Broadcasters merge to launch Spanish-language streaming service

By

-

April 14, 2021

The two media companies' merger seeks to create a "global leader in Spanish-language media."

Mexico’s top broadcaster Televisa and Univision of the United States have agreed to a US $4.8-billion content merger backed by Japan’s SoftBank that is aimed at launching a Spanish-language streaming service to take on the likes of Netflix.

The deal, which had been widely hinted at in recent days, sent Televisa’s American depositary receipts in New York soaring 8.7% in after-hours trading.

The companies said in a statement that Televisa would combine its media, content and production assets — from soaps to sporting events — with Univision, the large U.S. Spanish-language broadcaster, creating the “global leader in Spanish-language media.”

The new company will aim to launch a global streaming service early next year to tap into a market of 600 million consumers.

“As the definitive global leader in Spanish-language media, Televisa-Univision will have the operating assets, financial scale and audience reach to accelerate its digital transformation and deliver a differentiated streaming proposition to the underserved global Spanish-language population,” the groups said in a statement.

Televisa, which will hold 45% of the merged company, will contribute content valued at US $4.8 billion as well as its four free-to-air channels, 27 pay-television outlets, its Videocine movie studio and Blim TV video-on-demand service.

Univision will pay US $3 billion in cash and $1.5 billion in Univision stock, with the remainder funded by other sources. This will enable Televisa to pay down debt.

The deal was expected to significantly reduce combined net debt leverage and boost margins, the companies said.

As part of the financing for the transaction, SoftBank’s Latin America Fund will lead a US $1 billion debt issue with participation from Google, the Raine Group merchant bank and the venture capital and private equity firm ForgeLight, a current investor in Univision.

Univision’s assets include the Univision and UniMás networks, nine Spanish-language cable networks, 61 television stations and 58 radio stations, as well as a recently-launched streaming service, PrendeTV.

“This strategic combination generates significant value for shareholders of both companies and will allow us to more efficiently reach all Spanish-language audiences with more of our programming,” said Emilio Azcárraga, executive chair of Televisa.

Content will largely be produced in Mexico, and “the combined financial strength will allow the company to invest in the anticipated launch of its global streaming platform, which is expected in early 2022,” the statement said.

Wade Davis, Univision chief executive, will lead the merged company, with Televisa’s Alfonso de Angoitia as executive chair. Marcelo Claure, chief executive of SoftBank, will become vice-chair.

The companies have been closely connected for more than two decades, and Televisa said it expected the deal would enable it to “strengthen our balance sheet and focus on growth opportunities at our telecom business”, which it will retain, as well as production facilities and Mexican licenses.

Mexico’s unwritten driving rules not unlike those for supermarket shopping

By

Joseph Sorrentino

-

April 14, 2021

0

Expect the unexpected when you're driving on Mexico's roadways. Valentín Zavala

There’s only one rule for driving in Mexico: there are no rules.

Well, I guess to be correct there are rules, but there aren’t any you must follow if you really don’t feel like it.

And you can change which ones you feel like following daily, hourly or on the spur of the moment. Pretty much just for the hell of it.

At the same time, Mexican drivers expect everyone else on the road to follow both the spirit and the letter of each and every rule because, after all, isn’t that simply being courteous?

It took me a couple of trips to Mexico before I realized that there is actually a flow to traffic here. Maybe “flow” isn’t the right word; “swirling eddies” is probably more accurate. Let’s see if I can explain what I mean.

Mexicans apparently treat driving a car like, say, pushing a shopping cart in a supermarket. That may be because they’ll drive their cars into supermarkets if they have to, but that’s another matter.

What I mean is, you know how when you’re pushing a shopping cart down an aisle and someone’s blocking it with their cart, you simply go around? Or how people shuffle along, moving from one side of the aisle to another, cutting in front of or behind each other, passing people on either the left or right side?

There aren’t any “rules” per se. Do people yell and get into fights if someone cuts in front of them in a supermarket, stops dead in the middle of an aisle or passes them on the right? No.

And I think that’s the way Mexicans view driving. To them it’s simply like being in a supermarket. When driving, they think it’s perfectly normal to weave in and out, cut in front of other vehicles or even stop if they see a friend. One major difference, of course, is that, unlike Mexican drivers, Mexican shoppers don’t lay on a horn for every minor or perceived infraction.

