Pandemic erases hopes for summer tourism rebound

By

-

July 22, 2020

Tourism projections for the remainder of 2020 are grim as Mexico will lose the summer tourist season due to the coronavirus pandemic, says Braulio Arsuaga Losada, president of the National Tourism Business Council (CNET).

While some destinations were reopened with hotel occupancy limited to 30%, others remain closed to visitors and are under the red light classification on the federal government’s coronavirus “stoplight” map, indicating maximum risk.

“We are far from the numbers we had the previous year in this season and it will be very difficult for December, even more so if we return to a red light as states such as Guerrero are planning to do,” he said in an interview with the newspaper Excélsior.

Arsuaga said that during March, April and May the tourism sector lost 500 billion pesos (US $22.5 billion), and it is estimated that a total approaching 1.6 trillion pesos (nearly US $72.6 billion) could be lost this year due to a 48% decline in tourism.

In past years, tourism has contributed nearly 9% to Mexico’s gross domestic product.

Arsuaga said he is hopeful that 55% of expected visitors will return by December, but the future in Mexico and throughout the world is uncertain.

In order to combat the gloomy tourist numbers, CNET has joined the Emerging National Alliance for Tourism, formed in conjunction with the National Conference of Governors (Conago) and joined by the Union of Ministers of Tourism (Asetur), the National Conference of Municipalities (Conamm), the Association of Mexican Banks (ABM), the Confederation of Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Concanaco-Servytur), and senators on the tourism commission.

The alliance hopes to come up with a series of policies and actions to revive the industry.

“It is a plan made to complement the National Development Plan in the tourism sector and try to get out of this crisis with the least damage,” Arsuaga said.

CNET’s guiding principles include safeguarding the health of tourists and workers in the tourism industry; reopening and relaunching tourist destinations to protect jobs; safety for tourists and tourism communities; innovation and competitiveness; improving connectivity and entry into the country; implementation of tourism promotion strategies; and the generation of legislative proposals to encourage tourism.

So far, the Minister of Tourism (Sectur), Miguel Torruco, has not signed on to the alliance, but CNET has presented a proposal and meetings have been held.

Source: Dinero en Imagen (sp)

Piedras Negras, Coahuila, municipality with highest rate of active Covid cases

By

MND Staff

-

July 22, 2020

0

Border municipality of Piedras Negras led the country with 213 cases per 100,000 residents.

Mexico’s official coronavirus death toll passed 40,000 on Tuesday while the case tally rose above 350,000.

The federal Health Ministry reported that Covid-19 deaths had increased to 40,400 with 915 additional fatalities registered.

It also reported that accumulated coronavirus cases had increased to 356,255 with 6,859 new cases registered on Tuesday. Just over 8% of the cases – 29,654 – are considered active while there are also 82,866 suspected cases across the country.

Health Ministry Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía presented data at Tuesday night’s coronavirus press briefing that showed that in epidemiological week 28, which ran from July 5 to 11, Piedras Negras, Coahuila, had the highest incidence of active coronavirus cases among Mexico’s more than 2,400 municipalities.

The northern border city was estimated to have 213 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in that period, Alomía said.

“This is interesting because Piedras Negras didn’t have an early start [to the pandemic]: it’s recent transmission but this transmission has had significant speed,” he said.

The municipality, located across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Texas, currently has 476 active coronavirus cases, according to Coahuila government data.

Ciudad Valles, San Luis Potosí, had the second highest incidence of active coronavirus cases in week 28, according to Health Ministry estimates, with 205 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Cosamaloapan de Carpio, Veracruz, ranked third with 203 cases per 100,000 inhabitants followed by Tenosique and Centro (Villahermosa) in Tabasco, where the rate was 139 and 137, respectively.

The other municipalities in the top 10 for the incidence of active coronavirus cases were, in order, Teoloyucan, México state; Nacajuca, Tabasco; Acuña, Coahuila; Milpa Alta, Mexico City; and Othón P. Blanco, Quintana Roo.

