AMLO, elections authority face off over broadcast of press conference before elections

January 13, 2021

López Obrador and elections chief Córdova.

A battle is brewing between the federal government and the National Electoral Institute (INE) over a possible ban on the transmission of President López Obrador’s daily press conferences during the lead-up to elections in June.

INE president Lorenzo Córdova said Monday that the broadcast of López Obrador’s morning pressers, known colloquially as mañaneras, must be suspended from April 4 because they constitute government propaganda.

But the president may continue holding his press conferences in the lead-up to state and federal elections on June 6, he said.

“Nobody has proposed suspending or canceling them,” Córdova said.

However, transmission of the conferences – which López Obrador uses to attack opponents as well as tout government programs and policies – must be suspended because the president uses them to promote the achievements of his administration, the INE chief said.

“They constitute government propaganda whose dissemination is prohibited during [election] campaigns by our constitution,” he said.

Córdova noted that the INE applied the law in the lead-up to previous elections and that governments and the media abided by it. He insisted that it is not an attempt to censor or silence the president.

“Freedom of speech prevails in Mexico … but conditions of equity and legality in political competition must also be maintained,” Córdova said.

“The INE will preserve them in accordance with its constitutional responsibilities, just as happened in 2018 [the year of the most recent presidential election], 2019 and 2020. And it will guarantee that citizens can freely vote this year, that their votes are respected and that the conditions of equity are maintained so that we once again have fully democratic elections,” he said.

(The entire lower house of federal Congress will be renewed on June 6 and voters will choose new governors in 15 states and new lawmakers in 30.)

INE councilor Ciro Murayama also spoke out in favor of suspending transmission of the president’s press conferences, which are broadcast on López Obrador’s personal social media accounts, including his popular YouTube channel, as well as government accounts and by media outlets.

The daily press conferences are generally a platform for promoting the government.

“#NoEsCensura [It’s not censorship]. The constitution orders the suspension of all government propaganda during election campaigns. The exception: health, education and civil protection issues. In this way the constitution protects the right to information and avoids government interference in elections,” Murayama wrote on Twitter.

López Obrador takes a very different view, which he outlined at his mañanera on Tuesday.

“Yesterday it was announced that the INE president is proposing the cancellation of the transmission of [press] conferences during two months. As censorship is now in fashion at a global level, they want to silence us,” the president said, apparently referring to the recent suspension of United States President Donald Trump’s social media accounts, which he criticized.

“It really is an attitude of great intolerance. How can they take away the right to freedom of speech? … How can they take away people’s right to information?”

López Obrador told reporters that his government would launch legal action if the INE goes ahead with the plan.

“It would be an act of censorship, an affront, an attack on freedom; this [plan] cannot succeed from a constitutional point of view, from a legal point of view,” he said.

AMLO, as the president is best known, called on Mexicans to express their opinion on whether the INE’s plan is a good idea.

“Is it OK in Mexico, in our country, that the president can’t speak, can’t inform?” he asked.

López Obrador asserted that Córdova shouldn’t be concerned about the transmission of his press conferences during the campaign period because his administration is different from the corrupt governments of the past and wouldn’t seek to use them for electoral gain.

“We’re not the same, we come from a struggle in which we always faced anti-democratic practices that he [Córdova] endorsed, … he always turned a blind eye to electoral frauds, to violations of the law,” AMLO said.

(Córdova has been at the helm of the INE since 2014, overseeing the 2015 midterm federal election at which the president’s Morena party finished a distant fourth.)

López Obrador asserted that he wouldn’t allow the government to use public money to promote itself in the lead-up to the election, which he claimed happened in the past without any opposition from the INE chief.

“We have principles, ideals, we’re not going to do anything that affects democracy. On the contrary, we’re going to promote it. What does that mean in practice? … The government won’t … [interfere] in the electoral process [and] won’t use the government budget” to boost its electoral prospects, he said.

Following his remarks, some opposition lawmakers called on the president not to distort information, asserting that his claim that the INE is trying to silence him is false.

