900 file complaint against Interjet over cancellations, compensation

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August 12, 2020

Over 900 Interjet customers have filed a collective complaint against the airline with Mexico’s consumer protection agency Profeco, citing ongoing cancellations of flights and failure to provide proper compensation to affected passengers.

Many Interjet customers — nearly 2,000 alone on various Facebook groups dedicated to the issue — have complained that the airline has been continually canceling flights in Mexico since the height of the pandemic, despite there being no government restrictions in the respective destinations.

Between March 23 and the end of July, Profeco received 93 individual complaints from Interjet customers for not providing a compensation voucher for their canceled flight and 16 complaints for the repeated cancellation of flights. Customers have also taken other measures to pressure the airline, such as launching a Change.org petition in March to force the airline to reimburse customers. The petition has so far garnered over 1,200 signatures.

Pablo Martínez says he bought six round-trip Mexico City–Cancún tickets in March that had no flight restrictions. At the end of May, he saw on Interjet’s web page that his flight had been canceled without notification. Upon communicating with the airline, he said he was assured that he would receive compensation vouchers, but when he did — 50 days later — they were for far less than the value of his original tickets. In addition, he says, Interjet ended up canceling the replacement flight on his vouchers.

Sergio Ramírez says he spent 12,800 pesos on three round-trip Mexico City–Cancún tickets for travel in April, but the flight was canceled due to Covid-19. He also was promised vouchers but he has yet to receive them.

“If I was sure that [the new flight] wouldn’t be canceled on me, as have so many others, I would not have any reason to reject their offer,” he said.

Interjet officials say that flights canceled due to consolidation of flights, the closure of borders, or low demand due to Covid-19 are reimbursed with vouchers equal to the value of the original unused ticket. Regarding the accusation that the airline is constantly canceling flights, officials said that the changed climate amid the pandemic has required the company to modify its operations the way all airlines have done, making short-term adjustments to meet changing demand.

According to Mexican civil aviation law, in the event of a flight cancellation affected customers are supposed to be guaranteed another flight to their destination or must be compensated for the full value of the unused flight — minus any flight legs already taken — plus 20% of the ticket’s value.

Like most airlines, Interjet has been facing financial difficulties and is now operating with just five aircraft after 25 were repossessed.

Sources: Reforma (sp)

Mexico has 100 billion pesos budgeted for Covid-19 vaccine: AMLO

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Susy Buchanan

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August 12, 2020

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Mexico has 100 billion pesos (US $4.48 billion) in the budget to purchase a coronavirus vaccine once it is developed and becomes available, says President López Obrador, although he is hopeful it will be provided at no or minimal cost.

“In the event that we have to buy the vaccines, there is a budget, we are already estimating the cost of doses,” he said, referring to speculation that some companies may produce and distribute the virus free of charge, a measure López Obrador first proposed to the United Nations in April.

“But even buying them, the government of Mexico would have sufficient funds. If the doses cost a lot, we have a reserve of up to 100 billion pesos,” he said at yesterday’s morning press conference. “We have healthy public finances and the most important thing is the health of the people.”

Accompanied by his health cabinet and Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, López Obrador said that the potential expense of the vaccine will be incorporated into the 2021 budget, which he will present September 6.

“Mexico has special consideration because we were the first to propose that the vaccine be socialized, that it be made available to all countries, all peoples, and that drugs should not be hoarded,” López Obrador said. “There is a resolution in the U.N., at the proposal of Mexico … we think we are going to be given special attention.”

Ebrard announced that Mexico has reached an agreement with three companies developing coronavirus vaccines to begin clinical trials in Mexico, which he says will take place between September and January.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health reported 926 deaths from Covid-19, bringing the country’s total to 53,929 as of Tuesday evening. There were 492,522 accumulated cases, 6,686 more than Monday.

Deputy Minister Hugo López-Gatell said that 41,317 cases are considered active, which refers to people who have had symptoms in the last 14 days.

Across the country 1.11 million coronavirus tests have been applied and 81,259 people are awaiting results.

Nationwide, 40% of hospital beds remain available as do 64% of beds with ventilators.

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

In Tijuana the night life and sex trade carry on despite coronavirus

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Susy Buchanan

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August 12, 2020

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Although the Mexico-United States border remains closed to nonessential travel, tourists are still traveling south to Tijuana in search of nightlife, drugs and sex.