There is one thing that Mexicans do that really scares the hell out of me. You know how in the United States it’s perfectly legal to make a right turn on red? Well, in Mexico, you can make a left on red. Or, if the spirit moves you — and you’re in a rush — you can go straight on red.

I’m pretty sure these are both illegal, but they happen so often that they may not be.

I’ve been in cars, taxis, buses, all kinds of vehicles where the driver waits a few moments at a red light and then, tiring of the wait, drives right through or hangs a left; often it’s in front of an oncoming vehicle, which causes me to rethink my aversion to religion and the possibility that there really is a hereafter.

But what’s really strange is that, given the lunacy of the driving here, it’s rare to see an accident. I’ve seen exactly one fender-bender in Mexico City.

Oh, there are plenty of crosses marking places where someone died in an accident on highways, and I have seen a few burned-out vehicles on the slopes of mountain roads. But in cities, given the way people drive, you’d expect a veritable trail of crosses and a convoy of smashed-up vehicles.

Then again, that would be bad for the tourist trade, wouldn’t it? Maybe Mexico’s just really good at cleaning things up.

Joseph Sorrentino, a writer, photographer and author of the book San Gregorio Atlapulco: Cosmvisiones and of Stinky Island Tales: Some Stories from an Italian-American Childhood, is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily. More examples of his photographs and links to other articles may be found at www.sorrentinophotography.com He currently lives in Chipilo, Puebla.

Senate approves cell phone users registry that will collect biometric data

By

MND Staff

-

April 14, 2021

0

Under the new law, anyone buying a mobile SIM card will be required to submit identifying information such as fingerprints or iris scans to the government.

With the aim of reducing crimes facilitated by the use of cell phones, the federal Senate has approved the creation of a national registry of mobile phone users that will collect biometric data such as fingerprints and images of people’s irises.

Supported by most ruling party senators, the reform to the Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law passed the upper house of Congress on Tuesday.

The reform, passed by the lower house last December, makes it mandatory for people to join the registry — which is expected to be created within three years — when they purchase a SIM card or acquire a new prepaid mobile telephone line.

The objective of the reform is to reduce the incidence of crimes such as extortion and kidnapping (including asking for ransom), which are often aided by the use of unregistered cell phones. Many crimes facilitated by the use of phones have been traced to Mexican prisons.

According to the reform, people purchasing a new SIM or seeking to activate a prepaid mobile phone will have to present ID, proof of address and one form of biometric identification. That could be their fingerprints, images of their irises or a range of facial features.

The failure to provide the required documents and data is punishable by the definitive cancellation of the telephone line in question and the imposition of a fine of almost 90,000 pesos (about US $4,500).

The reform states that the registry will remain confidential and people’s personal information will be protected by existing federal data protection laws, but those laws don’t make specific mention of biometric data.

Digital rights activists and opposition lawmakers were critical of the reform, especially the inclusion of biometric data.

Luis Fernando García, director of R3D, a digital rights defense network, said that existing laws to protect people’s data are “very bad,” adding that personal data is “systematically violated” in Mexico.

Miguel Ángel Mancera, leader of the Democratic Revolution Party in the Senate, said the creation of the registry would violate numerous sections of the constitution.

“[The reform] is a cocktail of constitutional violations,” he said, adding that it would affect a range of civil guarantees.

Mancera predicted that there will be a flood of injunction requests against the reform and expressed doubt that it will help to reduce crime.

Institutional Revolutionary Party Senator Claudia Ruiz Massieu said the obligation for cell phone users to hand over their biometric data is a violation of their fundamental rights, including their right to privacy. She also said the establishment of a national registry could lead to people being wrongly accused of a crime.

“The registry violates the [right to] the presumption of innocence … because if a telephone number is used to commit a crime, it presumes that the owner of the registered line is guilty; the user is left in [a state of] complete defenselessness,” Massieu said.

National Action Party Senator Xóchitl Gálvez claimed that the purpose of the registry is to keep an eye on the country’s more than 100 million cell phone users, although President López Obrador says that his government is not interested in spying on anyone.

“This project impinges on privacy and the protection of personal data and violates freedom of communication,” she said.