The municipalities with the highest Covid-19 death tolls are, in order, Iztapalapa, Mexico City, with 1,405 confirmed fatalities; Gustavo A. Madero, Mexico City, 1,205; Mexicali, Baja California, 1,166; Puebla city, 1,114; and Tijuana, Baja California, 1,017 fatalities.

The daily tally of coronavirus cases and deaths. Deaths are numbers reported and not necessarily those that occurred each day. milenio

National data presented at Tuesday’s press briefing showed that 14,225 of 30,832 general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are currently in use for an occupancy rate of 46%. For beds with ventilators, the occupancy rate is 37% with 3,812 of 10,211 currently in use.

Tabasco and Nayarit have the highest occupancy rate in the country for general care beds, with 78% currently in use in both states. Nuevo León has the third highest occupancy rate, at 76%.

Tabasco also has the highest occupancy rate for critical care beds, at 66%, followed by Nuevo León and Baja California, where the rates are 63% and 55%, respectively.

In Mexico City, which has recorded more coronavirus cases and deaths than any other state in the country, 52% of general care beds are occupied and 45% of those with ventilators are in use.

Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday that there had been a slight increase in recent days in the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients in the capital.

She told a virtual press conference that four or five of 57 Mexico City hospitals had seen an increase in their coronavirus patient numbers since last Saturday.

Despite the uptick in hospitalizations, Sheinbaum emphasized that there is still “very significant space” available for people who require hospital treatment for Covid-19.

She said that authorities will continue to monitor hospital admission trends this week to gain a better understanding about how the coronavirus outbreak in the capital is developing.

Mexico City has recorded 64,431 confirmed coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic, of which 6,156 are estimated to be active. The capital has also recorded 8,354 confirmed Covid-19 deaths of which 101 were registered on Tuesday.

Mexico City is currently one of 14 states where the coronavirus infection risk level is “orange light” high, according to the federal government’s “stoplight” map.

The risk level is “red light” maximum in 18 states including Jalisco, Baja California Sur Quintana Roo and Yucatán, four of nine states that switched from orange to red this week.

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

Guerrero’s federal delegate accused of using social programs for election

By

MND Staff

-

July 21, 2020

0

Federal super-delegate Pablo Sandoval. — Federal super-delegate Pablo Sandoval with a senior in Guerrero.

The federal government’s super-delegate in Guerrero is improperly promoting his role in the delivery of social programs to improve his chances of success at the state’s next gubernatorial election, claims a Morena party lawmaker.

The newspaper Reforma reported Tuesday that federal Deputy Rubén Cayetano will file a complaint against Pablo Amílcar Sandoval with the Ministry of Public Administration (SFP), whose boss is the Guerrero delegate’s sister, Irma Sandoval.

Both Pablo Sandoval and Cayetano have aspirations to be Morena’s candidate at the 2021 gubernatorial election in Guerrero.

To support his complaint, Cayetano said he will deliver a video to the SFP that shows another federal welfare official promoting Sandoval to seniors.

The video shows Bernardo Aguilar Burgos, an official with the senior citizens’ pension program, telling the audience at an event in Ajuchitlán del Progreso to remember the name of Sandoval, who as the government’s super-delegate is responsible for the delivery of federal social and welfare programs.

“The person directly responsible for all the social programs in the state of Guerrero is Pablo Amílcar Sandoval. Now do you know who he is? Let’s see, what’s his name?” Aguilar asks the dozens of senior citizens present at the event in the state’s Tierra Caliente region.

On several occasions, the officials asks his audience to repeat Sandoval’s name, presumably with the hope that it springs to mind when they are at the ballot box next year.

“Our delegate is looking after the mission of our president, [ensuring] that all the social programs reach the beneficiaries directly without intermediaries,” Aguilar tells his audience.

Making senior citizens say Sandoval’s name and thank him for their pensions “as if they were paid from his pocket” is a “despicable” affront to the pensioners’ dignity, Cayetano said. He added that the unashamed promotion of Sandoval is a threat to democracy.

The deputy previously filed a complaint with the SFP against another federal official in Guerrero who was also allegedly promoting Sandoval. However, the SFP declined to carry out an investigation and instead referred the complaint to the Welfare Ministry.