In the city’s red-light zone, strip clubs and brothels may be officially closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, but many are simply allowing customers to enter through the back door and a number of the city’s 8,000 registered sex workers — prostitution is legal and regulated in the area — continue to walk the streets, unable or unwilling to choose between working and eating.

Last month a team from Baja California’s Commission for the Protection Against Sanitary Risks (Coepris)carried out inspections in the Zona Norte after receiving several complaints that it was pretty much business as usual in the area.

“They reported to me that many places are open in the north. We sent the Coepris and they shut them down … yes, they were disguising it, the front door was closed, but they were entering from behind and all the same activities were being held there with the doors closed,” Governor Jaime Bonilla Valdez said.

The newspaper El Universal reported seeing a drunk American stumbling down the street to hire a young prostitute, and witnessed a trio of tourists being offered marijuana and methamphetamine in full view of Coepris inspectors and police officers as they inspected businesses on Coahuila Alley.

El Universal spoke with a prostitute who said she still sees American customers who cross the border seeking sex, but their numbers are fewer.

Strip club owner Roberto Torres, proprietor of El Zorro Men’s Club, told CNN he had to let the women who dance at his club go due to the shutdown, and admitted some of them may have found their way to a number of sex hotels that are operating illegally.

Some prostitutes, such as single mother Alejandra who spoke with CNN, say they are taking precautions against the spread of the coronavirus, such as making their clients wash their hands and shower prior to the act, and requiring the frequent use of antibacterial gel.

Although social distancing is impossible when you are a prostitute, Alejandra said she understands the risk, but she still has to provide for her 6-year-old daughter and simply cannot afford to choose between food and work.

Across the border in San Diego, 33,220 confirmed cases of the coronavirus have been reported, whereas 4,349 people have become infected in Tijuana according to official data.

Source: El Universal (sp), CNN (en), Border Report (sp)

Yucatán extends prohibition on alcohol sales to September 17

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Michelle Aguilar

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August 12, 2020

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Yucatán will continue to ban booze sales.

Yucatán will remain a dry state for a month longer than planned, with the intention of maintaining its orange, high-risk level on the coronavirus stoplight system and avoiding a return to the extreme risk level.

The state’s emergency prohibition on alcohol sales was to expire August 15, but Governor Mauricio Villa Dosal announced that the ban will be extended to September 17.

“In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, we’re looking to avoid mobility, unnecessary social interaction and gatherings that don’t help prevent [virus spread] and contribute to the relaxation of disease prevention measures,” Villa said.

Anyone in violation of the law, which falls under the state’s health codes, could be jailed for up to six years and face a fine of up to 17,376 pesos (US $776).

Acknowledging that the measures are extreme, Villa stressed that they were necessary to address such a high-risk health emergency and that they were responsible for the state’s “slight improvement” in case numbers.

“For this reason, it’s necessary to keep applying these restrictions and not let down our guard with regard to our preventative health directives.”

Yucatán has seen a total of 11,903 confirmed cases and 1,056 deaths from the coronavirus as of Tuesday, and 41% of hospital beds in the state are currently occupied.

Although Yucatán has technically seen a 14% decrease in case numbers this week, Mexico’s epidemiological director at the Secretary of Health, José Luis Alomía, warned at a press briefing Saturday that those numbers probably represent a plateau, not an actual decrease.

“Be aware that the percentage of [suspected cases] testing positive continues to increase,” he said. “It is not showing signs of a decrease. We have to keep vigilant about community spread … [and] wait and see if there is a decrease the following week.”

Sources: Milenio (sp)

Teachers set up camp at National Palace to demand positions for grads

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Susy Buchanan

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August 12, 2020

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Unhappy campers: teachers union demands jobs for graduates.

Members of the CNTE teachers’ union from Michoacán have been camped out in front of the National Palace in Mexico City since Monday to demand that the Ministry of Education (SEP) give jobs to the 1,400 teaching school graduates it represents.

More than 230 tents have been erected on the capital city’s zócalo, or central square, as they await an answer from government officials.

Education Minister Esteban Moctezuma has responded that new teachers will be placed in schools based on demand and graduating does not necessarily guarantee a teaching position.

The union, historically one of Mexico’s most militant, has long demanded automatic job placements for graduates of the nation’s teacher training colleges, called normal schools.