Verónica Juárez, leader of the Democratic Revolution Party in the lower house of Congress, and National Action Party Senator Juan Antonio Martín del Campo said that the INE’s intention is simply to ensure a level playing field for the various political parties.

Juárez said that López Obrador uses his pressers to promote the government and attack his opponents and to do so in a broadcast from the presidential lectern during the campaign period would be illegal.

Martín expressed his support for the possible ban and affirmed that at no time have electoral authorities said their aim is to silence the president and his government.

For his part, Deputy Raúl Eduardo Bonifaz of the ruling Morena party said that Córdova’s intention is misguided because the president uses them to inform the public about government actions – López Obrador said this week that the national transparency watchdog is not needed because his administration maintains “permanent communication” with citizens – and not for promotional purposes.

“We’re in a health emergency and the people must be informed. The INE is violating … the constitution and making a very serious mistake.“

Source: Reforma (sp)

State legislator and mayoral hopeful murdered in Guanajuato

Michelle Aguilar

January 13, 2021

The murder scene in Juventino Rosas on Tuesday.

A Guanajuato state legislator who was hoping to run for mayor of Juventino Rosas was shot in the back and killed Tuesday morning.

Authorities said Juan Antonio Acosta Cano’s killers shot him seven times from behind, then left him for dead in his exercise clothes on a downtown street in the city of Juventino Rosas.

Acosta, 55, had registered as a National Action Party candidate for mayor of the municipality, where he had served two previous terms from 2006–2009 and 2012–2015.

“I profoundly lament the killing of state Deputy Juan Antonio Acosta Cano and vehemently condemn these deeds,” Guanajuato Governor Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo said on social media. “I call on the state Attorney General’s Office to investigate this case and bring justice to those responsible.”

Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa Aguirre has assigned the case to a specialized, high-impact-crimes unit for investigation, according to a statement by his office.

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Acosta is the second precandidate for the 2021 elections to be killed. Antonio Hernández Godínez, a Democratic Revolution Party hopeful for mayor of Chilapa de Álvarez, Guerrero, was shot and killed on November 25 at his construction materials business.

It was just a few weeks after he had announced his intention to run for office.

Acosta’s killing cut short a diverse political career. In addition to serving as mayor of Juventino Rosas, he had also served as director of municipal services and as director-general of the DIF family services agency for Guanajuato.

State PAN president Román Cifuentes Negrete said Guanajuato had lost a man committed to Mexico.

Violence in the state, which led the country in homicides last year, has carried on into the new year: 119 people were killed in the first 11 days, including nine members of a family attending a funeral last week in León for a man believed to be a lower-level member of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. The man himself had been shot and killed the day before.

Juventino Rosas, considered by many to be territory of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, is bordered to the south by Villagrán and to the southeast by Celaya.

State lawmaker Acosta was killed while jogging in Juventino Rosas.

The two municipalities were the sites of five firefights between security forces and presumed members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel on Monday that left 10 dead, including one state police officer.

Police attributed those attacks on police to the CJNG and said they had found messages to another unidentified criminal group afterward among the vehicles, explosives, and weapons they confiscated.

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

Valley of México within 53 hospital beds of predicted worst-case scenario

MND Staff

January 13, 2021

There were 9,459 patients in hospitals in the Mexico City metropolitan area Tuesday night. — There were 9,459 Covid patients in hospitals in the Mexico City metropolitan area Tuesday night.

The number of coronavirus patients in hospitals in the Valley of México metropolitan area is just 53 short of the maximum predicted by the Mexico City government, while the national Covid-19 death toll hit a new single-day high on Tuesday.

Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said in late December that government modeling showed that 9,512 beds could be occupied by coronavirus patients in January in a worst case scenario.

As of Tuesday night, there were 9,459 patients in hospitals in the metropolitan area, which includes the 16 boroughs of Mexico City and many municipalities in neighboring México state. Of that number, 7,205 are in general care beds and 2,254 are in intensive care beds.