Sandoval, who has previously served as a lawmaker in the state, is also in the spotlight for allegedly failing to declare a property he owns on his personal assets declaration.

Pablo Sandoval and his sister Irma: will she investigate him?

Reforma reported Monday that the super-delegate failed to declare a large home and property he bought in the resort city of Acapulco in 2010. Sandoval denied the claim and accused the newspaper of publishing fake news.

“Nothing was hidden, the property is declared and my wealth hasn’t grown. … Reforma lied, it didn’t do its journalistic work. It’s a pity that it doesn’t have the courage to accept its error,” he wrote on Twitter.

Despite the denial, Irma Sandoval has an obligation to launch an investigation into her brother’s wealth, said Senator Juan Zepeda, president of the upper house’s anti-corruption committee.

The SFP is the government department responsible for verifying that officials’ asset declarations are in order.

Zepeda acknowledged that the public administration minister has a “serious conflict of interest” but said that she has no option but to investigate her brother for the alleged omission on his assets declaration.

“It will be very interesting because she’s his sister,” the Citizens Movement senator told Reforma.

“Let’s see if she sanctions her brother, if she … summons him … to clarify the purchase of the property. Let’s see what they invent because they’re clever,” Zepeda said.

Irma Sandoval, who with her husband reportedly own property worth some 60 million pesos – a claim she denies – is required by law not to make any public comment about cases in which she has a personal interest, Reforma reported.

However, she retweeted her brother’s denial that he failed to fully declare his assets as well as his announcement on Twitter that he would hold a press conference to “refute” Reforma’s “libel.”

Source: Reforma (sp)

The best way to swat a fly: some useful advice for the rainy season

By

Carlisle Johnson

-

July 21, 2020

0

Flies can see only slightly better than Mr. Magoo.

Guarantee: after reading this you will never again approach the important topic of swatting a fly casually. This is timeless advice; the kind you pass down to your children, your children’s children, etc.

A few years back I gave a seminar to a group of miners. At a borderline raucous post-seminar dinner the conversation turned to the best way to swat a fly. Since miners often work in Third World countries, and accordingly are uber-familiar with flies, I listened closely and ever since have tried to apply our unanimous conclusion to my own anti-fly campaigns.

We concluded that you have to swat that bugger from behind.

My subsequent research has shown that our consensus was only partially correct.

Flies are part of our lives, always have been and always will be. If you bake, you are familiar with shoo-fly pie; if you are staying in San Francisco you not only have a fly on your tent, but lots of them outside; and if you identify as a male you probably have a fly on your pants.

Likewise, flies have enriched the English language with such expressions as “no flies on him (or her)” and “died/dropped like flies.”

Although I have tried to apply the “swat from behind” technique, I recently dipped into some no-doubt government-funded research on the topic. Here’s what I learned.

Flies have eyes. This is not exactly news to you or me. For years I had a big rubber fly with big beady red eyes, which I once put in my coffee cup on a flight in the days before lawyers flew on every plane looking for ambulances to chase. The “stewardess” — that’s how long-ago it was — just laughed and there were no police waiting when we landed.

Flies’ eyes, like yours and mine, are not in the backs of their heads. Flies have a “six,” a blind spot like a fighter pilot’s. The miners knew that and now you do too.

Flies’ eyesight is only slightly sharper than Mr. Magoo’s. In fact they can only see things within a range of about 40 inches.

Flies cock and load when they perceive a risk such as a flyswatter within their 40-inch range. They automatically launch away from a perceived threat, such as that fuchsias flyswatter you got at the dollar store, or that rolled-up newspaper from the days before websites, which are harder to roll up.

Until it is again solvent enough to fund critical research, the government hasn’t told us whether flies are color blind, so the fuchsia color is to help you find the swatter and irrelevant to the fly.

Therefore, if you are still in the Flintstone era and using a swatter, approach the fly from its “six” blind spot, conceal the swatter by holding it out of fly-sight against your leg as you circle to get the best angle of attack, and splat.

You will never forget this article.

Carlisle Johnson writes from his home in Guatemala.

Bicycles multiply as the capital expands its bike lanes network

By

Jude Webber

-

July 21, 2020

0

Coronavirus has triggered the opening of new routes for cyclists in the capital.

