Scammers turn to selling phony Covid vaccine

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February 24, 2021

A new scam is taking advantage of the slow rollout of Covid-19 vaccines: fraudsters are posing as officials from pharmaceutical companies and even well-known international nongovernmental organizations to sell vaccines to the public.

The United Nations in Mexico has learned of scammers posing as employees of the UN, the World Health Organization or the Pan American Health Organization.

The scammers offer to sell individual vaccines or, in some cases, to buy them wholesale.

“We have received information about attempts at fraud … even sending [people] supposed contracts to formalize the transaction,” the UN said in a release, emphasizing that none of the three NGOs sells vaccines for Covid-19.

“Don’t let them cheat you. Don’t share your information or make payments solicited using [the organizations’ names] with the purpose of acquiring vaccines,” UN officials said.

Vaccines are only available in Mexico via government programs, the agency said.

UN officials urged anyone who has been a victim of such a scam to report it to the Federal Commission for Protection Against Health Risks (Cofepris).

Vaccines are not the only way criminals have found to cheat and endanger the unsuspecting public via the pandemic. In late January, Mexico City police arrested two people running a scam in which they lured customers who thought they were buying large amounts of sanitization products to a building, where they were then held against their will and ordered to pay large sums of money or have family members do so in exchange for their release.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Zacatecas in midst of ‘grave security crisis,’ governor warns

By

MND Staff

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February 24, 2021

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Governor Tello: 'Police are overwhelmed.'

The governor of Zacatecas has made an impassioned plea for federal government support amid a “grave security crisis” in the northern state.

In a letter to President López Obrador, Alejandro Tello said that state and municipal security forces are outnumbered and outgunned by criminal groups operating in the state.

“With opposing organized crime groups as the protagonists, the fierce fight for the control of territory has placed our state in a grave security crisis,” the governor wrote.

“… Mr. President, we need your total support, your real commitment to this state. The residents of Zacatecas respect you and we believe that together we can overcome [the situation]. Please don’t leave us on our own.”

Tello, an Institutional Revolutionary Party governor in the final year of his five-year term, said that settlings of scores, homicides, armed clashes with collateral damage, abductions and extortion plague Zacatecas and have overwhelmed local police.

After nine people were murdered and three others were kidnapped in Fresnillo on a single day last month, Mayor Saúl Monreal Ávila said “the municipality has been overtaken” by organized crime.

Tello acknowledged that many municipalities have a very limited capacity to combat violent crime but state police and the municipal force in Zacatecas city are also overrun.

“The strength of police reaction in the face of the … paltry number of officers in municipal police forces has practically been left in the hands of the state, metropolitan and ministerial police but that isn’t enough,” he wrote.

Homicide statistics back up the governor’s claim about the gravity of the situation: Zacatecas leads the country in 2021 for homicides on a per capita basis, with 6.44 per 100,000 residents so far this year.

It finished last year with 47.35 homicides per 100,000 residents, the fifth highest rate in the country after Baja California, Colima, Chihuahua and Guanajuato.

Tello said the federal government has a responsibility to help because federal crimes are being committed.

He said that 90% of homicides are related to drug cartel activity and criminal organizations are becoming stronger, larger, better equipped and more violent by the day.

The Zetas, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel are among the criminal groups that operate in the state.

The state government said last year that Zacatecas had become a nexus for the trafficking of fentanyl and other illicit drugs due to its location between Pacific coast ports such as Manzanillo and Colima and the northeastern border with the United States.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Despite the pandemic, microbrewery’s opening came at just the right time

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Lydia Carey

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February 24, 2021

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What would you do to make your dream a reality? Sleep on a stranger’s couch? Commute two hours twice a day? Live in poverty? Live in isolation?

Mariana Domínguez did all that and more before she could start Cervecera Macaria, her new gypsy brewery in Mexico City, birthed in the middle of a global pandemic and one of the deepest global recessions in decades.

“I’ve been working in other breweries for a while now. I just didn’t have, I would say, the ovaries to open my own. It really represented a lot of struggle in my mind, and a lot of money that I didn’t have,” says Domínguez about her new project.