There are 6,912 patients hospitalized in Mexico City itself, according to a government report published Tuesday, yielding an occupancy rate of 87%. Federal data currently shows a 91.5% occupancy rate for general care beds in the capital and an 87% rate for beds with ventilators.

A total of 929 beds in Mexico City hospitals remain available to coronavirus patients, of which 225 have access to ventilators.

Authorities in the capital have added just over 2,000 additional beds to the health system over the past four weeks, increasing overall capacity by 38%. Another 300 beds will be installed in hospitals by the end of January, Sheinbaum told a press conference Tuesday.

The mayor emphasized that increasing hospital capacity doesn’t just involve installing new beds but also ensuring that there are enough medications and healthcare workers to treat the patients that occupy them.

Authorities in Mexico City and México state are aiming to have a total of 10,500 Covid-designated beds by next week but it remains to be seen if their efforts to increase hospital capacity in the Valley of México area will be sufficient in the coming weeks. The coronavirus is spreading more quickly now than at any other time in the pandemic, and a group of Mexican and United States academics predicted last month that the outbreak in the capital would overwhelm its health system this month.

Some patients have already had difficulty finding a hospital bed, and in early December the federal Health Ministry advised people with Covid-19 symptoms to call 911 to confirm the availability of beds before seeking treatment to avoid facilities that are already full. The situation has worsened considerably since then.

A daily average of 10,827 new cases was reported during the first 12 days of January, a 7% increase compared to December, which was the worst month of the pandemic in terms of new infections with more than 312,000. The single-day record for case numbers was broken on four consecutive days last week, peaking at 16,105 on Saturday.

The Health Ministry reported 14,395 new cases on Tuesday – the second highest single-day total of the pandemic – pushing Mexico’s accumulated tally to 1.55 million.

Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio

Mexico City leads the country for confirmed cases with almost 375,000 followed by México state with just over 158,000.

Health authorities also reported a record 1,314 Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday, a figure that exceeds the previous single-day high of 1,165 by 149, or 13%. Mexico’s official death toll now stands at 135,682, the fourth highest total in the world.

Hospital occupancy across the national health system is 58% for general care beds and 49% for beds with ventilators. Federal data also shows that only 92,879 people – mainly health workers – have received a dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine since the vaccination program began three weeks ago, but that number should now increase more rapidly as almost 440,000 doses arrived Tuesday and were to be distributed to all 32 states.

A wider rollout of the vaccine is urgently needed as Mexico contends with a growing coronavirus outbreak largely fueled by gatherings and parties over the Christmas-New Year vacation period and braces for a possible outbreak of the new, more contagious strain of the virus first detected in the United Kingdom in September.

Unlike many countries, Mexico didn’t restrict flights from the U.K. in light of the emergence of the new strain, which is considered up to 70% more transmissible than other strains.

One confirmed case of the new strain and a possible one have already been detected here, the former in Tamaulipas and the latter in Nuevo León.

Nuevo León Health Minister Manuel de la O Cavazos said Tuesday that a man infected with a virus that was 96% similar to the B117 strain had died. Aged in his 60s, the man suffered from diabetes and passed away in a Pemex hospital, the health minister said.

A U.K. citizen confirmed to be infected with the new strain of the virus remains in serious condition in a Tamaulipas hospital. While the new strain of the virus is more contagious than others, health experts say there is no evidence that it causes a more serious Covid-19 illness.

Source: El Universal (sp), Animal Político (sp), El Financiero (sp)

Oaxaca beach town parties stoke fears of virus spread

Michelle Aguilar

January 12, 2021

Local police at the scene of a party in Puerto Escondido.

The state of Oaxaca is currently at the orange high risk level on the country’s coronavirus stoplight map, but that is not stopping a wave of beach parties at bars and clubs in Puerto Escondido and the surrounding area.

Residents who say they organized themselves into a group to report such events to municipal authorities after a massive event on Zicatela Beach on January 2 told the newspaper El Universal that such large events have continued to take place and that officials have been slow or ineffectual in responding, even when provided with video evidence.