Avenida de los Insurgentes runs for nearly 30 kilometers through Mexico City and although I’ll go almost anywhere on my bicycle to avoid the capital’s often insane congestion, I usually try to avoid it.

Jostling for space among the cars and trucks crammed into the two carriageways — there is a dedicated bus lane down the middle of the road — requires nerve-fraying dodging and too many stops and starts for someone whose patience is tested to the extreme by being stuck in traffic.

But since June, cyclists have had much of the key north-south city route all to themselves as the capital’s government, like many around the world, has rolled out emergency bike lanes to encourage safe, socially distant travel during Covid-19.

Already, the number of cyclists on the 54 kilometers of new paths down major arteries has doubled, amid ambitious goals to put cycling on the map for residents of a metropolis where you could knit nine sweaters or read Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past nearly one and a half times in the hours people spend stuck in rush hour traffic every year.

With more than 252,000 bike trips a day, according to the city government — only 2% of total journeys made in the city — the Mexican capital has further to go than most other major cities that have expanded their cycling networks during Covid. But in the past six weeks, nearly 5,000 cyclists have tried pedal power on the Insurgentes emergency cycle paths, despite Mexico City’s worrisome pollution and the fact that last year it ranked 80th out of 90 cities in an annual international survey of cycle friendliness. On a path on another major artery, cycle use has risen 64%.

The city's Ecobici is Latin America's biggest bike-sharing system. — The city’s Ecobici is Latin America’s biggest bike-sharing system.

Covid cases and deaths are still on the rise in the city. But the economy is fast opening up, and the center is thronged despite attempts to restrict access, making cycling increasingly appealing. But even pre-coronavirus, bicycles were on the city government’s radar as it planned to make one of the world’s most congested cities greener and cleaner.

Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate change expert close to President López Obrador and seen as a likely future presidential candidate, has unveiled plans to install solar panels on the roofs of 300 public buildings under a program dubbed “sun city.”

The capital’s emblematic Chapultepec park is also being expanded. A bike and pedestrian “floating path” will link sections now separated by traffic-jammed roads under a master plan designed by Gabriel Orozco, one of Mexico’s most acclaimed living artists.

Despite the volume of cars, 80% of journeys in Mexico City are made on public transport — which ranges from a dingy and limited metro service to creaking pesero minibuses, to modern double-deckers and new electric trolley buses.

The city government sees bicycles as an extension of public transport — something many posh Mexicans wrinkle their noses at. It is rolling out Ecobici, Latin America’s biggest bike-sharing system, beyond its existing 38-square-kilometer reach and putting stations outside metro stops. By 2024, it aims to have 600 kilometers of cycle paths and to have more than doubled bike use from pre-Covid levels.

Bike-sharing should have been a no-brainer in Mexico City — it is largely flat and the weather is mostly good. But poor air quality, safety fears and the size of the city put a brake on things until Ecobici was launched in 2010. The service now has more than 330,000 registered users in the city.

Last year, Mexico City built 98 kilometers of cycle paths, and even before Covid another 70 kilometers were planned. City Transport Minister Andrés Lajous — himself a cyclist — put a bike lane down the central reservation of Reforma, another major avenue, saving cyclists from having to take their chances alongside buses that honk loudly but rarely slow down.

Will cycling stick once Covid abates? For many, the sheer distance of their commute means it is unlikely to replace other means of transport entirely; as one Twitter commentator put it “idiots, Mexico City isn’t designed for bikes.”

But Lajous is upbeat, likening cycling to the mass adoption of Zoom meetings — available and widely overlooked before the pandemic, but now essential. “People are changing their transport habits,” he said.

Did Mexico City mayor send virus czar a message with gift of face masks?

By

MND Staff

-

July 21, 2020

0

Trendsetting Mayor Sheinbaum sports a colorful face mask.

It seems like an innocent gesture but was Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum trying to send a message to the federal government by gifting face masks to its coronavirus czar?

As soon as he sat down for his nightly coronavirus press briefing on Monday, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell held up a packet containing a face mask he said was given to him by the mayor.