The SEP announced that for the upcoming school year, 161,007 people have applied for the 45,000 vacant teaching positions. Moctezuma said that applicants have already gone through five of the seven steps in the hiring process and that the remaining two must be carried out in person when coronavirus restrictions are lifted, which is expected to be early next year.

He also stressed the importance of teachers, and that they would not be replaced by distance education, a strategy that will go into effect for the first few months of the new school year due to the coronavirus.

Moctezuma added that in future the number of students accepted into the colleges should be reduced to be more in line with the number of jobs that would be available once they graduate.

This year more than 100,000 applicants will not receive teaching positions because there simply aren’t enough jobs available.

Enrique Quiroz Acosta, the ministry’s head of legal affairs, said there is no room for negotiation regarding automatic hiring of teaching school graduates, and that jobs are awarded through public, transparent, equitable and impartial selection processes.

The teaching school graduates taking part in the protest say they will continue to camp out in the zócalo until their demands are met.

Source: Reforma (sp), Milenio (sp), El Sol de Zamora (sp), La Capital (sp)

Ex-Pemex chief accuses Peña Nieto of using bribes to fund election campaign

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Susy Buchanan

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August 11, 2020

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Lozoya has made a statement offering details about Odebrecht bribes.

Former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya has implicated former president Enrique Peña Nieto and his cabinet minister Luis Videgaray in the Odebrecht case, Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said on Tuesday.

Lozoya was arrested in Spain in February on charges of accepting bribes in the Odebrecht scandal and was extradited to Mexico in July.

Gertz said that according to a statement by Lozoya, bribes by the Brazilian company Odebrecht exceeded 100 million pesos, just shy of US $4.5 million, which were used mainly for Peña Nieto’s presidential election campaign.

Peña Nieto and Videgaray turned over the money to several foreign electoral advisers who collaborated in the campaign, the attorney general said.

Lozoya told the attorney general the money was also used to purchase votes for the 2013 and 2014 structural reforms.

In that case, Lozoya said that Peña Nieto and Videgary paid a deputy and five senators 120 million pesos.

Lozoya also told Gertz that a petrochemical company called Ethylene XXI, which is linked to a Mexican partner of Odebrecht, received special financial consideration which led to serious financial losses by the Mexican government.

Lozoya stated that Peña Nieto and Videgaray instructed him to hand over 84 million pesos (US $3.7 million) to various legislators and a finance secretary of a political party. Later, they received more than 200 million pesos (US $8.9 million) in bribes for supporting electoral reform.

The attorney general says Lozoya “has indicated four witnesses, has delivered receipts and a video. As of this moment, the Attorney General’s Office has opened the corresponding investigation.” Interviews with witnesses and expert analysis of the evidence Lozoya provided is forthcoming, Gertz said, and Peña Nieto, Videgaray and others Lozoya has named to prosecutors could be called to testify.

The information released Tuesday had already come out in July through a leaked document but this marks the first official release of the details.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Narco-state accusation ‘irresponsible,’ hurts Mexico’s international image

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Susy Buchanan

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August 11, 2020

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The president shakes hands with the mother of ex-cartel kingpin El Chapo Guzmán.

Whether Mexico is a narco-state or not, some analysts worry that the latest tiff between President López Obrador and former president Felipe Calderón will cast Mexico in a poor light, tarnishing its image internationally.

López Obrador accused Calderón on Monday of presiding over a “narco-state” during his 2006-2012 administration, claiming that the government had been taken over by organized crime.

Now, analysts are worried about the impact of the war of words, which continued on Tuesday.

Francisco Valdés Ugalde, a political scientist and researcher at the National Autonomous University’s Institute of Social Research, said that unless López Obrador can prove his statement accusing the Calderón administration of protecting criminal gangs, “it is not a responsible statement to make in front of the country.”

It affects Mexico’s image, he said, and having accused a former president of directing a narco-state, López Obrador must now prove that to have been the case. He also pointed out that the comments must be considered within the context of the run-up to next year’s midterm elections.

Political analyst and consultant Alfonso Zárate Flores described the dispute as “bitter and acidic” and echoed Valdés that it would be bad for the country’s image.

Expressing surprise that López Obrador didn’t go after Enrique Peña Nieto instead, he said: “I don’t remember such bitter and acidic comments, nor such a grave and serious accusation. There is enormous resentment by López Obrador.”