She is, in fact, still working for a lot of other breweries, brewing for both Cervecería Nevado and Cervecería Nebulosa while she does her own thing.

Fascinated by microbiology, when Mariana was getting her undergrad in food chemistry at UNAM eight years ago she and a friend decided to start brewing their own beer on the weekends in her kitchen. Novices both, they thought themselves pretty decent at the time, but now she sees things differently.

“They were terrible. We wanted to brew IPAs, which weren’t even close to being well-known in Mexico at the time. We had terrible batches, and we thought, ‘Well, at least we can improve this …’”

From there, she worked a string of brewing jobs, some that were dreamy but paid a pittance, some that were decently paid but endlessly boring and always with the added weight of being a chick in a dude’s universe — she was famously asked over and over if she could carry bags of malt on her own.

“Why would I need to do that?” she retorts. “What does that have to do with my skills as a brewer?”

At one point, she just skipped out of the country, working an unpaid internship in the United Kingdom and sleeping on the couches of other brewers just so she could expand her expertise. The dream of having her own brewery was a distant and impossible dream until she attended a conference for female brewers in Ecuador and met other women succeeding in the industry.

“I was able to meet people from Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and probably 80% were the owners of their own breweries. They were small breweries, but they had just decided, ‘OK, I have to be my own business partner and my own brewer and my own everything because I don’t want someone else doing it for me, and I don’t want mansplaining’ and a lot of things other things I hadn’t really thought about. It was an eye-opener to meet them; it gave me a lot of ideas. That’s when I met the gypsy brewers.”

Those gypsy brewers were trading their labor in breweries they didn’t own for space to brew their own products. They would hire themselves out to whoever had the space for the entire production cycle, generally about five weeks, and that’s how they were building their brands.

Having her own brewery turned from a dream into a reality after Domínguez attended a conference for female brewers in Ecuador.

During that trip, the seed was planted in Domínguez’s mind but it took a pandemic to convince her it was time to start her own production.

“With the pandemic came a lot of ideas. I was doing OK at the beginning, but later kind of panicking. So I just decided, ‘OK, I have to work with this and go to therapy and read some books and take some courses, and then, OK, maybe I can start my own brewery.’ I said to myself, ‘Why not? What could go wrong?’”

Last year, the year the world fell apart, was also the year when it seemed that all her skills and experience started to gel together. Local breweries kept asking her to collaborate with them, and she felt like she was finally professionally and emotionally ready to do her own thing.

“I had to do it right now, or I was never going to do it anywhere else, or at any other moment,” she said.

This past December, Domínguez got together with some friends from the Morenos brewery and created her first collaboration under the Cervecera Macaria label — a hazy pale ale called Hazy Gaga. Fresh and citrusy, it made a great stocking stuffer for many a beer lover this Christmas. At the same time, she released Mildred, her own recipe — an all-day drinkable mild ale with a tinge of chocolate, and surprising levity for a dark beer. Both sold beyond their expectations.

“They are almost completely sold out in the city,” she says proudly.

Domínguez surrounded by her brewing equipment.

Starting a business in the middle of a pandemic hasn’t been the easiest thing to do, but there are upsides. Everyone is online now she says, even some of her Luddite relatives. And like a lot of businesses right now, social media has been her saving grace.

This year is going to be all about collaborations for Cervecera Macaria, including making a specialty beer for Mujeres Incendiarias, a Mexico City workshop space supporting women-owned brands. She’ll also collaborate with Cerveceros Arellano, another Mexican brewery.

The Cervecera Macaria brand is one of the pandemic businesses to watch this coming year, one of those little rays of sunshine to come out of this dark time. Their next batch can be found at TBC Clavería, Cebada Malteada, Agave y Uvas, and about a dozen or more stores in Mexico City, as well as in Monterrey, Morelia and León.

Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.

Feds go after Tamaulipas governor with charges of illicit enrichment, money laundering

By

MND Staff

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February 24, 2021

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The federal government is seeking to prosecute Tamaulipas Governor Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca for ties to organized crime, illicit enrichment and tax fraud.

The Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and the Finance Ministry’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) have accused the National Action Party governor of involvement in a scheme that laundered 42 million pesos (US $2 million) using two fraudulent companies.