He later gave the mask to a government communications official saying that it was a good match for the shirt he was wearing.

However, López-Gatell said he still had another mask Sheinbaum gave him.

The Mexico City mayor is a strong advocate for the use of face masks, making their use mandatory in the capital, whereas the deputy healthy minister has been reluctant to endorse them.

Deputy Health Minister López Gatell is rarely seen with a mask on.

Her gift suggests that she would like to see the government’s coronavirus point man, and federal officials more broadly, to promote the use of face masks more vigorously.

Sheinbaum herself sets an example for Mexico City residents by wearing a mask at public events and appearing in video messages clad in the fashion item du jour.

In contrast, López-Gatell has been a less than enthusiastic advocate.

He said in April that there was no solid scientific evidence that the widespread use of masks would help to limit the spread of the coronavirus and warned that people could be lulled into a “false sense of security” while wearing them because they believe that they are not susceptible to infection when in fact they are.

However, the deputy minister changed his tune somewhat in May, stating that face masks could help stop the spread of the coronavirus in workplaces.

López-Gatell has seldom been seen using a face mask himself although he was wearing one when he arrived at the airport in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, last week for a working trip.

Another rare sight is AMLO with a face mask. He wore won for the first time in public while en route to visit President Donald Trump.

While authorities in the majority of Mexico’s 32 states have made the wearing of masks compulsory in public places, the federal government has not issued a nationwide order mandating their use, and many of its officials – including President López Obrador – have mostly eschewed them.

However, pressure is mounting on the government to make masks compulsory across the country, or at least set a better example for citizens by requiring officials to wear them.

Gustavo Olaiz, head of the Center for Research in Policy, Population and Health at the National Autonomous University, said it’s crucial for federal officials to wear masks in order to to encourage more people to do so.

If large numbers of people continue to shun masks, the government should make their use obligatory, he said.

Olaiz told the newspaper Reforma that wearing a face mask is mandatory in about 50 countries around the world and that those nations have had greater success in combating the coronavirus than those that have not done so.

“The debate about the use of face masks should have already passed,” Olaiz said.

Masks were definitely not in fashion in May. Here, México state Governor Alfredo del Mazo is the only one with a mask at a presidential press conference. Behind him, and to his left, is the head of the national health service, IMSS. He caught the virus soon after.

He said the current debate should be about whether people should wear a protective shield in addition to a face mask because the coronavirus can enter a person’s body through their eyes.

“Evidence continues to mount in favor of using both. The World Health Organization says that ‘both work independently of each other,’” Olaiz said.

The academic emphasized that a face mask helps protect the person wearing it and his or her close contacts.

“People don’t know if they’re infected or not, and they have to protect others. … Using a face mask is a way of showing love for Mexico, the Mexican people, your neighbors, your family,” Olaiz said.

Octavio Gómez Dantés, a researcher at the National Institute of Public Health, said that due to overwhelming evidence that masks can help stop the transmission of the coronavirus, their use should be made mandatory.

He said that there is evidence that if 80% of the population uses a mask, the benefit can be as significant as a lockdown.

An early adopter of not just a mask but a face shield was José Antonio Arámbula, mayor of Jesús María, Aguascalientes. The photo was taken in April.

“We don’t necessarily have to go back to our homes [for another lockdown] if we implement a mandatory face mask policy,” Gómez said.

The researcher agreed with Olaiz that federal officials should wear masks to set an example.

“The first person that has to use a face mask is the president. Deputy Minister Hugo López-Gatell has not had the courage to accept that he was wrong” about face masks, Gómez said, adding that the coronavirus czar should accept that evidence about their effectiveness has mounted and “change his position.”

One new government advocate for the use of masks is Finance Minister Arturo Herrera, who has recently recovered from Covid-19.

Speaking on Tuesday at a virtual meeting of the board of the Canacintra industry group, Herrera said the widespread use of masks will have a beneficial impact on the economy.

Holding up a mask, the finance minister said: “This is not just going to be one of the most important elements to protect us [from infection] but also one of the elements that allows us to relaunch the economy with greater success.”

