Germany and other Western powers have repeatedly called on Assad to step down to put an end to protests against his government, which have triggered a violent backlash from his security forces.

Syrian security forces have killed more than 5,000 people in the past year, according to human rights groups, while the Assad government says more than 2,000 soldiers and security agents have been killed.

“We will adopt further sanctions in Europe, and not just in Europe,” Westerwelle told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 20 economic powers in Los Cabos, Mexico.

“I believe sanctions will be tightened in the next week, because the violence is continuing,” he said, when asked whether Europe would adopt measures to blacklist Syria’s central bank.

Westerwelle declined to name specific sanctions under consideration, but a G20 official at the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the EU was on course to agree to measures to curb the central bank’s ability to operate.

EU diplomats said this month they were working on a new round of sanctions against Syria, which they hope to finalize by February 27. These would include a freeze on the Syrian central bank’s assets as well as on most transactions with it.

Westerwelle said it was time to raise diplomatic pressure against Syria, and received support from the United States and Britain in Mexico, who also urged China and Russia to do more.

“We’ll send a clear message to Russia, China and others who are still unsure about how to handle the increasing violence, but are up until now unfortunately making the wrong choices,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters.

Beijing and Moscow angered the West and Arab states this month when they vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that backed an Arab plan demanding Assad step aside.

On Monday, the two powers showed support for Assad.

Assad met a senior Russian politician in Damascus, who reiterated Moscow’s backing for his self-styled reform program and spoke out against any foreign intervention in the conflict, Russian and Syrian news agencies reported.

China accused Western countries of stirring up civil war in Syria and two Iranian warships docked at a Syrian naval base, underscoring rising international tensions over the crisis.

BORROWED TIME

Westerwelle said he expected a meeting in Tunisia organized by the Arab League later this week to strengthen the hand of the Syrian opposition, which is hoping for official recognition as a government-in-waiting.

Clinton said the February 24 meeting in Tunisia of the “Friends of Syria,” organized by the Arab League to build international momentum against Assad, would help weaken Assad’s government.

“Like the U.N. general assembly resolution that passed overwhelmingly last week, the upcoming meeting will demonstrate that Assad’s regime is increasingly isolated and that the brave Syrian people need our support and solidarity,” she said.

“We have to prepare for the likelihood that the Syrian regime is going to be under increasing pressure which will create perhaps more space for all of us to push hard on a transition, and we will intensify our diplomatic outreach to those countries that are still supporting the Assad regime.”

Arab countries will encourage the Syrian opposition to unite before they formally recognize them as a government-in-waiting, Tunisia’s government said as it prepared to host the meeting.

The Syrian National Council (SNC) has emerged as the international voice of the uprising but has yet to show a real command over grassroots activists and an armed insurgency.

British Foreign Office minister responsible for relations with Latin America, Jeremy Browne, said Assad’s government no longer reflected the will of its people and urged dissenters in the U.N. Security Council to provide a solution to the problem.

“We’d like to see the Russians and Chinese come forward with more suggestions on how we can bring about peace in Syria,” he said. “The regime is existing on borrowed time.”

(Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn and Krista Hughes; editing by Todd Eastham)

Seething over his wafer-thin election loss to conservative
Felipe Calderon in 2006, the fiery leftist shook Mexico with
some of the biggest street protests in its history, damning its
institutions and declaring himself the rightful president.

Yet since recently winning the support of Mexico’s main
leftist parties to run again for president, Lopez Obrador has
made a sharp U-turn, preaching love and forgiveness to win back
voters who had been turned off by his protests and clamor.

The former mayor of Mexico City flanked his new approach
with a drive to reach out to private business and reassure
voters he will not put the economy at risk, charges that cost
him dear in the final stages of the last election campaign,
when his lead over Calderon evaporated.

The new message has forced Lopez Obrador into a delicate
balancing act, struggling to convince waverers to follow him
down the road to the “loving republic” he now invokes, while
still firing up his core supporters.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Full election coverage: [ID:nMEXVOTE]

Factbox on candidates: [ID:nN1E7AF0KG]

Political risks in Mexico: [ID:nRISKMX]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>

On campaign last week in the southern state of Chiapas,
Lopez Obrador set out his stall as a man of peace, urging his
followers to “practice love of thy neighbor” and insisting his
rivals were not enemies but people “just as desperate” as the
rest in Mexico, where around half the population is poor.

Then, in an instant, he switched into tearing up his
adversaries, conjuring up visions of decadence, slavery and
dictatorship if voters fail to heed his calls for change.

Particular scorn was reserved for the opposition
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which leads the race,
drawing on much of the same base of support as Lopez Obrador.

“If the PRI comes back it would be terrible,” Lopez Obrador
shouted in the town of Chiapa de Corzo. “It would be like the
return of that great dictator, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.”