Their investigation stemmed from a criminal complaint filed against García by private citizens who accuse the governor of illicit enrichment to the tune of 951 million pesos (US $46.3 million).

Ignacio Mier, leader of the ruling Morena party in the Chamber of Deputies, announced Tuesday that the lower house of Congress had received a request from the FGR to strip García of his legal immunity due to his probable commission of the crimes of organized crime, operations with resources of illicit origin and tax fraud.

According to the newspaper Milenio, the FGR and the UIF have established that García, who took office in late 2016, participated in a money laundering scheme between April and December 2019.

The federal authorities say that TC12, a front company with no employees, capital or record of paying taxes, received 42 million pesos from a company called RC, whose partners are accused by the United States government of conducting illegal financial operations.

The implication is that García benefited from that money laundering scheme. His alleged role in and/or relation to the two companies is unclear.

The UIF has filed four criminal complaints with the FGR against the governor, a former federal senator and mayor of Reynosa, for illicit enrichment, money laundering, corruption and tax fraud. Three of the complaints were filed in 2020 and one was presented a month ago, Milenio said.

Among the UIF’s most significant findings, the newspaper reported, are that García made use of front companies and purchased properties with inexplicable riches far greater than the wealth afforded to him as a result of his governor’s salary.

García is also under investigation by federal authorities for allegedly receiving bribes while a senator in exchange for supporting the previous government’s structural reforms. That allegation was made by former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya, who has implicated dozens of former and current officials, including three past presidents, in corruption linked to the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

García took to Twitter on Tuesday night to deny the allegations against him and accuse the ruling party of waging a political war.

“Morena is leaking a supposed accusation against me. Factional use of justice again where there is no crime. A political attack is being orchestrated. I will wait to be notified [of the allegations] in order to have details and establish my position. I have never violated the law. I will defend myself against any abuse,” he wrote.

Yucatán Governor Mauricio Vila, spokesman for the Association of National Action Party Governors, defended his colleague after it became known that the government was seeking to strip García of his immunity, a process known as desafuero.

Vila said that García is well regarded in Tamaulipas, a state notorious for drug cartel activity, and that he was certain that the governor would be able to disprove the allegations against him. He claimed that the accusations were politically motivated in the context of the upcoming federal, state and municipal elections.

Marko Cortés, PAN national president, said the accusation against García “has a clear political-electoral overtone” and accused President López Obrador and Morena of carrying out a “witch hunt.”

“López Obrador and Morena have begun their witch hunt in the face of the obvious advance of the Mexican opposition, which really does know how to provide results to the people,” he said.

In contrast, the nation’s Morena governments – the party is in power federally and in six states – do nothing more than “undermine Mexico and lead it to bankruptcy and the worst economic, social and health crises in living memory,” Cortés said.

López Obrador said Wednesday morning that the government is not “persecuting” anyone but added that it won’t cover up for anyone either.

Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero guaranteed that there will be transparency in the proceedings against García.

“There won’t be a lack of transparency, there won’t be any kind of political revenge. … The trial [to decide if the governor will lose his immunity] will be public before the Congress with all the evidence of those who made the [criminal] complaint,” he said.

Source: Milenio (sp)

The federal auditor’s U-turn on airport costs: was there pressure from AMLO?

By

Jude Webber

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February 24, 2021

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Auditor Colmenares: was there an error or was there pressure?

Mexico’s state comptroller’s office came under fire on Tuesday for backtracking on an audit that found President López Obrador’s decision to scrap a partially built airport was far costlier than the government said.

The U-turn came after the Federal Auditor’s Office (ASF) highlighted a variety of irregularities and miscalculations in flagship government projects. It has raised fears that López Obrador had pressured the comptroller to retract the finding, part of a preliminary audit of 2019 government accounts.

In the audit, the ASF had put the cost of scrapping the Norman Foster-designed Mexico City airport at more than 331 billion pesos (US $17.6 billion). López Obrador had said it would cost 100 billion pesos.

