Was one of the world’s longest-lasting obsidian workshops in Jalisco?

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February 5, 2021

This farmland was a lake of more than 70 square kilometers until the Mexican government dried it up in 1930 to create cane fields.

The first curious thing about Obsidian Island is that it is surrounded by great stretches of farmland and is not an island at all. The second curious thing about it is that it has no natural deposits of obsidian whatsoever.

After that, the list of the mysteries of Atitlán — as it was called in ancient times — only grows longer.

Today this ex-island is called El Cerro de las Cuevas (The Hill of the Caves). It’s located next to the little town of San Juanito Escobedo in the state of Jalisco, 60 kilometers northwest of Guadalajara.

I was first introduced to the place by archaeologist and obsidian specialist Rodrigo Esparza. As we approached San Juanito, Esparza explained that the farmland we were driving through was once covered by the Laguna de Magdalena, a lake more than 70 square kilometers in size that had been a major feature of the Jalisco landscape until, in 1930, the Mexican government decided to dry it up, said Esparza, “in order to create more cane fields.”

A narrow dirt road skirts the west side of the Cerro de las Cuevas, and here we passed several dark openings: artificial caves, hand-carved in the soft jal or volcanic tuff.

Jalisco archaeologists asked the researchers to look into the mysteries of the former island of Atitlán, inhabited since at least 400 AD. — Jalisco archaeologists asked the researchers to look into the mysteries of the former island of Atitlán, inhabited since at least A.D. 400.

We stopped in front of Esparza’s favorite cave. “From here,” said the archaeologist, “it is possible that people carried out ceremonies while contemplating the lake, whose shore was about 40 meters from the cave.”

After exploring some of the other cuevas (caves), we headed up the hillside on foot, our pants and shoes collecting great numbers of huizapoles (burrs) along the way. We soon came to a hole about two meters deep. This had been dug by tomb robbers, and its walls gave us a good look at what had been going on at this site for hundreds of years.

“As you can see, the ground beneath our feet is a two-meter-thick layer of dirt filled with discarded fragments of obsidian tools,” Esparza explained. “This is by far the largest obsidian workshop I have ever seen.”

Geologist Chris Lloyd then jumped down into the pit and began pulling pieces of obsidian out of one wall. There were broken arrowheads, flat blades with sharp edges and bits of other artifacts.

“All of these are the throwaways,” said Esparza, “and the pieces down at the very bottom of the wall may be 2,000 or 3,000 years old.”

We were amazed to learn that none of these obsidian artifacts was native to the island itself.

UNAM archaeologists are researching Jalisco's ancient inhabitants who made obsidian artifacts in an apparent workshop 60 kilometers northwest of Guadalajara. — UNAM archaeologists are researching Jalisco’s ancient inhabitants who made obsidian artifacts in an apparent workshop 60 kilometers northwest of Guadalajara.

“All of this obsidian originally came from a nearby deposit known as la Joya, located six kilometers northeast of here,” Esparza said. “We proved this through neutron activation analysis. Exactly why they brought the obsidian here to this island to work on it is a mystery that needs to be investigated.”

Next, we headed further up El Cerro de las Cuevas, naturally acquiring plenty of new huizapoles. At last, we came to a flat spot, where we gazed upon blocks of stone covered with weeds, all that’s left of the first Christian chapel in this part of Mexico, built by the Franciscans sometime in the 1530s.

This building measured about 8 by 12 meters and was probably quite magnificent in order to impress the locals. Apparently, however, the locals were not terribly impressed because it’s documented that one day they rose up and killed all the friars (six of whom are now considered saints by the Catholic Church).

After this history lesson, we hiked to the very top of the cerro, acquiring yet more burrs, as well as numerous scratches from thorns, plus a few punctures from agave spikes. At last, we stood upon a lookout point from which we could clearly see kilometers of cane fields all around us, making it easy to imagine the impressive extent of La Laguna de Magdalena back when the Spaniards first arrived here.

All the researchers who have visited Atitlan seem to agree that something important had been going on there. In 1896, British Explorer Adela Breton included Obsidian Island among the places she visited during her hunt for archaeological ruins in Jalisco.

In modern times, newspapers have claimed that it is home to a pyramid, a ball court, numerous tombs and an ancient harbor, but no one, it seems, ever documented such findings, nor has any serious research been carried out to discover just what it was that puts Atitlán in the running for the biggest and longest-lasting obsidian workshop in Mexico, and perhaps the world.

In pre-Hispanic times, 50-plus communities dotted the now dried-out lake.

All this changed in 2010 when Jalisco archaeologists asked the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to launch a proper research project to look into the mysteries of Obsidian Island.

“We are presently in the second stage of a program for studying this former island,” says researcher and project director Ericka Sofía Blanco.

