Peña Nieto: Time Cover, Barack Obama:In Mexico, Joaquin Guzman:Arrested

 This month has been particularly special in regards of Mexican International Politics due to 2 different events that took place during February to my eyes these 2 events are intrinsically related and somehow explain the overall outcome: The capture of the biggest drug lord in History  Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

 Enrique Peña Nieto, recently on the cover of Time Magazine, represented as Mexico's 'saviour.' However, reports have emerged that suggest the Mexican President may have paid Time Magazine's parent company, in order to appear on the magazine cover. A report from the government's General Direction for Communication Standards indicates that Peña Nieto's government paid Time Warner almost $50,000 in October 2013.

 The report, titled 'Information Concerning the Execution and Programming of Campaigns and Social Communication of The Federal Government In the Fiscal Year 2013' shows two payments made to Warner: one for $480,000.43 pesos and the second for $96,000.35 pesos, totaling $576,000 pesos, or $43,000 US dollars. The report does not specify what the funds were used for, however, given the outrage the magazine cover has sparked in Mexico it has given rise to speculation that Enrique Peña Nieto paid his way to the front. Under the banner of  "saving Mexico" on the cover of its February 24 International edition. Many who first saw this cover responded with "is this a Joke?" when people realized it wasn´t , it unleashed a backlash in Mexico and from Mexicans throughout the world toward Time and the cover´s story´s author, Michael Crowley.

So the real question was Can President Peña Nieto and his team really turn Mexico around?

Even by the standards of a country wracked by armed struggle against drug cartels, the arrival of the leader of the world’s last superpower: President Barak Obama  is cause for heightened security.

 As Barack Obama swept into the Mexican industrial city of Toluca my city, last week in his 10-ton armoured limo, an estimated 5,000 police were stationed on every street corner for miles around.

Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto waited nervously in the foyer of the state governor’s palace, hoping foreign praise for his economic reforms can help win over a sceptical domestic audience and put security fears aside.

 The program is part of an attempt at deepening commercial and cultural exchanges 20 years after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed. Economic analysts say the agreement unleashed previously unimaginable flows of goods among the three countries opened the Mexican economy, but that it needs to updated and better work out issues such as border delays and facilitating the movement of people and products, In reality there were no particular gains over that visit except for the agreement on a couple of issues pending on the International Agenda. However these two events are the anticipation for what was about to happen next, Would it be necessary for the Mexican President to legitimize the Cover and the visit by the following actions:  The Capture of the biggest drug lord in History.

 Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the world's biggest drug trafficker and Mexico's most-wanted fugitive, was captured Saturday in a joint U.S.-Mexican operation after more than a decade on the run, officials of both countries announced.

Guzman was arrested by agents who burst into the seaside condominium in the Sinaloa resort of Mazatlan where he had moved just two days earlier.

His capture was a huge symbolic blow to Mexican drug trafficking, a world in which he had reached folk hero status, and an important victory for the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto.

How Guzman's removal will affect the drug trade is less clear. His Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's oldest, richest and most powerful marijuana and opium organization, has already expanded to more than 50 countries in the Americas, Europe and Africa, and is likely to continue without him.

This is the biggest blow to drug trafficking by the Mexican government in many, many years. It will, at least for a while, affect the flow of drugs to the U.S., and perhaps also the violence in Mexico.