Calderón denied the narco-state charge and countered by saying he had never reached out to shake the hand of a drug lord’s mother.

“They can criticize me for many things, but I am not the president who goes around greeting El Chapo’s mother. I did not release any criminal. I was the president of the government that has extradited the most criminals to face justice in the United States,” he retorted, referring to the president’s controversial greeting of imprisoned cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s mother in March, and his release of the cartel leader’s son from custody last fall after his arrest spawned an outbreak of cartel violence.

López Obrador carried on Tuesday morning, saying he wouldn’t hesitate to greet Guzmán’s mother again if he saw her, and defending the release of Ovidio Guzmán on the grounds that he saved “hundreds of people’s lives” by doing so.

Zárate said that earlier in his political career, López Obrador’s favorite political villain was former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, but after losing the 2006 election and the allegations of electoral fraud, the president has been focused on Calderón.

“I believe that the president has an obsession with Felipe Calderón. He cannot find another way to retaliate for the defeat of 2006,” Zárate said.

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

‘Open your carport:’ homeowners share their internet for online classes

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Michelle Aguilar

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August 11, 2020

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Ring the bell for internet in the carport.

With Mexico’s children set to return to school through distance learning on August 24, some families are facing some of the same problems they did this past spring when millions of children were abruptly thrust into online schooling: lack of an internet signal.

According to the Ministry of Communication and Transportation, although there are 74.3 million internet users in Mexico, only 65% of the country’s population over 6 years old has internet access.

And that has triggered a grassroots movement to try to plug the gap.

A Durango woman and her daughter are encouraging their fellow Mexicans to do what they’re doing: opening their carport to any student in need of Wi-Fi to attend classes or do their homework.

The handmade signs that hang outside Claudia Adame’s home announce that young students are welcome to use her carport, which she now leaves open during the day from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., to access her home’s Wi-Fi and attend online classes or do their classwork. She has set up tables and chairs for the students’ use. Children who would like to use her carport need only ring the doorbell.

“I am going to support my daughter’s initiative. I’m going to help alleviate the pain that it causes me to see children with enthusiasm to learn being affected [by Covid-19]. Perhaps you all would like to join me and can promote #AbreTuCochera for our children,” she wrote on her Twitter account.

The hashtag #AbreTuCochera translates as #OpenYourCarport.

In addition, Adame has supplemented her already fast Wi-Fi with cell phones to create additional internet hotspots to make sure that all the children using her carport have an adequate signal. And tables for the children have been placed at a safe distance apart, she said.

Her original Twitter post has sparked a nationwide citizens’ initiative to support students without internet. Using the hashtag, posts about the issue with people volunteering their homes for children’s use can be seen in social media accounts throughout Mexico.

Acknowledging the challenge of conducting distance classes this school year when so many homes in Mexico do not have internet access, Education Minister Esteban Moctezuma announced August 3 that the government will collaborate with Mexico’s major television networks to improve delivery of a distance learning curriculum to students via television and radio.

He promised the department will transmit more than 4,550 television programs with educational content as well as 640 radio programs in 20 indigenous languages this school year.

Source: Uno TV (sp), Milenio (sp)

Spas targeted in human trafficking crackdown in Quintana Roo

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Susy Buchanan

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August 11, 2020

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quintana roo beach — Sun and sand—and forced prostitution.

Two protests and the arrest of 12 people for sex trafficking have revealed that forced prostitution is just beneath the veneer of sun and sand in Cancún and Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo.

Last week, protesters demonstrated on behalf of the 21 victims of the sex trafficking rings, shouting “We want justice!” and “No more impunity!” outside each city’s courthouse.

Students, activists and even members of a motorcycle club gathered to denounce forced prostitution as judges presided over preliminary hearings in two of the state’s largest sex trafficking cases, in which foreign women were brought to Mexico to work in spas and then forced into prostitution.

The state Attorney General’s Office conducted raids on two locations in the resort cities on July 30 in which a total of 12 people were indicted on several charges, including human trafficking.

Quintana Roo Attorney General Óscar Montes de Oca said that dozens of women, many from foreign countries, were held captive. “They advertised as a spa business; but in reality, there were sexual acts happening in those two places where women were being exploited,” Montes de Oca told CNN.

Online ads offering “the best escorts in Playa del Carmen” accompanied by suggestive photos of women ran in obscure corners of the dark web for years, Montes de Oca said, until they were brought to the attention of investigators.

