Salinas De Gortari

Gov. William Donald Schaefer may be on to something. At a recent meeting with local business leaders to discuss results of his latest foray abroad, the governor suggested it would make sense for Maryland to have its own designated overseas ambassador. And since Maryland's secretary of state doesn't have much to do anyway, why not name him to that job?We like that suggestion. At the moment, the secretary of state does little to justify his $80,000 a year paycheck. It is essentially a record-keeping task handled for him by longtime, seasoned bureaucrats and clerks.

While one U.S. court approves the kidnapping of Humberto Alvarez Machain in Mexico for trial in the this country, another court finds the evidence against him unsupported. This places the United States in the position of claiming the right to kidnap innocent persons from countries with which it has extradition treaties. That will not do.Enrique Camarena Salazar, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency, was kidnapped, tortured, interrogated and murdered by narcotics traffickers in Mexico in 1985.

Shake-up at Metropolitan LifeMetropolitan Life Insurance Co., the nation's No. 2 life insurer, said it will replace its chief executive and chief financial officer in a sweeping management shake-up. A company spokesman said yesterday that Harry P. Kamen will replace Robert G. Schwartz as chief executive officer and chairman April 1, 1993.MetLife, with $144 billion of assets under management, named Mr. Kamen to succeed Mr. Schwartz, who is retiring after 44 years at MetLife. Stewart G. Nagler, senior executive vice president, is succeeding Philip Briggs as chief financial officer.

MEXICO CITY -- Federal authorities arrested Juan Garcia Abrego, a man accused of being one of the hemisphere's most powerful and murderous drug lords, and promptly expelled him to the United States, where he is wanted on drug trafficking and money laundering charges, the government announced yesterday.Mexican anti-drug agents seized Mr. Garcia Abrego Sunday night in the northern city of Monterrey and flew him to Mexico City.Yesterday, Mr. Garcia Abrego was put on a Mexican government plane and flown to Houston, where he had been indicted on charges of conspiracy to possess, distribute and import cocaine and for money laundering.

GENEVA A group of major international banks, stung by the growing reputation of the banking industry as a haven for ill-gotten gains, are pledging to form a global front against money laundering. They plan to issue guidelines to toughen their practices to shut off dirty-money deposits by organized crime and corrupt political leaders. Details will not be released until next week, but a significant provision in the new code of conduct will require banks to bring the activities of offshore banking subsidiaries in line with tougher rules on financial crime.

MEXICO CITY -- President Carlos Salinas de Gortari removed yesterday his attorney general, a man whose agency has come under increasing attack for alleged human rights violations.The move came just days before the U.S. Congress is to take up a key procedural vote in the proposed free-trade agreement with Mexico.The human rights record of the nation's highest law enforcement agency had come under criticism in Congress, especially the role of its Federal Judicial Police, Mexico's FBI. The police had been linked to rapes and murders, including the death of a prominent human rights activist in the state of Sinaloa.

MEXICO CITY -- President Carlos Salinas de Gortari tried yesterday to lure rebel fighters to the negotiating table with an amnesty offer for the guerrillas who seized towns and cities in Chiapas on New Year's Day.There was no immediate response from the Zapatista National Liberation Army rebels, who have retreated into the mountains and jungles of Chiapas, Mexico's poorest state.In a nationally televised speech, Mr. Salinas asked the Mexican Congress to immediately convene an extraordinary session to consider the amnesty legislation, which contained more generous terms than two previous pardon offers for some guerrillas.

Ellicott Machine Corp., a staunch supporter of the North American Free Trade Agreement, is already reaping the benefits of the new trade pact with the recent order from Mexican companies for two new dredges worth almost $1 million."

Bolstered by U.S. congressional passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari has moved promptly to assure continuity of policies that have opened up its traditionally closed economy. His hand-picked candidate to succeed him after elections next year is Luis Donaldo Colosio, a political ally so close to Mr. Salinas that Mexicans often refer to him as the president's "son."Mr. Colosio managed Mr. Salinas' fraud-tainted victory in the 1988 election, then went on to run the party that has ruled Mexico since 1929 and head the social development agency.

MEXICO CITY -- The man who is allegedly the Medellin drug cartel's top cocaine trafficker in Mexico has been arrested at his headquarters in a fashionable Mexico City neighborhood, the attorney general's office announced yesterday.Javier Pardo Cardona, a Colombian known as "the Uncle," reputedly has shipped as much as 100 tons of cocaine through Mexico to the United States, according to the attorney general's office.The government called Mr. Pardo Cardona "the third-most-important boss" in Colombia's Medellin cartel and said that he was the primary contact between the cartel and North American traffickers.