Presidential Dreamliner remains unsold, is returning to Mexico

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January 14, 2020

Photos of aircraft that will be sold were exhibited at Tuesday's press conference.

President López Obrador announced that the government will auction off 19 airplanes and nine helicopters belonging to seven government departments in an open call for bids that will close on January 31.

“Luxury airplanes that have nothing to do with the reality of poverty that exists in our country [are] a reflection, an expression of how there were two worlds: that of the people and that of the governing class, two distinct spheres,” he said in his morning conference on Tuesday.

“The government employees thought themselves kings; they were like a creole monarchy and they lived lives of luxuries and privileges. That’s why we’ve decided to sell these planes,” he said.

He said that only airplanes and helicopters that serve the public, such as air ambulances and military planes, will remain in government service, “but not [those] for transporting government employees, because they abused them, they used planes to go play golf.”

The head of the state development bank Banobras, Jorge Mendoza, said Tuesday that the 28 planes and helicopters are just the first set of government aircraft that will be auctioned off. He said that there will be 72 in total — 33 planes and 39 helicopters — belonging to eight government departments.

Among these is the presidential plane, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner for which the government has been unable to find a buyer and is spending nearly as much on storing it as using it.

The 28 planes and helicopters up for bidding in January were used by departments such as the National Water Commission (Conagua), the state oil company Pemex and the Secretariat of Communication and Transportation (SCT).

“The process will be divided into two stages: the first begins today [and] concludes on January 31; the second stage begins on February 19, when interested parties will be invited on the part of authorities, and the final ruling will be announced on February 27,” Mendoza said on Tuesday.

He said the government is hoping to recuperate 2.5 billion pesos (US $133 million) through the sale of the aircraft and added that the United Nations will watch over the proceedings to ensure transparency and that they aren’t sold off at low prices.

Sources: Reforma (sp), El Financiero (sp)

Justice in LeBarón massacre case will serve as an example: AMLO

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January 14, 2020

Justice for the massacre of nine members of a Mormon family in Sonora in November will serve as an example that crime committed during the administration of the current government will be punished, President López Obrador said on Sunday.

Speaking to residents of the small Mormon community of La Mora after meeting with the family members of the victims of the November 4 attack, López Obrador said that his government’s first goal is to bring the perpetrators of the crime to justice.

Seven people have been arrested in connection with the attack allegedly perpetrated by La Línea, a criminal gang with links to the Juárez Cartel, including the chief of police of Janos, Chihuahua.

The investigation “is progressing and there will be justice,” López Obrador said.

The president said he had agreed to meet again with the victims’ family members in two months and that he would subsequently return to Bavispe, the Sonora municipality where the massacre occurred, to present a plan for regional development, including road improvements.

“We’re going to return because a proposition has been made . . . Firstly, justice – those responsible must be punished, there must be no impunity, [this case] must be an example of he who commits a crime is punished,” López Obrador said.

“. . . We’re going to continue meeting so that these unfortunate events are not forgotten . . . I, as president of Mexico, would like to be . . . with all the families of victims, all those who suffer in Mexico due to insecurity and violence.”

The president also said that a monument will be erected to commemorate the lives of the nine dual United States-Mexican citizens – three women and six children – who lost their lives when the vehicles in which they were traveling on a remote dirt road outside La Mora were ambushed.

An agreement had been reached with municipal and Sonora authorities to put up a monument “where these lamentable and painful events took place,” López Obrador said, adding that it will also recognize those who risked their lives to help the victims and survivors of the attack.

“So that we exalt this, the true solidarity: he who is willing to give his life for another,” he said.

In addition, the president reiterated his commitment to combat insecurity by addressing the root causes of violence – such as poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity – rather than by using force against criminal groups, a strategy that failed to curb violence during the two previous governments led by Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto.

“We have to achieve the pacification of Mexico, not like . . . in other times just with the use of force. Now there is a new way that I think will yield results . . .nobody is bad from birth,” López Obrador said.

