Jalisco’s Ministry of Security has revealed that nearly half the police force in Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos, where Giovanni López died while in police custody on May 5, have not passed a mandatory test designed to evaluate their aptitude for police work.
The ministry announced that 22 of the city’s 49 officers had either failed or never been given the three-part exam which includes a drug test, background check, psychological and medical evaluation and a lie detector test, among other components.
The exams, which are required by federal law, are designed to allow authorities to assess the abilities, skills, attitudes, general and specific knowledge of a police officer in carrying out the functions of their position, as well as identifying the risk factors that could interfere with their work.
They also serve to confirm that the police have no criminal record, they do not use drugs and they have no links to organized crime.
According to statistics from the federal Ministry of Public Security, two out of every 10 police officers who take the test in Jalisco fail.
In addition, the state reports that 21 Ixtlahuacán police officers were not officially registered as such, although they were on active duty. Two officers have also tested positive in a preliminary test for drug use and are awaiting a second test to confirm the results.
Due to scrutiny after the death of López, who was allegedly beaten to death by police, the town’s police officers have been sent back to the police academy for training with an emphasis on human rights, and Jalisco’s state police have taken over public safety duties in Ixtlahuacán.
In February, federal authorities revealed that 26,700 out of Mexico’s 331,776 police officers had not passed the aptitude test and were therefore not legally certified, but only 392 of those who did not pass were dismissed.
Homicide deaths have been well outnumbered by coronavirus.
Covid-19 has been far more lethal than organized crime over the past three months, statistics show.
Federal Health Ministry data shows that 18,310 people lost their lives to Covid-19 between March 18 – the date the first coronavirus fatality was reported – and June 16.
In the same period, 7,313 people were murdered, according to Security Ministry statistics. The number of people killed by Covid-19 is 150%, or 2 1/2 times, higher than the number of people murdered.
According to the newspaper Milenio, the number of Covid-19 victims exceeded that of homicide victims on May 3. By that date, 3,949 people had lost their lives to the virus, while 3,937 people were murdered between March 18 and May 3.
Since May 3, 14,361 Covid-19 deaths have occurred and 3,376 people have been murdered. In other words, for every homicide victim in Mexico between the beginning of May and the middle of June, there were more than four Covid-19 fatalities.
Active coronavirus cases as of Tuesday. milenio
In Mexico City and México state, the federal entities most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, there were more than five Covid-19 fatalities for every murder in the three-month period between the middle of March and the middle of June.
In contrast, homicides in Mexico’s most violent state, Guanajuato, occurred at a rate of about six for every one Covid-19 fatality in the period.
Mexico’s official Covid-19 death toll has almost doubled since the end of the national social distancing initiative at the end of May, although not all of the 8,380 fatalities reported so far this month actually occurred in June. Delays in confirming and reporting Covid-19 fatalities mean that some are not included in the official death toll for days, weeks or even months after they occurred.
Still, the growth in the death toll and case numbers this month has caused alarm and led some people to conclude that Mexico is taking steps to reopen its economy too soon. Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell warned this week that the pandemic won’t “won’t end soon,” while he said last week that the peak contagion period might not occur until July.
The Health Ministry reported 730 additional Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday, breaking a streak of three days on which fewer than 500 fatalities were registered.
In addition to the 18,310 confirmed Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic, 1,779 fatalities are suspected to have been caused by the disease.
Latest Covid-19 death figures as reported on Tuesday. milenio
The Health Ministry also reported 4,599 new confirmed Covid-19 cases, increasing Mexico’s cumulative tally to 154,863. Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía said that 21,159 cases are considered active, meaning that number of people tested positive after developing coronavirus symptoms in the past 14 days.
Alomía said that the results of 56,843 tests are not yet known and that a total of 428,563 people have now been tested.
Just over half of Mexico’s active Covid-19 cases are concentrated in just six states, each of which has more than 1,000 cases. They are Mexico City, which has 3,895 active cases; México state, with 2,481; Tabasco, with 1,089; Puebla, with 1,082; Jalisco, with 1,080; and Guanajuato, with 1,028.
Health Ministry data shows that just over half of Mexico’s Covid-19 deaths have occurred in just four states, each of which has recorded more than 1,000 fatalities. They are Mexico City, where 4,821 people are confirmed to have lost their lives; México state, which has recorded 2,109 fatalities; Baja California, with 1,594 deaths; and Veracruz, with 1,091.
Based on confirmed Covid-19 cases and deaths, Mexico’s fatality rate is 11.8, much higher than the global rate of 5.4.