On Monday the president deployed one of his favourite catchphrases — “I have other data,” which he uses whenever he takes issue with official figures or unfavourable forecasts — to slam the key finding from the audit, which was released over the weekend.

He described it as exaggerated, saying, “I hope [the ASF] clarifies.” He did not supply his alternative data.

Within hours, the ASF released a statement saying that there had been “inconsistencies” in the part of the audit relating to López Obrador’s cancellation of the airport in 2018. The figures were being “exhaustively revised,” it said.

In its statement, the ASF did not give any revised calculations for the cost of canceling the project, which had stirred investor unease at the time.

The ASF attributed its volte-face to “a methodological deficiency.” It did not mention whether it was backtracking on other findings contained in the report.

“This has never happened before,” said Max Kaiser, head of the anti-corruption commission at employers’ federation Coparmex and a former government auditor.

López Obrador, who has vastly centralized control in his government, has already taken aim at other independent institutions, threatening to scrap some he considers too costly. Analysts say that risks a dangerous erosion of checks and balances on Mexico’s most powerful president in a generation.

Kaiser said the ASF’s climbdown demonstrated that the president would not even need to scrap institutions he disagreed with, and could instead render them “inoperative” by casting doubt on their credibility.

lopez obrador — López Obrador has cast doubt on credibility of auditor’s office.

“The fear is that [state statistics office] Inegi or Banxico [the central bank] could also be challenged,” said one former senior official in López Obrador’s government, who asked not to be named.

The ASF could not immediately be reached for comment on the reversal.

“There was no pressure, only the president’s declaration,” said Jesús Ramírez, a spokesman for López Obrador. “The calculation of the cost of the cancellation that the ASF announced had serious errors … at least 75% of the amount the ASF reported is wrong.” He provided no supporting data but said the finance ministry would supply details later.

In the audit, the ASF also pointed to other irregularities with presidential pet projects, including an apprenticeship scheme that had apparently paid grants to dead people and a microloans program that it said fell far short of the number of beneficiaries the government reported. It also questioned some payments for a flagship train and refinery project.

“It is scandalous what the ASF has documented and published about the multimillion-dollar irregularities detected in 2019 state accounts,” tweeted Julieta Macías Rábago, an opposition deputy for the Citizens Movement party. “You have to say it like it is. There CAN’T be other data, this IS THE DATA.”

Valeria Moy, head of IMCO, a think tank, urged the ASF to come clean about the details of its miscalculation. “Where was the error — or more than error, was it pressure?” she tweeted.

Arturo Herrera, Mexico’s finance minister, said in a video posted on Twitter on Tuesday night that the government had been “extraordinarily surprised” at some of the “basic” and “elemental” errors in the ASF’s calculations that were hard to understand coming from such an experienced institution.

“Either there is a problem of basic preparation from whoever formulated this, or it’s frankly a problem of bad faith on the part of whoever released this report,” he said.

Herrera said the ASF’s calculations were based on some costs which could not be recovered as well as additional costs, including financial instruments and bonds, adding up to some 253 billion pesos. “None of these costs exists,” he said. That was because the bonds had already been issued and were already part of the government debt and the auditor had confused net and gross operations, as well as the net present value of costs, the finance minister said.

Quintana Roo returns to yellow on coronavirus stoplight

By

MND Staff

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February 23, 2021

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Coronavirus restrictions have eased in Quintana Roo after the Caribbean coast state switched to medium risk yellow on the local stoplight system on Monday.

Essential businesses can now function at 100% of normal capacity while most retail stores can operate at 80%.

The maximum capacity level at hotels, restaurants, archaeological sites, theme parks and golf courses increased to 60% on Monday while gyms and sports centers can now operate at 70% capacity outdoors and 50% indoors.

Although restrictions have eased, virus mitigation measures such as wearing a face mask, social distancing and maintaining high personal hygiene levels remain essential, said Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquín.

Although the vaccination of seniors has begun, it will be some time before enough people have been inoculated to achieve herd immunity, he said.

“When we reach 70% or 80% of universal vaccination, we’ll achieve herd immunity,” Joaquín said.

Quintana Roo, home to popular tourist destinations such as Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, has recorded just under 20,000 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic and 2,339 Covid-19 deaths.