With the establishment of a national registry, the government would become a kind of “Big Brother,” Gálvez said, referring to the mascot of the omnipresent surveillance state in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Independent Senator Emilio Álvarez Icaza said the establishment of a national registry of cell phone users is a hallmark of authoritarianism.

“It hinders the right to anonymous expression and facilitates the monitoring and control of the population in violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” he said.

“There are only 17 countries that have a registry of this nature, all of them authoritarian, all with regimes that violate human rights: China, Afghanistan, Venezuela, … [now] we’re going to include Mexico.”

López Obrador defended the plan, saying its purpose is to “look after” mobile phone users.

“It’s a matter of security,” he told reporters at his news conference on Wednesday, adding that telecommunications companies don’t like the idea because of the bureaucratic burden it places on them.

People already have to provide ID and biometric data such as fingerprints when signing up for other services such as banking, but the telecommunications companies are opposed to having to collect personal information because they think it will affect sales, López Obrador said.

“… This is for the safety of the people, it’s not selling peanuts. It’s selling a [SIM] card to have communication and which can be used for extortion, kidnapping [or] to commit crimes. … It’s completely a matter of security for the protection of Mexicans.”

The president added that people shouldn’t have any concerns about providing their personal and biometric data for inclusion in the registry.

“… We’re never going to carry out actions of espionage against anyone,” he said.

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

Canadian airlines extend their suspension of Mexico flights

By

MND Staff

-

April 14, 2021

0

WestJet plans to resume flights to Mexico on June 4.

Two Canadian airlines have extended their suspension of flights to Mexico.

WestJet announced Tuesday it was extending its suspension of flights to destinations in Mexico and the Caribbean until June 4, while Air Canada said it wouldn’t take passengers to sun destinations in May as had been planned.

“We are extending our suspension with the clear expectation that as more Canadians are vaccinated, government policy will transition,” WestJet president and CEO Ed Sims said.

“… Alongside an accelerated and successful vaccine rollout, this policy transition will support the safe restart of travel and help stimulate the Canadian economy, where one in 10 jobs are tourism related.”

WestJet, Canada’s second biggest airline after Air Canada, is one of four carriers that suspended flights to sun destinations at the request of the Canadian government. The suspension took effect January 31 and was to conclude April 30.

According to Air Canada’s upcoming schedule, flights from Toronto and Vancouver to Mexico City will begin in the first week of May and services between Montreal and the Mexican capital will begin May 10.

But spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick told the website Travel Pulse Canada on Wednesday that the airline won’t operate passenger services to Mexico and other sun destinations in May.

“Air Canada will extend its suspension of sun flying throughout May. We will continue to operate some flights to Mexico City, Barbados, and Kingston, but these would not carry passengers south. Instead, they will provide essential services, for example carrying cargo and in some cases on northbound flights, temporary foreign workers and Canadians currently abroad,” he said.

“We will continue to monitor the situation and adjust our network as appropriate, as well as work with the government to develop a safe reopening plan and restore travel.”

Air Transat, one of the other Canadian airlines that suspended flights to Mexico, has announced it will resume services on June 14. Sunwing, which also agreed to the January-April suspension, said earlier this month that all flights to sun destinations would remain suspended until June 23.

Mexico News Daily

Let’s forget about optics, Mr. President, and vaccinate all frontline workers

By

Sarah DeVries

-

April 14, 2021

0

Private-sector doctors and dentists in Mexico City last week protesting the fact that they have yet to be vaccinated.

I’m seriously considering going home to Texas for a few weeks this summer in order to get vaccinated.

I really had been planning on just waiting it out here. But at the rate things are going, it seems like it could be at least a year before my turn is up. (I won’t be 40 for another few months and just barely miss the cutoff for that age group.)

According to the newly adjusted vaccination plan, my age group that should have been up during the summer is now projected for “sometime between August and March 2022.” Well, hell.

Call me pessimistic, but I’ve learned through experience here that projected timelines even for important projects, like building bridges, get thrown out the window fairly quickly.

It’s like that clown trick where they pull out a handkerchief that’s actually a never-ending string of handkerchiefs. I’m not falling for that one again.

Still, though, I want to be careful about where my criticism lands.