Loretta Miller, grandmother of four of the children who were killed, said that she was happy with the outcome of the meeting with López Obrador but Julian LeBarón, a relative of the victims and an anti-violence activist, called for an investigation into authorities in Chihuahua, asserting that there are state police that are involved in criminal activities.

“. . . What’s happening with the police that turn their weapons at the community and murder women and children? This is the extent of the problem,” he said.

Source: El Diario de Juárez (sp), Associated Press (en)

Corn husks replace Styrofoam in San Miguel de Allende

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January 14, 2020

Esquite vendors have replaced Styrofoam with corn husks. — Esquite vendors go green.

Anyone looking to snack on esquites — corn prepared with mayonnaise, cheese, chili and lime — in San Miguel de Allende can do so Styrofoam-free: vendors have replaced the plastic cups with corn husks.

Mayor Luis Alberto Villareal boasted that his city was the first, even before Mexico City, to work to eradicate the use of polluting single-use materials.

“We’ve been working all year, but the truth is that the society of San Miguel is very participatory, it’s a committed society, it’s a progressive society, and [getting participation] hasn’t been too complicated,” he said.

“I can’t tell you that as of today no one is using [plastic bags]. What I can tell you is that from the first of January, [the ban] is municipal law and we’re working every day to create awareness.”

The law bans the use of single-use plastics and Styrofoam, such as straws, cups, plates, bags and other items.

The municipal government launched a campaign called Zero Plastics, More Life, through which it has worked with stores and food and tourism service providers to have a broad impact.

The law stipulates that a vendor or business that does not comply will be fined 5,000-85,000 pesos (US $266-$4,500).

It also stipulates that businesses that buy and sell plastics and Styrofoam in the city must prove to the municipal environmental department that their products are biodegradable and compostable by means of a certification by an authorized laboratory.

The initiative is part of San Miguel de Allende’s resolve to improve its local ecology, for which the local government declared 2020 the Year of the Environment and Sustainability.

As for being first with environmentally-friendly esquites, a Oaxaca city vendor is already in the running for that distinction. Jesús Alvarado Carrera, better known by his nickname El Chuy, has been selling esquites on corn husks since May 2018.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Universal healthcare or universal confusion: hospitals, patients left bewildered

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January 14, 2020

Seguro Popular has been discontinued but the debut of its replacement has not been trouble-free.

Confusion continues to plague the launch of the federal government’s new universal healthcare scheme.

The National Institute of Health for Well-Being (Insabi), a new government department tasked with providing medical services to millions of Mexicans without insurance, started operations on January 1.

Almost two weeks later, hospital staff, patients and many members of the general public remain unsure about how the replacement for the Seguro Popular program actually works.

The newspaper El Economista reported that personnel at hospitals it visited have not received any clear, official information about the operation of the Insabi scheme, leaving them bewildered as to how it is supposed to function.

Staff at the Xoco General Hospital in Mexico City said that they are “completely disoriented” because the government hasn’t provided them with information about the scheme or sent officials to explain it to them.

The head of nursing at the Dr. Manuel González Rivera healthcare center, also located in the capital, gave a similar response when asked about the implementation of the Insabi health service.

“We haven’t been well informed,” said María Concepción Escalante Cruz. “We’re continuing to ask for [patients’] Seguro Popular [policies] . . .Their membership numbers are still valid; they were still making Seguro Popular identity cards in December . . .”

Escalante added that staff have been given no indication as to when they might receive training about the operation of the new service.

The administrator of the González Rivera center also said he didn’t know when training would occur, explaining that the only information he has received is that consultations that used to cost 6 pesos will now be free.

Similarly, the newspaper El Universal found that staff at other hospitals have little information and knowledge about how Insabi is supposed to operate and how people formerly covered by Seguro Popular can join.

At the Balbuena General Hospital, which provides primary and secondary healthcare services in the capital, a security guard told El Universal that joining the Insabi scheme wasn’t possible at the time because the office where the registration process takes place was closed.