Best known in the United States for his attack on the Alamo
in Texas in 1836, general Santa Anna has gone down in Mexican
history as a dictator blamed for the loss of half the country’s
territory to the giant northern neighbor in the 1830s and
1840s.

BEST KNOWN POLITICIAN

Lopez Obrador led the the field for most of the 2006
campaign but most opinion polls this time around show him with
support of just under 20 percent.

“He’s pursuing a really difficult strategy, because it’s a
very abrupt change to go from a hard, combative politician to a
conciliatory one,” said Federico Berrueto, director general of
polling firm Gabinete de Comunicacion Estrategica (GCE).

Fronting a leftist alliance dominated by the Party of the
Democratic Revolution (PRD), Lopez Obrador has pledged to
create 7 million jobs to keep young people out of the clutches
of drug gangs, whose turf wars during a crackdown launched by
Calderon’s government have claimed 47,000 lives, damaging
Mexico’s reputation with tourists and investors.

Lopez Obrador is pledging to revitalize state oil monopoly
Pemex, guarantee university education for all, slash the pay of
senior government officials and oversee economic growth of six
percent per year.

He has a very loyal core of supporters but many Mexicans
wonder whether he can build enough bridges with business and
other political parties after his cries of foul play brought
swathes of the capital to a halt in 2006.

“People got tired of them,” said Adela Mendoza, a
53-year-old from Nezahualcoyotl, a gritty district on Mexico
City’s western flank. Mendoza voted for Lopez Obrador in 2006,
but says she has given up him now.

Lopez Obrador has not given up on Mexicans.

Continuing to remind them of the “great fraud” on his tour
of Chiapas, he raced hundreds of miles (km) a day on bumpy
roads, dirt tracks and mountain passes to reach remote towns
and villages other politicians rarely, if ever, venture into.

His advisers say he has visited all of Mexico’s 2,440
municipalities an average of two times since the 2006 vote,
making him the best known politician in the contest.

Some polls show the 58-year-old father of four to be more
widely recognized than the president himself.

To his supporters, the austere Lopez Obrador is the only
man with the moral authority to end the corruption and
inequality that has long blighted Mexico.

“He has a simple way of expressing himself, he’s sincere
and he talks to you honestly,” said Javier Villareal Cruz, 40,
under the roof of a sports hall in the town of Cintalapa.

Cheers broke out across the basketball courts when Lopez
Obrador told a crowd of several hundred flag-waving supporters
he would end the “decadence” of overpaid public servants.

“They have plastic surgery on the backs of the people,”
Lopez Obrador shouted. “They have helicopters, planes. They
give themselves a great life.”

Zeferino Morales, 62, a farmer from the Zoque ethnic
minority, traveled six hours to see Lopez Obrador in nearby
Copainala pledging to establish state pensions for the elderly
across Mexico and wean the country off foreign food imports.

“The presidents have abandoned us here,” he said in halting
Spanish. “Lopez Obrador is going to change a lot of things.”

HIGH COST

Yet to many Mexicans, Lopez Obrador is the one politician
for whom they will not vote.

Tainted by depictions in the media as a belligerent holding
Mexico to ransom, negative ratings for Lopez Obrador among
voters outweigh positive ones by a ratio of three to two,
figures from pollster Mitofsky showed this month.

“If he’d taken a break, he might have started from a very
low base, but he wouldn’t have had such a negative image,” said
Berrueto at GCE. “But he stayed so active and present.”

By contrast, presidential front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto
of the PRI has a ratio of more than four to one in his favor.

The telegenic Pena Nieto, a 45-year-old former governor of
the State of Mexico, has helped to rejuvenate the PRI, a party
that ruled the country for 71 straight years up to 2000, by
which time it had become a byword for corruption.

Lopez Obrador faces a stronger rival in Pena Nieto than the
PRI fielded in 2006, when the party suffered its worst ever
result with the candidacy of Roberto Madrazo.

The front-runner for the candidacy of Calderon’s
conservative National Action Party (PAN), Josefina Vazquez
Mota, offers voters another break with the past as a female
contender.

Lopez Obrador insists he was right to take to the streets
of Mexico City in 2006, arguing it prevented violence erupting.

But in an interview with Reuters in Tapachula, a city far
from the capital on the Guatemalan border, he admitted that the
media impact of his protests had cost him “a lot.”

“There are people in Tapachula who still question me about
it,” he said. “Even though they weren’t there.”
(Editing by Kieran Murray)

Seething over his wafer-thin election loss to conservative
Felipe Calderon in 2006, the fiery leftist shook Mexico with
some of the biggest street protests in its history, damning its
institutions and declaring himself the rightful president.