No one invented this horrible pandemic that we’re all stuck in, and I want to show due respect and awe, especially for those who’ve been on the frontlines in a myriad of ways: healthcare workers, people who have worked so hard to figure out ways to push the death toll down, those who’ve continued to work in essential jobs to make sure that the rest of us are not lacking in groceries or medicine or transportation on top of everything else.

Society has managed to keep on running, and not because of me.

No government caused or wished for the pandemic; the pandemic simply happened, and we’ve all been left to deal with it.

Could we all have done things differently? Well, of course. Could Mexico have handled things better, or could it begin right now to handle things better? Oh, certainly.

The reality, however, is that only a few countries with a very specific combination of geographical isolation, political culture, and societal and medical norms have emerged from this relatively unscathed.

And while the speedy vaccine has been nothing short of a miracle of science, we modern humans have come to fully expect speedy miracles, generally becoming grouchy and unappreciative when they’re not delivered right away or lack 100% guarantees.

That said, we can certainly handle this vaccine issue better and be more strategic about who gets it. Here I was, for example, foolishly assuming that all healthcare workers — yes, even private-practice dentists, gynecologists and podiatrists — had been vaccinated before they started on the 60+ group.

Nope! Turns out, that is not what happened at all. So what gives?

President López Obrador, as we all know, is all about fairness …. his version of what he thinks fairness is, but still. It’s a quality that I’d long admired in him but that has left me quite jittery lately since I’ve discovered that we have some fundamental differences between us on whom we consider to be the losing parties among the various dichotomies of Mexican society.

While I’m no scholar on the president, I can confidently say this: AMLO is a man who tolerates few grey areas; everything is black and white. Media = bad. Private industry = bad. Not poor people = bad. (I’d say “rich people,” but even the ever-shrinking middle class seems to not garner much sympathy.)

Is his heart in the right place? Honestly, I still believe that it is, as misguided as I believe many of his ideas to be. But his unwillingness to be flexible really throws buckets of unnecessary wrenches into things. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: no one can be a genius expert on everything, and that’s OK.

Being a good leader, then, means surrounding yourself with people much smarter than yourself for specific policy advice in those areas where you’re lacking.

Of course, make sure that they have similar values to yours: a respect for human and environmental rights and an eye toward the ultimate goal of a peaceful and just society, for example. But from there, tag-team it, people. You need a lot of brains on these things. No one expects you to be an all-knowing supreme leader. Citizens vote for leaders, not gods. Loosen up.

A couple of weeks ago, my dismay was focused on the government’s insistence that the CFE was the “little guy victim” in the energy sector. This week, my alarm is directed toward the fact that so many healthcare workers, especially private healthcare workers, have not been vaccinated; indeed, the president told them last week to “wait their turn” (by age group).

At this point, I’d like to tell you what percentage of healthcare workers the private sector represents, but, surprise! I can’t.

You know why not? Because the government doesn’t have a good headcount. The government doesn’t have a headcount. Private healthcare associations are trying to scramble together a census on their own.

I’m sorry, what?

The implication of what the president said — at least in the way I interpreted it — is that private healthcare workers are undeserving of prioritized vaccines because they’ve chosen to make money off sick people rather than selflessly help them through the public system instead, which is about the most cynical message I think I’ve heard all month (and there have been some doozies!).

The rest of us know, however, that the public system is severely lacking in many areas. As is, there are simply too many people in need of too much care within an institution that doesn’t have nearly enough resources to adequately care for them all. The quality of the workers is fine; there just aren’t enough of them or enough space or enough medicine.

Mexico’s various public systems have many hardworking, dedicated people in them. But just like the education sector, the infrastructure sector and the energy sector, they simply can’t adequately meet the demand on their own. There are too many of us and not enough of them, nor a robust and efficient enough system to accommodate everyone.

So what do we do? If we can, we make space by enrolling our children in private schools. We pay a toll to use the nice highway. We buy a car to avoid overcrowded buses. And instead of waiting one to six months to see a doctor at the public hospital, we go to Dr. Simi (i.e., the pharmacy) or, if we feel it’s more serious, we see a private specialist.