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

Homicide numbers declining but they’re still over last year’s

By

MND Staff

-

July 21, 2020

0

Monthly intentional homicide and femicide figures since the new government took office. milenio

Homicides declined 2.2% in June compared to May but Mexico remains on track to record its most violent year in recent history in 2020.

Federal government data shows that there were 2,851 homicides last month, 65 fewer than the number recorded in May.

The homicide figures for June represented the fifth lowest monthly total since President López Obrador took office in December 2018. It was the third consecutive month that murder numbers declined.

However, Security Minister Alfonso Durazo acknowledged on Monday that the figures are still “very high in absolute terms.”

Indeed, homicides for the first six months of 2020 total 17,493, a 1.7% increase compared to the same period of 2019, the most violent year since national murder records were first kept in 1997.

The data shows that the coronavirus crisis and the federal government’s stay-at-home advice have done little to curb the violence plaguing the country.

However, Durazo said that much of the violence is concentrated in a small number of regions, specifically citing the municipalities of Guadalajara and Tlajomulco in Jalisco; Manzanillo, Colima; and Zamora, Michoacán.

“We never thought that the [homicide] numbers, the crime rate, would go down from one day to the next. If the increase [in murders] was the product of a long social process, its decrease will also be the product of a long social process,” he said.

Guanajuato remains the most violent state in the country based on homicide statistics for the first half of the year, with 2,293 murders between January and June. México state ranks second followed by Chihuahua, Baja California and Jalisco.

While overall murders declined slightly last month, femicides – the killing of women and girls on account of their gender – surged 35.6%, data shows.

There were 99 femicide victims in June compared to 73 in May. The figure is the highest since December 2018 when 100 women and girls were killed as the result of gender-based violence.

There were a total of 489 femicides in the first six months of 2020, a 9.1% increased compared to the same period of last year.

Durazo described femicides as “one of the most sensitive matters” and acknowledged that a stronger effort was required to combat the crime.

Kidnappings also showed a big increase last month. They were up 35% over May.

Extortion, rape and muggings also increased.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Mexico City plans virtual Day of the Dead celebration

By

Susy Buchanan

-

July 21, 2020

0

Day of the Dead parade faces the coronavirus challenge.

Mexico City is exploring holding virtual Day of the Dead celebrations in the fall in order to maintain traditions in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

Some two million people attended the Day of the Dead parade last year on November 2, which was also broadcast live, said the director of Mexico City’s tourism promotion fund, Paola Félix Díaz.

Now the city is looking to other large cities around the world for ideas on how to carry on traditional practices safely. Her office is also exploring options such as Day of the Dead drive-in theaters, or tours by car as alternatives to dense crowds in the streets.

A UNESCO-protected celebration, the Day of the Dead as it is celebrated today has its foundation in the deeply rooted Mesoamerican traditions of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Catholic ritual introduced in the 1600s.

While every region of the country has its own particular way of celebrating the event, the common denominator is the remembrance of a family’s departed loved ones, who are visited at cemeteries and honored by an altar that includes the meals, drinks and vices favored by the deceased.

Mexico City held its first government-sponsored Day of the Dead parade in 2016, inspired by the opening sequences of the James Bond film Spectre, where 007 can be seen chasing a villain through a crowded Day of the Dead celebration.

Initially, hopes had been to grow the parade to the size of Carnival in Rio, although that is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Source: La Jornada (sp)

2 convoy videos were the work of Jalisco cartel’s ‘Elite Group:’ army chief

By

MND Staff

-

July 21, 2020

0

Armored vehicle that appeared in one of the cartel's videos is believed to be a modified Ford F-250 Super Duty XLT.

Two cartel videos posted online in recent days are courtesy of the “elite group” of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), National Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sanddoval said Tuesday.

One video shows scores of heavily-armed and masked men shouting support for CJNG leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes while standing alongside a long convoy of armored vehicles.

The other video, which also shows armed men and military-style vehicles, is narrated by a man who directs a threat at José Antonio “El Marro” Yépez Ortiz, leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, which is engaged in a bloody turf war with the CJNG in Guanajuato.

The narrator says that the CJNG’s dispute in Guanajuato is not with the people or the government but with the “filthy, innocent-slaying” Yépez.