The videos, which they also shared with the newspaper, show that large parties hosted by beachfront bars and clubs have continued despite Oaxaca’s orange level meaning a prohibition on large gatherings.

“These are big money-making events, and they encourage people to gather in the middle of a full-blown pandemic with no protection, until five or six in the morning,” residents told El Universal. “They even have afterparties.”

In one clip, people can be seen dancing and socializing in close quarters at a scheduled event this week at Xcaanda Club on Zicatela Beach, which was the location of a live electronic music event at La Piedra de La Iguana, a private club in which dozens of people celebrated New Year’s weekend without masks or observing social distancing guidelines. Videos of the event were posted on social media.

According to the group, police did show up at the Xcaanda Club event this week but merely encouraged organizers to end activities. The club was not subsequently shut down or sanctioned, the residents said.

Even more troubling, said the group, is the fact that members believe the event was a replacement of another event that authorities had shut down in advance, one that was supposed to take place January 7–10.

It to be a multiple-day affair titled “Sono Escape to Paradise,” involving 10 deejays and activities at swimming pools and beach areas from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., with an after-party in an undisclosed location until 5 a.m.

Residents point out that the name of the event at the Xcaanda Club, “Escape to Xcaanda,” was similar to the canceled event and that promotional materials for the two were very similar.

Evelio Santos, local tourism director in Santa María Colotepec where Zicatela Beach is located, said that officials shut down operations at bars on the beach this past Tuesday, but residents countered that authorities only did so at 11 p.m., and that when the group tried to call police to investigate partying going on late into the night, no one answered.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Baseball stadium where AMLO’s brother’s team plays gets federal funds

MND Staff

January 12, 2021

The baseball stadium in Palenque that is slated for an upgrade.

President López Obrador’s brother and a large sum of money are being mentioned in the same sentence for the second time in less than six months.

Pío López Obrador found himself in the media spotlight last August after two videos emerged showing him receiving large amounts of cash in 2015. The payments were not corrupt but rather “contributions” from ordinary people to strengthen the Morena party, said AMLO, as the president is widely known.

Now, AMLO’s younger brother is in the news again after the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning (Sedatu) awarded an 89-million-peso (US $4.5-million) contract for the upgrade of a stadium in Palenque, Chiapas, that is the home ground of a professional baseball team he founded.

Anti-graft group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) revealed Monday that Tuxtla Gutiérrez-based company Alz Construcciones was awarded a contract to upgrade the home stadium of the Guacamayas (Macaws) of Chiapas. The stadium is owned by the Palenque municipal government.

MCCI reported that Sedatu disqualified 26 bids because they didn’t meet the established criteria. Among them was one proposal to complete the upgrade for 33 million pesos less than the winning bid and another that was 12.5 million pesos cheaper.

The president with members of the Guacamayas at their home stadium in Palenque.

The upgrade includes the construction of team dugouts, dressing rooms, new grandstands and boxes, commercial spaces and public washrooms as well as improvements to the playing surface.

While the money is not going directly to the hands of Pío López Obrador, as was the case with the political “contributions,” the president’s brother, who is also the director of the Guacamayas, lists the Palenque baseball stadium as the club’s business address.

That his brother’s team stands to benefit from a lucrative government contract does not look good for AMLO, who has made combating corruption a central aim of his administration.

The president, who in 2018 posted a video to Twitter that showed him training with the Guacamayas in the lead-up to the presidential election he won, has repeatedly asserted that his government, unlike its predecessors, doesn’t permit nepotism, cronyism or any other forms of corruption.

His commitment to that position was questioned by government critics who charged that the allocation of funds for the stadium upgrade is evidence of hypocrisy and misplaced priorities.

“Mexico is going through one of the worst crises in its history. The health system is on the brink of collapse and thousands of people have lost their jobs. Even so, the López Obrador government prefers to allocate 89 million pesos to a baseball stadium of a team founded by Pío López Obrador,” National Action Party Senator Xóchitl Gálvez wrote on Twitter.