As often happens, AMLO’s teammates were left to explain how what the president told private healthcare workers was both right on the money and also wrong at the same time. According to Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, for example, there is no distinction in the vaccine rollout between private and public healthcare workers; they’re simply trying to get to the “frontline” healthcare workers first and only have accurate registries for those in the public sector.

OK, fine. So they have to “wait their turn” by age group because somebody else forgot to identify all the workers? Then say that, Mr. President — or at least say that you’re on it because it’s important; don’t say that those who’ve been working tirelessly for over a year as they watched countless patients and loved ones drop dead around them are acting like petulant children for insisting they deserve something they don’t. They do.

Can we also talk about what “frontline” means? Yes, by all means, get to the people who are working directly with coronavirus patients first. Agreed! But even though other medical specialists don’t specifically treat them, just the sheer volume of people they come into contact with daily in enclosed spaces greatly increases their risk of catching the disease, as it does for everyone that must come into contact daily with large swaths of the public.

Can we get grocery store workers and market vendors next in line?

Let’s forget about optics for a while and go for the biggest impacts. Send brigades to every hospital and clinic to camp out for a few days (start with the biggest, or the hardest hit — just make it fast). Do the same at grocery stores and markets. Put out a call for all private practitioners in a community to receive their vaccines just by showing their professional documents.

The virus is evolving and putting out new variants, and we’re running out of time.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com.

Science agency celebrates new Mexican vaccine

By

MND Staff

-

April 14, 2021

0

María Elena Álvarez Buylla, director of the National Council of Science and Technology.

President López Obrador and the head of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) touted a homegrown Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday.

A low-cost vaccine candidate using technology developed by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York was described by López Obrador as a “motherland vaccine.”

The research behind the development of the vaccine, to be called Patria, is an achievement of the Mexican government, he said.

Conacyt director María Elena Álvarez-Buylla said the project will enable Mexico “to recover sovereignty in … the production of vaccines.”

She said the vaccine candidate will be used in human clinical trials in Mexico once testing on a range of animals has been completed. She predicted that 90 adults will receive shots of the vaccine later this month or in May. The Conacyt chief also said the vaccine could receive emergency-use authorization from drug regulator Cofepris as soon as December.

The federal government invested 150 million pesos (US $7.5 million) in its development.

López Obrador said the vaccine’s name was inspired by Ramón López Velarde, an early 20th-century poet from Zacatecas.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to indicate that the Patria vaccine, rather than having been developed in the U.S., is being developed in Mexico. Mexico News Daily regrets the error.

Los Cabos hotels near Covid capacity during Easter holidays

By

MND Staff

-

April 14, 2021

0

Visitors go for a camel ride, an attraction in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur.

Over the Easter break hotels in Los Cabos registered 49% capacity, almost at the 50% limit permitted by Covid-19 restrictions.

For two consecutive weeks the holiday destination in Baja California Sur saw an average of 9,000 tourists per day with the lowest occupancy levels registered on April 6 at 42%.

San José del Cabo International Airport saw 60 flights a day during the two weeks of Easter, and transported approximately 90,000 tourists. That generated an estimated US $20 million, based on vacationers spending between $120 and $150 daily, and $400 on a hotel room, at an average of 2.3 guests per room.

The president of the Los Cabos hotel association, Lizly Orcí Fregoso, said the 2021 Easter season broke records for the highest nightly rate in hotels; nearly US $400 per night compared to around $300 in previous years.

She added that 60% of tourists to Los Cabos were from the United States, mainly from California, Arizona and Texas. Fregoso said the number of Covid-19 infections identified among tourists has remained under 1%, and that no tourist has required hospitalization.

In La Paz hotels were also close to the 50% limit for the whole month of March and until April 11. The 20,000 mostly domestic tourists contributed around $3.7 million to the region.

Source: El Sudcaliforniano (sp)

Business as usual: despite troop deployments migrants continue crossing southern border

By

MND Staff

-

April 14, 2021

0

A Honduran woman and child near Mexico's border with Guatemala.

Almost a month ago the federal government announced a temporary closure of the southern border to nonessential traffic. This week, the White House announced that Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala would deploy troops “to make crossing the borders more difficult.”

Yet migrants continue to stream into the country en route to the United States.

According to a report published Wednesday by The Guardian, Central American migrants were crossing into Mexico on a recent morning at Frontera Corozal, a remote border town on the Usumacinta River in Chiapas, without having to show documents to anyone.