Yet since recently winning the support of Mexico’s main
leftist parties to run again for president, Lopez Obrador has
made a sharp U-turn, preaching love and forgiveness to win back
voters who had been turned off by his protests and clamor.

The former mayor of Mexico City flanked his new approach
with a drive to reach out to private business and reassure
voters he will not put the economy at risk, charges that cost
him dear in the final stages of the last election campaign,
when his lead over Calderon evaporated.

The new message has forced Lopez Obrador into a delicate
balancing act, struggling to convince waverers to follow him
down the road to the “loving republic” he now invokes, while
still firing up his core supporters.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Full election coverage: [ID:nMEXVOTE]

Factbox on candidates: [ID:nN1E7AF0KG]

Political risks in Mexico: [ID:nRISKMX]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>

On campaign last week in the southern state of Chiapas,
Lopez Obrador set out his stall as a man of peace, urging his
followers to “practice love of thy neighbor” and insisting his
rivals were not enemies but people “just as desperate” as the
rest in Mexico, where around half the population is poor.

Then, in an instant, he switched into tearing up his
adversaries, conjuring up visions of decadence, slavery and
dictatorship if voters fail to heed his calls for change.

Particular scorn was reserved for the opposition
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which leads the race,
drawing on much of the same base of support as Lopez Obrador.

“If the PRI comes back it would be terrible,” Lopez Obrador
shouted in the town of Chiapa de Corzo. “It would be like the
return of that great dictator, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.”

Best known in the United States for his attack on the Alamo
in Texas in 1836, general Santa Anna has gone down in Mexican
history as a dictator blamed for the loss of half the country’s
territory to the giant northern neighbor in the 1830s and
1840s.

BEST KNOWN POLITICIAN

Lopez Obrador led the the field for most of the 2006
campaign but most opinion polls this time around show him with
support of just under 20 percent.

“He’s pursuing a really difficult strategy, because it’s a
very abrupt change to go from a hard, combative politician to a
conciliatory one,” said Federico Berrueto, director general of
polling firm Gabinete de Comunicacion Estrategica (GCE).

Fronting a leftist alliance dominated by the Party of the
Democratic Revolution (PRD), Lopez Obrador has pledged to
create 7 million jobs to keep young people out of the clutches
of drug gangs, whose turf wars during a crackdown launched by
Calderon’s government have claimed 47,000 lives, damaging
Mexico’s reputation with tourists and investors.

Lopez Obrador is pledging to revitalize state oil monopoly
Pemex, guarantee university education for all, slash the pay of
senior government officials and oversee economic growth of six
percent per year.

He has a very loyal core of supporters but many Mexicans
wonder whether he can build enough bridges with business and
other political parties after his cries of foul play brought
swathes of the capital to a halt in 2006.

“People got tired of them,” said Adela Mendoza, a
53-year-old from Nezahualcoyotl, a gritty district on Mexico
City’s western flank. Mendoza voted for Lopez Obrador in 2006,
but says she has given up him now.

Lopez Obrador has not given up on Mexicans.

Continuing to remind them of the “great fraud” on his tour
of Chiapas, he raced hundreds of miles (km) a day on bumpy
roads, dirt tracks and mountain passes to reach remote towns
and villages other politicians rarely, if ever, venture into.

His advisers say he has visited all of Mexico’s 2,440
municipalities an average of two times since the 2006 vote,
making him the best known politician in the contest.

Some polls show the 58-year-old father of four to be more
widely recognized than the president himself.

To his supporters, the austere Lopez Obrador is the only
man with the moral authority to end the corruption and
inequality that has long blighted Mexico.

“He has a simple way of expressing himself, he’s sincere
and he talks to you honestly,” said Javier Villareal Cruz, 40,
under the roof of a sports hall in the town of Cintalapa.

Cheers broke out across the basketball courts when Lopez
Obrador told a crowd of several hundred flag-waving supporters
he would end the “decadence” of overpaid public servants.

“They have plastic surgery on the backs of the people,”
Lopez Obrador shouted. “They have helicopters, planes. They
give themselves a great life.”

Zeferino Morales, 62, a farmer from the Zoque ethnic
minority, traveled six hours to see Lopez Obrador in nearby
Copainala pledging to establish state pensions for the elderly
across Mexico and wean the country off foreign food imports.

“The presidents have abandoned us here,” he said in halting
Spanish. “Lopez Obrador is going to change a lot of things.”

HIGH COST

Yet to many Mexicans, Lopez Obrador is the one politician
for whom they will not vote.

Tainted by depictions in the media as a belligerent holding
Mexico to ransom, negative ratings for Lopez Obrador among
voters outweigh positive ones by a ratio of three to two,
figures from pollster Mitofsky showed this month.

“If he’d taken a break, he might have started from a very
low base, but he wouldn’t have had such a negative image,” said
Berrueto at GCE. “But he stayed so active and present.”

