crime fall

President Mauricio Funes Cartagena said in San Salvador on 5 December that his country was living an "unprecedented process" of decline in criminality even as crime rates were rising elsewhere in Latin America, and this partly for the truce that began last March between the main gangs, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported. He said at a graduation ceremony for 65 army and airforce officers that El Salvador "faces a unique opportunity to advance on the path to becoming a country with real democracy and peace." This "pacification process" he added was not just for the gang truce arranged by mediators, but also for the efforts of the army and police. The country's Justice and Public Security Minister David Munguía Payés spoke last October of a steady decline in crime in 2012, asserting that it fell more sharply after the start of the gang truce on 8 March and unspecified police operations, El Mundo reported at the time. Munguía cited a 38.4 per cent fall in crime in 2012 compared to 2011 - without specifying dates for the January-October period - and a comparative fall in crimes of 68 per cent for the period after 8 March. Separately El Salvador and Russia signed a security agreement in Moscow on 6 December focused on fighting drug trafficking, El Mundo reported. The agreement was signed by Munguía and the head of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service Viktor Ivanov. Its provisions included exchange of information, "technological investigation" and training programmes.

Nicaragua, Colombia in peaceful standoff over sea frontier

Reports indicated Colombian ships remained present in Caribbean waters which the International Court at The Hague recently ruled Colombia should cede to Nicaragua to settle a border dispute; it was not immediately clear if Colombia was simply ignoring the ruling. Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said after the 19 November decision that Colombia would use all peaceful means to defend the rights of citizens living in islands and cays now surrounded by Nicaraguan waters, and he and Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega agreed on 1 December not to resort to force. Ortega told a military gathering in Managua on 5 December that Nicaragua would not seek UN help against "Colombian frigates" in its territorial waters but use "communication," the broadcaster Caracol reported, citing EFE.  Which resolution could the UN Security Council issue, he asked? "You only need a country to put a veto and there is no solution there," he said, adding there was no hostility now and the two navies maintained communications that were "serene, serious, without aggression." He was separately reported as saying, perhaps at the same event, that he had reassured Santos about his concerns over the fate of the Flor de Mar nature reserve now mostly inside Nicaraguan waters. Ortega said he promised Santos permits would not be given to explore oil in the UNESCO-listed biosphere reserve and that Colombians living in the San Andrés Archipelago would still be allowed to fish in Nicaraguan waters, Portafolio reported on 6 December, citing agency reports.

Mexico City has a new mayor, cabinet

Mexico City changed mayors on 5 December as the leftist Miguel Ángel Mancera Espinosa, elected in the July 2012 general elections, replaced the popular Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon of the socialist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). The mayor of Mexico City has the rank of a state governor. Mancera was the candidate of the Progressive Movement in the elections and backed by several parties including the PRD. He defeated two high-profile rivals in the former president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party Beatriz Paredes Rangel and the conservative anti-crime activist Isabel Miranda de Wallace, backed by the National Action Party. With his victory the Left retained its political control of the capital and enjoyed a very considerable political boost in the otherwise disappointing election. Mancera presented his cabinet on 5 December, a team including former city officials, former ministers and leftist eminences. The most notable appointment was of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, the capital's first elected mayor in the 1990s and founder of the PRD. Mancera made the researcher René Drucker Colín Science Secretary and the academic and entrepreneur Miguel Torruco Marqués Tourism Secretary, CNNMéxico reported. These were considered close to the former presidential candidate and former PRD leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had reportedly envisaged them as ministers if elected president. Other appointments included: Hector Serrano Cortés as Governance Secretary - effectively deputy-mayor and administrative chief - Jesús Rodríguez Almeida as Public Security Secretary in charge of policing, and Rodolfo Ríos Garza as the capital's chief prosecutor, CNN and the website ADNpolítico reported.