Around the world, more than 444,000 people had lost their lives to Covid-19 as of Wednesday morning, according to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins University, and just over 8.2 million people have tested positive. Mexico currently ranks seventh for fatalities and 14th for case numbers.
Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Jesús Seade is seeking to become the next director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Seade, Mexico’s chief negotiator at the tail end of the trilateral talks that led to the signing of the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, is one of four candidates who have been nominated so far to be the successor to Brazilian Roberto Azevêdo, who announced he would leave his post a year early on August 31 due to personal reasons.
The other current candidates are Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria, Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh of Egypt and Tudor Ulianovschi of Moldova. More candidates, including at least one European, are expected to be nominated before the closing date of July 8.
Seade was nominated for the WTO role by President López Obrador, who described the nominee as “straightforward” and “honest” in a video posted to social media.
“He’s a supporter of understanding between countries for facilitating trade relations,” López Obrador said.
The Foreign Ministry (SRE) said in a statement that Seade “has an extensive understanding of the economies and trade dynamics in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America, and well-established relationships with the leading actors in world trade.
It added that “his long experience in the most important international economic organizations —including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the World Trade Organization itself — is a proven track record of his abilities within these key multilateral trade institutions.”
“The nomination of Deputy Secretary Seade to the post of WTO director-general by the government of Mexico comes in recognition of his experience and abilities but, above all, is a sign of the country’s commitment to the multilateral order,” the SRE said.
“Mexico is nominating a strong candidate with the experience and ability to represent the best global interests in free trade at a key moment for protecting and promoting multilateralism and international cooperation.”
However, Seade’s chances of being appointed are hindered by two factors, the news agency EFE reported.
One is that he is from Latin America, the same region as the incumbent director-general, and the WTO prefers to rotate its leadership between continents.
The second factor that could harm Seade’s chances is that, like Azevêdo, he is from a developing country. A WTO leader from a developing country is usually succeeded by one from a developed country.
If a new director-general hasn’t been chosen to head up the intergovernmental organization by the end of August, one of the four deputy directors-general will step into the role on a temporary basis.
WTO chiefs are elected to four-year terms but can serve a second term of the same length.
AMLO's assistance has done little to stop job losses. The impact on affected households could be devastating.
Bookseller Martha Nava has so far managed to continue to pay the wages of her four staff as the coronavirus crisis wreaks havoc on the Mexican economy, thanks in part to a government loan — but millions of other workers across the country have not been so lucky.
Nava, who lives in Mexico City, sells books to schools and at literary fairs, all of which are shut because of Covid-19. With no pension and no other income, she was struggling to keep her business alive when the Mexican government offered her a 25,000-peso (US $1,150) loan.
“I said yes, obviously … it’s not enough, but it’s an incentive at least,” she said. “It won’t allow me to relax in a hammock but it’ll save me for a while.”
Like Nava, Yael Levy, who runs English schools in the central state of Guanajuato, said a government loan directed at microbusinesses was really too small for her needs. “Even 25,000 pesos is a help right now,” she said. “But if this drags on, we won’t be able to sustain the company.”
While other nations have passed big stimulus packages or offered tax breaks to help companies stay afloat and preserve jobs, President López Obrador’s main response has been to offer loans to microbusiness owners such as Nava and Levy. Larger companies have been ignored.
Government loans too small for businesses in formal economy, says Canacintra’s Castellanos.
The government is offering 4 million credits of varying types, to both formally employed Mexicans who pay taxes, and those in the informal economy. But none are bigger than 25,000 pesos and the government acknowledges that many small business owners have not applied because the loans are too small. In all, about 1.5 million credits have so far been granted.
The government assistance has done little to stem the tide of job losses: 12 million people dropped out of the labour force in April and now have no income, according to state statistics institute Inegi, while those still working on average suffered severe falls in wages.
Formal sector jobs fell by nearly 350,000 in May, according to data published on Friday, bringing to some 900,000 the number lost in the past two months.
The impact on affected households is likely to be devastating; Mexico has very little in the way of a welfare safety net. About 40% of people are poor, roughly half the population works in the informal sector with no benefits such as health insurance, and there is no unemployment pay even for those who lose formal jobs.
López Obrador maintains he will create 2 million jobs this year, which he says will replace jobs being lost, but the business community is sceptical.
Enoch Castellanos, head of Canacintra, which represents mostly small and midsized companies, said the loans could make a difference for informal workers “because they don’t pay taxes or social security contributions” but for companies in the formal economy “it’s not enough even to pay two workers for a month.” He said 94% of his members had not applied for them and he would have preferred to see 100,000 loans of 250,000 pesos instead.