By contrast, presidential front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto
of the PRI has a ratio of more than four to one in his favor.

The telegenic Pena Nieto, a 45-year-old former governor of
the State of Mexico, has helped to rejuvenate the PRI, a party
that ruled the country for 71 straight years up to 2000, by
which time it had become a byword for corruption.

Lopez Obrador faces a stronger rival in Pena Nieto than the
PRI fielded in 2006, when the party suffered its worst ever
result with the candidacy of Roberto Madrazo.

The front-runner for the candidacy of Calderon’s
conservative National Action Party (PAN), Josefina Vazquez
Mota, offers voters another break with the past as a female
contender.

Lopez Obrador insists he was right to take to the streets
of Mexico City in 2006, arguing it prevented violence erupting.

But in an interview with Reuters in Tapachula, a city far
from the capital on the Guatemalan border, he admitted that the
media impact of his protests had cost him “a lot.”

“There are people in Tapachula who still question me about
it,” he said. “Even though they weren’t there.”
(Editing by Kieran Murray)

But his choice of friends abroad makes many Nicaraguans worry that the former guerrilla and Cold War icon is dragging down the country’s reputation and unnecessarily antagonizing the United States and other Western countries.

Ortega took office for a second straight term last week after winning more than 60 percent support in a landslide election victory in November. It was by far his biggest share of the vote since the mid-1980s, when he led the Sandinista government during a civil war against U.S.-backed rebels.

Voted out of office in 1990, he spent 16 years in opposition before returning to power in 2006. At home, he has recast himself as a man of peace, replaced his Marxist rhetoric with Christian messages and worked well with farmers and business leaders who were once his most bitter critics.

But Ortega’s foreign policy looks very similar to the Cold War years, when Nicaragua was allied with Russia and Cuba.

Now Ortega’s closest ally is Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez, who has used oil revenues to help bankroll Nicaragua’s anti-poverty programs. Nicaragua remains close to Cuba and has strengthened its ties with anti-U.S. leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

When he stood to take the oath of office last week, Ortega was flanked on stage by Chavez and Ahmadinejad. He pilloried the U.S. “occupations” of Iraq and Afghanistan, lamented the death of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and paid his respects to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Chavez’s financial aid to Nicaragua has helped power it to faster economic growth and helped to cut poverty rates from around two-thirds of the population in 2005 to 57 percent now.

Analysts estimate that Venezuela provides as much as $500 million a year to Nicaragua, a huge sum for an economy which in dollar terms was worth about $6.5 billion in 2010.

Nicaraguans like the results, and openly express their gratitude. “There’s more work, and wages have really gone up,” said Jaime Valverde, a 22-year-old petrol pump attendant. “Things are so much better than before.”

But some believe that Ortega is not really in charge.

“If Chavez says ‘sit!’ Ortega sits. If he says ‘get up!’ then Ortega gets up,” said Esau Martinez, 26, a student from Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast. “Ortega does what he’s told.”

“Chavez has too many interests here,” said 30-year-old Managua resident Juan Carlos Reyes. “There’s electricity. Water. Even building houses for the poor.”

NO GAIN?

Iran has also promised significant investment but hasn’t yet delivered. Following Ortega’s 2006 election win, Ahmadinejad pledged to help fund a new $350 million ocean port, build houses and assist on a hydroelectric project.

The lack of progress has some wondering what Nicaragua gets out of its friendship with a government that has fanned global tensions by threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz – a crucial oil export route — in retaliation for Western threats to impose new sanctions on Tehran for its nuclear program

“We’re abandoning God for the Devil,” said Larry Ferrey, a 38-year-old hotel worker in Managua.

Nicaraguan newspapers also noted that on his visit last week, Ahmadinejad did not answer Nicaragua’s requests to write off debts to the Islamic Republic of over $160 million.

During his speech Tuesday, Ortega hailed Iran as a great civilization and urged Israel, which Ahmadinejad once said should be wiped off the map, to destroy its nuclear weapons, saying they were blocking peace in the Middle East.

That display came just days after the U.S. government said it was making it “absolutely clear to countries around the world that now is not the time to be deepening ties, not security ties, not economic ties, with Iran.”

Ortega’s finger-pointing at Washington and its allies has done little to curb widespread enthusiasm in Nicaragua for the United States, where tens of thousands of Nicaraguans live.

The CID Gallup polling firm said its research showed Nicaraguans were increasingly well disposed to the United States, despite Ortega’s allegiances.

Latinobarometro, another pollster, said 65 percent of Nicaraguans viewed the United States positively and that U.S. President Barack Obama is as popular in Nicaragua as Chavez.

Another Latinobarometro poll showed that voters across Latin America ranked Ortega joint worst of 18 leaders in the Americas and Spain, down three places from the previous year.