With many healthcare professionals in the dark about the operation of the government’s new healthcare program, it’s unsurprising that people seeking medical treatment are also confused.

In addition to confusion, patients and their family members have also expressed anger because they had to pay for services and medical supplies they believed would be provided free of charge

President López Obrador said repeatedly last year that the Insabi scheme would be completely free, an assertion that the leader of the national health workers’ union described as an “information error.”

Fabiola Ríos told El Economista that the Xoco General Hospital wouldn’t enroll her son in the Insabi plan because the family lives in México state rather than Mexico City. She said she was informed that the surgery her son required would therefore cost between 5,000 and 6,000 pesos (US $265 to $320).

María de Lourdes, whose son is also hospitalized at the Xoco Hospital, said that care is being provided free of charge but added that she has spent more than 16,000 pesos (US $850) on medical supplies required for his treatment.

Patients and family members at several other healthcare facilities have made the same complaint.

At the San Carlos Hospital in Tizimín, Yucatán, a diabetes sufferer who required urgent surgery for a foot fracture was turned away because hospital staff determined that Insabi wouldn’t cover her expenses, the newspaper Diario de Yucatán reported.

María Damiana Euán Kuyoc was directed to seek treatment at a private clinic, where she was told that the cost of the surgery was 35,000 pesos (US $1,860).

The less than smooth implementation of the Insabi scheme, the government’s apparent failure to inform the public about it and the ensuing criticism all support an assertion last year by six former federal health secretaries that getting rid of Seguro Popular was a “crucial mistake.”

Two health secretaries from the administration of former President Felipe Calderón – who introduced the Seguro Popular program – two who served under ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto and one each from the administrations of Miguel de la Madrid and Vicente Fox said in a letter that eliminating Seguro Popular was to “annul one of the most important institutional advances” of the health system.

Calderón himself also challenged López Obrador’s decision to eliminate Seguro Popular and retaliated against the president’s frequent claim that the program wasn’t seguro (which can mean both insurance and reliable in Spanish) or popular.

“Since 2008, Seguro Popular covered all medicines and treatment for children and young people up to 18 years [suffering from] all kinds of cancer. Before [the program’s introduction] seven of every 10 children with leukemia died. After, seven of 10 survived . . . Yes it was seguro and yes it was popular,” he wrote in one of a series of 2019 Twitter posts defending the program.

Current opposition lawmakers have also been critical of the elimination of Seguro Popular, while governors in several states have indicated that they won’t sign on to the latter.

López Obrador said on Monday that there is no obligation for the states to join Insabi although the institute’s chief indicated that federal funds for free healthcare will only be provided after they sign agreements with the Mexican government.

The scheme is “voluntary, not obligatory,” the president told reporters. “. . . We can’t force anyone [to join]. The vast majority [of states] will work on this plan together so that medical care and medicines are free, we have the budget and it will be enough.”

A senior health official charged Tuesday that there was a campaign under way to sabotage the implementation of the new health scheme. The undersecretary in the Secretariat of Health said it appeared “a disinformation campaign is being orchestrated by someone,” possibly special-interest groups that are resisting the change.

Source: El Economista (sp), El Universal (sp), Diario de Yucatán (sp), Infobae (sp), El Financiero (sp)

Exotic bird traffickers suspected in attack on Sayulita environmentalist

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January 14, 2020

Illegal exotic bird traffickers are suspected in an attack on a Canadian environmentalist in Sayulita, Nayarit, on the weekend.

Tracie Lyn Willis, an activist and president of the environmental nonprofit Ser Su Voz (Be Their Voice), said she was attacked by two men with knives who rang her doorbell around 8:30pm Saturday.

She asked who was at the door but when she did not receive a response she assumed it was a friend.

When Willis opened the door, the men asked if she bought birds, then burst into her home and stabbed her in the head, abdomen and leg before fleeing the scene.