Rogelio Gómez: government has taken a scattergun approach.
As a result, Latin America’s second-biggest economy risks being among the worst-affected countries in the region in terms of the impact the crisis has on poverty levels, according to the UN; Mexico could see 17 million people living in extreme poverty, up from 11 million last year, and 49 million overall classed as poor, up from 42 million.
Coneval, the state agency measuring poverty, warned last month that 11 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty — defined as being unable to buy a monthly basket of food worth 1,632 pesos in urban areas. The Center for Educational and Social Studies, a think tank, said 11.5 million Mexicans were at risk of dropping out of the middle class.
Mexico has taken a “scattergun approach instead of a precision shot,” said Rogelio Gómez, co-ordinator of Citizens Action against Poverty, an advocacy group. “‘It’s better than nothing’ isn’t a public policy,” he said. “The state doesn’t do charity.”
He wants the government to launch a handout of 3,746 pesos a month for three months to those who lose their jobs — a measure that he and supporters say could help 35 million households.
Santiago Levy, a former deputy finance minister and social security institute (IMSS) chief, who was the main architect of a successful cash transfer scheme that López Obrador has replaced with his own social programs, said wage subsidies and credit guarantees would have “allow[ed] firms to get through the next months in reasonable shape without going bankrupt.”
Mexico has a $61-billion flexible credit line from the IMF, for which it pays $163 million a year even if it does not tap it. Some analysts said this could be used to pay for a larger economic stimulus package. “They should use the IMF loan to save jobs,” said Levy. “All they have to do is send an email.”
Santiago Levy: IMF funds are readily available for a stimulus package. ‘All they have to do is send an email.’
But López Obrador, who prides himself on never having had a credit card, prefers people to take on debt individually, rather than — as he sees it — mortgaging state finances for future generations to pay.
Mexico’s economy is widely forecast to shrink by about 8% this year, pushing up the country’s budget deficit. If it contracts by a worst-case scenario of 12%, Mexico’s public sector borrowing requirement would jump 15 points, from 44.7% of GDP last year, according to analysts at Spanish bank BBVA.
López Obrador claims that taking on debt is “the easy option” typical of the neoliberal policies of the past that he says were a failure. “We want to keep finances healthy, not to take on debt,” he said last month.
Levy said: “The human cost will be very, very large, with the permanent scars from this crisis much deeper than they could have been.”
Only essential travel is allowed to cross Mexico-US border.
Mexico and the United States agreed to extend the closure of their land border to nonessential travel until July 21 after reviewing the development of the spread of the coronavirus in both countries.
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Twitter that the restrictions on land traffic will remain in place into July as Mexico and the United States coordinate health measures in the border region.
The borders were originally closed to nonessential travel, which includes trips for tourism or recreation, on March 21, with travel restrictions extended in both April and May.
Cross-border travel related to essential work, education, trade, military operations or medical reasons may continue.
U.S. citizens and permanent residents will continue to be allowed to enter the United States from Mexico, and the land border closing does not affect air travel between the United States and Mexico, as several tourist destinations across the country begin to reopen for visitors.
In Mexico, several ports of entry have set up health checkpoints where travelers’ temperatures are taken, and they are questioned about respiratory and other symptoms.
“Based on the success of the existing restrictions and the emergence of additional global Covid-19 hotspots, the department will continue to limit nonessential travel at our land ports of entry with Canada and Mexico,” said U.S. acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chad Wolf.
The closing of the border has come at a significant cost to communities on either side who rely on the daily flow of traffic for their economies to remain solvent.
Last week the San Ysidro (California) Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to the DHS pleading for the federal agency to consider reopening the border.
“Our community alone is losing close to US $1.8 million every day since travel restrictions were imposed,” wrote the city’s chamber of commerce director, Jason Wells.
In San Ysidro, which lies across the border from Tijuana, 95% of the city’s commerce relies on customers from Mexico, Wells said. “Restricting travelers between our countries, who invest in our binational trade through the merchandise and services they acquire, is leaving our border communities economically paralyzed.”
Energía Costa Azul is an LNG terminal in Baja California that has been held up by delays in Mexico.
United States companies that operate in Mexico’s fuel market are not being treated fairly, says the American Petroleum Institute (API).
In a June 11 letter sent to senior United States officials, API president and CEO Michael Sommers asked the U.S. government to urge Mexico to cease discriminatory practices against U.S. oil companies.