The fact Washington froze much development aid to Nicaragua after accusing Ortega of voter fraud in local elections in 2008 has not had much impact on Nicaraguans’ view of the United States, in part because non-government aid still flows.

Mauricio Toledo, 50, a former Sandinista fighter, said Ortega has isolated Nicaragua.

“Daniel Ortega has been a friend of Gaddafi. He’s been a brother to (Saddam) Hussein. He’s been a brother to all of these murderers,” he said. “We don’t need friends like that.”

(Editing by Kieran Murray)

Lopez Obrador, often vilified by opponents as a threat to private enterprise, said wresting control of large sections of industry from just a few hands was vital to revitalizing the economy.

“This is all going to be corrected,” Lopez Obrador, who narrowly lost the last presidential election in 2006, told Reuters in a weekend interview. “In comparative terms, you pay more here for construction materials, telecommunications, for interest on loans than in any other place.”

Production of many goods and services, extending from bread and cement to Internet access and television, are dominated by just a few players in Mexico. Economists say the lack of competition has long been a drag on Latin America’s second biggest economy.

Speaking in the southern city of Tapachula after a campaign rally, Lopez Obrador said his team had analyzed the data and found that Mexican consumers would save up to 10 percent of their income “if there were no monopolies in this country.”

The former mayor of Mexico City came within a hair’s breadth of taking office in 2006 and denounced the result as fraud, leading huge street protests in the capital when conservative Felipe Calderon was declared the victor.

Those protests damaged his popularity and recent polls have shown Lopez Obrador with support of between 15 and 25 percent, way behind front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party. However, the gap is starting to close.

ENTRENCHED INTERESTS

Touring the country relentlessly for the past five years, Lopez Obrador has sought to temper his image as a left-wing firebrand by courting the business community, encouraging private investment and promising greater prosperity.

He is also ready to use some of Mexico’s most powerful businessmen to try and break up the entrenched interests of others.

Chief among the moguls is the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim, the dominant force in Mexico’s telecoms sector, who worked with the Mexico City government to redevelop parts of the capital when Lopez Obrador was mayor in 2000-2005.

Calderon’s government has so far denied Slim the chance to enter Mexico’s television market, which is dominated by Emilio Azcarraga of Televisa and Ricardo Salinas Pliego of TV Azteca.

The tycoons have struggled to gain access into each others strongholds but Lopez Obrador said he would not stand in their way if it resulted in greater choice for the Mexican consumer.

“If Slim or any other citizen wants to become involved in the television business, they can. The same applies if Azcarraga or Salinas Pliego or anybody else wants to get involved in the telephone business,” he 58-year-old said.

Fostering competition is a daunting task for Mexico.

The country has the highest monthly subscription costs for basic broadband Internet connections and the slowest advertised download speeds in the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to data from September 2010.

And despite the fact that half of the country lives below the poverty line, Mexicans pay among the highest prices for bread and cereals in the 34-nation OECD.

Nevertheless, progress has been made and Slim’s telecoms companies have been forced to make concessions under Calderon.

Last year, the telecoms regulator ordered Slim’s mobile giant America Movil to make changes that resulted in a 71 percent drop in interconnection charges. Slim also cut charges on fixed line calls from January.

NO EXPROPRIATIONS

Lopez Obrador said foreign mining companies, among which Canadians predominate, had been treated too generously by previous governments, denying Mexicans their fair share of the benefits from the country’s natural resources.

Pay was the first issue that needed addressing, he said.

“So that they pay Mexican miners – if not the same as what they pay a Canadian miner – in a way that takes into account that there is a great inequality,” Lopez Obrador said.

Foreign mining firms would also be asked to clean up their environmental practices, which were destroying and contaminating the areas where they work, he added.

“And the third thing we want to convince them of is that they pay the same taxes as they pay in Canada. In Canada, they have to pay 12 percent for extracting minerals. Here, nothing. We’re going to put these issues on the table. But we won’t revoke concessions. We’re not going to expropriate,” he said.

Canadian mining firms operating in Mexico include Goldcorp and Pan American Silver.

Mining tax rates for projects in Canada are determined at the provincial level and are based on profits. They vary from 3 percent to 17 percent. Companies operating in Canada must also pay income tax on the provincial and federal level.

Lopez Obrador said his government would not revoke any concessions made to investors in state oil firm Pemex, which Calderon has begun to open up to outside investment.

“But we won’t submit any more (concessions),” he said. If elected, he said his administration would build five new big oil refineries in three years so that Mexico could stop exporting crude oil and instead sell the finished product.

But Lopez Obrador stressed that foreign investment would be more than welcome under his presidency.