“There are powers above the general interest,” political scientist and columnist Denise Dresser said on Twitter, citing “Pío López Obrador, money and baseball stadiums” as one of several examples.

Her post came in response to a Tuesday morning presidential tweet that asserted that nothing comes before the general interest of the people.

It’s not the first time that López Obrador has come under fire for federal government spending on baseball, which just so happens to be his favorite sport.

He was heavily criticized in 2019 after the government agreed to pay the state of Sonora more than 1 billion pesos to purchase two stadiums that will become baseball schools.

López Obrador faced more condemnation last April when the government ponied up 511 million pesos to complete the purchase of a stadium in Hermosillo at a time when health workers were struggling to find personal protective equipment and supplies to respond to the burgeoning coronavirus pandemic.

Source: El Economista (sp)

After 3-year delay, medical marijuana will be legal as of Wednesday

MND Staff

January 12, 2021

More than three years after Congress approved the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, it will finally become legal on Wednesday.

President López Obrador on Tuesday published regulations for the production, research and use of medicinal marijuana.

The Congress-approved reform to legalize medicinal marijuana was originally published in June 2017 but not promulgated, although then president Enrique Peña Nieto was supposed to sign off on the law within 180 days.

It wasn’t until July 2020 that a regulatory framework developed by the federal Health Ministry was put out for public consultation, paving the way for its implementation.

Published in the federal government’s official gazette, the new regulations authorize the government to oversee the production of marijuana for research and medicinal purposes. Companies growing medicinal marijuana and/or using the plant to manufacture medications must be authorized by the health regulator Cofepris.

The regulations allow pharmacies to supply cannabis-based medicines to authorized patients in possession of prescriptions. Drugstores will be required to maintain a registry of people with approval to purchase them.

In addition, the regulatory framework permits the importation to Mexico of seeds, cannabis derivatives to be used in medicinal products and processed marijuana-based medications.

The rules published today apply exclusively to the medicinal marijuana sector. A bill legalizing the recreational use of marijuana was passed by the Senate in November but the Chamber of Deputies has not yet debated it and put it to a vote.

The Supreme Court in December granted an extension to the lower house of Congress to debate the recreational use of marijuana after lawmakers requested one on the grounds that the bill was complex and time was limited.

The court ruled in 2019 that laws prohibiting the use of marijuana are unconstitutional. The Chamber of Deputies will have until the end of their first 2021 sitting period in late April to make the recreational use of marijuana legal, as ordered by the court.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Guerrero authorities await ‘critical situation’ in wake of Christmas vacation reopening

MND Staff

January 12, 2021

Acapulco welcomed 600,000 visitors during the Christmas vacation period. The cost is expected to be a surge in new cases.

The coronavirus situation in Guerrero will become critical in the coming days as a result of end-of-year celebrations and the influx of visitors, state authorities predict, while the situation is dire in Mexico City, where about 90% of hospital beds are currently occupied.

Guerrero Health Minister Carlos de la Peña Pinto said that a critical situation is expected in terms of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

“We’re already starting to pay the bill for what we lived during December,” he said.

About 600,000 tourists traveled to Guerrero over the Christmas-New Year vacation period, mainly descending on coastal destinations such as Acapulco and Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa, where restrictions were temporarily eased by the state government to allow hotels and restaurants to increase capacity. Many of the visitors came from the red light, maximum risk entities of Mexico City, México state and Morelos as well as Puebla, which is high risk orange on the federal stoplight map.

De la Peña said that hospitalizations increased in Guerrero in the first days of 2021, citing a 20% spike compared to December. He said that hospital occupancy had risen to 45% from a level of 25% that had been maintained since September.

Federal data shows that 60.5% of general care beds are currently occupied in Guerrero while 27.5% of those with ventilators are in use.

The state health minister said that 139 residents lost their lives to Covid-19 in the first 10 days of the year, including 19 on Sunday. Guerrero’s official Covid-19 death toll is currently 2,678 while its accumulated case tally is just over 27,000.