There are currently 340 active cases in the state, according to federal Health Ministry estimates, while 18% of general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are occupied.

Although it switched to yellow on the state government stoplight map, Quintana Roo remains high risk orange on the federal map.

The Health Ministry will publish an updated map this Friday. There are two red light maximum risk states – Guanajuato and Guerrero – on the map currently in force, 21 high risk orange states, eight yellow light medium risk states and one green light low risk state – Chiapas.

In other Covid news:

• The national accumulated case tally rose to 2.04 million on Monday with 2,252 new cases reported. It was the lowest single day case tally since November 17. The official Covid-19 death toll rose to 180,536 with 429 additional fatalities registered.

There are just over 47,000 active cases in the country, according to Health Ministry estimates, a reduction of almost 60% compared to late January. The national hospital occupancy rate is 33% for general care beds and 36% for beds with ventilators.

More than 1.7 million Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sinovac vaccine doses have now been administered, mainly to health workers and seniors. A shipment of 200,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine arrived in Mexico City on Monday night and a consignment of almost 512,000 Pfizer doses reached the capital on Tuesday morning.

• The supermarket chain Soriana will extend Covid-19 testing services to 40 of its stores in seven states in the coming weeks.

According to a company statement, rapid antigen and PCR testing will be available in mobile modules and units in the parking lots outside stores in Mexico City, Nuevo León, Jalisco, México state, Querétaro, Coahuila and Puebla.

Soriana began offering testing services outside two Mexico City locations in January and extended the scheme to select Nuevo León locations earlier this month.

• The mayor of San Pedro Mixtepec, a Oaxaca municipality in Miahuatlán in the Sierra Sur region, died on Monday from complications related to Covid-19, the state Health Ministry said. Armando Vázquez, 52, had been on a ventilator in a regional hospital.

With his passing, 17 mayors in Oaxaca have now lost their lives to Covid-19, the newspaper Milenio reported. At least 20 others have tested positive for the infectious disease.

Oaxaca, currently orange on the stoplight map, has recorded just under 40,000 confirmed cases and 2,817 Covid-19 deaths, according to state government data. Health authorities reported 330 new cases across 77 municipalities on Monday, including 101 in Oaxaca city.

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

Sustainable climate solutions require facts, not strong beliefs

By

Juan Carlos Lara

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February 23, 2021

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Leonardo DiCaprio at the People’s Climate March in 2014.

After Harvard Business Review christened science as the “sexiest job of the 21st century,” data science stirred the general public’s interest. Many people wondered how to become a scientist. But a Ph.D. requisite and an IQ of around 150 was daunting for the postmodern mind, and so some found solace in faking it.

The disbelief of metanarratives, the triviality of facts, and mass culture have become a de facto axiom. Complexity has been reduced to despotic displays of authority.

Void rhetoric juxtaposes two mutually exclusive world views: one based on facts and mostly reliable representations of these facts, and another that posits a post-factual world full of fake news and disinformation, in which rivaling versions of reality are constantly competing.

I have been involved in impact and sustainability now for a couple of decades. The well-intended yet Sisyphean United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) cousin are at the forefront of my activities to generate as much positive impact as possible.

This postmodern preamble is critical for understanding what is going on these days in the energy ecosystem.

The use of alarming words generates climate panic. Under a scientific rhetoric facade, politicians and movie stars are manipulating the passions of the masses, exaggerating environmental dangers and lying for emotional effect. Even serious scientists engage in this sort of morbid display. Lately, we devote ourselves to destroying what works for something that will hopefully work.

I am an optimist, but to play with humanity’s future for the sake of politically correct ideas should not be our first choice.

In the climate ecosystem, you either agree or you are fired — or worse. This happened to award-winning Princeton University physicist Dr. Will Happer, whom former vice president Al Gore fired for failing to adhere to Gore’s scientific views.

Happer is convinced that the current state of alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken.

“Over the past 500 million years since the Cambrian [Period], when fossils of multicellular life first became abundant, the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been much higher than current levels, about three times higher on average. Life on Earth flourished with these higher levels of carbon dioxide,” he said. “Computer models used to generate frightening scenarios from increasing levels of carbon dioxide have scant credibility.”