Sommers said the companies are subject to new regulatory actions that undermine the framework that should allow unimpeded energy trade and investment between the United States, Mexico and Canada, countries which are party to the new North American trade pact that will take effect on July 1.
He said that U.S. companies have faced difficulties obtaining approval for new or rebranded gas stations and that some of their existing stations have been shut down for minor or nonexistent infractions. The API chief also said that companies have been subject to new storage capacity requirements and have faced delays or rejections for gasoline and diesel import permits.
In addition, the Energy Regulatory Commission has removed regulations applicable to the state oil company, Pemex, which allows it “to unfairly and opaquely undercut the pricing of foreign competitors, giving the company a significant advantage in downstream pricing,” Sommers wrote.
He charged that Mexico’s actions likely violate its commitments as set out in the investment chapters of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, and its imminent successor, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.
Sommers also said that the actions likely breach Mexico’s commitment to non-discriminatory treatment as set out in the state-owned enterprises and designated monopolies chapter of the USCMA.
In the letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the API president urged the United States “to use diplomatic channels to engage with the president of Mexico” in order to solve the issues.
Financial Information company S&P Global noted that “the complaints by API members are in line with those by companies in other segments of the energy sector, like electricity generators and developers of pipeline infrastructure, which have voiced similar complaints regarding permits and regulations.”
Mexico’s government has also rankled renewable energy companies by suspending national grid trials they have to complete in order to sell power to the Federal Electricity Commission and publishing a new policy that could prevent the sector’s expansion here.
Renewable energy firms and environmental groups are fighting the decisions in court.
The Cinemex drive-in at Plaza Patria in Guadalajara.
Acapulco, Guerrero, will soon be home to the biggest drive-in movie theater in Mexico.
During a press conference Monday, hotel chain Mundo Imperial announced the opening of Autocinema Acapulco on July 1 when the popular resort destination is expected to welcome tourists as coronavirus restrictions are eased.
The outdoor theater will be the largest in Mexico, with a capacity of up to 300 cars and a 24-by-14-meter mega-screen. Theater-goers will be able to see films, festivals and major events “all without leaving your car,” Mundo Imperial general director Seyed Rezvani said. The new theater will add 50 direct and 30 indirect jobs to the city’s economy, he added.
In the era of social distancing due to the coronavirus, drive-in theaters are making a comeback internationally as well as in Mexico.
The theaters first began operating in the United States in 1933 in Camden, New Jersey, and had spread to Mexico by the 1950s. By the 1990s, the drive-in format had fallen out of vogue and most theaters closed, but due to coronavirus concerns drive-ins are seeing a resurgence in popularity, this time due more to health concerns than nostalgia.
Drive-ins are popping up in places like Cannes, France, where a screen was installed in the city’s Palm Beach parking lot last month after the Cannes Film Festival was canceled for the first time in 72 years. Bordeaux and Marseilles have also opened drive-in theaters.
And in Germany, some 30 new theaters have opened since the pandemic began; some are also used for concerts and church services.
In Mexico, the theater chain Cinemex opened a drive-in theater this month in the parking lot of Guadalajara’s Plaza Patria, complete with snack counters and a giant inflatable screen.
The Coyote drive-in theater, which first opened in 2011, reopened in Mexico City on June 3 with new health protocols such as face masks and the frequent use of antibacterial gel by all employees. Capacity is limited to 30%, and all tickets must be purchased online. Snacks must be purchased directly from your car.
The Guanajuato International Film Festival, normally held in July, has postponed the festival until September, and will also be adding drive-in theater showings as part of its programming.
According to the federal government, indoor movie theaters in Mexico should not open until the state they are located in has reached a “yellow” level of medium risk on the government’s “stoplight” coronavirus map.
Cancellation of the Mexico City airport was one of the factors that knocked Mexico off the list of favored economies for investors.
For only the second time in more than 20 years, Mexico is not among the 25 most attractive countries in the world for foreign investors, according to an index developed by the global consulting firm Kearney.
Mexico ranked 25th on the 2019 Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index but fell off this year’s list.
Kearney said that the cancellation of the previous government’s Mexico City airport project and the prioritization of projects that will have limited social and economic impact, such as the new refinery on the Tabasco coast, the Santa Lucía airport and the Maya Train, were factors that contributed to Mexico’s disappearance from the 2020 index.
It said that changes to rules in the energy sector and the government’s cancelation of private projects that had been approved, such as Constellation Brands’ US $1.4-billion brewery in Mexicali, Baja California, were also factors.