The federal Health Ministry estimates that there are just over 900 active cases in the state.

In contrast, there are an estimated 29,753 active cases in Mexico City, which has recorded almost 369,000 confirmed cases and 23,612 Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Mexico City government data updated Monday night shows that 6,581 coronavirus patients are in hospitals in the capital, including 1,611 in beds with ventilators. Hospital occupancy is 88%, according to city authorities, while federal data shows that 91.5% of general care beds and 86% of those with ventilators are taken.

“We’re at the highest peak of hospitalizations since the pandemic began and it continues to increase,” Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday. “It’s not about dramatizing [the situation] but acting. We’re continuing to increase hospital capacity and we’re calling … on citizens to comply with the red light measures.”

A man sells face masks in Tijuana, where using them is now mandatory.

Sheinbaum said that hospital admissions had been higher than expected over the past four days, attributing the spike to end-of-year celebrations and the vacation period.

A study published in December by academics in Mexico and the United States predicted that the coronavirus outbreak in Mexico City would overwhelm the capital’s health system in January.

Warning that as many as 35,000 coronavirus patients could require a hospital bed at the same time in a worse case scenario, academics from Mexico City’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics and Stanford University urged officials to prioritize “rapid hospital capacity expansion.”

Sheinbaum stressed Monday that capacity is being increased at several healthcare facilities, citing the Tláhuac General Hospital as one example.

In other Covid news:

• Public hospital doctors and nurses in Oaxaca issued a plea for the southern state to regress to red on the stoplight map. With an accumulated case tally of just under 30,000 and a Covid-19 death toll of 2,139, Oaxaca is currently high risk orange, according to the federal government system. A red light designation would require all nonessential businesses to close their doors.

Health workers in Oaxaca issued an urgent call to President López Obrador to send 10,000 Covid-19 vaccines to the state in order to immunize frontline workers at the 25 Covid hospitals. Federal health authorities announced Monday that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine would be distributed in all 32 states on Tuesday.

The secretary general of the Oaxaca branch of the national health workers union said that only 4,000 health workers were on the early vaccination list but urged that cleaning and cooking staff, among other hospital employees, should also be immunized due to the infection risk they face on a daily basis. Mario Félix Pacheco also said that most health workers haven’t had any time off since the pandemic began and many are tired. He called for the deployment of relief medical personnel in order to give tired workers a break.

• Municipal authorities in Tijuana, Baja California, signed off on fines for people not wearing face masks in public places. Scofflaws face the prospect of having to pay between 434 and 1,303 pesos (US $22 to $659) if they are caught without a mask.

Councilor José Cañada García noted that Baja California is currently red on the stoplight map and that hospitals and funeral services are overwhelmed. He asserted that the aim of fining people for not wearing masks is to protect people’s health, not raise money for the Tijuana government. Funds collected via fines will be used to buy face masks to distribute to residents, Cañada said.

Baja California Governor Jaime Bonilla was critical of the approval of fines in the state’s largest city, saying that mask use should be encouraged but not made mandatory. That view is consistent with that of López Obrador, who founded the Morena party Bonilla represents, and seldom wears a mask himself.

Baja California has recorded more than 37,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 5,951 Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Tijuana ranks first for deaths among the state’s five municipalities and second for cases behind Mexicali.

Mexico City hospitals remain under pressure.

• Authorities in Veracruz announced that tighter restrictions on people’s movements will apply in 12 municipalities for four days this week.

Governor Cuitláhuac García said Monday that a decree that will apply Thursday through Sunday in eight municipalities currently red on the state stoplight system and four municipalities that are orange. The decree detailing the exact measures was due to be published on Tuesday.

The municipalities where the tighter restrictions will apply are Actopan, Cazones, Papantla, Tecolutla, Espinal, Gutiérrez Zamora, Tihuatlán and San Rafael, all of which are red, and Poza Rica, Veracruz, Xalapa and Orizaba, which are orange.