Blanco served as director of the Phil Weigand Interpretive Museum at Teuchitlán, Jalisco, for five years and now directs the project to investigate the long history of Atitlán.

“The first stage involved a detailed study of previous research and historical documents related to both the island and to the Laguna de Magdalena. Next, we will be carrying out excavations and doing lab analyses.”

Before its draining in 1930, Blanco told me, the Magdalena Lagoon played an important role in the economy of the populations located along its shore. Just one example, she said, was the petate (a sleeping mat made of reeds) industry, which was vital for the people of San Juanito Escobedo before the lake disappeared.

“If the lake was important to the modern-day economy,” she added, “it was even more important to the pre-Hispanic economy.”

Visitors examine shards on the floor of one of the island’s caves.

As for the extensive working of obsidian on the island, Blanco discussed an important obsidian workshop discovered in the 1980s by archaeologist Phil Weigand.

“As we begin to dig in various parts of Atitlán, we see that this wasn’t a normal obsidian workshop, but it seems the artisans were manufacturing tools for use right here on the island, for some industry or activity related to the Lake of Magdalena, to the economy of the island.”

Blanco noted that all the knives and scrapers they have dug up have scratches, both visible and microscopic, indicating that they were used to cut and scrape something.

“We see these wear marks as well as vestiges of so-far unidentified vegetable material, telling us that there was some sort of important industry operating on this island. It looks like they were supplying something important to all the communities surrounding the lake. Whatever it was, it had to be important because this was a macro-operation, spread out over a space of three hectares. It was impressive!

“We should always bear in mind that water was the most convenient medium for travel in pre-Hispanic times. Atitlán Island was strategically located to serve a huge area, all points of which could be reached easily and quickly by boat. We still don’t know exactly what they were up to on that island, but we are constantly finding more clues, and we are making progress.”

The UNAM team has found indications of habitation of Obsidian Island from at least the year A.D. 400 right up to the arrival of the Spaniards — and there are strata below this level that they haven’t even looked at.

Broken pieces of obsidian blades and knives.

“We have also uncovered the remains of a rectangular platform,” says Blanco, “a public meeting place in the style of the El Grillo Phase (A.D. 500–900).”

UNAM’s multidisciplinary team working at Atitlán collaborates with many other institutions and this year received financial support from the municipality of San Juanito Escobedo.

“We also got assistance from Diputado Eduardo Ron and many local shopkeepers who help us out with supplies,” says Blanco.

I asked her how she became interested in archaeology, and she mentioned Raiders of the Lost Ark.

“As a young girl,” she replied, “I was enchanted by the romantic Indiana Jones concept of the intrepid archaeologist, but then my family asked, ‘How will you ever make a living with that?’ So I ended up studying business at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara (UAG). Well, at one point, we had to do a dissertation related to some field totally unrelated to business, and I decided to investigate and describe the Wixárikas, the indigenous people who live in the Sierra Occidental.”

She enjoyed the process, and her advisors liked her work, she said.

Project director Ericka Blanco with fellow archaeologists Rodrigo Esparza and Phil Weigand.

“… so I went home and said, “Mamá, I’m really sorry, but I can’t dedicate my life to something I don’t love; I want to be an anthropologist.’ Fortunately, it turned out the UAG was offering this career, and now here I am!”

We look forward to receiving more news from her as the UNAM team unravels the story of mysterious Obsidian Island.

[soliloquy id="135585"]

The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years, and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.

Elephant seal sunbathes on Oaxaca beaches, 7,000 km from home

By

Michelle Aguilar

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February 5, 2021

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The seal enjoys a rest on a beach in Huatulco. drone huatulco

A southern elephant seal decided to take a break from a long migration and sun itself on beaches in Oaxaca this week.

The seal, a rare sight in Mexico since it normally lives in sub-Antarctic and Antarctic waters, landed first on a beach in Barra de la Cruz on Tuesday and then showed up in Huatulco, according to regional Civil Protection and Huatulco National Park officials.

Photos shared by the park show the marine mammal happily beached on the sand. Other photos circulated on Facebook taken by drone photographers showed the seal relaxing in Barra de la Cruz, where residents attempted to hydrate the seal after observing that its skin was flaking.

Hector Miranda, a supervisor with Mexico’s federal environmental protection agency Profepa, said the seal was in good health and the flaking was due to a normal process of the seal molting its skin.

When molting occurs, elephant seals must rest on land where they shed their outer layer of hair and skin.

The southern elephant seal was on a northward migration. drone huatulco

“This breed only [beaches itself] to rest,” National Park officials said. “It doesn’t need human help nor hydration support. It’s en route to its final destination — the Gulf of California.”