Happer, a former director of energy research at the United States Department of Energy from 1990 to 1993, has published over 200 scientific papers and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences. He is part of over 650 (and growing) dissenting international scientists disputing anthropogenic climate fears.

I am not a scientist; I model ESG financial portfolios. Yet, I follow science and understand numbers well. Information such as Happer’s findings is of extreme interest to me.

I also appreciate the virtuosity and simplicity of the Copenhagen Consensus Center’s Bjørn Lomborg and journalist Michael Shellenberger’s narratives for solving humanity’s acute problems. Both are experts in sustainable solutions, the best of the best, in my opinion.

Lomborg’s work uses the cutting-edge research of more than 60 eminent economists, including four Nobel laureates. Shellenberger collaborates with world-class academics, including Ted Nordhaus, coauthor of the book Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility and An Ecomodernist Manifesto with Shellenberger.

With different shades of gray, both define clear, pragmatic solutions: progress, more energy not less, and cheaper sustainable options. Long story short, they consider a very imperfect world and the best way to deal with it. According to The Brookings Institute, damaging the world’s economy for the sake of energy transition is not the way to deal with climate change.

As of today, there is no substitute for oil. Throughout history, energy use has progressed from less concentrated forms of energy, such as biomass, to more concentrated forms. Coal, oil and natural gas allowed rapid growth in industrial processes, agriculture and transportation. Human health and welfare improved markedly, and the global population grew from 1 billion in the 19th century to 8 billion today.

The first documented energy transition was from wood and charcoal to coal. Worth mentioning, coal has three times the energy density by weight of dry wood. Energy density is critical in the transportation sector, for example. A vehicle must carry its fuel while it travels, so, clearly, fuel weight and volume are crucial.

Lately, electric vehicles are a praised solution for replacing oil. Pound for pound, gasoline or diesel fuel contains about 40 times as much energy as a state-of-the-art battery. For lightweight vehicles that can often refuel, this penalty is not a big deal. However, for aviation, maritime shipping or long-haul trucking, where the vehicle must carry heavy loads for long distances without refueling, the difference in energy density between fossil fuels and batteries is a deal-breaker for electric vehicles.

An electric car battery weighs 1,000 pounds. Manufacturing one requires digging up, removing, and processing more than 500,000 pounds of materials. Producing one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete, and 45 tons of plastic. Solar power requires far more cement, steel and glass — not to mention other metals and rare-earth elements — that are not rare but are rarely mined in America.

We are currently in the middle of a very different transition. I call it the postmodern transition, which is the negation of most, if not all, traditional methods that helped advance our civilization but are based on in-group identities, fake news, and the disregard of the poor.

The world is ready for cleaner energy, one that is abundant, clean, cheap and efficient. This is highly desirable for the rich and a life-or-death sentence for the poor. Shouldn’t we help the fossil industry make energy cleaner — way cleaner?

Or else rethinking atomics will probably be the solution.

The writer heads Swiss-based asset manager Point5 Family Office and ESG-LAB, which promotes the use of environmental, social and governance metrics to determine risks and opportunities in the performance of investments and companies. He was named one of the Top 100 People in Finance in 2018 by The Top 100 magazine. He holds Mexican and U.S. citizenship.

Debate rages on over Morena candidate accused of sexual assault

By

Jude Webber

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February 23, 2021

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Women march against gender violence at a Mexico City protest in 2019.

A growing scandal has engulfed President López Obrador after he refused to criticize a candidate for a state governorship who is accused of sexually assaulting five women, including one who says she was drugged and then raped.

The political fallout over veteran politician Félix Salgado Macedonio’s candidacy to lead the state of Guerrero in June 6 midterm elections has caused widespread outrage in a country where some 11 women are murdered per day and more than 40% say they have suffered sexual violence.

López Obrador, who says he has “the greatest respect” for the feminist movement, sparked a fierce backlash from women in his own Morena party — especially after he called criticism of Salgado Macedonio’s candidacy a politically motivated “lynching.”