In all, 21 young women from Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia and Germany were freed by authorities.

All had been lured by offers of high-paying jobs as personal assistants or spa therapists that didn’t pan out upon arrival in Mexico, Montes de Oca said. “Once here, they would tell them that they had to pay for their transportation, plane tickets [and] immigration processing and that the way to pay for that was through prostitution. If they refused, they were threatened with physical harm or worse,” he said. The women’s passports and ID were seized by traffickers to prevent their escape.

Human trafficking is not an anomaly in Mexico by any means. In a 2017 raid in Toluca, 24 foreign women were freed after being lured here with high-paying jobs and forced into prostitution.

The U.S. State Department reports that Mexico identified 706 victims of human trafficking in 2018, but the actual number is suspected to be significantly higher as organized crime has become involved. As a former pimp from Mexico City told CNN in 2015, “You can only sell a drug once, but you can sell a woman countless times.”

Mexican actress and activist Claudia Lizaldi, who attended Thursday’s Cancún protest, said it was time action was taken to end these kinds of crimes in Mexico. “Nobody deserves to lose a child to human trafficking. No child deserves to be a victim of human trafficking. No woman, regardless of her country of origin, should be a victim of human trafficking. We, as Mexicans, shouldn’t have to put up with this reality where Mexico is a top destination for sexual tourism,” she said.

After being forced to work as prostitute across Mexico for four years beginning at the age of just 12 during which she says she was raped some 43,200 times, human trafficking victim Karla Jacinto is outspoken about her experiences and is steadfast in her commitment to prevent the same thing from happening to other women.

Jacinto, who has visited the Vatican and testified before the U.S. Congress to end human trafficking, said she was infuriated that it continues to happen.

“We need more prevention efforts, more help. I want all of society not to see this as something normal, to see this as something that really could happen to one of your children.”

Under Mexico’s 2012 anti-trafficking law, anyone convicted of sex trafficking can face from five to 30 years in prison.

Source: CNN (en)

Former Mexico City police chief wanted in multimillion-peso contract scam

By

Susy Buchanan

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August 11, 2020

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Former Federal Police officials Orta and Hernández are wanted for embezzlement.

A federal judge has issued arrest warrants for 19 former officials of the Federal Police (PF), including the previous chief of the Mexico City police, for embezzling millions of pesos during the term of former president Enrique Peña Nieto.

Jesús Orta Martínez, who resigned as the capital’s police chief last October, and Frida Martínez Zamora are among those suspected of being part of a scam in which government contracts were inflated and funds intended for the acquisition of vehicles, uniforms, weapons and technology were diverted for personal gain.

Martínez has been a close associate of Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, who was interior minister and responsible for the police force at the time, since 2004, the year before he became governor of Hidalgo. He is currently an Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) senator.

Both Orta and Martínez were secretaries general of the Federal Police at the time of the alleged embezzlement.

Federal authorities said Martínez is not currently in Mexico while Orta’s whereabouts are unknown. An attempt to arrest him at his home was unsuccessful.

The Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) first uncovered the financial malfeasance in 2019. Authorities say Orta and Martínez alone are believed to have embezzled millions of pesos.

Among the items that caught the attention of the Special Prosecutor for Investigation of Organized Crime were payments of between 15 million and 30 million pesos (US $671,000 to $1.34 million at today’s exchange rate) in Orta and Martínez’s names.

Investigators discovered that a 2.6 billion-peso, no-bid contract to purchase technology from Israeli firm Rafael Advanced Defense Systems was issued at four times market value and only half that amount was actually paid.

The police force also signed contracts for the maintenance of its land and air fleets during the 2015 and 2016 fiscal years in the amount of 890 million pesos, of which it only actually paid 467 million.

In addition to Orta and Martínez, among the 19 sought by police are former PF commander Carlos Hipólito Rivera Codin, who was a ranking official with the National Guard until last Friday, and Eleuterio Enrique Pérez Romero, a high-ranking official with the Ministry of the Interior.

Also wanted by authorities are Francisco Javier Cruz Rosas, former private secretary to the leader of the PF’s anti-drug division, and Federico Emilio Metzger Sánchez Armas, property administrator for the PF.

None of the 19 had been arrested as of noon Tuesday.

Source: Reforma (sp), La Jornada (sp), Infobae (sp), Proceso (sp)