“I believe it was retaliation for defending the birds that are sold in San Ignacio, because I spoke out about the trafficking of that species,” Willis said.

The town of San Ignacio is known as a black market hub for the illegal trafficking of exotic birds.

Willis and her organization work to protect the birds’ habitats and combat the trafficking. But the attack has not deterred her from that goal, describing herself as “more motivated now.”

“If those who attacked me had been professionals, I’d be dead,” she said.

She also said that over two months ago she was threatened by a known bird trafficker from the municipality of Ruiz, for which she filed reports with the Federal Police, the environmental protection agency Profepa and the Environment Secretariat.

She filed a report with the Nayarit Attorney General’s Office for Saturday’s attack.

Canadian-born but raised in England, Willis made her way to Sayulita after being fired by a cruise line for reporting the company for dumping garbage into the ocean.

Since moving to Sayulita in 1990, she has opened a restaurant called ChocoBanana, founded a recycling organization and volunteered for projects that help protect sea turtles and land crabs, as well as parrots and other avian species.

Sources: La Jornada (sp), Sayulita Life (en)

29 bodies found in hidden grave in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, Jalisco

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January 14, 2020

Looking for bodies in a hidden grave in Jalisco.

A clandestine grave containing at least 29 bodies was found in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, Jalisco, in an area where over 80 illegally buried cadavers have been found since November.

“Of the 29 victims, as of now four have been identified, for whom investigations have been opened in the Attorney General’s specialized missing persons department,” the Jalisco Attorney General’s Ofice said in a statement on Monday.

Search efforts are still underway at the site located just 80 meters from another clandestine grave from which investigators pulled 50 bodies in December.

Another hidden grave in Tlajomulco found in November contained 31 bodies.

Located near Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city, Tlajomulco is among many municipalities in the region in which such discoveries were made last year.

A National Guard operation on November 8 rescued eight kidnapping victims from a warehouse in the neighboring town of Tlaquepaque. National Guard soldiers also confiscated weapons and made 15 arrests.

In September, 138 plastic bags of human remains were found in Zapopan, just west of Guadalajara, and 17 were found in nearby Tala. Another 15 bags were found in Zapopan in October.

Also in Zapopan, 30 bodies were found buried at a house on May 7 of last year.

Authorities say that the violence in Jalisco has intensified since March 2017 after interior conflicts caused a rift in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which also has outside rivalries with criminal organizations in neighboring Guanajuato for the control of illegal fuel trafficking.

Government statistics show that 873 clandestine graves were uncovered in Mexico in 2019 alone. Of the 1,124 bodies found in them, only 395 have been identified.

The highest number of graves were located in Sinaloa, home of infamous drug kingpin Joaguín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was convicted of drug trafficking by a U.S. court in February of last year.

Jalisco and Colima followed Sinaloa on the list of states where the most clandestine graves werediscovered in 2019.

Over 3,000 graves have been discovered since 2006, when the government declared war on drug traffickers, and almost 5,000 bodies have been found in them, according to official statistics.

The number of disappeared persons has markedly increased since 2006. According to the latest report from the National Search Commission, there are now over 61,000 people on the National Registry of Missing and Disappeared Persons.

Source: Cultura Colectiva (sp)

Chinese banks to contribute US $600mn to Dos Bocas refinery project

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January 14, 2020

Energy Secretary Nahle: refinery is federally financed. — Energy Secretary Nahle: refinery is financed with public funds.

China’s ambassador to Mexico said on Monday that two Chinese banks are providing US $600 million to build the new oil refinery on the Tabasco coast, but the federal government said it was unaware of any such arrangement.

Zhu Qingqiao told reporters at an event in Mexico City that the Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China – two of China’s “big four” state-owned banks – are providing financing for the Dos Bocas refinery, one of President López Obrador’s signature infrastructure projects.

However, a spokesman for the Secretariat of Energy (Sener) told the news agency Reuters that all of the funds for the US $8 billion project are coming from the Mexican government.