Eighteen or more killed in Mexico in three days

At least 18 people including teenagers were reported killed or found dead in suspected criminal incidents around Mexico on 4-6 December. Victims included three youngsters aged 15, 17 and 22, "executed" in the northern district of Lerdo in the state of Durango, and four women found dead in the district of El Durazno in the north-central state of Zacatecas with "torture" marks on their bodies, Proceso reported on 5 December. A woman and her 14-year-old son were gunned down at home on 4 December in the district of Bocoyna in the northern state of Chihuahua; the mother, Edna Delfina Rodríguez González, was an assistant to the senator of the conservative National Action Party Javier Corral Jurado. Another politician Miguel Ángel Torres, head of the PANAL (Nueva Alianza) party in west-coast Acapulco was gunned down early on 5 December on Acapulco's main coastal boulevard, the Avenida Miguel Alemán. An 18 year-old was shot dead early on 6 December in the district of Naucalpán outside the capital, Milenio and Notimex reported. a 15-year-old friend or relative of the victim was wounded in this attack. The daily also reported the arrests of two suspected kidnappers in the western district of Ometepec on 4 December, in an operation in which police freed a presumed hostage, and of three men found with an arsenal in Víctor Rosales in the state of Zacatecas. Items confiscated from them included assault rifles, ammunition, a machine gun, three cars and communication equipment, Milenio reported on 6 December.

El Salvador's gangs to "disarm" in 10 districts

El Salvador's main criminal gangs agreed on 4 December to a proposal to turn 10 districts into "peace sanctuaries" - apparently without arms or gang violence - in what was described as the second phase of a pioneer decriminalisation process that began in March 2012, the Salvadorean daily El Mundo reported. This phase was announced on 23 November by mediators and the Security Ministry, which were to determine the districts, so far unnamed, the website La página reported. The gangs were to hand over their arms there at an unspecified date to the chief mediators in the process, the former leftist militant Raúl Mijango and the army bishop, Monsignor Fabio Colindres Abarca. A spokesman for the gangs read out a communiqué to this effect at a meeting in a prison in San Salvador attended by the facilitators, gang leaders and an envoy of the Organisation of American States (OAS) Carlos Orozco; the OAS has pledged to aid the process. The gangs concerned were MS-13 or Mara Salvatrucha, M-18, La Mao-Mao, La Máquina and La Mirada Locos. The spokesman, a leader of M-18 dubbed El Viejo Lin, said the disarmament would benefit some 900,000 people and the proposal was a "realistic and objective" step in the process to solve "the problem of violence" in El Salvador. Other gang leaders speaking at the meeting urged a repeal of anti-gang laws, which one said were too many and an impediment "to the continuation of the process." Nevertheless they thanked President Mauricio Funes and the Papal Nuncio, Monsignor Luigi Pezzuto, for their collaboration so far.

Pact with government further divides Mexican Left

Members of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) distanced themselves on 3 December from the multi-party Pact for Mexico signed earlier by the party's leader Jesús Zambrano Grijalva, echoing the party's earlier reservations about a pact that included the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The PRD, its political allies and protest groups bitterly challenged the PRI's general-elections victory last July, alleging there had been fraud. The pact appeared to open another crack in this party, following the departure of its former leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador to start his own political movement. The Pact for Mexico, promoted by President Enrique Peña Nieto, was to facilitate legislation through prior party agreements. But the PRD's secretary-general and deputy-head Alejandro Sánchez Camacho stated in a communiqué that the party did not recognize the signature and its political committee would debate Zambrano's initiative, El Universal reported. The daily noted that Sánchez belonged to the National Democratic Left current (Izquierda Democrática Nacional) within the PRD, distinct from Zambrano's reforming New Left current, which apparently had more support. He criticised Zambrano for letting himself be "wooed" by Peña Nieto's declarations and said his signature was "in a private capacity" and had "no validity" for lacking the approbation of party mechanisms. Zambrano defended his decision to sign on 2 December as "a risk worth taking," Milenio reported on 3 December. Differences with other parties persisted, he said, but the PRD was committed to reforms in Mexico. "We are profoundly dissatisfied with the state of our country," with problems too big to be solved by a "single force or a single man," he said.