“We need it. I was mayor of Mexico City and that’s when we had the most foreign investment coming to the city,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Julie Gordon; Editing by Kieran Murray)

Speaking in a ceremony where he was sworn in for a second consecutive term in office, Ortega attacked the U.S. “occupation” of Afghanistan and Iraq, condemned the killing of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and offered a brief valediction to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Ortega – flanked by his close ally, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez – defended Iran’s stated intention to develop atomic energy for peaceful ends, an explanation Western powers say is a cover for a nuclear weapons program.

“Simply by starting to push for talks in the region in which the steps are laid down for Israel to give up and destroy these nuclear arms, I’m certain this would bring about great peace in the region,” the former Marxist guerrilla said.

Instead, western powers are ignoring those with nuclear weapons and threatening a country which only wanted atomic energy for peaceful purposes, Ortega added, pointing to Iran.

“Christ never said: Israel arm yourself, arm yourself to the teeth,” said Ortega, whose speech moved swiftly from one topic to the next, backed by a musical accompaniment of strummed guitars and chanting peppered with rapped shouts.

Ortega, 66, suspended diplomatic ties with Israel in 2010 in protest after Israeli commandos staged a deadly raid on a flotilla trying to break a blockade of Gaza.

Israel, which Ahmadinejad once said should we wiped off the map, is believed to have nuclear weapons. But it has never formally admitted to possessing them.

Ahmadinejad is visiting leftist leaders in Latin America known for their antagonism to the United States. His visit comes after the Islamic Republic fanned tensions with western powers by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil shipping lane, in response to possible new sanctions over its nuclear plans.

In his long speech, Ortega called the killing of Gaddafi in October a “crime” and said the late Libyan leader should have been put on trial if there had been evidence against him.

With Chavez at times looking on intently from the side, Ortega took aim at arms manufacturers, and said the U.S. invasion of Iraq had been built on falsehood. Next to Chavez sat Ahmadinejad and his interpreter.

Reflecting on the Iraq war, Ortega remembered Saddam with the words: “may he rest in peace.” Saddam was hanged in 2006, three years after he was overthrown by a U.S.-led invasion.

Attending the inauguration were mostly Central American and Caribbean leaders, as well as Crown Prince Felipe of Spain.

The United States, which complained about the disputed vote that gave Ortega a landslide in November, sent representation from its embassy, according to Nicaraguan authorities.

The election strengthened Ortega’s grip on power, giving him a two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time.

Backed with petrodollars from Chavez, Ortega built his re-election strategy on welfare programs that have cut poverty in Central America’s poorest nation.

(Additional reporting by Ivan Castro; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Eleven years later, President Felipe Calderon’s government is furiously trying to flush out the man nicknamed El Chapo – “Shorty” – to rescue its bloody war on drug cartels.

Guzman’s flight from a maximum security prison in a laundry cart on January 19, 2001, was a major embarrassment to Calderon’s predecessor Vicente Fox, who had just begun a new era as the first National Action Party (PAN) official to lead Mexico.

Now, Guzman is the greatest symbol of the cartels’ defiance of Calderon, whose war unleashed a wave of gang violence that is eroding support for the PAN ahead of presidential elections on July 1. Calderon is barred by law from seeking a second term.

In the last few months, authorities have arrested dozens of Guzman’s henchmen, seized tons of his contraband and razed the biggest single marijuana plantation ever found in Mexico, subsequently chalked up as another setback for El Chapo.

Over Christmas, three senior Guzman associates fell into Mexico’s hands, including one named as his chief of operations in Durango, a state where he has been rumored to hide out.

“He’s certainly aware people very close to him have been captured over the past two weeks, so he must be seriously concerned,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a Brookings Institution expert on the drug trade. “The noose seems to be tightening.”

Since his nighttime escape, Guzman’s legend has grown daily, as the wily capo evaded capture, eliminated rivals and sold billions of dollars worth of drugs across the border.

Meanwhile, the PAN, who won office under Fox pledging to restore law and order in a country tired of the corruption that marred the 71-year reign of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has become more and more bogged down in the drug war.

Calderon staked his reputation on rooting out the cartels, but the army-led struggle has cost over 46,000 lives in five years, spooking tourists and investors alike.

As Calderon fought to contain the violence, he had to watch Guzman feted for success when the kingpin placed 41st in a Forbes list of the world’s most powerful people in 2009.

Immortalized in song both in Spanish and English, Guzman seemed so untouchable that rumors began spreading the Mexican government had made a deal with him to keep the peace.

That talk has now faded, and Attorney General Marisela Morales said in October Guzman would be captured “very soon.”

North of the border, things have also turned sour for the fugitive trafficker, who made headlines as the world’s most wanted man after the death of Osama bin Laden.

In last few weeks, U.S. authorities in Arizona announced details of raids in which they arrested over 200 people linked to the Sinaloa cartel, named for the northwestern Pacific state where Guzman was born, probably in 1957.