A wave of recent “MeToo” accusations against a leading intellectual, Andrés Roemer, have further highlighted the country’s problems with gender-based violence.

“This is a very hard battle — we are not being heard . . . violence against women has been so normalized,” said Arussi Unda, spokeswoman for Brujas del Mar, a feminist collective which organized a women’s strike on March 9 last year to draw attention to abuses against women.

Salgado is the frontrunner in the Guerrero gubernatorial race — one of 15 up for grabs as López Obrador’s party seeks to boost its share of governorships from its current six.

López Obrador refused to criticize the candidacy on three successive days at his daily news conference, on one occasion cutting off discussion with the colloquial phrase “ya chole” — which translates as “don’t bug me any more about this.”

A poll in the Reforma newspaper found 71% of respondents rejected Salgado’s candidacy.

In a letter to party leaders, a group of female politicians from Morena slammed what they called “the absolute irresponsibility to defend candidacies of unpresentable people.” It was signed by almost 600 women and more than 100 men.

“This shouldn’t even be up for discussion — the simple fact that there are these allegations should be enough [to block his candidacy],” said Patricia Olamendi, a lawyer for Basilia Castañeda. The latter, a Morena party founder member from Guerrero, alleges Salgado raped her in 1998 when she was a teenager.

“Why is the president betting his political capital like this? Why is he getting involved?” Olamendi said.

In a separate set of allegations, a woman claimed Salgado had drugged, raped and beaten her with a belt.

Politicians and demonstrators also took to social media to demand an end to what they called “the pact” — the patriarchal order in Mexico, where women work more and earn less than men and where the vast majority of violent crimes against women go unpunished. Unda called López Obrador’s stance a “revictimization” of abused women.

“The good thing about this is that it’s sparked a public debate,” said Marta Lamas, a leading feminist and professor at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.

Salgado, 64, has revelled in a reputation as a party-loving womanizer and once declared that “everything they say about me is true . . . I have more negatives than positives.” He has, however, denied the sexual allegations.

With the row over Salgado raging, additional accusers have come forward against Roemer in recent days claiming he had invited women to his home and abused them.

The 57-year-old Harvard-educated writer and former Unesco goodwill ambassador has faced allegations from 11 women, including a dancer, Itzel Schnaas.

Roemer has “categorically denied” abusing Schnaas and in media reports has denied all other abuse allegations. Billionaire businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego, an adviser to López Obrador and head of the Grupo Azteca business empire where Roemer is a broadcaster, slammed the MeToo allegations as “blackmail and lies.”

The scandals meant “we can’t take our eye off the ball . . . we can’t allow aggressors to continue enjoying impunity,” said Yolitzin Jaimes, spokeswoman for the “No Aggressor in Power” collective.

Electoral authorities have until March 4 to rule on the validity of Salgado’s candidacy. If he is allowed to stand, she forecast that International Women’s Day commemorations on March 8 would turn ugly. In November, police in Cancún fired bullets at a women’s protest.

“We’re an inch away from things erupting .. and with their indifference, they’re forcing us to break everything, to burn everything,” Jaimes said.

Electricity law could represent another blow for foreign investment: analysts

By

MND Staff

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February 23, 2021

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power-plant — The bill favors the electricity commission's dirtier and more expensive energy sources.

A proposed law that would overhaul Mexico’s electricity market to favor the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will scare off foreign and domestic investment, according to analysts who spoke to the newspaper El Financiero.

A reform to the Electricity Industry Law was to be put to a vote in the lower house of Congress on Tuesday.

The bill, which would prioritize the injection of CFE-generated power to the national grid over that generated by private companies, is expected to be approved by Congress because the ruling Morena party leads a coalition with majorities in both houses.

Private companies, which generate cleaner and cheaper power than the CFE, are currently at the front of the queue.

Analysts told El Financiero that the bill, if passed, would eliminate confidence about the prevalence of the rule of law in Mexico. They also criticized the plan to put the CFE in such a privileged position when it has shown that it lacks the resources and capacity to invest in new technology.