As is the case in some other states, Veracruz has used its own stoplight system to set restrictions rather than that developed by the federal government. The Gulf coast state is currently medium risk yellow on the federal map, having switched to that color from low risk green on December 21.

Veracruz has recorded more than 45,000 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic and 6,391 Covid-19 deaths. According to federal data, hospital occupancy in the state is 41% for general care beds and 34% for those with ventilators.

• Nuevo León Health Minister Manuel de la O Cavazos said that a case of coronavirus very similar to the more contagious strain first detected in the United Kingdom in September had been found in the northern state. He said the case was 96% similar to the B117 strain, which U.K. authorities said is up to 70% more transmissible. The health minister said that a sample was sent to a federal lab and that federal authorities will determine whether the case is of the new strain or not.

Mexico’s first known case of the new strain was detected in a U.K. citizen who traveled to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, via Mexico City late last year.

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

Restaurants defy closure order: ‘industry a source of jobs, not infection’

MND Staff

January 12, 2021

Restaurant workers make some noise in Mexico City.

Some restaurants in Mexico City and México state are defying the red light coronavirus restrictions currently in place in the Valley of México by reopening to in-house diners at a time when they should only be offering takeout and delivery service.

The restaurant chains Sonora Grill, Fisher’s, Toks and Potzocalli were among the establishments that reopened on Monday, the day on which the suspension of nonessential economic activities was originally slated to conclude.

(The Mexico City and México state governments announced last Friday that the suspension would remain in place for another week.)

Sonora Grill, a steakhouse chain, announced its reopening plans on social media.

“Today we open just like informal commerce [such as street food stalls] and public transit (always supersaturated) but with the big difference of always complying with strict safety and hygiene protocols to the letter of the law,” it announced on Twitter.

“Sonora Grill Group has taken the decision to OPEN. Valued guests, we cannot give up. To our leaders we say: we can’t allow ourselves to die. … Our restaurant industry is a source of employment, not infections.”

Fisher’s, a seafood restaurant chain, said on Twitter: “For us, for our families, for everyone. We’ll open … January 11 #abriromorir [open or die].”

The operations director at Potzocalli, which specializes in pozole, told the newspaper Milenio that the chain had no other option but to reopen.

“We decided to take this decision because the money has already run out; we asked for loans but they won’t give them to us anymore and we’re going into more debt. … We opened to generate a few sales and with that … pay our employees,” José Delgado said.

He said that sales have fallen 90% since the closure order took effect three weeks ago, adding that the chain is desperate and will “die” if it doesn’t reopen.

The decision of some restaurants to defy the closure order came four days after more than 500 restaurateurs in Mexico City and México state made a desperate plea to political leaders to allow them to reopen to in-house dining, saying that their businesses will perish if they are not allowed to do so.

Diners at a Sonora Grill that opened in defiance of Covid restrictions.

The national restaurant association said it was not involved in the reopening initiative in Mexico City, asserting that restaurants organized among themselves. However, the president of Canirac acknowledged in an interview that many restaurants no longer have the appetite to comply with the prevailing restrictions.

“We’ve tried to maintain dialogue with the authorities to tell them that people are mad as hell,” Francisco Fernández said. “I can’t tell [restaurant owners] to let their businesses die.”

In response to the defiance, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said that establishments not complying with the red light restrictions will be sanctioned.

“We’re not going to seek any confrontation because that’s what some of them are looking for,” she added. “There are those who want to politicize this issue [the economic shutdown]; that won’t be the case for me.”

The Mexico City government last month announced an economic support package for people affected by the shutdown, including 2,200-peso (US $110) lump sum payments to restaurant workers, but restaurant owners have denounced the fact that they have received no financial support from the authorities.

While some restaurant owners and staff were back serving in-house customers on Monday, others took to the streets of Mexico City’s historic center to demand that the city government declare the restaurant sector essential.

The disgruntled restaurateurs and employees staged a cacerolazo – a protest featuring the banging of pots and pans – during which they declared that if restaurants weren’t given the green light to reopen to in-house dining, they would be forced to close for good.