“Marro, understand once and for all that all of Guanajuato has an owner and it’s the CJNG,” the narrator says before giving voice to a threat to kill all members of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, a fuel theft, drug trafficking and extortion gang.

Speaking at the president’s news conference on Tuesday morning, Sandoval said the release of the first video last Friday coincided with the birthday of Oseguera, Mexico’s most wanted drug lord.

Army chief Sandoval presents a report Monday at the presidential press conference.

The army chief said that the aim of both videos is to show off the firepower of the elite group of the CJNG, considered the most powerful and dangerous criminal organization in Mexico.

Sandoval said the government has information that the cartel’s elite group was formed last year and is led by Juan Carlos González, a man also known as “El 03.”

The leader of the elite group in Jalisco is Ricardo Ruiz Velazco, alias “El Doble R,” he said.

Sandoval said that the CJNG elite group is the only one of its kind in the country and that it operates in parts of Michoacán, Guanajuato and Zacatecas.

In response to the threat against Yépez and the crime group he leads, the army chief said that security will be bolstered in Guanajuato – the most violent state in the country – and all other states where the CJNG operates in order to avoid “any situation that could have a negative impact” on the general population.

For his part, President López Obrador asserted that his administration “won’t declare war” on drug cartels in response to the two CJNG videos even though they are seen by some analysts as a challenge and threat to the authority of the government.

“Let it be very clear: no to war, yes to peace,” López Obrador said, repeating the position he espoused in late June after an attempt on the life of the Mexico City police chief that was allegedly ordered by the CJNG.

“Declaring war is not the solution, we already know what that causes,” he added, referring to the huge number of deaths in the almost 14 years since former president Felipe Calderón launched the so-called war on drugs by sending the military into combat against cartels.

The president said that the cartel videos are also a legacy of the security strategies implemented by past governments and renewed his commitment to combatting violence with a non-confrontational approach that respects people’s human rights.

“I continue to call on everyone to behave well, let there be hugs not bullets,” López Obrador said.

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, the law of retaliation, no!. … I don’t agree with the retaliation law. If we resort to that, we’ll be left one-eyed or toothless,” he said.

“We have to convince, persuade [people to stop the violence]. Peace and tranquility are the fruits of justice. Violence cannot be confronted with violence, fire isn’t put out with fire, evil cannot be confronted with evil; evil has to be confronted by doing good. So we’re not going to change [our strategy].”

The president did, however, publish a decree in May that ordered the armed forces to continue carrying out public security tasks for another four years, effectively perpetuating the militarization model he frequently rails against.

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

Drainage problems cause a stink at Mexico City airport

By

Susy Buchanan

-

July 21, 2020

0

The sewer system at Terminal 2 of Mexico City’s Benito Juárez International Airport has been called a sanitary disaster, as employees and passengers must put up with a foul stench in hallways, gates, parking lots and outside areas near the terminal.

Leaking sewage containing fecal matter tends to accumulate near Gate 4, on one side of the terminal.

The putrid odor may be attributed to a faulty sewer system with leaky pipes, the terminal’s proximity to a garbage dump, and various construction projects taking place inside the building.

Employees report that the smell is more noticeable in the afternoons, and after it rains.

“The wind and heat bring that foul odor. There are days when it is very strong and affects sales,” said Sandra, who runs a sandwich shop.

“It rains, there are a lot of leaks, travelers get upset, and then they tell you to clean and clean, but the water rises up out of the drain. The pipes break and all the stink comes out,” said Monica, a cleaning lady at the facility.

Airport officials had put out a call for bids on fixing the problem.

“The leaks increase in the rainy season, so when they accumulate and stagnate they give off bad smells in a large part of the terminal, affecting users and causing a bad image,” the rules for the bidding process explained.

Properly repairing the faulty system at Terminal 2 would take about sixmonths, airport officials estimate, and would involve installing six submersible pumps and removing 1,593 cubic meters of earth, among other projects.

However, authorities were forced to close down the bidding process on June 22 after only two companies submitted proposals that were called inadequate, offering to fix the sewage leaks for around 11 million pesos, or US $492,000.

Source: Reforma (sp)