DRUG LORD PROTECTOR

Surveys show the public backs the crackdown on the cartels. But it also believes Calderon is losing the drug war.

Alberto Vera, director of research at pollster Parametria, said only something of the magnitude of Guzman’s capture would persuade voters Calderon was winning. That could boost support for his party by two or three points if it happened not long before the election, he added.

“Catching him would do Calderon credit,” said Luis Pavan, 40, a Mexico City insurance agent. “Fighting the gangs is one of the few good things the government has done.”

Weakened by the mounting death toll, Calderon’s PAN lags the opposition PRI by about 20 points, recent polls show.

Capturing Guzman could also benefit U.S. President Barack Obama, who faces a tough re-election battle against Republicans that accuse him of being weak on border security.

Arturo R. Garino, mayor of Nogales – an Arizona border city lying right on Guzman’s main smuggling routes – said the kingpin’s arrest would be a boost to both governments. “Cutting the head off the snake would help our economy too,” he said.

Intelligence officials declined to say if efforts to catch Guzman had increased, but his biographer Malcolm Beith said there was little doubt they had, as recent operations on El Chapo’s turf were being conducted by crack military units.

“It’s been special forces and marines to the best of my knowledge. These guys are called in for special raids because they’re less likely to have been infiltrated,” he said.

Officials who have tracked Guzman say it is one thing to locate him and quite another to capture him.

Like late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, Guzman has a reputation as a protector of his heartland in Sinaloa, a rugged region that the state still struggles to penetrate, where news of approaching of strangers quickly reaches him and his followers.

“Chapo has allegedly paid for schools, hospitals, and other public projects,” said Beith. “Second, he’s just about the only source of employment in parts of Sinaloa. And he has provided security of a sort. He’s been known to apprehend small-time crooks or thugs when they got out of hand. Lastly, the name Chapo pretty much puts the fear of God into people.”

With locals watching his back, Guzman has always had just enough warning to get away at the last minute. The exception was when soldiers captured him in Guatemala in June 1993.

New surveillance technology has raised the stakes though.

Mexico has admitted allowing U.S. spy planes to track the cartels, reviving memories of the chase for Escobar, who was gunned down on a Medellin rooftop in December 1993.

The U.S. Army’s spy unit Centra Spike played a crucial part in that takedown – using planes to triangulate Escobar’s phone calls – and U.S. surveillance drones stationed just across the Arizona border are likely being used to help catch Guzman.

Adding to his problems are attacks from the rival Zetas gang, which has engaged in a spate of tit-for-tat killings with the Sinaloa cartel that have spread onto his territory.

If Guzman is caught, it could unleash a bloody scramble for power before the election, said Jose Luis Pineyro, a security expert at Mexico’s Autonomous Metropolitan University.

“He is said to have influence in five continents,” he said. “It would have repercussions outside Mexico and America.”

(Additional reporting by Tim Gaynor in Phoenix; Editing by Eric Beech)

Josefina Vazquez Mota, who is bidding to become the first woman to serve as Mexican president, told Reuters in an interview the next administration needed to examine how Brazil had managed its partly privatized state oil firm Petrobras.

“The case of Petrobras is a good reference point, not necessarily to copy it 100 percent, but it deserves particular attention,” said Vazquez Mota, who is leading the race to be the candidate for President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party, or PAN, ahead of the July 1 election.

Oil production has dipped at Pemex, which has been dogged for years by allegations of inefficiency and corruption, prompting many Mexican lawmakers, particularly from the right and center of the political spectrum, to urge an overhaul.

Although many advocates of oil reform say Pemex needs private investment, they have shied away from discussing a potential listing for the company, which has been a sacred cow since Mexico nationalized the oil industry in the 1930s.

“It’s one of the scenarios, not the only one,” Vazquez Mota, a former education minister and ex-PAN congressional leader, said of floating Pemex on the stock exchange. “In the end, the most important thing isn’t whether to list Pemex or not, that could be the result of many prior decisions.”

In August, three private companies won the first contracts to operate mature oil fields in a bid to modernize the oil industry. Pemex says the number of fields operated by private firms will jump by the end of 2012.

SLAMS ‘MACHO’ RIVAL

Key reform projects like an overhaul of the labor market, taxation and Pemex have been stymied by the fact no ruling party in Mexico has had a congressional majority since 1997.

Vazquez Mota, 50, said she would push for the presidential candidates to seal a joint political accord before the election pledging their commitment to support the “four or five” major reform drives.

The PAN plans to pick its candidate by February 5, although the main opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, have already settled on their presidential nominees.

Leading the opinion polls is PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto, former governor of the state of Mexico.

But his campaign suffered a setback this month when he struggled at a book fair to name three books that influenced him, and upset a number of women with a throwaway remark.