Park officials asked well-meaning onlookers to “simply let it rest; afterward, it will continue on its way.”

This was not this particular seal’s debut appearance in Mexico: on January 26, say federal environmental officials, it landed on a Chiapas beach in Palmarcito, where the La Encrucijada biosphere reserve is located. They have been tracking it since then.

Another southern elephant seal was spotted on a beach in Puerto Arista, Chiapas, on December 15.

The elephant seal is one of the largest breeds of seal in existence. Females can reach up to 900 kilograms. To reach Mexico’s coast, this particular animal likely faced a journey as long as 7,000 kilometers.

Sources: El Universal (sp), Infobae (sp)

Denied entry, man with kidney problems dies at door of CDMX hospital

By

MND Staff

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February 5, 2021

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The dead man's son, left, pleads with hospital personnel to open the door and, at right, grieves for his father.

The Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) is investigating after a man died at the door of a Mexico City hospital to which he was denied entry.

A 48-year-old man with kidney problems arrived at an IMSS hospital in the northern borough of Gustavo A. Madero on Wednesday morning to seek medical treatment. According to his family, he was denied treatment and not even allowed to enter the emergency department.

A video posted to social media shows the man’s son imploring healthcare workers to treat his father. But his pleas were to no avail.

The footage shows the man, identified only as Ricardo, on the ground outside the entrance to the emergency department of the Dr. Victorio de la Fuente Narváez Trauma and Orthopedics Hospital, which is also treating Covid-19 patients. Finally, ambulance paramedics approached the man only to declare that he had passed away.

“We decided to go to that hospital [because] they were going to receive us there,” the man’s sister told the newspaper Reforma.

Los familiares de este hombre insistían en que tenía problemas renales y no #COVID19 y aún así no lo atendieron. ESTE es el servicio de salud PÚBLICA en #Mexico @lopezobrador_ @SSalud_mx @Tu_IMSS 👇🏻pic.twitter.com/JoDvlmT39V

— Alejandra Aguayo (@alejandraguayoa) February 3, 2021

She said her brother started to struggle to breathe when they arrived at the hospital and may have suffered a heart attack.

“The truth is I can’t describe what it was. I got out [of the car] to ask for help but the guard closed the door and told us to take him to Clinic 24,” she said, referring to another IMSS hospital in Gustavo A. Madero.

Prior to taking Ricardo to the trauma hospital, his family reportedly took him to five other health care facilities but was unable to find a bed for him.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, IMSS director Zoé Robledo said that he had ordered an investigation into the man’s death.

“We had a conversation with the director of the hospital, Fryda Medina Rodríguez, who I asked to carry out an investigation about several important facts that have to be clarified,” he said. “… The vital signs of the patient at the time of arrival also have to be clarified.”

Robledo suggested that medical personnel believed that Ricardo had Covid and blocked his entry to a non-Covid section of the hospital to avoid possible infection among patients. However, the man’s son made it clear that his father didn’t have the infectious disease, telling hospital staff he had kidney problems.

The IMSS director said he will wait to have all the relevant information about the case before a determination is made about whether medical personnel had been negligent or not. He denied that the man’s death was related to the high occupancy levels in Mexico City hospitals as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It might be thought that this is the product of the saturation of hospitals when that’s not the case,” Robledo said, highlighting that additional beds have been installed at several hospitals including the one outside which the man died.

However, there have been reports that indicate that finding a hospital bed in Mexico City has not been easy as the health system came under increasing pressure in recent weeks. Hospital occupancy for general care beds in Mexico City is currently 82%, according to federal data, while 79% of those with ventilators are taken.

Medina, the hospital director, said later on Wednesday that an investigation into the man’s death and the circumstances surrounding it had begun.

“Following the instructions of our general director we’ve begun an internal investigation with the aim of determining responsibility,” she said in a video message.

Medina also said the hospital had offered its condolences to the family of Ricardo, adding “we want to reiterate IMSS’ commitment to protecting the health of the public.”

Source: Sin Embargo (sp), Milenio (sp)

Many Chiapas citizens say no to Covid vaccination campaign

By

Michelle Aguilar

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February 5, 2021

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Dozens of communities in a Chiapas municipality have officially said “thanks but no thanks” to Covid-19 vaccinations, following a stance already taken by residents of 24 other municipalities.

“Only two people voluntarily wanted to get the vaccine,” said San Juan Cancuc Mayor José López López in a letter he wrote on Monday to Ministry of Health officials in San Cristóbal de las Casas, explaining that 45 communities in his municipality had voted to disallow any vaccination campaigns in their villages, including shots for the elderly.

In the letter, López explained that the local government held a meeting with community leaders representing the 45 villages to inform them about the upcoming campaign to vaccinate, as well as the benefits and possible side effects of the vaccine. The leaders agreed to go back to their villages and share the information with residents.