Amid the coronavirus crisis, investors are showing a preference for “large, more stable markets with more predictable political and regulatory structures,” said Ricardo Haneine, a director at Kearney México. “That increases the interest in developed economies.”
For the eighth year in a row, the United States ranked first on the index followed by Canada, Germany, Japan and France. The only Latin American country among the 25 is Brazil, which ranked 22nd.
Based on a survey of global business executives who rank markets that are likely to attract the most investment in the next three years, the Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index has been published by Kearney on an annual basis since 1998.
The only other year that Mexico didn’t appear on the index was 2011.
ICRICT chairman Ocampo: economic crisis has been poorly managed in Mexico.
An international think tank has added its voice to the criticism of Mexico’s response to the coronavirus-induced economic crisis.
According to the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT), now is not the time for economic austerity, a policy that President López Obrador has refused to put on the back burner despite the economy taking a sizable hit due to the pandemic and the restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
According to the International Monetary Fund, the Mexican government’s fiscal support for the economy amounts to just 0.7% of GDP whereas the United States and Canada have provided stimulus to the tune of 12% and 9.8% of GDP, respectively.
José Antonio Ocampo, chairman of the ICRICT, believes that López Obrador’s refusal to take on more public debt to support the economy is the wrong approach.
“Every country in the world will have very high levels of debt after the crisis. So there is no argument for austerity under these circumstances,” he said.
Ocampo, also an economics professor at Columbia University, charged that Mexico is “one of the worst cases in Latin America” in terms of the government’s management of the economic crisis.
ICRICT commissioner Jayati Ghosh also said that now is not the time for austerity, asserting that it will have a detrimental impact on the economic recovery and job creation both now and in the future.
“It’s impossible to think of a more disastrous macroeconomic policy at this time,” she said.
Ghosh said that some Latin American countries have followed policies of economic austerity out of fear of increasing public debt but added that low tax collection levels have also limited their response to the coronavirus-induced crisis.
Mexico’s Finance Ministry has acknowledged that tax collection is a problem, and amid the coronavirus crisis the government has made recouping unpaid tax, especially that owed by large companies, a central objective.
It has already had some success in recovering unpaid tax from companies such as América Móvil, a telecommunications corporation owned by billionaire businessman Carlos Slim, Walmart, IBM and Femsa, the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottler.
However, López Obrador appears unlikely to support any plan to use greater tax revenue to provide meaningful support for the business sector even as the country is forecast to suffer a deep recession in 2020.
The federal government has only offered loans of 25,000 pesos (US $1,125) to small businesses, placing more emphasis on supporting the nation’s most vulnerable through welfare spending and social programs while forging ahead with its large infrastructure projects, which López Obrador says will help to create 2 million jobs by the end of the year.
The minister's watch appears briefly in the video filmed Monday.
A video of Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard wearing a Rolex watch valued at over US$ 14,000 is making the rounds on social media, garnering more than 1.3 million views on Twitter.
In the video clip showing Ebrard in discussion with President López Obrador yesterday, Ebrard can be seen eyeing the watch when it appears he realized it was visible to the camera.
He adjusted the sleeve of his jacket to hide it.
The watch is a Rolex Submariner Date with yellow gold accents and is valued at US $14,450. Ebrard’s director of communication, Robert Velasco, said last year it was a wedding gift from his third wife, Honduran diplomat Rosalinda Bueso.
The iconic watch was created by Rolex in 1954 for divers, and is the first watch that was fully waterproof to depths of up to 100 meters.
The president and Ebrard in the viral Rolex video.
While it is unknown if Ebrard is a diving enthusiast, the watch has evolved to become a status symbol among millionaire A-list celebrities, such as Mark Wahlberg, David Beckham, Orlando Bloom, Sylvester Stallone, Ellen Degeneres and Brad Pitt. The Submariner was also famously worn by James Bond in 007 films, including a tricked-out version sported by Roger Moore in Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun. It concealed a circular saw and a bullet-deflecting magnet.
Ebrard was meeting with López Obrador in Veracruz to discuss the president’s conversation with Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, about the death of two Mexican farmworkers in that country.
López Obrador has condemned luxurious living by public servants and campaigned on a platform of austerity.
On Sunday he gave a sermon of guidelines by which to live in the new reality of the coronavirus pandemic. Lesson No. 4 was not to succumb to materialism.
“Let’s move away from consumerism. Happiness doesn’t reside in the accumulation of material goods nor is it obtained from luxuries, extravagances or frivolities. We can only be happy by being good.”