“I’m not the woman of the house,” Pena Nieto said after failing to identify the price of staple foodstuff tortillas, sparking condemnation on online social networks.

Vazquez Mota, a mother of three, called Pena Nieto’s comment “embarrassing,” “macho and very misogynist,” saying it reflected authoritarian attitudes within the PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years until 2000.

Worse still, she said, was the fact that the string of gaffes showed Pena Nieto was not competent to run the country.

“If you don’t have an answer to the most basic thing, or if the answer puts down your own citizens, I think we’re in an extremely risky situation,” Vazquez Mota said.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

Mexico’s federal police said on Wednesday they had captured Luis Rodriguez Olivera, known as “El Guero” (Blondie), for whom U.S. authorities have offered a reward of up to $5 million.

In a statement, Mexican police said Rodriguez Olivera and his brothers were responsible for trafficking cocaine to the United States between 1996 and 2008 for Guzman’s gang.

A “wanted” statement on the U.S. State Department’s website said Rodriguez Olivera and his brothers split with the Sinaloa cartel around 2005 and later forged a strong relationship with Guzman’s rivals, the Zetas cartel.

One intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 39-year-old Rodriguez Olivera had ties to Guzman but had recently struck out on his own. Federal police arrested him on Tuesday in Mexico City airport.

Later on Wednesday, the government said it had seized eight containers carrying more than 120 tonnes of monomethylamine in the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas in Michoacan state.

It was the second big seizure announced this week of monomethylamine, a compound used to make methamphetamines. According to calculations by security analysts, the shipment could have been worth $300 million dollars or more.

President Felipe Calderon’s conservative administration has been dominated by a military crackdown on drug cartels that has claimed more than 46,000 lives in the past five years, eroding support for his National Action Party, or PAN.

The PAN has trailed its main rival for months as Mexico gears up for a July 2012 presidential election, and analysts say it needs to rack up some victories in the fight on drugs.

Javier Oliva, a drug war expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), said Michoachan-based cartel La Familia was the most likely intended recipient for the Lazaro Cardenas shipment, though the Zetas were also a possibility.

The shipment set out from Shanghai and was destined for the Guatemalan port of Puerto Quetzal, the government said.

Though the Sinaloa cartel deals in methamphetamines, it is not regarded as exercising much control over Lazaro Cardenas.

Mexico had already arrested three senior traffickers allied to Guzman in the past three months.

(Editing by John O’Callaghan and Todd Eastham)

On Monday, masked Mexican soldiers presented Felipe Cabrera, known as “el Inge,” to the media following his capture in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa, the northwestern Pacific state after which the drug cartel is named.

Cabrera, whose nickname is an abbreviation of the Spanish word for engineer, was the second suspected Guzman lieutenant to be seized there in the past two months.

“These are blows to the (Sinaloa) organization, but the structure for drug trafficking and money laundering is still intact,” Alberto Islas, a security expert at consultancy Risk Evaluation, said after Cabrera’s media parade in Mexico City.

In what may have been another bitter pill for Guzman, the government said later that the navy had seized 21 tonnes of monomethylamine – a compound used to make methamphetamines – in the Pacific port of Manzanillo, traditionally his turf.

The shipment may have been intended for Guzman given that several others belonging to him had been seized there, one official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Islas said the haul, which was intercepted on its way from Peru to Guatemala – where the Sinaloa cartel is also active – was probably worth at least $50 million in unprocessed form.

CRACKDOWN

President Felipe Calderon’s conservative administration has been dominated by a military crackdown on drug cartels, which has claimed over 45,000 lives in the past five years, eroding support for his National Action Party, or PAN.

The PAN has been trailing its main rival for months as Mexico gears up for a presidential election in July 2012.

The government has captured or killed dozens of top smugglers, but Guzman, the most notorious, is still at large.

Defense ministry spokesman Ricardo Trevilla hailed the arrest of Cabrera as a setback for the operational and leadership capabilities of the Sinaloa cartel, regarded as the main trafficker of drugs into the United States.

The ministry said Cabrera was in charge of the cartel’s operations in Durango, a state bordering Sinaloa and a Guzman bastion where the kingpin has been rumored to live.

Guzman runs an empire of methamphetamine, marijuana and cocaine smuggling that has earned him a spot on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires.

The ministry added that Cabrera also had responsibility for the southern part of the border state of Chihuahua, through which many drugs are smuggled into the United States.

Cabrera, who allegedly headed Guzman’s personal security in the Durango area, is suspected of involvement in a host of violent crimes ranging from arson to kidnapping and extortion.

He was captured on Friday as part of an operation which led to the arrest of 23 suspected operators in the Sinaloa cartel and their bitter rivals, Los Zetas.

(Editing by Eric Beech and Christopher Wilson)