However, in all 45 communities, residents “stood firm in their decision not to allow vaccination.”

The decision also affected health clinics in the 45 communities and the medical personnel who work there: administrators in local clinics drew up resolutions stating that Covid-19 vaccination campaigns would not be allowed there. Despite the fact that Chiapas has already received 15,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, more than 40 health officials and medical personnel in San Juan Cancuc remain unvaccinated.

Rejection of the vaccine has taken place in nearly 100 communities throughout the state, according to a report by the Chiapas rural development office.

Ninety-nine villages in 25 municipalities have refused to allow the installation of vaccination sites, it said. These include communities in San Cristóbal, Comitán and Ocosingo, and in the Tonalá and Bochil regions.

Like those in San Juan Cancuc, residents in communities within the municipalities of Chamula, San Cristóbal de las Casas and Tenejapa have voted against permitting vaccination campaigns. In Ocosingo, local teachers have been expressing doubts about the vaccine.

Furthermore, residents in seven Chiapas communities refused to allow the installation of Covid-19 checkpoints, known as filtros sanitarios, throughout the pandemic. In the community of Chenalhó, residents resisted sanitization efforts by local government, the report said.

“In the region of San Cristóbal, sociopolitical conflicts have been detected. There is a lack of confidence in the vaccine [and] the community does not allow measures related to Covid-19 [prevention].”

Sources: Gabriela Coutiño (sp), Reforma (sp)

Foreign Affairs official accuses ex-ambassador of lying over arms trafficking

By

MND Staff

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February 5, 2021

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The National Guard seized these firearms while being smuggled into Mexico at Nogales, Sonora, last year. — The National Guard seized these firearms while they were being smuggled into Mexico at Nogales, Sonora, last year.

A claim by the former United States ambassador to Mexico that the federal government rejected a U.S. offer of equipment to help control illegal arms trafficking is “a big lie,” according to a senior foreign affairs official.

Just days before he left his ambassadorial post due to the change of the United States government, Christopher Landau told a virtual press conference that the U.S. offered to donate “non-intrusive equipment to control arms trafficking on the border” but the Mexican government didn’t accept.

Fabián Medina, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard’s chief of staff, refuted that claim this week.

At a seminar on arms trafficking on Wednesday, Medina portrayed the United States, not Mexico, as being uncooperative on the issue.

In addition to accusing Landau of being a liar, the official said the Mexican government had asked its United States counterpart to carry out operations on its side of the border to inspect vehicles coming to Mexico. However, there was no response from the U.S. government, Medina said.

He explained that Mexico inspects southbound vehicles in 13 border cities and wants the U.S. to do the same.

“We’re asking for the implementation of these kinds of operations … but unfortunately we haven’t had the response we hoped for from the United States authorities,” Medina said.

The official cited statistics that indicate that 70% of firearms seized in Mexico were made in the United States or imported here via the U.S.

(The Foreign Affairs Ministry said in 2019 that firearms from the United States are used in seven out of every 10 high-impact crimes committed in Mexico.)

Medina said that Mexico has no desire for the United States to change the second amendment of its constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms, but does want improved regulation in the U.S. with relation to the sale of firearms.

At the same seminar, which was organized by the Mexican consulate in Tucson, Arizona, security expert Raul Benítez asserted that there is a lack of political will in the United States to address the arms trafficking issue. However, Mexico could find some sympathetic ears for its proposals among United States lawmakers caught up in the attack on the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, he said.

“In Mexico, our laws are tough but the application is lax,” the National Autonomous University academic said, adding that inspections at the northern border should be ramped up.

Javier Osorio, a professor in the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona, stressed that efforts to stop illegal arms trafficking must be bilateral.

“It’s not just the responsibility of Mexico to stop [weapons] once they’ve crossed the border. An important area of cooperation between Mexico and the United States could be the setting up checkpoints [on both sides of the border] … and increasing border controls,” he said.

“… This is politically, economically and socially delicate,” Osorio added. “We can’t create significant disruption at the border because it would affect the lives of millions of people who cross every day.”

Source: Reforma (sp)

Vaccination registration site continues to crash; doctors worry about second shot

By

MND Staff

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February 5, 2021

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A shipment of Pfizer vaccine arrives in December. More are expected in February but the number of doses to be shipped is unknown.

The website set up by the federal government for the registration of seniors who want to be vaccinated against Covid-19 experienced problems for a fourth consecutive day on Friday amid growing concern about Mexico’s capacity to administer a second shot of the Pfizer vaccine to health workers within the required timeframe.