Almost 87,000 Colombians caught HIV virus

There were 86,990 registered cases in Colombia of infection with HIV - the virus that destroys the human immune system and causes AIDS - between the first reported case in 1983 and the end of 2011, the health ministry stated on 1 December, World Aids Day. A ministry communiqué stated that 7,991 infections were for the year 2011 and 93 per cent of those had been through sexual intercourse, Spain's EFE reported. The greatest number of HIV infections that year occurred in Bogotá - 1,609 - while the age groups with most infections were of 25-29 and 30-34 years, with 17.98 and 16.46 per cent of all infections in Colombia. The agency cited an adviser to the ministry as stressing the need for a "community response" and collaborative actions by civic groups to help curb infections, beside the state's promotion of "official access to prevention" and assistance to infected individuals. The ministry stated that infections remained "concentrated" among "more vulnerable" groups, particularly men who had sex with men. Separately, police arrested on 1 December a truck driver who may have "recklessly" infected some 50 women with HIV over several years while knowing he was HIV-positive, El Tiempo reported on 3 December. The 57-year-old who was diagnosed with HIV in 2006, may be jailed for 72 months on the charge of acting against public health. Police said the "50 or more" women he may have infected during his "uncontrolled sexual life" included a 16-year-old virgin whom he raped in 2007. Apparently that encounter first brought him to police attention.

Mexican parties sign Pact to facilitate reforms

Mexico's three main political parties signed the Pact for Mexico (Pacto por México) on 2 December, pledging to collaborate on legislative initatives and forward the agenda of structural and economic reforms touted by the new President Enrique Peña Nieto, Reuters reported. In this pact, the parties would negotiate initiatives before voting and consult with sectors in society when formulating legislation. "We have to talk to build consensus...as politicians we need to turn coincidences into a basis for reaching essential agreements," Peña Nieto said during the signature ceremony in Chapultepec Castle, the former imperial and presidential residence in Mexico City. The agency observed that fundamental reforms were suspended in Mexico in recent years as parties refused to pay the political cost of unpopular initiatives proposed by the conservative governments that ruled Mexico in 2000-2012; this halted cross-party collaboration in parliament. Mexico's interior minister Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong cited the first initiatives to be discussed in this pact as relating to an ordering of public finances in indebted states and municipalities and to fomenting competition in broadcasting and telecommunications. An editorial on 3 December in the daily Excelsior welcomed the move as "an excellent signal for society" and observed that "the first impression" it gave was that "the new government and...the parties really negotiated and offer a serious document with 95 more or less concrete commitments gathering many of the three forces' proposals" in the July 2012 general elections. The pact's implementation, it added, would depend on tax reforms that would "significantly increase" the state's capacity to finance itself, given the inclusion of pledges relating to social security. Spokesmen for the three main parties - the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), conservative National Action Party (PAN) and socialist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) - also welcomed the pact, expressing hope it would benefit Mexico. The PAN's parliamentary coordinator Alberto Villarreal said his party would not "deny our country the reforms needed for its advancement. We will not be the ones to impede Mexico's advancement and growth," El Universal reported. He was perhaps referring to the two PAN governments' inability to legislate reforms in the preceding 12 years for lack of support from other parties, particularly the PRI.

FARC rebels killed in Colombia, Panama

Four members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were killed and three arrested in army operations in two districts of Colombia on 1 December, Agence France-Presse reported. Three died when planes bombed a FARC base in the Vista Hermosa district in the south-central department of Meta; three FARC members were arrested in that locality. Troops also shot dead a FARC rebel in the district of Lejanías, also in Meta. The FARC announced a unilateral two-month ceasefire on 20 December while negotiating in Havana to end their longstanding conflict with the Colombian state, insisting however that their fighters would defend themselves; the government ruled out halting security operations before any agreement were signed. On 30 November Panamanian police shot dead a presumed FARC member and arrested seven in the Chepigana district of the Darién province, near Colombia's frontier, Reuters reported citing police declarations. Police confiscated "20 bags of cocaine" and an unspecified quantity of arms.