Paul Sánchez, an independent energy consultant, said the biggest consequence of the reform will be the stifling of confidence to invest in the electricity sector. The government has already been widely criticized for changing the rules of the game in the energy sector, which was opened up to foreign and private investment by the previous federal government.

“Nobody is going to want to invest in the country while there’s no solid and firm guarantee of the rule of law,” Sánchez said.

He raised concerns about a clause in the proposed law that states that energy storage permits that were obtained fraudulently must be revoked. Sánchez suggested that existing permit-holders could be unfairly stripped of their right to operate energy storage facilities.

“Who is going to determine what is fraud of the law?” he asked.

Verónica Irastorza, director of NERA Economic Consulting, expressed reservations about a clause that states that existing electricity generation and supply contracts between the government and private companies must be reviewed to check their legality and to ensure that they comply with the former’s “profitability requirement.”

The profitability requirement aspect of the clause is unclear, Irastorza said, adding that it “could be subject to arbitrary criteria that could generate a lot of uncertainty.”

Casiopea Ramírez — Ramírez: Government is turning its back on both alternative energy sources and private investment.

She questioned why contracts have to be reviewed when they were “the result of public tenders in which the winners, in theory, offered the best price for the CFE.”

Diana Pineda, partner at law firm González Calvillo, said that some clauses in the proposed law have only served to generate uncertainty when what investors need is long-term confidence.

Casiopea Ramírez, partner at Fresh Energy Consulting, said the government is turning its back on both alternative energy sources and private investment.

“They’re limiting access to cleaner, cheaper and more reliable energy because the diversification of [energy] sources is being avoided, not just in terms of generation but also investment,” she said.

Mexican Banking Association President Luis Niño de Rivera was critical of the plan to prioritize power generated by the CFE, which is heavily dependent on fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal, over renewable energy.

“Unfortunately the intention of this initiative is to first use [the power] that the Federal Electricity Commission generates and not … cheaper energy. … The private sector in Mexico and the whole world are transitioning to renewable energy, wind and solar mainly,” while the CFE is doing the opposite, he told a recent press conference.

Meanwhile, President López Obrador took aim on Monday at Mexican lawyers who are working to defend foreign companies against the impact of the government’s energy sector shake-up.

“[It’s] a disgrace that Mexican lawyers are hired by foreign companies that want to continue looting Mexico. Of course, they’re free [to do so] but hopefully they’ll internalize that it’s treason,” he said.

Speaking at his regular news conference, López Obrador said last week’s natural gas crisis – which caused a major power outage in northern Mexico – served as additional evidence that the state must take the lead in guaranteeing electricity supply.

The wellbeing of the Mexican people cannot be left in the hands of private companies, he said, adding that it’s a fallacy that the free market has the capacity to resolve all problems.

The president accused previous governments of wanting to tear down CFE plants for scrap metal and put the sector in private hands whereas his administration is “rescuing” the state-owned firm.

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

Soldiers find 4-hectare coca plantation in Guerrero

By

Michelle Aguilar

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February 23, 2021

0

A soldier burns coca plants found in the Tierra Caliente region of Guerrero.

The military announced Monday that it had discovered and destroyed four hectares of coca leaf fields located near a cocaine manufacturing lab in Guerrero, about 150 kilometers north of Acapulco.

According to military officials, it marked the first time that operations for growing and manufacturing cocaine have been found in Guerrero.

“We’ve never found the cultivation of these crops in the state,” said Lt. Col. Enrique Benítez Campoy. “For that reason, it’s relevant. It’s the first that’s ever been found.”

Authorities said the plants had been harvested and processed at least four months ago. The lab contained abandoned items for manufacturing cocaine, leading them to believe that the crops had been processed there.

The military said that the carefully organized plantings were hidden in the hills of the rural community of El Porvenir y El Limón. The site also had many hundreds of meters of irrigation pipes that led to a nearby stream.

Federal authorities said they believed an organized crime group in the Tierra Caliente region was behind the site, but did not specify which.

Benítez said that each hectare of the coca leaves would have yielded five to seven kilograms of cocaine. He estimated the total value of the final product at approximately US $12,500.

Another cocaine plantation was discovered in 2014 in Chiapas.

Source: Milenio (sp)