The government launched an online platform Tuesday where people aged 60 and over can register for a vaccination appointment. But the site – mivacuna.salud.gob.mx – was quickly overwhelmed, leaving many unable to access it.

The Associated Press (AP) reported that problems persisted on Wednesday and Thursday. Federal authorities said a high volume of traffic overloaded the site and its servers and recommended that people be patient and continue trying to register.

According to AP, anyone trying to access the site earlier this week had to pass an English language CAPTCHA “I am not a robot” test just to find out that it wasn’t working. The news agency said the site was loading on Wednesday but returning a server error message.

“The holdup now appears in the link to another government agency that has to check official ID numbers. That agency spends hours ‘checking’ registration requests, only to return a message of ‘no response,’” AP said.

On Thursday, the site began to work but it was still functioning well below an optimal level. But on Friday, three attempts by Mexico News Daily failed to get beyond a message saying “Sin respuesta” (no answer) after entering a CURP identity number.

Writing in the newspaper El Universal, columnist Hectór de Mauleón described a 20-hour ordeal trying to get the website to work.

“They [the government] had months to prepare for the demand that would happen, but as always, they didn’t do it,” he wrote.

Interior Minister Olga Sánchez acknowledged the website issues, attributing them to “the great hopes of getting registered for a vaccine.” She asserted that the overload will not affect the government’s vaccination program.

But there is already significant concern about the vaccine rollout, which began on December 24 with the inoculation of frontline healthcare workers but has not yet reached other sectors of the population apart from teachers in Campeche and some government vaccination brigade workers.

Just over 695,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine had been administered by Thursday night, according to Health Ministry data, but fewer than 61,000 of those doses were used as the second of the required two shots.

The message that was appearing Friday on the vaccination registration site.

More than 617,000 health workers still require a second shot but there are currently only about 71,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the country. At least two shipments of Pfizer vaccines are expected later this month but how many doses will arrive has not been revealed.

The situation has triggered complaints from doctors, nurses and other health workers on the frontline of the fight against Covid-19, which has claimed the lives of more than 160,000 Mexicans, including more than 2,000 medical personnel.

Some workers say that the 21 days within which Pfizer recommends the second dose of the vaccine be administered has already passed for them.

Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, the government’s coronavirus point man, has said that the second dose can be administered up to 42 days after the first according to World Health Organization guidelines but it appears unlikely that Mexico will be able to meet that timetable for all those who have received one shot to date.

In that context, some state governors on Thursday urged the federal government to provide certainty about the delivery and application of second vaccine doses for health workers. However, it wasn’t fully able to satisfy their demand.

At a virtual meeting with Interior Minister Sánchez and Deputy Health Minister López-Gatell, the governors of Sonora, Guerrero and Yucatán conveyed the concerns of health workers, the newspaper El Universal reported.

They, and other state leaders, also asked questions about what impact not receiving a second dose within the required timeframe will have on people’s immunity.

Yucatán Governor Mauricio Vila said federal officials indicated that shipments of Pfizer vaccines will arrive on February 15 and 22 and that there will be enough to administer second doses to all health workers this month.

Sánchez said Friday that López-Gatell provided the governors with a guarantee that health workers will receive their second shot on time, although it is far from certain it will be possible given that the vast majority have only received one shot so far and that 53 days will have elapsed since the start of the vaccination program by the time the next Pfizer shipment arrives.

Vila appeared to express skepticism, noting that the officials “never said how many vaccines [will arrive].”

Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquín told El Universal that there is no guarantee that vaccines for the inoculation of the nation’s 15.4 million seniors will arrive this month, although President López Obrador predicted that 6 million doses would arrive in February.

A senior health official said last week that 200,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, of which Mexico intends to purchase 24 million doses, would arrive this week but that shipment appears to have been delayed.

Joaquín said the meeting with Sánchez and López-Gatell failed to give him peace of mind about the rollout of vaccines in Quintana Roo and the rest of the country because “there are no complete guarantees or concrete dates.”

“The second doses [for health workers] are going to arrive on the 15th [of February] but we don’t know exactly how many. Afterwards the AstraZeneca vaccines are going to arrive but we don’t have the exact starting date for their use. The Sputnik vaccines are going to arrive but we don’t yet have the arrival schedule. So, there is clearly no guarantee with regard to the dates,” he said.

Vila acknowledged that other countries have also experienced delays in receiving vaccine shipments – Pfizer temporarily halted production at its Belgium plant in order to to boost production, causing delays – and called on all levels of government to work together to ensure the success of the national vaccination program.

“Hopefully, the vaccines arrive soon and we can all have the certainty we desire,” he said.

Source: AP (en), El Universal (sp)

AMLO tests negative for Covid; may return Monday to morning press conference

By

MND Staff

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February 5, 2021

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lopez obrador — The president said he is recovering from the coronavirus.