“[I want] to say to the authorities that we’re not sources of contagion, we’re sources of employment. That’s why we ask that they allow us to work,” said Mireya García, a spokeswoman for the protesting restaurateurs.

Source: Milenio (sp), Reforma (sp)

Mexico-US border closure extended another month

Michelle Aguilar

January 12, 2021

The Mexico–United States land border will remain closed for another month, according to officials from both countries.

The reason given was the increase in Covid-19 cases in both countries.

“Due to the propagation of Covid-19 and due to the fact that several federal entities find themselves at the color orange [on the coronavirus stoplight risk assessment system], Mexico has asked the United States to extend restrictions to nonessential land crossings on its common border for one more month,” Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on its Twitter account Monday.

Restrictions will remain the same as they have been since the crossing ban was initiated on March 21 and remain in effect until February 24, at which time it is likely they will be renewed for another month.

People with reasons considered essential — including those relating to business, health or emergencies — will still be allowed to cross. Flights between the two countries remain unrestricted.

However, there have been many claims that the ban is one-sided because Mexico allows travelers to enter the country from the U.S. side without restrictions.

President López Obrador raised eyebrows in December when he openly welcomed 500,000 Mexicans living abroad, mostly in the United States, who were expected to visit Mexico over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

López-Obrador said that the half a million countrymen deserved to be received “like heroes” because they support Mexico, referring to remittances sent home by Mexican nationals.

Remittances are expected to total US $40 billion in 2020, or 3.8% of Mexico’s GDP.

Source: El Sol de México (sp)

Clashes with Jalisco New Generation Cartel kill 10 in Guanajuato

Michelle Aguilar

January 12, 2021

One of the vehicles involved in Monday's confrontations between gangsters and police.

A Guanajuato police officer was killed and one National Guardsman was wounded after gunmen believed to belong to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) made five separate attacks on state and federal law enforcement officials Monday in the municipalities of Villagrán and Celaya.

In total, eight of the aggressors were killed and one other presumed gang member was later found dead inside a truck on the road between Celaya and Salamanca.

Three were arrested in the conflicts.

Although some of the gunfights reached as far as Santa Rosa de Lima, a stronghold of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel led until last year by jailed leader José Antonio “El Marro” Yépez Ortiz, authorities attributed the attack to the CJNG.

Yépez was arrested by federal authorities in August, spawning fears that the power vacuum would prompt bloody turf wars between the two gangs in Santa Rosa de Lima territory, which includes Celaya, Irapuato and Villagrán, as well as adjacent zones in the north and south.

In the final tally after the five firefights, authorities confiscated 10 vehicles and several weapons, including guns, grenades — some fragmentation grenades and some improvised — and Molotov cocktails. They also discovered 47 doses of crystal methamphetamine and cardboard signs with messages targeted at an unidentified criminal group.

The first attack on law enforcement occurred at dawn on the road between Santa Rosa de Lima and San José de Guanajuato, authorities said. There, officers ended up in a gunfight with armed men aboard several vehicles, resulting in five of the latter being killed. The police officer who died was injured in that conflict and died in a hospital in Celaya.

After the first attack, authorities brought in reinforcements, who were also attacked on three separate occasions near San Salvador Torrecillas in Villagrán.

After the first of those attacks was staved off, the armed civilians jumped off the pickup truck from which they had staged the firefight and fled into nearby farmland, evading arrest. The second attack, which came from a different vehicle in a different location, resulted in the attackers fleeing the scene without any arrests.

In the third attack, state officers killed one of the aggressors.

The National Guard were also attacked by gunmen in two SUVs in a separate incident between Santa Rosa de Lima and San José de Guanajuato. In that battle, one officer sustained mild injuries, one attacker was killed and a second attacker was wounded and later died. A minor was arrested.

Two other people were also detained on the highway between Celaya and Villagrán after their truck was stopped and they were found to be in possession of drugs and weapons.

Source: Reforma (sp)

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