The newspaper said the situation “looked like business as usual,” noting that groups of men, women and children were disembarking from boats onto Mexican soil before getting into taxis and speeding past an immigration office to a crossroads. There they boarded vans for the next leg of their journey north: an approximately 150-kilometer trip to the town of Palenque, Chiapas.

There are police checkpoints on the Frontera Corozal-Palenque highway, but according to migrants, they were able to pass by paying — or were robbed by the officers they encountered.

“They’ve taken our money, and now we’re dead broke,” 27-year-old Christian, part of a group of Honduran construction workers, told The Guardian.

“And now we have to deal with the military. We need to figure out how we get north. We are always fighting and figuring out a way to get there.”

Shortly after he took office in late 2018, President López Obrador pledged to clean up Mexico’s immigration and customs forces, which he said were “rotten to the core.” He also vowed that his administration would treat migrants with respect and give them protection.

But human rights activists say that soldiers, police officers and immigration officials continue to commit crimes against migrants, including robbery, extortion and kidnapping.

“It’s a cartel,” said Gabriel Romero, director of a migrant shelter near Mexico’s border with Guatemala. “They [the authorities] are acting in cahoots with [smugglers] … with taxi and bus drivers. It’s a network taking advantage of migrants,” he said.

Still, migrants fleeing poverty and violence in countries such as Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are prepared to risk their lives in their quest to reach the United States.

Migrants arrive in Chiapas after crossing the Usumacinta River.

Even increased enforcement — the government deployed the National Guard in 2019 to stem migration flows and thus appease then United States president Donald Trump — failed to stop Central Americans and people from more distant countries, including Haiti, Cuba and even African nations, from attempting to reach the United States via a long journey that includes crossing Mexico’s southern border.

Crackdowns instead have forced migrants to take riskier, more remote routes to enter and travel through Mexico. They are consequently exposed to an even greater risk of becoming victims of crimes such as robbery, rape, abduction and murder.

The latest crackdown on migrants may be even less effective in stopping the flows of people, according to Tonatiuh Guillén, a former chief of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute who resigned in 2019 after the federal government buckled in the face of Trump’s threat to impose blanket tariffs on Mexican goods if the country didn’t do more to curb migration.

“The flow of migrants will continue moving, mostly because they’re in small groups … and a significant part of it is controlled by human traffickers,” he said.

“[Human traffickers] have infrastructure, money and complicit relationships [with the authorities],” Guillén said.

“[In addition] governments in Mexico, the United States and Central America have never really put much of an effort into controlling these trafficking organizations.”

López Obrador and United States Vice President Kamala Harris, who is leading the U.S. government’s efforts to deter migration, spoke last week. López Obrador said the two countries are “willing to join forces in the fight against human trafficking and to protect human rights, especially of children.”

The president and vice president also said they would work toward Central American development and agreed on the urgency of carrying out emergency humanitarian aid programs.

However, it is unlikely that any measures agreed to by the Mexican and U.S. governments will significantly diminish the various factors pushing Central Americans to flee their homelands.

According to The Guardian report, migrants traveling through southern Mexico said they had escaped situations of extreme poverty, hunger and gang violence. They also spoke of the dire consequences of drought and hurricanes and criticized politicians who allow corruption to run rampant.

“Hurricane Eta swept away everything and left us in the street with our children,” said 34-year-old Leticia, who fled Honduras with her husband and three children. “That’s why we decided to leave and search for a future.”

Johan Martínez told The Guardian that he left Honduras because criminals were forcing him to make extortion payments even though his income as a welder was meager.

After showing the newspaper’s reporter a gunshot scar on his abdomen and his fake front teeth that replaced those knocked out by angry gangsters seeking payment, Martínez said that the arrival of United States President Joe Biden, who has moved to roll back some of his predecessor’s harsh immigration policies, gave him the “opportunity of a lifetime” to seek asylum in the U.S.

Many other Central Americans, who have flocked to the Mexico-U.S. border in recent months, feel the same.

Source: The Guardian (en)

Family of British woman missing in Oaxaca gets protection after receiving threats

By

MND Staff

-

April 14, 2021

0

Claudia Uruchurtu disappeared in Nochixtlán.