President López Obrador said Thursday that he had tested negative for Covid-19 but would have to wait a few more days before making a full return to public life.

“I’m very pleased to tell you that I did an antigen test this morning and I was negative. Of course I still have to wait a few more days but I’m now in good health, I’m recovering from Covid,” López Obrador said in a video message.

He thanked the Mexicans and foreigners who showed concern for his health, wished him well, prayed for him and sent him “blessings” and “good vibes” since he announced that he had tested positive for Covid-19 on January 24.

Earlier on Thursday, López Obrador was filmed walking through a garden of the National Palace with two government officials. Contrary to his usual custom during the pandemic, he was wearing a face mask.

According to government officials who provided updates on his health during the past 11 days, the president – a former smoker with a history of high blood pressure who suffered a heart attack in 2013 – has only suffered mild symptoms of the infectious disease.

Estamos recuperados de COVID-19

Watch this video on YouTube

Interior Minister Olga Sánchez, who has stood in for López Obrador at the government’s morning news conferences, said Thursday that the president’s medical team will decide when he can return to his public activities, including the weekday pressers that have become a defining feature of his presidency.

Sánchez said earlier this week that AMLO, as the president is known, could return to the press conferences on Monday but on Thursday declined to confirm that would be the case.

“I don’t know how his doctors will assess him. I’d be very happy if he could return to the morning press conferences [on Monday] because he provides a very important personal touch, but it depends on his doctors,” she said.

Later on Thursday, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said the president will have to be given the all-clear from a medical and epidemiological point of view before returning to his full duties. His blood pressure and other health indicators will need to be under control and it will have to be established that the president can no longer transmit the virus, he said.

López Obrador is one of several world leaders who have contracted the coronavirus. Among them are former United States president Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Those three countries and Mexico are all in the top five for Covid-19 deaths. The odd country out is India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has remained virus-free despite the country ranking second for case numbers and fourth for deaths.

Mexico’s confirmed case tally rose to just under 1.9 million on Thursday – the 13th highest total in the world – with 13,575 new cases reported. Covid-19 fatalities increased by 1,682 to 162,922, the third highest death toll after those of the United States and Brazil.

Source: El Universal (sp), Siete24 (sp)

Morena party supporters are older, less educated and live in south, poll shows

By

MND Staff

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February 4, 2021

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opinion poll — At the top of the chart are the undecided (in black) and Morena supporters (brown). el financiero

A typical AMLOver – a big fan of President López Obrador – is 50 or older, didn’t study past middle school level and lives in the south of the country, a new poll suggests.

A survey conducted by the newspaper El Financiero established that the ruling Morena party, which López Obrador, or AMLO, founded, finds its greatest support among those cohorts of the population.

El Financiero surveyed 1,000 adults during the middle and end of January, and 50% of the respondents aged 50 or over said that they would vote for Morena and its allies if a federal lower house election was held the day they were polled.

(The election, at which all 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies will be up for grabs, will be held June 6.)

In contrast, only 17% of respondents aged 50 or over said that they would vote for the three-party alliance made up of the National Action Party (PAN), Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).

Morena’s support dropped to 42% among those aged 30-49 and 27% among the 18-29 cohort, which supported AMLO in droves at the 2018 presidential election. The PAN-PRI-PRD coalition increased its support to 27% and 28%, respectively, among the same age groups.

Morena also outstripped its rival among poll respondents whose highest level of educational attainment was middle school or lower. Only 21% of respondents in that cohort said they would vote for the three-party alliance while 45% indicated they would support Morena.

Among respondents who have completed high school, it was a much tighter race with 33% supporting Morena and 32% opting for the PAN-PRI-PRD coalition. Among respondents with a university-level education, Morena prevailed 34% to 26%.

Residents of southern states such as Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca – the three poorest states in the country – support Morena in much greater numbers than the ruling party’s rivals, the poll found. AMLO’s party found 54% support among southerners, a figure almost four times higher than the 14% backing of the tripartite pact.

Morena also came out on top in other parts of the country but by smaller margins. In the central region – Mexico City, México state and Morelos among other states – Morena prevailed 34% to 29%. In the central west, including Jalisco and Nayarit, the ruling party garnered 45% support versus 22% for its rivals while in northern Mexico, the result was a much closer 31% to 29%.

The poll showed that Morena’s support is by no means limited to poorer Mexicans. Among respondents who said that their economic and work situation was good or very good, 62% said that they would vote for Morena and its allies (the Labor Party, among other small parties) while only 13% of the same cohort indicated support for the PAN-PRI-PRD alliance.

One-third of respondents who described their economic and work situation as poor or very poor said they would vote for the ruling party while 26% indicated support for its rivals.