Crime violence continues as Mexico changes leaders

Mexico's presidential transition was no excuse for organized crime to interrupt its activities, and about 20 were reported shot dead or found dead between 28 November and 1 December. Ten "at least" were reported killed on 28-29 November, apparently in addition to those reported earlier as killed on 28 November; victims included the police chief of the locality of Cocula in the western state of Guerrero and a colleague, "executed by gunmen" late on 28 November, Proceso reported on 30 November. Two policemen were gunned down on 30 November in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, south of the western city of Guadalajara. On 1 December, five bodies were reported found around the north-central city of Zacatecas with messages from the Gulf Cartel to their rivals The Zetas. These stated that the executions were because The Zetas had not taken up "the opportunity" their rivals had given them to abandon the area, Proceso reported on 1 December. Four policemen were also killed or found dead in and around the northern city of Torreón on 30 November or early on 1 December, the state government of Coahuila announced. Another recently reported crime was the killing of a 14-year-old "bike-taxi" driver in the state of Morelos south of the capital, for unexplained motives. The teenager, named Miguel Ángel, drove passengers on a vehicle consisting of a passenger seat pulled by a motorbike; apparently stoned to death, he was found on 27 November in the locality of Xoxocotla where he lived, near his burned vehicle, Milenio reported on 28 November.

Youth protest as Mexican president takes office

Media reported over 90 arrests in the Mexican capital on 1 December during protests coinciding with the formal inauguration of Enrique Peña Nieto's presidency. His victory in July's general elections was marked by fraud allegations and a rejection of results by many students and the Leftist coalition led then by Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Public property was damaged in the protests, which the mayor Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon qualified as unprecedented and including "acts of barbarism." Spain's El País wrote of moments of chaos in the capital; Ebrard said 65 of the detained would face vandalism or related charges, Europa Press reported. The website Proceso separately reported protests in several states and districts, as well as a 40-minute delay to Peña Nieto's swearing-in inside parliament for disruptive conduct by left-wing parliamentarians. Allies of López Obrador raised banners that accused the outgoing president of handing over a "blood-soaked" presidential seat - for waging war on crime - or declaring "Imposition Consumed - Mexico in mourning." López Obrador himself addressed supporters in the capital that day, declaring he refused to recognize Peña Nieto for his "illegitimate and illegal" election, Europa Press reported, citing the daily La Jornada. He said the new interior minister Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong should resign for the "violent" response to protests, as should the police minister Manuel Mondragón for not assuring protesters' security. The government also condemned the violence. Peña Nieto separately promised 13 reforming measures that day, addressing the nation as president, Europa Press reported. The initiatives he promised included: introducing a universal social security system, educational reforms, measures to reduce crime violence, legislation to curb debt in public administrations and state governments and constitutional reform to ensure a single legal code and penal procedures applicable nationwide. The president had earlier touted a Pact for Mexico wherein all parties would cooperate to push through systemic reforms, though it was not yet clear if left-wing parties such as the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) would give it their backing.

Mexico has a new president, cabinet

Felipe Calderón formally handed over the Mexican presidency to Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in a short ceremony in the National Palace in Mexico City, enacted just after midnight on 1 December, CNN reported. Peña Nieto later had members of his Security Cabinet sworn in at the National Palace. He expressed satisfaction then at the completion of an "orderly, legal and transparent" transition of power. Calderón hosted a farewell dinner hours before the handover, while Peña Nieto was to have a more grandiose inauguration as President of Mexico later on 1 December. On 30 November he presented his cabinet to the public, CNNMéxico reported. Among its most prominent members: Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, a 48-year-old lawyer and formerly general coordinator for Policy and Security in Peña Nieto's transitional team became the interior minister (Secretario de gobernación), and José Antonio Meade Kuribreña foreign minister. Meade was the finance minister since September of the outgoing conservative government, and previously served as its energy minister. General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda was the new Defence Minister and Admiral Vidal Francisco Soberón Sanz the Navy Minister, heading a body closely involved so far in the war on drug cartels. Manuel Mondragón y Kalb was made minister for Public Security and Institutional Planning, though it was not clear how long this post would last, given Peña Nieto's plans to eliminate the Public Security or police ministry created by Calderón. Mondragón was a prominent member of the Mexico City government under its outgoing leftist mayor Marcelo Ebrard and the capital's police chief in 2008-December 2012. Luis Videgaray Caso was the new finance minister: a close collaborator of Peña Nieto, he served with him when Peña Nieto was governor of Estado de México, as his election campaign manager and then general coordinator of his transitional team in July-December 2012. Female ministers included: the physician Mercedes Juan López in Health, Claudia Ruiz Massieu Salinas in Tourism, and the leftist Rosario Robles Berlanga in Social Development.