Just under 90 billion pesos (US $4.8 billion) has been allocated for the construction of the refinery in 2020 and 2021 after 25 billion pesos went to the project last year. Construction began on June 1, 2019 and President López Obrador has pledged that the refinery will be completed in three years.

He gave state oil company Pemex and Sener responsibility for building the facility after scrapping the bidding process because the bids made by private companies were too high and their estimated timeframes to complete the project were too long.

However, private companies including United States’ engineering firms Fluor and KBR, and South Korea’s Samsung Engineering, will collaborate with the government on the project.

Energy Secretary Rocío Nahle suggested that the financing might have been arranged by a company or a subcontractor involved in the project, but said she was unaware of the arrangement.

“We are not being backed by any bank,” she said.

Once open, the refinery is expected to process 340,000 barrels per day of Mexico’s flagship grade, Maya heavy crude.

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

Archaeologists find foundations of pre-Hispanic home in borough of Azcapotzalco

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January 14, 2020

Remains of the home found in Azcapotzalco. Mauricio Marat/INAH

The foundations of a pre-Hispanic home and other structural remains of an ancient settlement have been uncovered by archaeologists in the Mexico City borough of Azcapotzalco.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said in a statement that the discoveries in the historic center of the northern borough were part of the ancient altépetl, or city-state, of Mexicapan.

The city came into being when inhabitants of the Aztec, or Mexica, capital of Tenochtitlán conquered the dominion of Azcapotzalco in 1428 and divided it into two autonomous settlements – Mexicapan and Tepanecapan.

The “domestic platform,” as INAH describes the foundations of the home, and the other structural remains are believed to have been part of a residential neighborhood within Mexicapan that was occupied by the city’s elite.

Measuring eight meters by six meters, the stone foundations of the pre-Hispanic house are among the largest ever found in Azcapotzalco, said INAH archaeologist Nancy Domínguez Rosas. The archaeological rescue team she heads also unearthed the remains of stone walls on the perimeter of the platform that measure between 50 and 70 centimeters.

The discovery is located in the historic center of Azcapotzalco. Mauricio Marat/INAH

The foundation is well preserved, Domínguez said, although the wall remains show signs of damage from more recent construction.

Archaeologists believe that the platform was built in two separate stages, the first of which corresponds to the late post classic period between 1350 and 1519 AD. When the second phase of construction took place has not yet been determined.

Archaeologists found the platform while working alongside a municipal government team that was installing a tension fabric structure on Paseo de las Hormigas (Promenade of the Ants), which is part of the Azcapotzalco Park.

Domínguez said that 31 holes between one and two meters deep were dug for the slab foundations of the shade structure.

The structural remains of the Mexicapan neighborhood were discovered at a depth of 1.2 to two meters in front of the Azcapotzalco market, she said.

In addition to the domestic platform, archaeologists discovered the remains of other residential structures including one that measures 1.72 by 1.75 meters. All of the structures were made out of high-quality materials, leading archaeologists to conclude that they housed the elite and upper classes of Mexicapan society.

The archaeological rescue team has also discovered artifacts made out of both stone and bones.

Domínguez said the presence of the INAH team while the municipal employees are working in the area ensures that archaeological remains are not damaged, adding that archaeologists will continue to work to determine if there are any more pre-Hispanic structures in the area.

After they have been examined, the structures will be covered with geotextile, soil and limestone to avoid their deterioration.

The discovery of such remains allows archaeologists “to recover information and contrast it with information provided by historical sources,” Domínguez said, adding that the aim is to develop a greater understanding of “the way of life” of the residents of Mexicapan.

She also said that there is evidence that there were chinampas, or floating gardens, in the elite neighborhood and that human burials took place there.

The information . . . helps us to gradually reconstruct the puzzle of the urban configuration of Azcapotzalco in the pre-Hispanic era,” Domínguez said.

Mexico News Daily

Perpetrator’s grandfather arrested in Coahuila school shooting

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January 14, 2020