Among people who identified as being on the left, center and right of the political spectrum, support for Morena – ostensibly a leftist party – was 58%, 39% and 27%, respectively.

The three-party alliance, which includes the conservative PAN, the leftist PRD and the centrist PRI, garnered 23% support among leftists, 19% among those in the center and 54% – double the Morena vote – among right-wingers.

Among respondents who believe that the government has successfully managed the coronavirus pandemic – something that becomes harder to argue virtually by the day as Mexico’s case tally and death toll continue to climb – 65% said that they would vote for Morena versus just 12% for its rivals. The PAN-PRI-PRD came out on top among those who believe the pandemic response has failed but only just, prevailing 33% to 30%.

El Financiero also asked respondents about their individual party preferences, and found that 38% would vote for Morena in an imminent lower house election, 11% for the PAN, 10% for the PRI and 3% for the PRD. At 33%, the most popular response after Morena was “none of them/ I don’t know.”

The June 6 election will be the largest in Mexico’s history, according to the National Electoral Institute. In addition to voting for new federal deputies, citizens will also elect governors in many states as well as other representatives at the state and municipal level.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Supreme Court rules against government’s energy policy

By

MND Staff

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February 4, 2021

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Energy Minister Rocío Nahle has led the government's efforts to renew energy policy in favor of the CFE.

The Supreme Court (SCJN) has rescinded key elements of a federal energy policy in a major setback for the government, which is trying to reshape the electricity market to favor the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

The court, which last June suspended the energy reliability policy pending a final ruling, definitively struck down 22 provisions of the same policy, which was published by the Energy Ministry (Sener) last May.

By four votes to one on Wednesday, the second chamber of the SCJN invalidated provisions in the policy – which imposed restrictive measures on the renewable energy sector – that it ruled violated the constitution in areas including free competition and sustainability. Only five provisions of the Sener policy were declared legal.

The court’s decision came in response to a complaint filed by Mexico’s antitrust regulator, the Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece). The ruling is a blow for the government’s plans to sideline private and renewable companies from Mexico’s power market.

The government sent a bill to Congress on Monday that proposes a sweeping overhaul of the electricity market to favor the CFE but the legislation, which is expected to be approved, will almost certainly be challenged and could also be struck down by the Supreme Court.

That eventuality, which appears likely based on Wednesday’s decision, would put a sizable dent in President López Obrador’s ambition to wind back the previous government’s energy form that opened up the sector to foreign and private companies for the first time in almost 80 years.

Among the energy policy provisions rescinded by the Supreme Court on Wednesday was one that gave priority to safety in the dispatch of power over economic efficiency.

Another provision that was struck down allowed the National Energy Control Center to determine – based on criteria established by the Energy Ministry itself – whether an application to supply power to the national grid should be considered or not “without taking into account the general technical specifications approved” by the Energy Regulatory Commission.

The court said the provision could lead to the “interconnection applicant” – most likely a private company – being unfairly shut out of the electricity market.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Lack of controls turns youth employment program into opportunity for corruption

By

MND Staff

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February 4, 2021

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Youth Building the Future is a flagship program of the government of López Obrador. — Youth Building the Future is a flagship program of the government of President López Obrador.

The federal government’s youth employment scheme has been used as a vehicle for corruption in Nuevo León, according to a report by the newspaper Reforma.

The report said that the “Youth Building the Future” apprenticeship scheme, one of the government’s flagship social programs, has not just benefited young people in the northern border state who were out of a job and not studying.

Reforma, which conducted a five-month-long investigation into the operation of the scheme, said the program – which it described as a “corruptible tool without controls” – was used to divert large amounts of public money in the municipality of Linares and the metropolitan area of Monterrey.

The newspaper said it determined that Reyes Lucio Zurita, a former official in the Linares government, created a corruption scheme in that municipality and that Yahir Omar Guerrero Ríos, an aspiring federal deputy, led another one in Monterrey.

To establish what occurred, Reforma conducted 140 interviews with beneficiaries of the Youth Building the Future program, which pays people aged between 18 and 29 a monthly stipend, or scholarship, of 4,310 pesos (US $210) while they complete a one-year apprenticeship with an approved employer. The newspaper also obtained documents pertinent to the operation of the program in the state.

Reforma said that testimonies and documents revealed that Lucio, a former economic development official in the current Linares government led by National Action Party Mayor Fernando Adame, colluded with local business owners to build a scheme that was used to register about 100 young people in the apprenticeship scheme and divert their monthly payments.

Lucio made job offers, phony or otherwise, to young people in order to obtain their personal details. He then used those details to enroll them – without their consent – in the Youth Building the Future program. According to young people who spoke with Reforma, Lucio kept their bank cards corresponding to the accounts into which the federal government paid monthly scholarships to them.