Human rights officials have taken precautionary measures to protect the sisters of British-Mexican citizen Claudia Uruchurtu, 48, who disappeared on March 26 in Asunción Nochixtlán, Oaxaca.

The sisters say they have received death threats via phone call and acts of intimidation at their homes in Oaxaca ever since they began to demand justice for their sister.

Elizabeth Uruchurtu, who normally resides in England, lobbied the country’s foreign ministry on her behalf, which then contacted human rights groups in Mexico.

The president of Oaxaca’s human rights commission, Bernardo Rodríguez Alamilla, said it has established a security escort for the family and is demanding that security and justice officials do not victimize or violate the human rights of the family members in the search for the missing woman.

Claudia Uruchurtu went missing after a protest outside government headquarters in Nochixtlán, where people had gathered after a local resident was beaten. According to Uruchurtu’s relatives, witnesses saw Claudia being grabbed and pushed into a car.

The state attorney general has summoned the mayor of Nochixtlán to give evidence.

Sources: BBC , Milenio (sp)

Elections body ratifies disqualification of candidates; ‘It’s an attack on democracy:’ AMLO

By

MND Staff

-

April 14, 2021

0

Michoacán politician Raúl Morón, left, Morena Party head Mario Delgado and Guerrero politician Félix Salgado, right, outside the National Electoral Institute headquarters.

The National Electoral Institute (INE) has upheld its decision to bar two Morena party candidates for governor from contesting the June 6 elections because they failed to report their pre-campaign spending.

The INE general council ratified the disqualification of both Félix Salgado, the ruling party’s candidate in Guerrero, and Raúl Morón, the Morena candidate in Michoacán.

Councilors met on Tuesday evening after the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF) ordered the INE to reassess its decision to reject the two men’s candidacies.

The decision defied the advice of President López Obrador, who suggested that Salgado and Morón be sanctioned but allowed to contest the elections.

On Wednesday he called the INE’s decision an “attack on democracy.” In a democracy, citizens have the freedom to choose their political representatives, but the INE ruling goes against that principle, he told reporters at his regular news conference.

“Why don’t they leave it to the people of Michoacán, the people of Guerrero, to decide? If they [the would-be candidates] are bad citizens, can’t the people grade them, fail them or elect them? … We’re facing an unprecedented action; nothing like this has happened before,” López Obrador said.

“If we’re taking the first steps to establish an authentic democracy, and we’re going to strike a blow to it in this way, what I said is not an exaggeration: it’s an attack on democracy.”

The president said Tuesday that he didn’t have confidence in the INE in its current form and will present an initiative after this year’s elections to reform it to ensure that it is “truly autonomous and independent.”

INE president Lorenzo Córdova said at Tuesday’s council meeting that the institute was obliged to act in accordance with the law in determining the punishments that should apply to the two would-be candidates for governor. They could have avoided their candidacies being deregistered if they had complied with the law that required them to report their spending, he said.

Morena’s representative to the INE, Sergio Gutiérrez Luna, accused Córdova of playing a “dirty game” that benefits opposition parties.

Both Salgado, an accused rapist who this week threatened to stop the elections from happening in Guerrero if he isn’t allowed to run, and Morón told supporters gathered outside the INE’s Mexico City headquarters that they would again challenge the decisions against them before the electoral tribunal.

Salgado, who also threatened to track down INE councilors if they didn’t reinstate his candidacy, and Morón both called the latest rulings “arbitrary.”

“The National Electoral Institute again issued an illegal, arbitrary and disproportionate ruling that violates the political-electoral rights of the residents of Michoacán,” the latter said.

Morena party national president Mario Delgado said legal action will be launched against the decision to bar Salgado and Morón from contesting the elections, which will renew the entire lower house of federal Congress. Governors will also be elected in 15 states.

“We’re going to challenge this robbery that we’ve just seen tonight,” Delgado said.

“… In these critical moments, we must always remember the teachings of López Obrador. He also suffered attacks, lies and robberies,” Delgado said, adding that the president — who claimed that electoral fraud robbed him of the 2006 and 2012 presidential elections — always challenged decisions against him peacefully and in accordance with the law.

Source: Milenio (sp), Reforma (sp)