An 18-year-old woman, a music student, told Reforma that Lucio offered her a job playing music in a market and at private parties for 1,000 pesos (US $49) per month. She said that she kept her bank card but Lucio obligated her via telephone calls and visits to her home to transfer 2,700 pesos per month to him.

“He has bags full of [bank] cards and I saw where he sent a person to withdraw money from all the cards,” the young woman said. “… All these other people didn’t work but I did work.”

In the Monterrey area, Guerrero, who is aiming to become a lawmaker with the ruling Morena party, created a scheme in which he attracted university students with an offer to pay them 1,600 pesos a month to attend self-improvement workshops offered by a business he owns.

To join the workshops – which ran in 2019 and 2020 – the students had to sign an agreement in which they committed to transfer 2,000 pesos of 3,600 pesos they would receive on a monthly basis via the youth employment scheme to Guerrero. (The stipend increased from 3,600 pesos to 4,310 pesos this year.)

youths in employment program — The apprenticeship program was described in the report as ‘a corruptible tool without controls.’

Dyvanhi Patricia González García, a 21-year-old medicine student, told Reforma that she heard about the workshops in 2019. She said she was asked to provide her personal details when registering, and did, but ultimately decided to back out and not attend.

González said she was unaware at the time that there was a Youth Building the Future website where young people could be registered to participate. According to program records, González received two payments totaling 7,200 pesos but she said she didn’t see the money.

Reforma sought comment from Lucio and Guerrero but both refused to speak.

Highlighting the lack of oversight of the apprenticeship scheme in Nuevo León, the newspaper said there are 2,240 companies that supposedly provide employment for more than 5,600 young people in the state but the Labor Ministry only has 14 inspectors to ensure that the program is functioning correctly.

In a separate report published Thursday, Reforma said that signing up is simple and that the program is highly susceptible to corruption. There are also plenty of funds to target: by the end of this year, the federal government, which took office at the end of 2018, will have spent 70 billion pesos (US $3.4 billion) on it.

The program is designed for so-called ninis, young people who neither work nor study (ni trabaja, ni estudia), but in order for someone to register he or she only has to provide a “declaration of good faith” that he or she is neither employed nor studying.

Reforma journalists said there was no impediment to them signing up for the program, adding that supposed security features built into the online system can easily be bypassed.

The system should reject people who are registered with the Mexican Social Security Institute as a result of being employed or studying, but Reforma found that at least eight students in Nuevo León were able to enroll.

After the newspaper published its report on Wednesday, the Labor Ministry (STPS), which is responsible for the youth employment program, admitted that there have been irregularities in Nuevo León.

The ministry said that workplaces in Linares where irregularities were detected were withdrawn in August 2020. The same fate befell two workplaces in San Nicolás de los Garza, a municipality in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, in March last year, the STPS said.

The ministry said it is working with the federal Attorney General’s Office to conduct a probe into a municipal official (Lucio) who deceived young people and companies to enroll them in the scheme. The STPS said that he and any other people found guilty of wrongdoing in relation to the apprenticeship program will be sanctioned.

It said that the cases highlighted by Reforma are not representative of the scheme as a whole.

“These cases detected in March and August last year in two municipalities in the state of Nuevo León don’t tarnish the reach and achievements that the Youth Building the Future program has had. The vast majority of mentors and businesses that participate are committed to the training of hundreds of thousands of young people who work and learn at small businesses and large companies,” the ministry said.

“It’s not the first time that the Reforma newspaper has published biased and incomplete information with the desire to discredit a collective effort between the public sector and the private sector. Nor is it the first time that it uses the word ninis to describe young people seeking opportunities that were denied to them before. The families of these young people and the young people themselves would undoubtedly appreciate a different … [descriptive term] from the newspaper.”

The STPS “categorically” denied the characterization of the employment scheme as a “corruptible tool that allows public resources to be diverted.”

“ … All the work centers are verified by Labor Ministry personnel … to ensure that the spaces have the [appropriate] conditions to receive apprentices. Additionally all the work centers are visited in a random manner once the training starts to make certain it is taking place.”

It is not the first time that Youth Building the Future has faced accusations of corruption. Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, a non-government organization, published a report in August 2019 that spoke of the probable existence of “phantom” work centers and discrepancies between the number of persons enrolled in the employment scheme and the number who are actually undertaking training.

Earlier the same month, federal officials in Aguascalientes, Campeche, Chiapas, Guerrero, Nayarit, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, Tabasco and Yucatán said that some young people enrolled in the apprenticeship program were handing over part of their monthly payments to their employers in exchange for waiving their obligation to show up to work.

Source: Reforma (sp)